Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (38 page)

Mesmer’s devices were complicated structures that took a long time to create. They were not the source of Mesmer’s powers—that was deep within his head, nurtured and exercised over many, many years of training and development—but they did amplify and direct his talents. As such, his Hypno-Arrays were finely tuned with Mesmer’s own mind. He had lost enough of them in the past to improve and modify each successive design, and now, though an array might be stolen, it was not necessarily lost … and it could still cause his foes harm.

The automaton had stolen his only other Hypno-Array, but the latest version he now placed over his head had a new function he had not had the opportunity to fully test yet. He closed his eyes and switched on the array, focusing his mind and funneling it into the lenses that turned and came together to create a telescope of sorts, which he trained upon the tumultuous hiss of millions of London minds suddenly turned on as though they were a gramophone disc and the Hypno-Array the needle. For many minutes he stood, turning on the spot, until somewhere amid the morass of white noise a pinprick of something else appeared. There. His missing Hypno-Array. But wait … a second signal? From exactly the same location? How was that possible?

Mesmer carefully triggered the mind signal he hoped would be received by these two stolen Hypno-Arrays, then watched with a satisfied smile as the pinpricks became flares of blinding light, and a location was revealed to him.

*   *   *

“The first thing you’ve got to understand,” said Bent through a mouthful of cake provided by Mrs. Cadwallader, “is that the poor sap you’ve got locked up is most certainly not Jack the effing Ripper.”

In the study, surrounded by the trophies and mementoes of Captain Trigger and John Reed’s adventures, George Lestrade looked over the rim of his teacup with narrowed eyes. “How can you be so sure?”

Maria spoke up. “Because Jack the Ripper is a man from Uvalde in New Spain by the name of Sergio de la Garcia, who also had another identity as the masked champion of the oppressed, El Chupacabras.”

“And we’re going to nail him at eight o’clock tonight in Hammersmith, and get back Charlotte Elmwood before someone slices her bleeding head off, if they haven’t already. We could probably use your help with that, George, seeing as we’ve also got until ten tomorrow morning to save Rowena Fanshawe from the noose by finding Charles Collier.”

Mr. Walsingham placed his cup and saucer on the low table. “Ah. Charles Collier. The dead refuse to stay buried once again.”

“He’s not dead,” said Bent. He placed the crumpled issue of
World Marvels & Wonders
on the table. “Gideon sent this as a message. At first I thought he was trying to tell us something about the Captain Trigger adventure in it. But he was being more obvious than that. Collier’s on the effing cover. Perhaps you ought to tell us what you know about him.”

“I suspect there is a spiderweb here that connects Collier to Markus Mesmer and your Sergio de la Garcia, however obliquely,” said Walsingham.

“It takes a spider to know one,” said Bent. “We know, thanks to Maria, that Mesmer and Garcia have the same boss, and that whoever that is also has Professor Einstein.”

“And you said that Mesmer has both Spanish and French henchmen?” Walsingham said to Maria.

“Odd, that,” said Bent. “You normally can’t put a Spaniard and a Frenchie in the same room without one of them ending up dead.”

“Strange bedfellows,” agreed Walsingham. “But something I have come across in the past.” He looked at Maria. “To do with the very artifact in your head.”

“I’ll get Mrs. Cadwallader to bring in a fresh pot of tea,” said Bent. “Sounds like you’re going to be doing a lot of talking.”

*   *   *

“Many years ago, some very old pages extracted from a larger volume came into my possession,” said Mr. Walsingham, after Mrs. Cadwallader had brought in a tray of fresh tea and seated herself on a footstool beside Bent’s chair. “This was early in my career, and there were many strange and wonderful things in the world to come to grips with. These pages detailed just another enigma, another mystery, which I gave cursory attention to, not realizing just how important they were going to prove.”

Walsingham steepled his fingers beneath his chin, as though considering how much to tell them. Bent said, “Come on, man!”

“The pages were old and concerned an account of rumors and stories about an ancient treasure, lost on an uncharted island in the Indian Ocean. They hinted that this treasure could have considerable, though not fully explained, power. I managed to extrapolate a possible location, and I dispatched one of the Empire’s operatives to find it.”

“Charles Collier,” said Bent.

