The Whitechapel Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

examples of Pitt’s arrogance,ambition and flouting of the rules, and Donaldson obeyed with relish, until even Gleave decided he had had enough. He seemed a trifle reluctant to offer Donaldson to Juster, but he had no choice.
    Juster took on his task with some satisfaction.
    “You did not like Constable Pitt, did you, Mr. Donaldson?” he said ingenuously.
    It would have been absurd for Donaldson to deny his feelings. Even he was sensible of that. He had shown them far too vividly.
    “Can’t like a man who makes your job impossible,” he replied, the defensiveness sharp in his voice.
    “Because he solved his cases in an unorthodox manner, at least at times?” Juster asked.
    “Broke the rules,” Donaldson corrected.
    “Made mistakes?” Juster stared very directly at him.
    Donaldson flushed slightly. He knew Juster could trace the records easily enough, and probably had.
    “Well, no more than most men.”
    “Actually, less than most men,” Juster argued. “Do you know of any man, or woman, convicted on Mr. Pitt’s evidence, who was subsequently found to be innocent?”
    The foreman of the jury relaxed.
    “I don’t follow all his cases!” Donaldson objected. “I’ve got more to do with my time than trace cases of every ambitious constable on the force.”
    Juster smiled. “Then I’ll tell you, since it is part of my job to know the men I trust,” he replied. “The answer is no, no one has been wrongly convicted on Superintendent Pitt’s evidence in all his career in the force.”
    “Because we have good defense lawyers!” Donaldson glanced sideways at Gleave. “Thank God!”
    Juster acknowledged the point with a grin. He knew better than to display temper before a jury.
    “Pitt was ambitious.” He allowed it to be a statement more than a question.
    “I said so. Very!” Donaldson snapped.
    Juster put his hands in his pockets casually. “I presume hemust be. He has reached the rank of superintendent, in charge of a most important station, Bow Street. Rather higher than you ever reached, isn’t it?”
    Donaldson flushed darkly. “I didn’t marry a well-born wife with connections.”
    Juster looked surprised, his black eyebrows shooting up. “So he excelled you socially as well? And I hear she is not only well-born but intelligent, charming and handsome. I think we understand your feelings very well, Mr. Donaldson.” He turned away “Thank you. I have nothing further to ask you.”
    Gleave stood up. He decided he could not retrieve the situation, and sat down again.
    Donaldson left the stand, his face dark, his shoulders hunched, and he did not look towards Pitt as he passed on his way to the door.
    Gleave called his next witness. This man’s opinion of Pitt was no better, if rooted in different causes. Juster could not shake him so easily. His dislike of Pitt was born of Pitt’s handling of a case long ago in which a friend of the witness had suffered from public suspicion until being proved not guilty rather late in the affair. It had not been one of Pitt’s more skilled or well-conducted investigations.
    A third witness recited instances that were capable of unflattering interpretation, making Pitt seem both arrogant and prejudiced. His early years were described unkindly.
    “He was the son of a gamekeeper, you say?” Gleave asked, his voice carefully neutral.
    Pitt felt cold. He remembered Gerald Slaley, and he knew what was coming next, but he was powerless to prevent it. There was nothing he could do but sit still and endure it.
    “That’s right. His father was deported for stealing,” Slaley agreed. “Always held a grudge against the gentry, if you ask me. Gone after us on purpose, made something of a crusade of it. Check his cases and you’ll see. That’s why he was promoted by the men who chose him: to prosecute where the powerful and well-to-do were concerned … where they thought it politic. And he never let them down.”
    “Yes.” Gleave nodded sagely. “I too have