The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [131]
“A great deal has happened,” he replied, pulling out a chair for her and holding it while she sat down. “And it is uglier and more dangerous than anything I have ever imagined before.”
She waved to the chair at the opposite side of the elegant, octagonal table. It had originally been set for one, but a second place had been added by a maid who anticipated her mistress’s wishes.
“You had better tell me,” Vespasia instructed him. She looked at him critically. “I imagine you could do so over breakfast?” It was not really a question. “Although it might be prudent to suspend your remarks while the servants are in the room.”
“Thank you,” he accepted. Already he was beginning to feel a little ease from the sense of despair with which he had begun. He realized with surprise how deeply he loved this remarkable woman whose birth, heritage and entire life were so different from his own. He looked at her beautiful face with its perfect bones and fragile skin, the heavy-lidded eyes, the delicate lines of age, and knew the irretrievable sense of loss he would feel when she was no longer here. He could not bring himself to use the word dead even in the secrecy of his mind.
“Thomas …” she prompted.
“Did you read about the death of Sissons, the sugar manufacturer?” he asked.
“Yes. Apparently he was murdered,” she replied. “The newspapers imply it was by Jewish moneylenders. I should be very surprised if that is true. I assume it is not, and you are aware of what is.”
“Yes.” There was no time to be restrained or careful. “I found him. It was made to look like suicide. There was a note.” Briefly he told her what it had said. Then wordlessly he passed over the note of debt.
She looked at it, then walked over to her escritoire and took out a handwritten note. She looked at both pieces of paper, and smiled.
“It is a good likeness,” she said. “But not perfect. Do you wish for it back?”
“I think it is safer with yon,” he replied, surprisingly relieved that it was not, after all, one more piece of self-indulgence.
He told her of the letter from Adinett, and the deduction he had drawn from it. He watched her as he spoke, and saw sadness in her face, and anger, but not surprise. Her belief was a tiny thread of comfort.
And then it was even harder to tell her what he had done, but there was no way whatever to avoid it. To weigh personal feelings now would be inexcusable.
“I destroyed both letters and took the gun away when I left, and dropped them in one of the sugar vats,” he said jerkily. “I made it look like murder.”
She nodded very slightly. “I see.”
He waited for her to go on, for the surprise, the distancing of herself from the act, but he did not see it. Was she so good at concealing her thoughts? Possibly. Maybe she had seen enough duplicity and betrayal over the decades that nothing shocked her anymore. Or perhaps she had never expected anything different from him. How well did he really know her? Why had he assumed so confidently that she thought of him as honorable, so that anything he did, or failed to do, would mark her more than peripherally?
“No, you don’t,” he replied, pain and anger sharpening his voice. “I learned from Wally Edwards, the other night watchman, that Sissons had an injured right hand. He couldn’t have pulled the trigger himself. I made a murder, disguised as suicide, look like a murder again.” He drew in a deep breath. “And I think I saw the man who did it, but I have no idea who he was, except that I have not seen him before.”
She waited for him to continue.
“He was older, dark hair graying, dark complexion, fine-boned face. He had a dark-stoned signet ring on his hand. If he was one of the Jews from the area, he’s one I don’t know.”
She sat silent for so long he began to fear she had not heard him, or had not understood. He stared at her. There was an immense sadness in her eyes. Her thoughts were inwards, fixed upon something he could not even guess at.
He hesitated, not knowing whether to interrupt or not. Questions beat in his mind. Should he not have troubled