Instead she began with what she had been rehearsing in her mind, and probably Tellman could have told him just as well. She was very succinct, very practical.

“I’ve been visiting Martin Fetters’s widow…” She ignored the startled look on Pitt’s face and went on quickly before he could interrupt. “I wanted to find out why he was killed. There has to be a reason…” She stopped again as a group of factory women went past them, talking together loudly, looking at Pitt, Tellman and Charlotte with undisguised curiosity.

Tellman shifted his weight uncomfortably.

Pitt moved a step away from Charlotte, leaving her seeming to belong to Tellman.

One of the women laughed and they moved on.

A vegetable cart rumbled down the street.

They could not stand here talking for long, or it would be remembered, and endanger Pitt.

“I read most of his papers,” she said briefly. “He was a passionate republican, even prepared to help cause revolution. I believe that was why Adinett killed him, when he discovered what Fetters meant to do. I imagine he didn’t dare trust the police. No one might have believed him-or worse, they might have been part of it.”

Pitt was stunned. “Fetters was…” He took a long, deep breath as the meaning became clear of all she had said. “I see.” He stood silently for long moments, staring at her. His eyes moved down her face as if he would recall every detail of it, touch her mind beyond.

Then he recalled himself to the present, the crowded street, the gray footpath and the urgency of the moment.

Charlotte found herself blushing, but it was a sweet warmth that ran through the core of her.

“If that is so, we have two conspiracies,” he said at last. “One of the Whitechapel murderer to protect the throne at any cost at all, and another of the republicans to destroy it, also at any cost, perhaps an even more dreadful one. And we are not sure who is on which side.”

“I told Aunt Vespasia. She asked to be remembered to you.” She thought as she said it how inadequate those words were to convey the power of the emotions she had felt from Vespasia. But as she looked at Pitt’s face she saw that he understood, and she relaxed again, smiling at him.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“To be careful,” she replied ruefully. “There’s nothing I can do anyway, except keep on looking to see if we can find the rest of Martin Fetters’s papers. Juno is certain there are more.”

“Don’t ask anyone else!” Pitt said sharply. He looked at Tellman, then realized the pointlessness of expecting him to prevent her. Tellman was helpless, frustrated, and it was plain in his expression, a mixture of hurt, fear and anger.

“I won’t!” she promised. It was said on the spur of feeling, to stop the anxiety she could see consuming him. “I won’t speak to anyone else. I’ll just visit with her and keep on looking inside the house.”

He breathed out slowly.

“I must go.”

She stood still, aching to touch him, but the street was full of people. Already they were being stared at. In spite of all sense she took a step forward.

Pitt put out his hand.

A workman on a bicycle whistled and shouted something unintelligible at Tellman, but it was obviously bawdy. He laughed and pedaled on.

Tellman took Charlotte by the arm and pulled her back. His fingers hurt.

Pitt let out a sigh. “Please be careful,” he repeated. “And tell Daniel and Jemima I love them.”

She nodded. “They know.”

He hesitated only a moment, then turned and crossed the street again, away from them, not looking back.

Charlotte watched him go, and again heard laughter from a couple of youths on the farther corner.

“Come on!” Tellman said furiously. This time he took her wrist and yanked her around, almost off balance. She was about to say something very curt indeed when she realized how conspicuous she was making them. She had to behave as people expected or it would look even worse.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and followed him dutifully back down towards the Whitechapel High Street. But her steps were lighter and there was a singing warmth inside her. Pitt had not touched her, nor she him, but the look in his eyes had been a caress in itself, a touch that would never fade.

Vespasia was not especially fond of Wagner, but the opera, any opera at all, was a grand occasion and held a certain glamour. Since the invitation was from Mario Corena, she would have accepted it even had it been to walk down the High Street in the rain. She would not have told him so, but she suspected he might already know. Not even the hideous news that Charlotte had brought could keep her from going with him.

He called for her at seven and they rode at a very leisurely pace in the carriage he had taken for the evening. The air was mild and the streets were crowded with people, seeing and being seen on their way to parties, dinners, balls, exhibitions, excursions up and down the river.

Mario was smiling, the last of the sunlight flickering on his face through the windows as they moved. She thought that time had been kind to him. His skin was still smooth, the lines were upward, without bitterness, in spite of all that had been lost. Perhaps he had never given up hope, only changed it as one cause had died and another had been created.

She remembered the long, golden evenings in Rome as the sun went down over the ancient ruins of the city, now lost in centuries of later and lesser dreams. The air there was warmer, with no cold edge to it, heavy with the smell of heat and dust. She remembered how they had walked on the pavements that had once been the center of the world, trodden by the feet of every nation on the earth come to pay tribute.

But that had been the Imperial age. Mario had stood on one of the older, simpler bridges across the Tiber, watching the light on the water, and told her with passion raw in his voice of the old republic that had thrown out the kings, long before the years of the Caesars. That was what he loved, the simplicity and the honor with which they had begun, before ambition overtook them and power corrupted them.

With the thought of power and corruption, a chill touched her that the warmth of the evening could not ease; even the echoes of memory were not strong enough to loose its grip.

She thought of the dark alleys of Whitechapel, of women waiting alone, hearing the rumble of carriage wheels behind them, perhaps even turning to see its denser blackness outlined against the gloom, then the door opening, the sight of a face for a moment, and the pain.

She thought of poor Eddy, a pawn moved one way and then the other, his emotions used and disregarded in a world he only half heard, perhaps half understood. And she thought of his mother, deaf also, pitied and often ignored, and how she must have grieved for him, and been helpless to move even to comfort him, let alone to save him.

They were approaching Covent Garden. There was a small girl standing on the corner and holding out a bunch of wilted flowers.

Mario stopped the coach, to the anger and inconvenience of the traffic around them in both directions. He climbed out and walked over to the girl. He bought the flowers and returned with them, smiling. They were dusty, their stalks bent and petals drooping.

“A little past their best,” he said wryly. “And I gave rather too much for them.” There was laughter in his eyes, and sadness.

She took them. “How very appropriate,” she answered, smiling back, a ridiculous lump in her throat.

The carriage moved on again, amid considerable abuse.

“I’m sorry it’s Wagner,” he remarked, resettling himself into his seat. “I can never take it all with the right degree of seriousness. The men who cannot laugh at themselves frighten me even more than those who laugh at everything.”