Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (12 page)

“Yes, Herr Smith. Are heroes born or made? What if we took away all your heroic doings? What if we wiped the slate clean? What if I convinced you that you were not the Hero of the Empire, but the
enemy
of Britain? Would you be able to fight that?”

Gideon no longer struggled against his captors, but simply stared at the lights and shapes rotating and spinning in the Hypno-Array, and let Mesmer’s honeyed words flow over him until he felt sleepy, so very sleepy, and his eyelids began to flicker and droop.

*   *   *

He awoke, cold and with a thudding headache, crouched in a doorway, snow falling heavily from the night sky. He pinched his nose and tried to remember how he’d gotten there. The doorway was on a narrow street of shuttered shops and pale gaslights, and far away he could hear the brittle shouts of revelers. Where was he? He climbed unsteadily to his feet and staggered out of the doorway into the street, turning his face to the soft kisses of the snow. He looked down at his boots, his trousers, his overcoat, and blinked. Nothing seemed to make sense to him. He looked at his hands as though it were the first time he had seen them. There was something big that he should have known, but he didn’t, and he couldn’t even give a name to it. He turned and peered in the darkened glass of a comestibles store, at the shadowy reflection that looked back at him, and suddenly the question was given form. Now he realized what it was he didn’t know. He stared for a very long time at the face in the window.

Who are you?

I
NTERMEDIO
: T
HE
S
HAPE
OF
THE
N
IGHT

The shape of the night was this: a tunnel that snaked from wherever he was to wherever he wanted to be. That was how he saw the night: for his benefit, his convenience. For his protection and security. For his hungers and desires.

He wasn’t sure whether the night had created him, or he had created the night. Or whether, in some small way, they had birthed each other. And walking through the tunnel of night, clothed in darkness, armored in blackness as black as his soul, he was put in mind of Ouroboros, the serpent that devours itself, and wondered if in some small way he and the night destroyed each other, too.

His tunnel of night had brought him to bright lights in the chill air, and a mass of humanity he found repulsive. Like a single, many-headed beast they flowed and oozed on the sidewalk outside the theater, their collective voices gathering in a multi-pitched scream, their stench rising like a cloud. A many-headed beast, with barely a grain of free will between them. A dullard hydra, beaten into submission. And, like a hydra, cut one head off, and another grew in its place, for the many-headed beast rutted and pawed itself, perpetuating its own existence.

Still, no reason not to slice a head off, every now and then, to remind the beast that for all its ubiquity and presence, it did not rule the night.

He saw her, skin shining darkly in the gas and oil lamps, gray hair in rat-tails hanging over her bony shoulders, a gold tooth finding the pale, lost light of the moon for a moment as the blanket of smog and cloud parted; the tooth glinted as though signaling to him. He hefted the leather bag, felt the instruments within shift heavily and clank dully together.

Yes. She was the one. She sat at a makeshift table, the crowd flowing around her as though she were a rock in a river. She was looking up at a man he could not see, but he heard a snatch of her words on the air as the hydra-crowd moved it around with its incessant surging motion.

“Names are power.”

He hesitated for a moment, and her eyes, like miniature twin moons, met his.

Names are power
.

He faltered, then, felt the intermedio fade, felt the tunnel crumble, as if all his carefully constructed safeguards were for nothing.

Her eyes continued to burn into his until he tore his gaze away. He looked up a moment later, and she was gone: completely gone, the crowd flowing over where she once had sat.

He knew it was impossible that she could know him, but he felt out of sorts, rattled enough that he could not conceive of killing tonight. The intermedio was over. Names are power. He had been brought, quick and hard, back to the play.

8

R
ULE
OF
L
AW

Bent took breakfast alone in the dining room, a relatively light—for him—repast of bacon, eggs, black pudding, and fried tomatoes. He avoided stuffing himself on Sundays, when Mrs. Cadwallader liked to do a nice side of beef. As she brought a pot of coffee in to him, he said, “Why don’t you sit down, take the weight off? Have something to eat with me.”

“I had my breakfast hours ago, Mr. Bent,” she said. The housekeeper paused and looked at him quizzically. “Mr. Bent, there’s something different about you. Have you cut your hair…?”

He ran a thick hand over his head. “Had a good soak last night, didn’t I.”

