Anne Perry - The Whitechapel Conspiracy

Charlotte felt disappointment fill her again. “I suppose it isn’t a very good place. And inside a book would make it fat enough it would be noticed immediately. We’re not looking for one or two sheets of paper, I don’t think.”

“What about…” Juno looked up at the top shelves, where there were large reference volumes.

“Yes? What?” Charlotte said quickly.

Juno pushed her hair back off her brow in a gesture of weariness.

“What about really inside a book… one hollowed out and replaced? I know it sounds like terrible vandalism, but it might be as safe as it could be. Who else is going to look inside some of those?” Juno gestured up at the top shelf towards the window where there was a row of obscure memoirs of eighteenth-century politicians and half a dozen volumes of statistics on export and shipping.

Charlotte went over to the steps and wheeled them around. Then, holding the pole firmly in one hand, and picking up her skirt in the other, she climbed up. “Careful!” Juno warned, stepping forward, her voice harsh.

Charlotte stopped, balanced precariously. She turned to smile at Juno, who stood pale-faced, drained by the dead black she wore.

“I’m sorry,” Juno apologized, moving back again. “I…”

“I know,” Charlotte said quickly. The steps were quite steady, but she could not help thinking of Martin Fetters, and the way he was first supposed to have died, falling from exactly this position. If she lost her balance from here she would end almost where he had been found, only her head would lie the other way.

She dismissed it quickly. That simple, almost private death was a world away from what they faced now. She reached up and pulled out the first volume, a wide, yellow book on shipping routes, hopelessly out of date. Why on earth would anyone have kept such a thing, except as an oversight, forgetting it was there? It was heavy. She passed it to Juno.

Juno riffled through it.

“Exactly what it says,” she said with an effort to mask disappointment. “Martin must have bought it twenty years ago.” She put it on the floor and waited for the next one.

Charlotte went through them one by one, and each was examined and then placed on the floor in ever-increasing piles. They kept on because neither of them could think of anything better to try.

It was almost into the third hour and they were both smeared with dust, arms aching, when Juno finally conceded defeat.

“They’re all just what they say.” The misery in her voice was so sharp Charlotte ached for her. Had nothing more been at stake than the desire to know, she might have encouraged her to abandon the effort. There comes a time when grief must end the struggle to understand, and allow healing to begin.

But she needed to prove to the world that Pitt had been right about John Adinett. She steeled herself to continue.

“Sit down for a while,” she suggested. “Perhaps a cup of tea?” She climbed down the steps, and Juno held out a hand to steady her. Her fingers were cool and strong, but her arm shook a little and there was a pallor of strain in her face. She looked away from Charlotte’s eyes.

“Perhaps we should stop,” Charlotte said impulsively, against all she had intended, but pity hurt inside her too much to listen to sense. “Maybe there’s nothing to find after all? It may have been just dreams.”

“No,” Juno said quietly, still keeping her gaze averted. “Martin wasn’t like that. I knew him well.” She gave a little jerky laugh. “At least, I knew some parts of him. There are characteristics you can’t hide. And Martin always worked to make his dreams come true. He was a romantic, but even if it was something as trivial as getting me roses for my birthday, if he thought of it, he would work until he could accomplish it.”

They were walking towards the library door. Juno opened it for them to go downstairs for tea.

Roses for her birthday seemed a very unremarkable gift. Charlotte wondered what made her mention it.

“Did he manage it?”

“Oh, yes. It took him four years.”

Charlotte was startled. “Roses grow very easily. I’ve had them in my garden even at Christmas.”

Juno smiled, a sweet smile on the edge of tears. “I was born on Leap Day. It takes a great deal of ingenuity to find roses at the end of February. He insisted I celebrated only on leap years, then he would have a four-day-long party for me and spoil me utterly. He was very generous.”

Charlotte found it suddenly hard to swallow for the ache in her throat. “How did he get the roses?” she asked, her voice coming out broken, husky.

Juno swallowed, smiling through tears. “He found a gardener in Spain who managed to force them, and he had them brought by boat when they were in bud. They only lasted two days, but I never forgot them.”

“Nor would any woman,” Charlotte agreed.

“We’ve been through all the books.” Juno reverted to the search again, closing the library door behind her. “It was a silly idea anyway. I should have known better. Martin loved books. He would never have vandalized one, even to hide things. He would have found another way. He used to mend any books that were broken, you know. He was very good at it. I can see him in my mind’s eye, standing with a damaged book in his hands and lecturing me on how uncivilized it was to ill use a book, break the spine, tear it, mark it in any way.”

They were going down the stairs and Charlotte saw a maid cross the hall beneath them. Tea was a very good idea indeed. She had not realized until now how dry her mouth was, as if all the paper and the dust had drained her.

“He would completely rebind them sometimes,” Juno went on. “Dora, will you bring tea to the garden room, please.”

“Rebind them?” Charlotte said quickly.

“Yes. Why?”

Charlotte stopped on the bottom stair.

“What?” Juno asked.

“We didn’t look for books that he bound…”

Juno understood immediately. Her eyes widened. She did not hesitate. “Dora! Wait with the tea. I’ll tell you when!” She turned to Charlotte. “Come on. We’ll go back and find them. It would be the perfect place.”

Together they almost ran up the stairs again, skirts in their hands not to trip, and strode along the corridor back to the library.

It took them nearly half an hour, but finally Juno had it: a small book on the Trojan economy, in discreet dark leather with gold lettering, hand-bound.

They stood side by side reading a random page:

The evidence of the loan has, of course, been carefully laid. It will all be in his letter, which will be found on his death. As soon as it is known, the journalist will be given the final piece of proof on the Whitechapel story.

The two together will accomplish all that is necessary.

Juno looked at Charlotte, her eyes questioning.

Charlotte’s mind was racing. She understood only part of it, but the reference to Remus was so clear it leaped out from the book, shaking a little in Juno’s hand.

“He knew about someone’s death in advance,” Juno said quietly. “This is part of the plan for the overthrow of the government, isn’t it?” Her voice challenged Charlotte to offer some comforting lie.

“It seems so,” Charlotte agreed, scrambling in her mind to know whom it referred to. “I know what the journalist is about, and you are right. It is part of the conspiracy for revolution.”

Juno said nothing. Her hands shook as she held the book up for Charlotte to read with her, and turned the page.

It was lists of figures of injured and dead in the various revolutions throughout Europe in 1848. From them were projected a new set of figures for probable deaths in London and the other major cities of England when revolution occurred there. The meaning was unmistakable.