Walsingham nodded. “We never heard from him again.”

Maria stared at him. “So you just abandoned him?”

“You must remember, young lady, that this was twenty years ago. Airship travel was not as sophisticated as it is today. We did not have the resources nor Collier’s expertise in the air to send a rescue mission. Other matters and needs subsumed that particular endeavor.” Walsingham took a sip of tea. “Then, some years later, the wider volume from which the pages had been extracted came into my possession. This was called the
Hallendrup Manuscript,
and it appeared to be the work of monks in Denmark in the mid-seventeenth century. It gathered oral and written reports from around the world of many similar, if not identical, ancient treasures that had surfaced at different times and locations. One of them had seemingly originated in ancient Egypt and had been lost, and found, and stolen, and regained, and ended up in the possession of the crew of a Viking longship which had been lost at sea somewhere off the Faroe Islands.”

Maria gasped and touched her temple. Walsingham smiled and nodded. “Yes. The Atlantic Artifact that I gave to Professor Hermann Einstein and that ended up giving you your strange life.”

“I must say,” said Bent, “you’re being awfully free and easy with your secrets today, Walsingham.”

Walsingham spread his hands in an expression of innocence. “It is in all our interests that this Garcia is captured as soon as possible.”

Bent made a harrumphing noise. “I don’t believe you ever give anything away unless it benefits you.”

Walsingham smiled. “Not me, Mr. Bent. The Empire.”

“Let’s say that’s so,” said Bent. “How did
you
come by the Atlantic Artifact?”

“Three years ago the Royal Navy had developed a prototype submersible, an underwater boat. Captain James Palmer—who took you and Gideon to rescue Professor Rubicon and Charles Darwin from the Pacific this summer—and Dr. John Reed effected a retrieval mission. There were a number of unrelated treasures rescued from the wreck of the longship, though the artifact was the only one to return to London. The others were stolen in a betrayal by Palmer’s temporary crew, a strange—I thought at the time—alliance of French and Spanish sailors, spies who had evidently infiltrated the
Lady Jane
.”

“Deliberate treachery?” asked Bent. “But what does it mean? France and Spain have always been at each other’s throats.”

“Not always,” said Walsingham. “At various points in history the House of Bourbon has united French and Spanish territories to a greater or lesser extent. It is my belief that there are moves afoot to restore a Bourbon king to end the perpetual hostilities between France and Spain.”

“To what end?” asked Bent.

“To challenge the British Empire,” said Walsingham. “Apart, and warring, France and Spain are no threat to England. But united…”

Bent shook his head. “Neither France nor Spain would capitulate to the other, even to form an alliance that could be more powerful than Britain.”

“Perhaps not. But if a king came from outside those nations, a popular ruler who had the support and mandate of the people, then the current governments could conceivably be overthrown and a new House of Bourbon established to rule them both.”

Bent laughed. “Ridiculous. Who would have the clout?”

Walsingham looked at him. “How about Louis the Sixteenth?”

Bent stared at him. “You don’t mean those stories are true?”

“The most recent cause of the sustained hostilities between France and Spain dates back to 1781, when a fiery young Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte marched into Paris to take control of a France that was in chaos,” said Walsingham. “What the history books don’t tell us is that Bonaparte was installed surreptitiously by Britain, who edged him into a war with Spain that he readily agreed to. France was in tatters following its support of the terrorists in the failed American rebellion of 1775; Britain punished France by forcibly taking most of its Canadian territories and with the help of our Prussian and Austrian allies forcing severe trade embargoes on the homeland.”

“That is in the history books,” said Bent. “It caused widespread starvation and suffering.”

Walsingham nodded. “Exactly the right conditions for Bonaparte to take control. Before that, though, France was facing a revolution of its own, and fearing for his life Louis the Sixteenth and his court fled to America and the one territory the French still nominally held.”

“Louisiana,” said Maria. “When Mesmer thought I was Charlotte Elmwood he said he would take me there.”

Walsingham smiled. “Then we know who Mesmer’s paymaster is, and therefore who your Sergio de la Garcia works for. And, ultimately, who has Professor Hermann Einstein.”

Lestrade spoke up at last. “You are talking of plots hatched by French kings who should have died a century ago.” He shook his head. “This is madness.”

