Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (29 page)

*   *   *

There were no steam-cabs, or horse-drawns, or anything that could get her away from that foul, accursed place. Charlotte Elmwood felt like sitting down in the filthy street and weeping. But she knew she could not. She had no full understanding what had just happened, save that a woman who looked exactly like her had come in through the door and brought her back to her senses, with Dolly of all things. The last few days felt like some kind of fever dream; she could remember what she had done, what she had said—what was about to befall her—but it was as though it had all happened to someone else, as though it were a play unfolding on a stage, and she was merely a member of the audience.

This, though, was no production, these harsh, snow-filled streets no stage setting. Charlotte Elmwood was cold and alone and scared—and so hungry!—and on the streets of Whitechapel. Heaven knew what that strange woman was doing, after she had lowered Charlotte ungracefully down from the window of her prison. All she had said was to get away, find a cab or a policeman if need be, and get to 23 Grosvenor Square.

Charlotte kept repeating the address to herself under her breath. She had a home, she knew, and a loving mother and father, but the exact location seemed to bob around the periphery of her fogged brain. So all she could focus on was 23 Grosvenor Square, and the need for steam-cab or a policeman.

But there were no steam-cabs, and there were certainly no policemen. In fact, there was nothing in the supernaturally quiet Whitechapel alleys.

Nothing, save for the sudden crunch of boots on fresh snowfall.

Charlotte whirled around, but there was no one there. Then there was another sound, a soft whisper, and she turned quickly again, seeing nothing but her own shadow cast by a distant gas lamp. Panicked, she began to run, though she had no idea where. Another sound caused her to spin again, almost weeping. But the alley behind her was empty.

She turned, heaving a ragged sigh, and almost walked straight into the man blocking the alley. At first she thought it was Henry Savage or one of those horrible people from that house.

Then she saw that he was dressed all in black, a mask covering his face.

He smiled at her and held out his hand. In it he held a thin, cruel-looking sword. He said softly, “
Por fin. No voy a perder de nuevo.
”

Charlotte Elmwood started to scream, though with a growing desperation that almost smothered her cries she knew that no one in Whitechapel would pay her much heed at all.

20

F
ERENG
’
S
S
TORY

Deep down in the cavernous brick room where the shadows danced from the curiously smokeless fire, he had no idea what time of day it was. He knew he must have slept a long time, though, because he felt physically refreshed and rested, if no closer to piecing together his fractured mental state. Also, his bladder was full to bursting. Fereng and the four other men slumbered quietly on rolls alongside the walls of the room. At the entrance to the tunnel, the young dinosaur slept fitfully also. He noticed that the chain that kept it secured to the wall had been lengthened; the beast lay across the entrance to the room now, a nasty surprise for anyone who stumbled on it … or anyone who tried to escape.

As if sensing that he was awake, the others stirred also, and began to rise, yawning, from their beds. Fereng rolled up his mat and pulled a battered fob watch from his trouser pocket. “Seven o’clock,” he said.

Smith rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “In the morning? I slept all night?”

“You were exhausted,” said Fereng.

“I also need the lavatory,” he said, gesturing to the tyrannosaur, which opened one yellow eye and grumbled loudly.

Fereng nodded. “Deeptendu. Distract the beast.”

The Thuggee took up a hunk of meat from a large bowl and waved it at the dinosaur, until it got sluggishly to its feet, pushing itself up onto its powerful hind legs with its tiny arms. As it snapped at the meat with its powerful jaws, scar-faced Kalanath slid around the side of the room and began to turn a makeshift wheel set into the brickwork, pulling the chain that tethered the dinosaur tighter until it was close up against the wall, and Kalanath nimbly leaped out of its way. It was secured in the corner once again, and the tunnel entrance was clear.

“You thought I might flee in the night?” said Smith.

Fereng shrugged. “Would you have?”

Smith thought about it. “I don’t know. I have no idea why I’m here, but then again I have no clue who I was up there anyway.”

Phoolendu had set a kettle boiling above the hot embers of the fire, and he was preparing tin cups of sweet chai. Fereng said, “So you stay because you have nowhere else to go.”