She nodded. “Ah. I wondered what that black tide mark was around the bath.” She glanced upward at the sound of a creaking floorboard from upstairs. “That’ll be Miss Maria, or Mr. Smith.”

Bent chuckled. “I must say, I didn’t hear much noise last night. Gideon must have well-oiled bedsprings.”

“Mr. Bent!” said Mrs. Cadwallader, a hand on her breast. “I would thank you not to make such inappropriate comments over breakfast. And on a Sunday!”

He shrugged, pushing a sausage into his mouth. “Sunday’s as good a day as any for being inappropriate in my book, Sally. We’re none of us what you might call staunch churchgoers.” He chewed reflectively and glanced at her sidelong. “Been a while since this place has resounded to the noise of squeaking bedsprings. Long overdue.”

She shook her head and glared at him to be quiet as the door opened and Maria let herself in, sitting herself quietly at the far end of the long table and staring—somewhat morosely for a girl who’d just had a night of bedtime athleticism with the Hero of the Empire, in Bent’s opinion—at her hands.

“Gideon having another half an hour?” said Bent, winking at Mrs. Cadwallader, who shot him another warning look.

“I’m sure I have no idea what Mr. Smith is doing with his Sunday morning,” said Maria.

Bent chuckled. “No need to be so coy, girl.”

“Oh, leave her be, Mr. Bent,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, studying Maria. “Miss Maria? Is something the matter? You’re … your eyes are leaking again.”

Maria looked up. “Oh, Mrs. Cadwallader. Gideon didn’t come to me last night. I waited until after one in the morning, and there was no sign. So I took myself off to my own room. He obviously had better things to do.”

“Better things to do?” said Bent, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “We’ll soon see about that. Effing idiot.”

“Oh, please, Mr. Bent, do not cause a scene,” said Maria anxiously, but Bent was already stalking out of the dining room and heading for the staircase.

Maria and Mrs. Cadwallader had caught up to him by the time he huffed up to Gideon’s room, rapping on the door. “Open up, Gideon. It’s Aloysius.” He turned to the women. “This is man’s talk. Leave us to it.”

“There’s no answer,” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “Do you think he’s ill? Where did he go last night, anyway?”

“Off to find Markus Mesmer,” said Bent, knocking on the door again. “To do with this missing Elmwood girl. I told him it wasn’t our business, but after that portrait…” He glanced at Maria. “Well. You know what he’s like. Gideon! Are you in there?”

Bent rattled the handle and opened the door. The room was empty. He said, “Did you make the bed up after you left, Maria?”

She nodded.

“And this was after one?” Bent rubbed his chin. “Then Gideon hasn’t slept here. He didn’t come home.”

“I was a fool to think—” began Maria, but Bent held up his hand.

“If he didn’t come home, it can’t be for any good reason. He must have gone off half-cocked with Mesmer. Effing hell.”

From downstairs, a bell sounded. Mrs. Cadwallader said, “The front door.”

“It might be Gideon!” said Maria.

“Lost his keys and home with the milk cart,” said Bent, but didn’t sound convinced even to himself.

They trooped down the staircase and Mrs. Cadwallader opened the door to a smart young man in green livery. “Telegram for Mr. Gideon Smith,” he announced, waving a brown envelope.

“He’s not here,” said Bent. The man checked a small notebook. “Then I am to hand it to Mr. Aloysius Bent, Miss Maria, or Mrs. Cadwallader.” He looked up. “I take it that’s you three?”

As Mrs. Cadwallader closed the door against the snow, which had fallen all night and made a blank, frozen landscape of Grosvenor Square, Bent ripped open the envelope.

“Is it from Gideon?” said Maria.

“No,” he said, reading. “It’s from Rowena Fanshawe.”

“Rowena? What does she say?”

Bent blinked, read it again, and looked at the others. “She’s been arrested,” he said slowly. “On a charge of murder.”

*   *   *

Bent had been to Holloway Prison many times, but only to watch murderers hang. He tried to push the thought away as he stood in the ankle-deep snowdrifts outside the prison, hammering with his gloved fist on the wooden door set into the huge gate that fronted the crenellated fortifications. He couldn’t think for a minute what Rowena was doing locked up in there. Her telegram had been brief:
ARRESTED FOR MURDER STOP HOLLOWAY INCARCERATED STOP HELP STOP

It’s a funny old world,
he considered as he continued to bang on the door.
It’s quite acceptable to crisscross the globe killing folk hither and thither on old Walsingham’s orders, but do it on your own time back in the home country and you find yourself clapped in irons in Holloway.

