Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (39 page)

The man, Walsingham, met his eyes with an ice-cold stare. “Crimes? I can see only one criminal here, Mr. Smith. Are you now a villain?”

“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?”

Smith shook his head as though to clear away the sudden memories that clung to him. The fat man he had pushed out of the way said, “Gideon, what the eff are you doing?”

These people know me.

“The British Empire is the villain of the world,” he spat, forcing the blade against the thin neck of Walsingham. “And you are its shadowy architect.”

Walsingham raised an eyebrow. “You mean to kill me?”

He pressed the blade tighter, digging into the pale parchment flesh. “Yes. For justice. For vengeance.”

“Gideon,” said the fat man again, “this isn’t you, lad. You’re under Mesmer’s spell. You’re an effing hero!”

“What are you doing here, Herr Smith? Playing the hero?” He paused for a moment. “But what is a hero? A man who does as he is told, or who finds his own way? And are heroes born or made, Herr Smith? Shall we find out?”

His resolve slackened, as did the pressure he placed on the knife. Then he thought of Fereng’s words, the pictures he painted of the starving hordes in India watching grain and rice transported to London, the island where he was abandoned by his government. He forced the knife harder against Walsingham’s throat.

Then she spoke. He had barely noticed her in the room, but her words were honey, oozing into his head.

“Gideon. Gideon, it’s me. Maria.”

Maria?

“Yes, Herr Smith. Are heroes born or made? What if we took away all your heroic doings? What if we wiped the slate clean?”

“Maria?” he said uncertainly.

She moved into his sight line, and he gasped at her beauty.

She said, “When I brought Charlotte Elmwood out of Mesmer’s influence, I used a doll she had loved since childhood. Look around you, Gideon. Here are the things you love, the trophies of Captain Trigger and John Reed. The heroism you have worshipped all your life.”

But he couldn’t look, couldn’t tear away his eyes from Maria’s perfection, the blond hair cascading over the knitted shawl on her shoulders, the flawless skin, the eyes that danced with bright intelligence.

No, he didn’t love these trinkets in glass cases. He loved … he loved …

“Or,” she said, “I can give you this.”

He didn’t protest as she moved toward him, felt the strength drain out of him and his knife fall away from Walsingham’s throat as she took his face in her beautiful hands, and allowed her to turn him to face her.

He loved. He loved.

She kissed him.

He loved Maria.

He was …

He pulled away, and blinked. “I’m Gideon Smith,” he said.

The fat man—no, Aloysius Bent—cheered. “Thank eff for that! Now lad, quickly, where’s Charles Collier?”

Gideon looked at him. “Collier? Fereng? Why, he’s outside.”

Bent’s eyes widened. “Lestrade!”

But the man with the mustache and pinprick eyes was already running toward the door.

*   *   *

Lestrade was out of the door like a ferret, and by the time Bent reached it the policeman was tearing across the square toward a figure limping near the railed-off garden at the center. The inspector’s quarry was wiry and thin, hobbling on what looked like a wooden leg protruding from his right knee, with long, gray hair tied into a ponytail. Charles Collier? He looked a damn sight different than he had on the cover of the penny dreadful. What was it Gideon had called him? Fereng? But there was no time to ponder as Lestrade dove in a very effective rugby tackle at the fleeing man, bringing him down in a drift of blackening snow.

“Go on, George! Hit him!” called Bent, hurrying across the road just as a figure loomed out of the gathering dusk and slammed into him. Bent spun around and onto his backside, glaring at the thickset Indian in a black turban who had shoved him out of the way.

“Watch where you’re going, fatty!” yelled Bent.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Hark at yourself, you elephantine fool!”

Bent tried to climb to his feet, but the man kicked him, hard, in the guts, and he fell back with a groan. He looked across the road to see Lestrade and Collier rolling in the snow, and three other turbaned shapes materializing out of the gloom. Two of them made for where Collier and Lestrade fought, the other running up to the fat one who had felled him.

“Phoolendu?”

“It is all OK, Naakesh. This one is no threat.”

“I’ll give you no threat,” said Bent, rolling onto his belly to push himself up. But the one called Phoolendu sat heavily on his back with a laugh.

“Irresistible force meets immovable object!”

“I will help Fereng,” said the other, running across the road.