Smith said, “Perhaps. And perhaps I stay because I want to know what you are planning, and why.”

Phoolendu was digging into the sack where the food was kept. “Crumpets!” He declared. “I will toast them now for our breakfast.”

Fereng nodded to the tunnel. “Come. Let us piss.”

Smith followed him into the cold shadows and they emerged into the stinking thoroughfare of the sewer. He held his breath as he loosed his bladder against the wall, Fereng doing the same.

“I’ll tell you, if you like, some of what I am up to,” said Fereng.

“Only some?” said Smith.

Fereng finished and rearranged his clothing. “Yes, some. I cannot trust you fully yet, Smith. But you deserve to know a little. Let us see if Phoolendu has managed to not completely ruin those crumpets.” He sighed and looked a little longingly into the darkness. “It is a long time since I enjoyed a hot, buttered crumpet.”

*   *   *

In the summer of 1870 (said Fereng, as they sat cross-legged around the fire, eating Phoolendu’s not-too-ruined crumpets and drinking hot, sweet chai) my life was at something of a crossroads. I had enjoyed a career as an airshipman since I was young, first as an indentured pilot with some of the passenger and freight lines, followed by a spell in the Fleet Air Arm where I earned my wings and came to the attention of other, more secret agencies working for the furtherance of the British Empire.

Not long after my military service I had married and started my own freight business. I was occasionally called upon—with increasing frequency—to fly covert missions for the British Government, largely ferrying agents and equipment to distant lands, sometimes taking a more active role in adventures and escapades.

But as thrilling as a life in the air was to me, it was not conducive to a happy domestic situation. My wife became increasingly concerned and frustrated with the government calling upon me for its secret journeys, and she issued me an ultimatum: If I wanted to remain married to her and a father to our young daughter, I would have to give up being an aerostat pilot.

I acceded to her request—I loved her, and she was fearful of what might happen to me on my increasingly dangerous missions—on the condition that I could continue to fly freight, as being a pilot was the only business I knew, the only way of providing for my family. But I found it a promise that was hard to keep. I was selfish. I maintained my business but continued to accept commissions from the government. Inevitably, my wife found out. When I should have been taking wool to Switzerland, I was getting shot at by spies in Shanghai. She said we must part, and divorce.

Thankfully, she did allow me to continue to see my daughter, and between the missions I flew for the government and the cargo commissions I continued to take to keep my business viable, I would spend wonderful yet brief days with my tiny girl.

Then, things subtly changed. The government wished me to take a more public role, and assigned me to missions that were widely reported in the press and the penny blood magazines. I was something of a hero; if I told you my name, Smith, I believe that you may have heard of me. It suited the government—or at least the department that gave me my orders—to have a familiar face the citizens could cheer on and follow.

Then I was given a most unusual job: a retrieval mission from an island in the Indian Ocean that was so tiny it did not appear on any maps. I was to fly there, alone, and obtain a … an artifact, I suppose you would call it, that had been lost for millennia but which I was assured would be there. I visited my former wife and child; this was in 1870, and my daughter was six years old. For reasons I still cannot explain, I felt troubled by the mission I was about to undertake. I hugged my daughter and asked her if she would like a present. She asked for a monkey. I begged my wife’s forgiveness for my past behavior. She told me that it was too little, too late. While we had been apart she had been courted by another, a man with a stable position who was most unlike me, not about to dash off to the far corners of the world at the drop of a hat. They were to be married, and my daughter was to take his name.

It would be better for all concerned, she said, if I did not trouble my family again.

It is an understatement to say that it was with a heavy heart that I loaded up my ’stat and set off for the Indian Ocean. But a small part of me, one that I tried to suppress as I cast off my tethering cables and wept at the cruel blow I felt my wife had dealt me, exulted at the unfettered freedom I now enjoyed.

Oh, how ironic.

Whether it was recklessness at this newfound sense of utter freedom, or a lapse in concentration because of the cold way my wife had shut me out, or perhaps merely an unavoidable accident, I still do not fully know. But as I approached the point where my bearings and documentation said the unmapped, unnamed island should be, disaster struck.