“Come effing on!” roared Bent, kicking the door. He’d get to the bottom of it all as soon as these effers opened the door and let him see Rowena. Holloway had been a mixed prison up till recently—with a nice little consecrated yard where they buried those who had to undergo the long drop—but had just become women-only. A thought flitted across his mind: He wouldn’t mind being locked in there for a night himself, given what was shaking down in Whitechapel. Then the door swung begrudgingly open and a sour-faced guard with a drooping mustache peered out through the crack.

“I want to see Rowena Fanshawe,” bellowed Bent. “What have you been doing in there, anyway? Playing effing chess?”

“No visiting on Sundays,” said Droopy, forcing shut the door.

Bent shoved his foot in the crack. “Hold your horses. I’m Aloysius Bent of
World Marvels & Wonders
. Companion to Mr. Gideon Smith, Hero of the Empire. Now let me in and take me to Rowena Fanshawe!”

Droopy smirked. “No visiting on Sundays, and no visiting at all for her on account of she’s facing a capital charge of some severity. Certified defense solicitor only at this stage, Mr. Bent of wherever you’re from, companion to whoever and whatnot.”

Bent glared at him. “So who’s her certified effing defense solicitor?”

Droopy sniffed. “No need for language like that. She’s arraigned to appear before the Central Criminal Court at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. She’ll probably be given a lawyer then.”

The guard kicked Bent’s foot out of the door and slammed it shut. He looked up at the thick walls of Holloway. The Old Bailey at ten. He had no idea whether Rowena had a lawyer she could call on nor, now he came to think of it, whether she could afford a decent one. If she couldn’t, the courts would assign her one and she could get legal assistance
in forma pauperis.
But the Belle of the Airways deserved better than that. She’d been decorated by Queen effing Victoria! Perhaps it was time to go to the top.

*   *   *

Naturally—two steam-omnibuses that made painfully slow progress through the snow-crippled city and a heart-bursting hike on foot later—Bent arrived at the building that housed Walsingham’s offices to find the door resolutely shut. There was a pull bell, which he hung on for some minutes, gathering his breath and hoping Rowena Fanshawe was going to be happy when he was found dead of a heart attack for her benefit. Eventually a thin man with blank eyes slid open a hatch in the door and inquired what he thought he was doing, ringing the bell at Crown offices on the Sabbath.

“Get me Walsingham,” gasped Bent. “Matter of great urgency. Christ, I need an effing cigarette.”

As Bent patted his pockets for his tobacco, the man said, “No Walsingham here, I’m afraid. Be off with you.”

“Don’t play silly buggers with me,” said Bent, eventually locating his tin of rolling papers and tobacco. “Mr. Walsingham—face like a hawk, eyes like a shark. Above top secret and all that. I know him and you know him, so let’s cut out all the malarkey and you go and get him. Tell him it’s Aloysius Bent.”

The hatch slid shut, and ten minutes later the man opened the door and showed Bent in, taking him up three flights of a staircase that knocked out of him the breath he’d only just recovered.

“Christ, I need to get effing fit,” muttered Bent as the man rapped on the door.

“Enter,” said the unmistakable voice of Walsingham, and Bent elbowed past his guide and barged in.

Walsingham was sitting at his desk, reading through a sheaf of papers that he slid into a tray. “Mr. Bent. We meet again, twice in two days. To what do I owe the pleasure of your return visit?”

“Don’t you ever go home, Walsingham? Ain’t there a Mrs. Walsingham at home, warming your bed?”

“Not that my domestic arrangements are the slightest concern of yours, Mr. Bent, but no. I consider myself married to my job. Was that it? Now you have established that, is your visit at an end? I have much to do.…”

Bent sat down heavily across from Walsingham. “You know full well why I’m here. Rowena’s been arrested on a murder charge.”

Walsingham steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Yes, I had heard. Most unfortunate.”

Bent leaned forward. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“What would you have me do about it, Mr. Bent?”

“Get her out of Holloway, for starters,” said Bent, counting off on his nicotine-stained fingers. “Get the charges dropped. Find out why she’s been locked up.”