The Whitechapel Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Fetters, by any chance?” Gleave enquired conversationally, turning back to the witness.
    “Slightly.” Birkett’s face darkened and a look of sadness came into it that was so sharp no one could question its reality. “A fine man. It is a bitter irony that he should travel the world in search of the ancient and beautiful in order to uncover the glories of the past, and slip to his death in his own library.” He let out his breath silently. “I’ve read his papers on Troy. Opened up a new world for me, I admit. Never thought it so … immediate, before. I daresay travel and a passionate interest in the richness of other cultures were what drew Fetters and Adinett together.”
    “Could they have had a conflict of any sort over it?” Gleave asked, and the certainty of the answer shone in his eyes.
    Birkett was startled. “Good heavens, no! Fetters was a skilled man; Adinett is merely an enthusiast, a supporter and admirer of those who actually made the discoveries. He spoke very highly of Fetters, but he had no ambition to emulate him, only to take joy in his achievements.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Birkett,” Gleave said with a slight bow. “You have reinforced all that we have already heard from other men of distinction such as yourself. No one has spoken ill of Mr. Adinett, from the highest to the most humble. I don’t know if my learned friend has anything to put to you, but I have nothing further.”
    Juster did not hesitate. The jury was slipping away from him, and Pitt could see that he knew it. But the shadow of indecision was in his face for only a moment before it was masked.
    “Thank you,” he said graciously, then turned to Birkett
    Pitt felt a tightening of anxiety in his chest; Birkett was unassailable, as all the character witnesses had been. In the last two days, by association with the men who admired him and were willing to swear friendship to him, even to appear in a court where he was accused of murder, Adinett had been placed almost beyond criticism. To attack Birkett would alienate the jury, not convince them of the few slender facts.
    Juster smiled. “Mr. Birkett, you say that John Adinett was absolutely loyal to his friends?”
    “Absolutely,” Birkett affirmed, nodding his agreement.
    “A quality you admire?” Juster asked.
    “Of course.”
    “Ahead of loyalty to your principles?”
    “No.” Birkett looked slightly puzzled. “I did not suggest that, sir. Or if I did, it was unintentional. A man must place his principles before everything, or he is of no value. A friend would expect as much. At least any man would that I should choose to call friend.”
    “I too,” Juster agreed. “A man must do what he believes to be right, even if it should prove to be at the terrible cost of the loss of a friend, or of the esteem of those he cares for.”
    “My lord!” Gleave said, standing up impatiently. “This is all very moral sounding, but it is not a question! If my learned friend has a point in all this, may he be asked to reach it?”
    The judge looked at Juster enquiringly.
    Juster was not perturbed. “The point is very important, my lord. Mr. Adinett was a man who would place his principles, his convictions, above even friendship. Or to put it another way, even friendship, however long or deep, would have to be sacrificed to his beliefs if the two were in opposition. We have established that the victim, Martin Fetters, was his friend. I am obliged to Mr. Gleave for establishing that friendship was not Adinett’s paramount concern, and he would sacrifice it to principle, were such a choice forced upon him.”
    There was a murmur around the room. One of the jurors looked startled, but there was a sudden comprehension in his face. The foreman let out his breath in a sigh, and something within him relaxed.
    “We have not established that there was any such conflict!” Gleave protested, taking a pace forward across the floor.
    “Or that there was not!” Juster rejoined, swinging