Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (34 page)

“I know all about it. I was there, remember?” he said, looking at the latest report on Rowena’s trial. They’d done well to get the latest happenings into the final edition, he had to concede. The headline read, D
ID
M
URDERED
G
AUNT
K
ILL
H
IS
W
IFE WITH
M
ERCURY,
C
OURT
A
SKED.
He smiled; that might take the heat off old Rowena for a bit. Though the deck beneath it read:
Belle of the Airways, upon being told the deceased had been hanged, retorts: “Good.”

“Not that,” said Maria breathlessly—making Bent pause to wonder how a mechanical girl could quite rightly do anything
breathlessly
—and snatched the paper back from him. “Here, on page four.”

She jabbed at an ad in the classified columns. Aha. It was in Spanish.

Señor Cerebro! Tengo la niña mecánica en mi poder! Finalmente mi exilio ha terminado! Por favor, asesorar en cuanto a cómo proceder. Atentamente, El Hombre de Negro

“From the Man In Black to Mr. Brain,” said Bent. “That much I can read. What’s the rest of it say?”

Mrs. Cadwallader removed a notepad from her apron pocket. “Very roughly, Mr. Bent, it says: ‘I have the mechanical girl in my possession! Finally my exile is at an end! Please advise as to how to proceed.’”

Bent frowned. “He has the mechanical girl? But obviously he doesn’t have—” He slapped his head. “Oh, effing hell, no.”

Maria nodded excitedly. “He must have Charlotte Elmwood! He must have followed me to the bawdy house from Soho, and when I effected Miss Elmwood’s escape he must have captured her, thinking she was me.”

Bent rubbed his chin. “Then she must still be alive, thank God, or he’d know he didn’t have Maria if he’d already tried to slice her head off.”

“But what shall we do?”

Bent shucked off his overcoat and patted his pockets for his tobacco. “Mesmer will have seen this and will be putting his response in tomorrow’s edition, no doubt, telling Garcia where to take the girl.” He snapped his fingers. “We need to intercept that advertisement.”

“And put in our own in its place!” said Maria. “Diverting El Chupacabras and Charlotte to where we want them!”

“Brilliant!” roared Bent, dancing in the puddle of melted snow he was making. “Absolutely effing brilliant! But where can we tell him to go? Mesmer and his gang will merely beat us to him. We need to … to put it in code! A place that means something to only Garcia and ourselves, freezing Mesmer out in the effing cold. But what? Where?”

Mrs. Cadwallader smiled, crossing her arms in front of her ample bosom. “We’ve already thought of that.”

Maria said, “What about something pertaining to Inez Batiste Paloma, who took the mantle of La Chupacabras after Garcia disappeared.”

Bent snapped his fingers. “And she is Garcia’s daughter. But he doesn’t know that.…”

“Perhaps not,” continued Maria. “But her mere existence, even as the daughter of his successor, a girl he watched grow up, is information we share with him, but a reference which Markus Mesmer is unlikely to understand.”

“I like it, I like it,” said Bent, finally finding his tobacco and papers and setting about rolling a cigarette. “But where would we find an ‘Inez’ in London which could be a meeting place? Or a ‘Batiste’?”

They led Bent into the parlor where there was a welcome fire blazing in the hearth. On the table was a street map of London unfurled. Mrs. Cadwallader said, “We have spent the afternoon pondering the same question. Then I remembered what the girl’s surname, Palomo, means in English.”

Bent poured himself a gin from the decanter. “And?”

She took up a pen, dipped it in ink, and scrawled a big circle around a portion of the Thames near Hammersmith.

“It means ‘dove,’ Aloysius,” said Maria. “We scoured the map, and—”

“And you found the tavern the Dove, one of the oldest pubs in London,” said Bent, breaking into a wide grin. “Now you’re really talking my language. I could kiss you both. In fact, I think I effing will!”

For what seemed like the first time in days, shrieks of laughter rang out in the house on Grosvenor Square as Aloysius Bent enclosed the two women in his pungent embrace.

*   *   *

The reception desk of the London Newspaper and Magazine Publishing Company, publisher of Bent’s current employer,
World Marvels & Wonders,
and his erstwhile one, the
Illustrated London Argus,
was just about to close when the steam-cab dropped Bent off at its grand marble facade that fronted onto Fleet Street. There was some snot-nosed child shivering in the snow; when he saw Bent, he said, “Excuse me, sir!”

“Not now, kid,” said Bent, pushing past him. “Evening, Jug Ears.” He nodded to the liveried doorman scowling at him in recognition before bursting through the glass doors and huffing over to the wide reception desk.