With Phoolendu on his back, Bent could only watch helplessly as the Indians hauled Lestrade off Collier and threw him against the railings, where he lay woefully still. They helped the one-legged man up and, one on each side of him, began to lope across the square.

“Gideon!” shouted Bent. “Gideon, where are you?”

“Time to leave!” said Phoolendu, jumping up and heading with remarkable fleetness of foot after the others. Bent pushed himself onto his knees just as Gideon emerged with Maria and Walsingham in his wake.

“George is down,” said Bent as Gideon helped him up. “Your mate Collier … God effing knows.”

They hurried across the square to Lestrade and Bent turned him over, drawing back in shock at the blossom of bright red blood that colored his shirtfront.

“Good God, George,” said Bent. “Has he killed you…?”

Lestrade stirred, evidently just stunned. His eyes widened as he looked at the blood on his shirt, and he patted himself down. “He had a knife, but … I don’t think…” He pulled himself to his feet. “I think he must have stuck himself in the struggle. This is his blood.”

Bent peered across the square. “No sign.”

“They’ll have gone into the sewers,” said Gideon. “That’s where they’re hiding.”

Lestrade straightened his coat and tie and said, “I shall get back to Commercial Road station immediately and organize some patrols.”

“Bloody hell,” said Bent, smacking his palms together. “Collier. We nearly had him. We nearly saved Rowena.”

Gideon frowned. “Rowena? She needs saving?”

Bent looked at his watch. “A lot’s happened while you’ve been away, son. We need to get ready to reel in Jack the Ripper.” He wrinkled his nose. “You could probably do with a bath first. You don’t half stink. Come on, I’ll bring you up to date indoors.”

*   *   *

Gideon stood on the landing on the upper story, looking out the picture window at Grosvenor Square and the rooftops of London beyond, while Mrs. Cadwallader drew a hot bath for him. He had been informed over a welcome pot of tea of everything that had happened while he had been in the sewers with Fereng.

“It’s good to have you back, Gideon.”

He hadn’t heard Bent padding up the stairs. Without turning he said, “It’s good to be back. I think. I feel … odd. Empty.”

Bent joined him at the window. “Mesmer did a right number on you, by all accounts. Don’t blame yourself for anything that’s happened, lad. The hypnosis … it made you susceptible to Collier’s poison.”

Gideon shook his head vehemently. “It’s not that, Aloysius. Not just that. It’s…” He turned to look at his friend. “Despite everything, I can’t condemn Fereng—Charles Collier—for what he’s done. Not even murder. Not even sending me to kill Walsingham. The things he told me … It’s as though all our enemies, their villainy is forged in the furnaces of Britain’s relentless march across the globe.”

“He has Tiddles, doesn’t he?” said Bent. “I mean … he has a dinosaur. The baby tyrannosaur he nicked from Professor Rubicon’s.”

“So that’s where it came from,” said Gideon, nodding. “Yes, he does. But I have no idea what he plans to do with it.”

“We’ll have to find him,” said Bent. “For Rowena’s sake. I’m going to call George Lestrade at the Commercial Road station in a minute. Think you can remember where Collier’s hiding out?”

Gideon shook his head. “I’m not sure. Underground, somewhere near Whitechapel.” He gazed out the window and then said, “Do I really want to be a hero for this empire, Aloysius? Do I really want to work for Walsingham?”

Bent chuckled. “I remember asking you that way back when we were on the airship chasing the dragon from Egypt to London. I told you what governments are capable of. Especially ours. But…” He put a hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “Look. Out there. At London. It’s not Walsingham you work for, not really. It’s
them
. There’s good and bad out there, Gideon, angels and devils. But they’re all just people, really, trying their best to get on with life in all the myriad ways they know how. And it’s them you’re the hero to, Gideon. It just so happens that most of the time their needs and the government’s needs match up.”

Gideon turned to look at him. “And when such time arrives that they don’t?”

Bent smiled. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, eh? Now, I think your bath’s ready.” He wrinkled his nose. “You really do stink, you know?”

*   *   *

Bent found Mrs. Cadwallader in the study, righting the tables and potted plants that had been upended during the struggle. “Gideon in his bath?” he said.

She nodded, smiling a thank you as Bent took hold of the edge of a chair with her and stood it up. “Life doesn’t get any less exhausting, does it?”

