Whitechapel Conspiracy

He went straight back down Commercial Street to the Whitechapel High Street. Gracie had to run every now and then to keep up with him. At the bottom he turned west and went to the first bus stop, but instead of traveling all the way back to the City, as she had expected, he changed again at Holborn and went south to the river and along the Embankment until he came to the offices of the Thames River police.

Gracie followed him straight in, as if she had business there herself. She waited behind him, her head down. She had taken the precaution of letting her hair out of its pins and rubbing a little dirt into her face. She now looked reasonably unlike the young woman Remus had stopped on Hanbury Street. In fact, she appeared rather like the urchins who scrambled for leftovers along the riverbank, and hoped she would be taken for one, if anybody bothered to look at her twice.

Remus was inventive also. When the sergeant who answered his call asked him what he wanted, he answered with a story Gracie was certain was created for the occasion.

“I’m looking for my cousin who’s disappeared,” he said anxiously, leaning forward over the counter. “I heard someone answering his description was nearly drowned near Westminster Bridge, on the seventh of February this year. Poor soul was involved in a coach accident that nearly killed a little girl, and in his remorse he tried to kill himself. Is that true?”

“True enough,” the sergeant answered. “Was in the papers. Feller called Nickley. But I can’t say as he really tried to kill ’isself.” He smiled twistedly. “Took ’is coat an’ ’is boots off afore ’e jumped, an’ anyone ’oo does that don’t mean it fer real.” His voice was laden with contempt. “Swam, ’e did. Fetched up on the bank along a bit, like yer’d expect. Took ’im ter Westminster ’Ospital, but weren’t nothin’ wrong wif ’im.”

Remus became suddenly casual, as if what he was asking now were an afterthought and scarcely mattered.

“And the girl, what was her name? Was she all right too?”

“Yeah.” The sergeant’s blunt face filled with pity. “Close call, poor little thing, but not ’urt, jus’ scared stiff. Said it weren’t the first time, neither. Nearly got run down by a coach before.” He shook his head, his lips pursed. “Said it were the same one, but don’t suppose she can tell one fancy big coach from another.”

Gracie saw Remus stiffen and his hands knot by his sides. “The second time? By the same coach?” In spite of himself his voice was sharp as if this new fact had momentous meaning for him.

The sergeant laughed. “No, ’course it weren’t! Just a little girl … only seven or eight years old. What’d she know about coaches?”

Remus could not contain himself. He leaned farther forward. “What was her name?”

“Alice,” the sergeant answered. “I think.”

“Alice what?”

The sergeant looked at him a little more closely. “What’s this all about, mister? You know summink as you should tell us?”

“No!” Remus denied it too quickly. “It’s just family business. Bit of a black sheep, you know? Want to keep it quiet, if possible. But it would help a lot if I knew the girl’s name.”

The sergeant was skeptical. He regarded Remus with the beginning of doubt. “Cousin, you said?”

Remus had left himself no room to escape. “That’s right. He’s an embarrassment to us. Got a thing about this little girl, Alice Crook. I just hoped it wasn’t her.”

Gracie felt the name shiver through her. Whatever it was, Remus was still on the track of it.

The sergeant’s face softened a little. “Well, I’m afraid it were ’er. Sorry.”

Remus put his hands up quickly, covering his face. Gracie, standing behind him, saw his body stiffen, and knew it was not grief he was hiding but elation. It took him a moment or two to recompose himself and look up again at the sergeant.

“Thank you,” he said briefly. “Thank you for your time.” Then he turned on his heel and walked out rapidly past Gracie, leaving her to run after him if she wanted to keep up. If the sergeant even noticed her, he might have thought she was with Remus anyway.

Remus walked back away from the river, looking to the right and left of him as if he were searching for something.

Gracie stayed well back, keeping at least half behind other people in the street, laborers, sightseers, clerks on errands, newsboys and peddlers.

Then she saw Remus change direction and walk across the footpath to the post office and go inside.

She went in after him.

She saw him take out a pencil and write a very hasty note in a scribble, his hands shaking. He folded it up, purchased a stamp, and put the letter into the box. Then he set out again at considerable speed. Once more Gracie had to run a few steps every now and then to not lose him.

She was delighted when Remus apparently decided he was hungry and stopped at a public house for a proper meal. Her feet were sore and her legs ached. She was more than ready to sit down for a while, eat something herself, and observe him in comfort.