“Thank you,” Juno said very slowly.
Charlotte wondered if the same thoughts were racing through Juno’s mind as were in her own. Was this man a dupe, a naive enthusiast, or the most superb actor? The more closely she watched him the less certain she was. There was none of the deliberate menace in him that she had sensed in Gleave, the heaviness, the feeling of power which would be used ruthlessly if tempted. Rather it was an electric, almost manic energy of mind and a wholehearted passion and intelligence.
Juno would not give up so easily.
“Mr. Dismore, I should be so grateful if I might see what you have of Martin’s, and take it home with me. I wish above all things to be able to put what he left in order and then offer you a last work as a memorial to him. That is, of course, if you would wish to publish it? Perhaps I am being presumptuous in—”
“Oh no!” he cut across her. “Not in the least. Of course, I will publish whatever there is, in the best form possible.” He reached out and rang the bell on his desk, and when it was answered by the clerk, he instructed him to bring all the letters and papers they possessed written by Martin Fetters.
When the clerk had disappeared to obey, Dismore sat back in his chair and regarded Juno warmly.
“I am so glad you came, Mrs. Fetters. And may I say, I hope without impertinence, how much I admire your spirit in wishing to compose a tribute to Martin. He spoke of you with such high regard it is a pleasure to see that it was not just the voice of a loving husband but of a fine judge of character as well.”
The color crept up Juno’s cheeks and her eyes filled with tears.
Charlotte ached to comfort her, but there was no comfort to give. Either Dismore was innocent or he spoke with the most exquisite cruelty, and the longer she watched him the less sure she became as to which it was. He was sitting a little forward now, enthusiasm lighting his eyes, his face full of animation as he recalled other articles Fetters had written, journeys he had made to the sites of great struggles against tyranny. His own almost fanatic dedication crackled through every word.
Was it conceivable that his ardor for republican reform was the subtlest mask to conceal a royalist who would commit murder to hide the Whitechapel conspiracy? Did his passion for reform of the law actually cover an obsession so ruthless it would expose that same conspiracy in order to foment revolution with all its violence and pain?
She watched him, listened to the cadences of his voice, and still she could not judge.
The papers were brought in a heavy manila envelope, and without hesitation Dismore passed them to Juno. Was that honesty? Or the fact that he had already read through them all?
Juno took them with a smile that was tight with the strain of maintaining her composure. She barely glanced down at them.
“Thank you, Mr. Dismore,” she said quietly. “Of course, I shall return to you everything that might be worthy of printing.”
“Please do,” he urged. “In fact, I should very much like to see whatever you have also, and if you discover more. There may be things of value that do not appear to be so.”
“If you wish,” she agreed, inclining her head.
He drew breath as if to add something further, an additional urgency to his request, then changed his mind. He smiled with sudden charming warmth. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Fetters. I am sure that together we shall be able to create an article that will stand for the best memorial to your husband, the one he would wish, which will be a forwarding of the great cause of social justice and equality, a real freedom for all men. And it will come. He was a great man, a man of vision and brilliance, and the courage to use them both. I was privileged to know him and be a part of what he accomplished. It is a tragedy that he had to be lost to us so young, and when he is so desperately needed. I grieve with you.”
Juno stood motionless, her eyes wide. “Thank you,” she said slowly. “Thank you, Mr. Dismore.”
When they were outside and safely back in the first passing hansom, she turned to Charlotte, clutching the papers in her hand.
“He’s read them, and there’s nothing.”
“I know,” Charlotte agreed. “Whatever it is that is missing from the papers, it’s not what he gave us today.”
“Do you suppose they are incomplete?” Juno asked, fingering the manila envelope. “And he kept the rest? He’s a republican, I’d swear to that.”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted. The core of Dismore eluded her. She felt less certain of him now than she had before they met.
They rode back to Juno’s home in silence, then together looked at all that Dismore had given them. It was vivid, beautifully written, full of passion and the hunger for justice. Once again Charlotte was torn by her instinctive liking for Martin Fetters, his enthusiasm, his courage, his zeal to include all mankind in the same privileges he enjoyed, and at the same time a revulsion for the destruction his beliefs would cause to so much that she loved. There was nothing whatever in any of the new material to suggest he knew of the Whitechapel murders, their reason, or any plan to involve Remus to reveal them now, and the rage and violence that could bring.
She left Juno sitting and reading them yet again, emotionally exhausted, and yet unable to put them down.
She walked to the omnibus stop, her own mind in turmoil. She could not speak to Pitt, which was what she wanted above all else. Tellman had very little knowledge of the world in which people like Dismore and Gleave lived, or the others who might be high in the Inner Circle. The only person she could trust was Aunt Vespasia.
Charlotte was fortunate in finding Vespasia at home and without company. She greeted Charlotte warmly, then looked more intently at her face and settled to listen in silence while the story poured out: everything that first Tellman had learned, and then Gracie’s realization of the truth as she stood alone in Mitre Square.
Vespasia sat motionless. The light from the windows caught the fine lines on her skin, emphasizing both the strength of her and the years. Time had refined her, tempered her courage, but it had also hurt her and shown her too much of people’s weaknesses and failures as well as their victories.
“The Whitechapel murders,” she said softly, her voice hoarse with a horror she had not imagined. “And this man Remus is going to find the proof and then sell it to the newspapers?”
“Yes—that is what Tellman says. It will be the biggest story of the century. The government will probably fall, and the throne almost certainly,” Charlotte replied.
“Indeed.” Vespasia did not move, but stared with almost blind eyes into some distance which lay within her rather than beyond. “There will be violence and bloodshed such as we have not seen in England since the time of Cromwell. Dear God, what evil to match evil! They would sort out one corruption to replace it with another, and all the misery will be for nothing.”
Charlotte leaned forward a little. “Isn’t there anything we cando?”
“I don’t know,” Vespasia confessed. “We need to learn who it is that is guiding Remus, and what part Dismore and Gleave play in it. What was Adinett doing in Cleveland Street? Was he seeking to find the information for Remus, or to prevent him from finding it?”
“Prevent him,” Charlotte replied. “I think …” Then she realized how little she knew. Almost all of it was conjecture, fear. It involved Fetters and Adinett, but she was still not certain beyond doubt how. And there was no room for even the smallest mistake. She told Vespasia about Gleave’s visit and his desire to find Martin Fetters’s papers. She described her own sense of threat from him, but said here in this clean, golden room it sounded more like imagination than reality.