“Doris,” he gasped, fighting for breath. “Thank eff I got here in time.”

“Mr. Bent,” said the receptionist, looking over her spectacles at him. “Why, we don’t see much of you here since you transferred to the magazine. How is life treating you?”

“Tolerable. Listen, Doris, I’m in a rush. Have you had anybody bring in a notice for the
Argus
written in Spanish, by any chance?”

Doris blinked at him. “Why, yes, as it happens. I have it here. Swarthy fellow brought it in. I thought it odd, because I could have sworn he was French, while the notice is, as you say, certainly Spanish.”

Bent reached into his overcoat pocket for the advertisement Mrs. Cadwallader had drafted, purporting to be from Mesmer but in fact instructing Garcia to take Charlotte Elmwood to the Dove in Hammersmith tomorrow evening. “Hand it over, love, and put this one in instead, right?”

“I’m not sure I can—”

“Doris? Is there some problem here?”

Bent turned to see the frowning face of Bingley, his former news editor at the
Argus,
who said, “Aloysius Bent, as I live and breathe. What is all this commotion about?”

“Mr. Bent wants me to substitute his notice for a previously paid-for advertisement, Mr. Bingley,” said Doris in a tone that indicated she disapproved most highly of even considering such a thing.

Bingley smirked. “And why would we do that, Mr. Bent?”

Bent smiled back. “Because it’s going to catch Jack the effing Ripper, Bingley.”

Bingley opened his mouth to speak then narrowed his eyes. “Some trick of yours, no doubt.”

Bent shrugged. “Can you afford to take the risk, Bingley old chap? Imagine what your bosses would say if you ruined the one chance we have to nail London’s biggest mass murderer.”

The news editor chewed his lip for a moment, then said, “Do as he says. But the
Argus
gets the story first, Bent, not your lurid little penny dreadful.”

When he’d placed the advertisement, Bent stepped outside for a celebratory cigarette and contemplated a gin at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese to go with it. The little brat was waiting for him outside.

“Mr. Aloysius Bent?”

Bent squinted at him in the flurrying snow. “You ain’t one of the Fleet Street Irregulars. Who sent you?” His face fell. “This ain’t about that effing bar tab at the Fleece, is it?”

The boy shook his head and handed over a rolled-up magazine. It was an old copy of
World Marvels & Wonders
. Bent chuckled. “Is it an autograph you’re after, lad? Afraid this one’s before my time. I only document the adventures of Gideon Smith.”

The boy nodded enthusiastically. “That’s who told me to bring it. He said, give it to the fat man at
World Marvels & Wonders
. I worked out after he must mean Mr. Aloysius Bent.”

Bent dropped to his knees in front of the boy. “What? Gideon gave you this? Where? When?”

“This morning, sir. At Wapping Dock. He didn’t seem right, sir, like he didn’t really know who he was. Kept remembering things then forgetting them again. He was with two Indians in turbans. I think they’d been stealing sides of pork. But I knew it was him. I just knew it.”

Bent stared at the periodical in his hand, rubbing his mouth. He said, “Pork?”

The boy said, “Are you well, Mr. Bent? Did I do right?”

Bent stood up. “Right? You did effing brilliantly, son.” He dug into his pockets and drew out three shillings. He pushed them into the boy’s hand and his grimy face lit up, but Bent barely noticed it.

All he could think was,
Gideon Smith is alive!

24

T
HICKER
T
HAN
W
ATER

Smith pushed the vegetable dhal around the cracked bowl, but his appetite seemed to have deserted him, a combination of watching the beast tearing into the slabs of pig meat and, earlier, seeing Phoolendu gathering up the dinosaur’s dung and slapping it into fat pancakes that he dried on the edges of the always-burning fire.

“Makes wonderful fire starters!” The plump Thuggee beamed. “Burns with practically no smoke at all! Wonderful for living underground.”

Fereng, his clockwork monkey sitting on his shoulder, watched Smith intently. Smith held his gaze until the older man said, “You have passed the first test, then. You didn’t run.”

He shrugged. “Where would I go?”

“Where indeed?” said Fereng. “But you could have fled; you had opportunity. And you did not. So I surmise that you are with me.”

Smith stared at the bowl of food. “Perhaps. You make a convincing argument against the British Empire. Your desire for vengeance seems … justified.”

Fereng laughed. “And you do not yet know the half of it.” He looked up and over Smith’s shoulder. “Deeptendu. Kill him.”

