The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [45]
“Where do we begin?” she said again. “If ’e done it, then ’e done it for a reason. Less’n yer daft, yer don’t up and kill someone without a reason so good it’s like a mountain yer can’t get ’round no other way.”
“I know.” He stood in the middle of the footpath, deep in thought as carriages and wagons streamed past down Bow Street, and people were obliged to step into the gutter to get around them. “We did everything at the time to find out why. Nobody knew of anything that even looked like a quarrel.” He shook his head. “There was no money, no women, no rivalry in business or sports or anything else. They even agreed about politics.”
“Well, we in’t looked ’ard enough!” She stood squarely in front of him. “What would Mr. Pitt do if ’e were ’ere?”
“What he did anyway,” he replied. “He looked at everything they had in common to see what they could possibly have quarreled over. We spoke to all their friends, acquaintances, everybody. Searched the house, read all his papers. There was nothing.”
She stood in the bright sun, chewing her lip, staring up at him. She looked like a tired and angry child on the brink of tears. She was still far too thin, and had to take up most of her clothes at the hem or she would have fallen over them.
“Yer don’ kill anyone fer nuffink,” she repeated stubbornly. “An’ ’e did it sudden, so it were summink ’as ’appened just ’afore ’e were killed. Yer gotta find out wot ’appened every day fer a week up until then. There’s summink there!” She would not bring herself to say please.
He hesitated, not out of unwillingness, but simply because he could think of nothing useful to be done.
She was staring at him. He had to give her an answer, and he could not bear it to be a denial. She did not understand. She had no idea of the difficulties, of everything he and Pitt had done at the time. She saw only loyalty, a matter of fighting for those she loved, who belonged to her life.
He did not really want to belong to anyone else’s life. And he was not ready to admit that he cared about Pitt. Injustice mattered, of course, but the world was full of injustice. Some you could fight against, some you couldn’t. It was foolish to waste your time and your strength in battles you could not win.
Gracie was still waiting, refusing to believe he would not agree.
He opened his mouth to tell her how pointless it was, that she did not understand, and found himself saying what he knew she wanted to hear.
“I’ll find out about Adinett’s last few days before he killed Fetters.” It was ridiculous! What kind of a policeman allows a slip of a maid to coerce him into making a fool of himself? “I don’t know when,” he went on defensively. “In my own time. It won’t help anyone if Wetron throws me out of the force.”
“ ’Course it won’t,” she said, nodding her head reasonably. Then she gave him a sudden, dazzling smile which sent his heart rocketing. He felt the blood surge up his face and hated himself for being so vulnerable.
“I’ll come and tell you if I find anything,” he snapped. “Now, go away and leave me to work!” And without looking at her again he swung around and marched back up the steps and in through the doorway.
Gracie sniffed fiercely, and with a lift of hope inside her went to find an omnibus back to Keppel Street.
Tellman began that evening, going straight from Bow Street, buying a hot pie from a peddler as he did most evenings, and eating it as he walked up Endell Street. Whatever he did, he must manage to do it without leaving any trace, not only for his own safety but for the very practical reason that if he were caught he would be unable to continue.
Who would know what Adinett had done, whom he had seen, where he had gone in the time immediately before Fetters’s death? Adinett himself had sworn