“Not around here, Sally. I mean—”

She smiled again, somewhat wearily. “It’s all right, Mr. Bent. Aloysius, if you prefer.” She paused. “You will be careful tonight? All of you?”

“Of course, Sally!” said Bent, his heart suddenly banging in his chest. “I…” He paused, cocking his head. “Did you hear that?”

They both turned to the glass cabinet in the corner, where a contraption of wires and lenses sitting on a velvet cushion had begun ticking like a clock.

“That’s the old Hypno-Array of Markus Mesmer,” said Bent, frowning. “From years ago, when Dr. Reed ran into him.…”

“But what is it doing?” asked Mrs. Cadwallader.

*   *   *

The bath at least made Gideon feel more human again. He shaved the black whiskers from his cheeks and chin, staring at himself in the fogged mirror.

Who are you?

He wasn’t sure he knew the answer any more than he had when he’d asked it of himself in the aftermath of Mesmer’s hypnotic attack. But perhaps people never knew the answer to that question, not until they were on their deathbed. He was Gideon Smith. He was the Hero of the Empire.

“I’m the Hero of the Empire,” he said aloud. The words felt hollow. Had Collier tricked him? Somehow, he felt not. Collier was what he was, the product of the British Empire. He had gone bad, in Britain’s eyes. Just like John Reed had. But were there any villains, really? And if villainy was just a matter of perspective, did the same ring true for heroism?

Wrapped in a huge towel, Gideon padded out of the bathroom and made for his room. As he passed Maria’s quarters, her door opened. He stopped, and they locked eyes for a moment. She wore a silk dressing gown, clutching it closed at her breast. He stood there, dripping water on the carpet, staring at her. She took a step toward him, reached out, and took hold of the towel bunched at his waist, dragging him with surprising force into her room.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, closing the door and pushing him against it.

He was stirring beneath the towel, and he wrapped his arms around her neck, drawing her lips to his. She let go of the silk gown, letting it fall open to reveal her milk-white nakedness beneath.

“Touch me,” she instructed, taking his hand and placing it between her legs. She gasped as he laid his fingers on her.

“You can feel that? It’s nice?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I can, and it is. I can feel more and more, day by day.” She took his other hand. “And touch me here. And here.”

He followed her instructions as she loosened the towel. He murmured, “Lie on the bed.”

“No,” she said. “
You
lie on the bed.”

He blinked and smiled as she turned him around and steered him, backward, toward the bed. She smiled back. “While you have been away I have been learning how to be a lady. And how
not
to be.”

The towel dropped away, and Gideon fell backward onto Maria’s bed as she shucked off the dressing gown and began to sit astride him. Then she stopped. “Did you hear that?”

“No, I don’t—” he began, then paused. He had heard something, a whirring and ticking as though …

“Oh,” said Maria. Gideon followed her gaze to the bedside table, where there resided a mesh of wires, gears, and lenses that, too late, he recognized.

“It’s the Hypno-Array I stole from Markus Mesmer,” said Maria.

Then a silent rainbow explosion filled the room.

*   *   *

Markus Mesmer waited impatiently as Alain, who had been a burglar in Paris of some notoriety, picked the lock to the front door of 23 Grosvenor Square. When the thin Frenchman clicked his tongue and pushed the door open, Mesmer strode into the hall, his henchman Alfonso following close behind. He did not have much time. He had never tried to activate his Hypno-Arrays from a distance before, and guessed that the instructions he had mentally projected—to give anyone within sight of them their heart’s desires—would not have a long-lasting effect.

*   *   *

He looked around the empty lower floors of the house. So this was where Einstein’s automaton had been hiding all this time. She must have left the stolen Hypno-Array here before getting herself captured by Garcia. Above him he heard the rhythmic creaking of bedsprings; so the house was not empty, then, and someone was getting their heart’s desire. He could hear voices, perhaps from a kitchen to the rear of the house, and stole across the hall as quietly as he could. He entered a room he guessed was a study, and a mystery was solved. Behind a pane of shattered glass in what appeared to be a trophy cabinet was a very old, early version of his Hypno-Array. He smiled. One taken from him by Dr. John Reed. So Maria had been hidden here, by his old foes Reed and Trigger? Their house inhabited after their deaths by their successor, Mr. Gideon Smith?