Bent cackled. “Welcome to our world, George.” He stood and started pacing the study. “All right … so three years ago Walsingham sends John Reed to the arsehole of the Atlantic Ocean to retrieve one of what might be many ancient artifacts, this one ending up in Maria’s head. But the party is gate-crashed by agents of Louis the Sixteenth, who they say is kept alive by witchcraft in New Orleans. They’ve heard of these artifacts, too, we must surmise, though they don’t get away with this one.”

Maria said, “Not long after Professor Einstein … completed me, he showed me off at his club in London. The Elmwoods were there. He was a friend of theirs and had modeled me on Charlotte. But Einstein had not yet fully perfected me.… I am told I ran amok and ended up on Cleveland Street.”

“Where Annie Crook lived and died,” said Bent. “The poor girl whose brain you got.”

Maria nodded. “I fear poor Annie must have thought she had been raised from the dead. I was said to have been terrorizing the local people until Professor Einstein turned up to retrieve me. Caused quite a stir.”

Bent thumped his palm. “Which the Bourbons in Louisiana must, somehow, have heard about.”

Walsingham said, “With the likes of Markus Mesmer on their payroll, who knows how far their influence and spy network reach? We have ignored this simmering threat at our peril, I fear.”

“So they go and get Sergio de la Garcia from Uvalde, evidently aware of his dual identity as El Chupacabras, the greatest swordsman in New Spain,” said Bent. “And using some kind of leverage—his family, perhaps?—they send him to London. They’ve heard—mistakenly, through the grapevine—that the Atlantic Artifact is in the head of a whore. So they set Garcia to slicing open girls’ heads in the East End. And thus the legend of Jack the Ripper is born.”

“But they kidnapped Professor Einstein a year ago,” said Maria. “And the killings continued.”

Bent nodded. “What delicious effing irony. Imagine if they took Einstein from his house with you—the very thing they were looking for—upstairs in a room, clockwork wound down, a drop cloth over you. Einstein obviously kept his mouth shut.”

“Mesmer knew it was an automaton he was looking for,” said Maria.

“Then Einstein must have told them, or hinted, that when you had gotten loose in London and made your way to Cleveland Street, you were never recovered. They were convinced that they were looking for a machine, wandering the streets of Whitechapel for more than two years. A swift strike of El Chupacabras’s sword, the top of a head cut off … then he would know he’d gotten the wrong girl. But for her, it would be too late.”

“And you have arranged a meeting with this Garcia?” said Lestrade.

“Tonight, in Hammersmith,” said Bent.

“Then I should arrange some support from my men,” said the inspector, standing.

There was a shrill rattle of bells. “That’ll be the door,” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “I shall see to it.” She rose from the footstool and left the study.

Walsingham clapped his hands together. “Bravo, Mr. Bent. Excellent deductive work all around.”

Bent sighed. “Doesn’t bring us any closer to getting Gideon back, though, nor finding Charles Collier, which we need to do if we’re going to get Rowena off the hook by ten tomorrow morning.”

There was a sudden shout of “Land sakes!” from the hallway, followed by a shriek. Bent looked up and moved quickly to the study door, calling, “Sally? Is everything—”

When he got to the hall he saw the front door wide open, the housekeeper sprawled against the wood-paneled wall. And bearing down on him was a figure that had evidently shoved Mrs. Cadwallader out of the way. Bent’s eyes widened.

“Gideon, lad, you’ve come home!”

But Gideon Smith said nothing, just kept coming at him with a feral look in his eyes, the blade of a knife flashing in the gaslight.

27

H
EARTS
’ D
ESIRES

Smith was a fury, an avenging elemental force, a thing of muscle and bone fueled by a red mist and a roar of pounding blood in his ears.

And yet, even as he barged past the fat man in the doorway that led to a dimly lit study lined with glass trophy cases, even as he held aloft the knife given to him by Fereng, even as he spied his target, a tall, thin man dressed in black with a hawkish nose and piercing eyes, even as all this happened, something seemed to churn and boil within him.

I know this place
.

Ignoring the other people in the room, he crossed the floor and grabbed the shirtfront of the white-haired man, pushing him hard against the mantelpiece and holding him fast there. He brandished the knife. “You are going to pay for your crimes.”