Instinctively, Smith began to climb from his cross-legged position, but the Thuggee was quicker, and he suddenly felt a constricting pressure around his throat. He tried to get a hand between the leather thong and his flesh, at the same time throwing his head backward until it connected with—he thought, given the grunt of pain that accompanied his action—Deeptendu’s nose. Smith rammed an elbow back into the other man’s ribs and finally dragged the leather thong away from his neck, rolling forward and twisting around. Deeptendu was on his knees, winded and holding his bleeding nose, but scar-faced Kalanath and young Naakesh were advancing on him with knives held aloft, and on the edge of his vision he saw Phoolendu, a garroting cord in his hands, sidling around the dancing shadows at the perimeter of the brick room. He risked a glance at Fereng, who was watching the proceedings with interest.

“What is the meaning of this betrayal?”

Fereng shrugged, just as Kalanath lunged forward with his knife. Smith—a tiny part of him marveling at his own instinctive, smooth moves—fell forward as though to perform a handstand, at the last moment swinging his legs out and around, the momentum carrying his boots into the chest of the Thuggee. He pushed himself up to his feet and ducked under a swipe from Naakesh, grabbing the wrist of the other man’s knife hand until he dropped the weapon and, with his other fist, punching him hard, once, in the jaw. As the young man staggered back Smith snatched up the knife, but Deeptendu was rising to his feet, his face bloodied, his eyes narrowed.

“Insurmountable odds,” said Fereng. “Four trained killers. What will you do, Smith?”

Smith gritted his teeth and lunged for Deeptendu but at the last second feinted away, tumbling forward and over and grabbing the front of Fereng’s shirt. He pulled the old man toward him and twisted around, his arm across Fereng’s throat and the knife pointed at his temple.

“Even those odds, somewhat,” Smith said. He glared at each of the Thuggees in turn, indicating with a jerk of his head that Phoolendu, working his way around the shadows, should rejoin his brothers.

Then, Fereng began to clap.

“Excellent,” he said, his applause ringing around the cavernous room. “Truly excellent.”

Deeptendu dropped his garroting thong and smiled. “I think you might have broken my nose,” he said. “Well done.”

Smith looked, puzzled, from one man to another. Phoolendu joined in the applause. “Chai, I think, to celebrate!”

Even Kalanath gave Smith a curt, approving nod. Slowly, he released the pressure of the knife on Fereng’s temple. He said, “This was … another test?”

Fereng gently removed Smith’s arm from around his neck and turned to face him. “It was. To see how well you fight. And whether you have it in you.”

“Have what in me?”

“Murder,” said Fereng.

“No,” said Smith. “I told you before. I shall be party to no killing.” But even as he said the words, he could feel that they carried less conviction than they had the last time he had spoken them. He tried to imagine the millions starving in India while food was ferried to rich English tables. Tried to put himself on the remote, nameless island to which Fereng had been lost and abandoned. Thought of the small boy at the union hall, his belly rumbling from hunger, stealing magazines instead of an apple or bread, something approaching an education he and his family would never be able to afford. Smith met Fereng’s eyes, and he felt something unspoken pass between them, but a message, a secret, an intention nevertheless.

Fereng snapped his fingers, and Naakesh handed him the newspaper they had bought that morning. There was a grainy printed photograph of a crowd of people milling outside the Old Bailey. The photograph accompanied a report of the case that had sent memories bouncing around his head the day before, a murder trial …

“Ignore the words,” said Fereng. “Though I do admit the case in question is something of a coincidence. Look at this man.”

He tapped his gnarled finger on a man to the left of the photograph, half-turning as though in the act of trying to avoid the flashpan of the photographer. He was tall and thin, with a black top hat and a cane in his gloved hand, a pale gray mustache beneath a hawkish nose.

“This is the man we are going to kill. His name is Walsingham.”

*   *   *

They had taken it in turns to pore over the issue of
World Marvels & Wonders
that the boy, Tom, had given Bent outside the newspaper and magazine offices on Fleet Street. Bent had dashed into 23 Grosvenor Square, waving the periodical around like a flag and bellowing that Gideon was alive while Maria leaped up and down in excitement and Mrs. Cadwallader fanned her rapidly reddening face with a dish towel. Then they had repaired to the study, surrounded by glass cases containing the trophies and trinkets from Captain Trigger and John Reed’s various adventures, and gathered around the coffee table while first Bent, then Maria, and finally the housekeeper examined each page of the penny dreadful for some mark or code, some hidden message or half-visible communication.