Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [15]
Pitt left early in the morning, and Charlotte sat at the breakfast table alone looking at the newspapers. They all reported the bombing in Myrdle Street, but with varying degrees of outrage. Some were full of pity for the families who had lost their homes, and showed pictures of frightened and bewildered people huddling together, faces hollow-eyed with shock.
Others were angrier, calling for punishment for the criminals who would cause such devastation. The police were criticized; Special Branch even more so. Naturally there was much speculation as to who was responsible, what their aims might be, and if there would be further atrocities of the same kind.
The siege in Long Spoon Lane was mentioned, and the capture of two of the anarchists. Bitter questions were asked as to why the others were still at large.
Magnus Landsborough’s death was mourned in many ways. The Times was discreet, writing more about Lord Landsborough’s distinguished career as a Liberal member of the House of Lords, and extending sympathy to him and his family on the loss of his only son. Little question was raised as to what his son had been doing at Long Spoon Lane, but the possibility of his having been a hostage was not ruled out.
Other papers were less charitable. They assumed that he had been one of the anarchists himself, simply unlucky enough to have been the only casualty in the gun battle that had ended the siege. The injured policeman was mentioned as well, with commendation for his courage.
It was the last newspaper that troubled her. It was edited by the highly respected and influential Edward Denoon, and he had written the leading article himself. She read it with an increasing sense of unease.
Yesterday morning while the residents of Myrdle Street were preparing for another day of labor, the police interrupted their meager breakfast to tell them that anarchist bombers were about to strike. Old men shuffled out into the street, women with frightened children at their skirts grasped the few belongings they could carry, and fled.
Minutes later the shabby row of houses erupted in flames. Bricks and slates flew like missiles, crashing into the windows and through the roofs of neighbors streets away. Black smoke gushed into the morning air and terror and destruction struck scores of ordinary people, ruining homes, lives, and the peace that citizens of England have a right to expect.
The men responsible were pursued and hunted down and cornered in a tenement in Long Spoon Lane. Police laid siege to them and there was a gun battle in which twenty-two-year-old Constable Field, of Mile End, was shot down, but owing to the courage of his comrades was rescued from death.
Magnus Landsborough, the only son of Lord Sheridan Landsborough, was less fortunate. His dead body was found in an upper room. It is not known at present what he was doing there, whether taken as hostage, or with the anarchists of his own will.
Then we must ask ourselves what manner of barbarian commits such atrocities? Who are they, and what conceivable purpose do they imagine it may serve? Surely it can only be intended to terrorize us into submission to some dreadful rule, which we would not submit to otherwise? Does this act of violence stem from foreign soil, the first wave of conquest from another country?
This newspaper does not believe so. We are at peace with our neighbors near and far. There is no intelligence, however discreet, to implicate any other nation. Rather, we fear it is a political ideal of such a twisted nature that men would impose their ideal of society by destroying all that we have worked for through centuries of growth and labor, through the civilizing arts and sciences and the inventions that improve the comfort and welfare of mankind. Then on the ashes of our lives they hope to build their own order, as they think it should be. They may call themselves socialists, or anarchists, or whatever they will. They are savages, by any name, criminals who must be hunted down, arrested, tried, and hanged. That is the law, and it is there