He left the public house and walked out into the thinning rain.
If Sir William Gull had been the man who had carried out those fearful deeds, then Tellman needed to learn for himself everything about him that he could. His mind was crowded with thoughts and imaginings as he walked towards the main street and the nearest omnibus stop. He was happy to travel slowly. He needed time to absorb the story that Remus had told him and think what to do next.
If the Duke of Clarence had really married Annie Crook, whatever form the ceremony had taken, and there were a child, then no wonder certain people had panicked to keep it secret. Quite apart from the laws of succession to the throne, the anti-Catholic feeling in the country was sufficiently powerful that knowledge of the alliance would be enough to rock the monarchy, fragile as it was at the moment.
But if it was exposed that the most hideous murders of the century had been committed by royal sympathizers, perhaps even with royal knowledge, there would be revolution in the streets and the throne would be swept away on a tide of rage which might destroy the government as well. What would arise afterwards would be strange, unfamiliar, and probably no better.
But whatever it was, Tellman was filled with dismay at the thought of the violence, the sheer weight of anger that would shatter so much that was good, as well as the relatively little that was not. How many ordinary people who were now going about their daily lives would have everything they knew swept away? Revolution would change those in power, but it would create no more food, houses, clothes, no more worthwhile jobs, nothing lasting to make life richer or safer.
Who would form the new government when the old was gone? Would they necessarily be any wiser or fairer?
He got out of the bus and walked up the slope towards Guy’s Hospital. There was no time for subtlety. When Remus had enough evidence in his own mind, he would make it public. The man in Regent’s Park who had prompted him would make sure of that.
Who was he? Remus himself had said he did not know. There was no time now to find out, but his motive was clear enough—revolution here in England, the end of safety and peace, even with all its iniquities.
Tellman went up the steps and into the front door of the hospital.
It took him the remainder of that day, talking to half a dozen different people about their recollections of the late Sir William Gull, to gain some impression of the man. What slowly gathered form was a picture of a man dedicated to the knowledge of medicine, most especially the workings of the human body, its structure and mechanics. He seemed impelled more by a desire to learn than by a wish to heal. He was driven by personal ambition and little visible compassion to relieve suffering.
There was one particular tale he heard about Gull’s treatment of a man who died. Gull decided to perform a postmortem. The dead man’s elderly sister was so profoundly concerned that the body should not be left mutilated that she insisted on remaining in the room during the operation.
Gull had not demurred, but carried out the whole procedure in front of her, removing the heart and putting it in his pocket to take away so that he might keep it. It revealed a streak of cruelty in him to the feelings of patients and their families that Tellman found abhorrent.
But Gull had unquestionably been a good doctor, and served not only the royal family but also Lord Randolph Churchill and his household.
He could find no written record of Annie Crook’s stay at Guy’s, but three members of the hospital staff recalled her vividly and said that Sir William had performed an operation on her brain, after which she had very little memory left. In their opinion she was certainly suffering from some form of insanity, at least by the time she had been there for the hundred and fifty-six days of her stay.
What had happened to her after that they did not know. One elderly nurse was grieved by it, and still felt a sense of anger over the fate of a young woman she had been unable to help in her confusion and despair.
Tellman left a little before dark. He could wait no longer. Even if he jeopardized Pitt’s mission in Spitalfields, which he believed was largely abortive anyway, he must find him and tell him what he knew. It was far more terrible than any anarchist plot to dynamite a building here or there.
He took the train as far as Aldgate Street, then walked briskly along Whitechapel High Street and up Brick Lane to the corner of Heneagle Street. Wetron might very well throw him off the force if he ever found out, but more was at stake than any one man’s career, either his or Pitt’s.
He knocked on the door of Karansky’s house and waited.
It was several moments before the door was opened a few inches by a man he could barely see in the dim light. There was no more than the silhouette of head and shoulders against the background. He had thick hair and was a trifle stooped.
“Mr. Karansky?” Tellman asked quietly.
The voice was suspicious. “Who are you?”
Tellman had already made the decision. “Sergeant Tellman. I need to speak to your lodger.”
There was fear in Karansky’s voice. “His family? Something is wrong?”
“No!” Tellman said quickly, warmed by a sudden sense of normality, of life where affection was possible and the darkness outside was a temporary thing, and under control. “No, but I have learned something I must tell him now. I’m sorry to disturb you,” he added.
Karansky pulled the door wider. “Come in,” he invited. “Come in. His room is at the top of the stairs. Would you like something to eat? We have—” Then he stopped, embarrassed.
Perhaps they had very little.
“No, thank you,” Tellman declined. “I ate just before I came.” That was a lie, but it did not matter. Dignity should be preserved.
Karansky may not have meant it to, but the relief was in the tone of his voice. “Then you had best go and find Mr. Pitt. He came in half an hour ago. Sometimes we play a little chess, or talk, but tonight he was late.” He seemed about to add something further, then changed his mind. There was anxiety in the air, as if something ugly and dangerous were expected, an inward clenching against hurt. Was it always like that here, the waiting for violence to erupt, the uncertainty as to what the next disaster would be, only the certainty that it would come?
Tellman thanked him and went up the narrow stairs and knocked on the door Karansky had indicated.
The answer was immediate but absentminded, as if Pitt knew who it would be and half expected it.
Tellman opened the door.
Pitt was sitting on the bed, shoulders slumped forward, deep in thought. He looked even more untidy than usual, his hair wild and too long over his collar, but his shirt cuffs had been neatly darned, and there was a pile of clean laundry on the chest of drawers, well ironed.
When Tellman closed the door without speaking Pitt realized it was not Karansky, and looked around. His mouth dropped with amazement, then alarm.
“It’s all right!” Tellman said quickly. “But I’ve learned something I have to tell you tonight. It’s …” He pushed his hand over his hair, slicked back as always. “Actually, it’s not all right.” He found he was shaking. “It’s the most … it’s the biggest … it’s the most hideous and terrible thing I’ve ever heard, if it’s true. And it’s going to destroy everything!”
As Tellman told him, the last remaining color bleached out of Pitt’s face and he sat motionless with horror, until his body began to shiver uncontrollably, as if the cold had gotten inside him.
IT WAS NEARLY midnight when Tellman reached Keppel Street, but he would have no chance in the morning to tell Gracie what he had learned, and Charlotte also. They must know. This hideous conspiracy was bigger than any individual’s career, or even their safety. Not that keeping it from them would protect them. Nothing he or Pitt said could prevent them from continuing to pursue the truth. In both women, devotion to Pitt, as well as a sense of justice, was far stronger than any idea of obedience they might have possessed.