It had been fine flying for the previous several hours, but I noticed the barometer showing an alarmingly steep fall in pressure, accompanied by the sudden swell of the sea below me and a brisk wind buffeting my ’stat. Too late I realized what was happening; I was flying right into a cyclone, such as often trap unwary sailors in that corner of the world. A hard rain began, and the winds rose to gale force, throwing my ’stat around. I struggled to keep altitude in the plummeting pressure and howling winds, and a tremendous cracking sound told me that the structure of my balloon frame had snapped in the onslaught. I went spiraling downward, thrown about by the cyclone, and it was only then that I saw the jagged black teeth rising from the sea, a ring of deadly rocks at the center of which was a small island, little more than a sea-bound hill crowned with a thick copse of trees and vegetation. This, I surmised, was my destination, but I had no time to check my documents and bearing before I smashed into the side of the hill.

When I came to, the cyclone had passed and the sky was blue once more. My ’stat was utterly wrecked; moreover, my leg was broken and severely gashed. I managed to crawl to the medical supplies in the wreckage of the ’stat and imbibed a dose of morphine while I tried to reset the broken bone and sew up the wound with fishing line. The effort and pain—despite the medicine—threw me into a black pit of unconscious despair, where I was beset by strange and terrifying visions.

What’s that? The morphine? Yes, I am sure it played a part in my dreams. But more to open doors in my perception. As I lay there in the Stygian black, I was approached, with much pomp and music, by an elephant-headed god sitting on an open carriage drawn by four immense rats. He had four arms, in which he held an ax, a noose, one of his own broken tusks, and a handful of food.

When I awoke I, as you are, was convinced it was merely a fever dream brought on by the morphine and pain. But as my time on the island passed, I saw the vision for what it was: guidance from Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, the Lord of Beginnings.

Because although I lay there in the ruins of my airship, looking out at the vast circles of cruel rock that no ship could possibly navigate, lost on an uncharted island in vast waters, I felt as though I was on the cusp of something new. As I crawled from the wreckage, I was suddenly sure I was being reborn.

It was a rebirth that was likely to be short-lived, though. The debris and contents of my ’stat were scattered all across the small island—only a mile wide and perhaps two in length, but with my leg so agonizingly debilitated I had little hope of collecting it all in the short term. I had been lucky to find the medical kit; I was less so when it came to my stock of food and clean water. The glittering Indian Ocean lapped tantalizingly on the shore, only adding to my thirst.

After a day and a night I was sure I would die, when a small black-and-white shape appeared at the edge of my vision. It was a colobus monkey. My first thought was to catch it and eat it—even raw; I was so hungry I would have considered that. But it evaded my clumsy lunges, and watched me with almost human interest from a distance. After some hours it disappeared, my only hope of food gone.

But it returned, and astonishingly it brought food for me. Nuts and berries from the thick copse of trees that crowned the island. I managed to drag myself to the ’stat wreckage and tore a bowl-like chunk of steel from the framework, miming a drinking motion. The monkey seemed to understand, and it took the bowl. To my amazement, it appeared an hour later, carefully carrying the bowl filled with fresh, clear water.

Thus the monkey nursed me back to health over the course of the next few days. I named it Jip, after a dog my father once had. When I was stronger I fashioned a crutch from the timber in the ruined ’stat and Jip led me into the trees, where he showed me with chattering enthusiasm the trees from which he obtained the nuts and berries, and a spring flowing from the hill that rose at the center of the island.

My leg, however, had become infected, and gangrene had set in near the wounds. I had no option but to use the last of the morphine and amputate below the knee, cauterizing the wound in a blazing fire on the beach. You cannot imagine that pain, Smith. I knew that if I blacked out before the operation was complete, I would not wake up. I gripped a length of wood between my teeth, and even with the morphine, it took all my reserves to remain conscious. It was Jip who saved me, I think, dancing and chattering before me as though to try to distract me from the horrific agony. Still, I fancied they would hear my screams even in Delhi, but they brought no relief parties to investigate.