Whitechapel Conspiracy

He strode over to her. “I’m going to find Remus,” he said gravely. “And you’re going home to Keppel Street before Mrs. Pitt throws you out for not doing your job. I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that she’s worried sick where you are—as if she didn’t have enough to be scared about.” He projected his own feelings onto Charlotte. “She’s probably been awake half the night imagining all sorts of terrible things happening to you. She’s lonely, doesn’t know what to say or do for the best, and you should be there helping.”

She looked at him, weighing her words. “Yer going ter find Remus, then?” she challenged.

“You deaf? I just told you I am!”

She sniffed. “Then I reckon as I’ve told you all I found out, I’ll go ’ome an’ get summink fer dinner … maybe make a cake.” She shrugged and started walking away again.

“Gracie!”

“Yeah?”

“You did very well … in fact, brilliantly. And if you ever do it again, I’ll tan your seat till you have to eat off the mantelpiece for a week. Do you hear me?”

She grinned at him, then kept on walking.

He did not want to smile, but he could not help it. Suddenly there was a joy beside the fear, a fierce, warm ache he never wanted to lose.

Tellman did not even consider remaining by the flower market pursuing the stolen goods. It was still early. If he went straightaway he might find Remus and be able to confront him and discover, either by threat or persuasion, exactly what he knew. For Pitt’s sake he must find out what connection it had with Adinett—for everyone’s, if Remus really knew the identity of the most fearful murderer ever to strike London, or possibly anywhere. All other names of terror paled beside his.

He walked rapidly away, head down, not looking right or left in case he caught the eye of anyone he knew. Where would Remus be at this hour? It was not yet five past nine. Perhaps he was still at his home? He had been out late enough last night.

He caught a hansom, to save time, giving the driver Remus’s address.

If he were not there, then where would he be? Where would he go this morning? What pieces of the puzzle were left to find?

What did he know already? It had something to do with a coach driver called Nickley, who apparently had driven his master’s carriage around Whitechapel searching for those five particular women, and then when he had found them, someone had butchered them in the most horrific manner. Why these women and not others? Why had he stopped with five? They had been ordinary enough, prostitutes of one sort or another. There were tens of thousands like them. Yet, according to Gracie, whoever it was had asked after at least one ofthembyname.

The cab jolted him along the street without interrupting his concentration.

So it was not a maniac simply out to kill. There was purpose. Why had Annie Crook been taken from the tobacconist’s shop in Cleveland Street, and apparently ended up at Guy’s Hospital? And attended by the Queen’s surgeon! Why? Who paid for it? If she was insane it was hardly a surgical matter.

And who was the young man who had been taken from Cleveland Street at the same time, and also under protest?

He arrived, paid the driver but asked him to wait five minutes while he went and knocked on the door. The landlady told him Remus had gone out ten minutes before, but she had no idea where to.

Tellman thanked her and went back to the cab, directing the driver to the nearest railway station. He would take the underground train to Whitechapel, then walk the quarter mile or so to Cleveland Street.

Through the journey he sat turning the problem over in his mind. If Remus was not there, and he could not find him, he would have to start asking around himself. There did not seem any better place to begin. It all appeared to start with Annie Crook. There were several other pieces that so far had no connection, such as why was it important that Annie Crook had been Catholic?

Presumably the young man was not, and either his family or hers had objected. And her father, William Crook, had ended up dead in the St. Pancras Infirmary.

Who was Alice, that the coach driver had nearly run her down, not once, but twice? Why? What kind of a man wants to murder a seven-year-old child?

There was definitely a great deal more to learn, and if Remus knew any of it, then Tellman must get it from him, one way or another.

And who was the man Remus had met in Regent’s Park, who seemed to have been giving him advice and instruction? And who was the man he had quarreled with at the edge of Hyde Park? From Gracie’s description, a different man.

He got off at Whitechapel and walked rapidly to Cleveland Street, turning the corner and striding briskly.

This time luck was with him. He saw the figure of Remus less than a hundred yards ahead, standing almost still, as if uncertain which way to go.

Tellman increased his pace and reached him just as he was about to turn left and go towards the tobacconist’s shop.

Tellman put out his hand and grasped Remus’s arm.

“Before you go, Mr. Remus, I’d like a word with you.”