The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [87]
Pitt knew him well enough now to be aware that this was only an opening gambit. There was far more to follow.
“Saul is a good man.” Pitt took the bread. “Thank you. And I like going around the neighborhood. But I see a different side of things at the factory.”
Isaac ate in silence for a while.
“There is going to be trouble,” he said presently, looking not at Pitt but down at his plate. “A lot of trouble.”
“At the sugar factory?” Pitt remembered what he had heard said in the taverns.
Isaac nodded, then looked up suddenly, his eyes wide and direct. “It’s ugly, Pitt. I don’t know what, but I’m frightened. Could be we’ll get blamed for it.”
Pitt did not need to ask whom he meant by “we.” He was speaking of the immigrant Jewish population, easily recognizable, natural scapegoats. Pitt already knew from Narraway of the suspicions held of them by Special Branch, but it was his observation that they were, if anything, a stabilizing influence in the East End. They cared for their own, they set up shops and businesses and gave people something to work for. He had told Narraway that. He had not told him about their collection of money for those in trouble. He kept that a private thing, a matter of honor.
“It’s only a whisper,” Isaac went on. “It’s not gossip. That’s what makes me think it’s real.” He was watching Pitt closely, his face puckered with anxiety. “Something is planned, I don’t know what, but it isn’t the usual crazy anarchists. We know who they are, and so do the sugar makers.”
“Catholics?” Pitt asked doubtfully.
Isaac shook his head. “No. They’re angry, but they’re ordinary people, like us. They want houses, work, a chance to get on, something better for their children. What good would it do them to blow up the sugar factories?”
“Is that what it is, dynamite?” Pitt said with a sudden chill, imagining the sheet of flame engulfing half Spitalfields. If all three factories were set alight, whole streets would be ablaze.
“I don’t know,” Isaac admitted. “I don’t know what it is, or when, just that something definite is planned, and at the same time there is going to be a big event somewhere else, but concerning Spitalfields. The two are to happen together, one built upon the other.”
“Any idea who?” Pitt pressed. “Any names at all?”
Isaac shook his head. “Only one, and I’m not sure in what connection …”
“What was the name?”
“Remus.”
“Remus?” Pitt was startled. The only Remus he knew was a journalist who tended to specialize in scandal and speculation. There were no scandals among the inhabitants of Spitalfields that would interest him. Perhaps he had misjudged Remus, and he was concerned with politics after all. “Thank you,” he acknowledged. “Thank you for that.”
“It’s not much.” Isaac dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “England has been good to me. I am at home here now.” He smiled. “I even speak good English, yes?”
“Definitely,” Pitt agreed warmly.
Isaac leaned back in his chair. “Now you tell me about this place you grew up in, the country with woods and fields and wide-open sky.”
Pitt looked at the remnants of their meal on the table.
“What about this?”
“Leave it. Leah will do it. She likes to fuss. She will be angry if she catches me in her kitchen.”
“You ever been in it?” Pitt said skeptically.
Isaac laughed. “No …” He gave a lopsided grin. “But I’m sure she would!” He pointed to a pile of linen on the side table. “There are your clean shirts. She makes a good job, yes?”
“Yes,” Pitt agreed, thinking of the buttons he had found sewn on as well, and her shy, pleased smile when he had thanked her. “Very good indeed. You are a fortunate man.”
Isaac nodded. “I know, my friend. I know. Now sit, and tell me about this place in the country. Describe it for me. How does it taste first thing in the morning? How does it smell? The birds, the air, everything! So I can dream it all and think I am there.”
It was early the following morning as Pitt was walking