Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (41 page)

Mr. Tait had stopped dead in his tracks, the pots and pans hanging from his pack jangling. Lyall ran into him. “I say, Mr. Tait, what’s to do?”

“Speaking of dinners giving us indigestion, Mr. Lyall…”

Lyall glanced around his companion. “Ah,” he said. “Smith. And he’s brought friends.”

Tait eyed up Smith’s companions. “There’s a lot of meat on that one there.”

“My name is Gideon Smith, Hero of the Empire,” said their errant meal, pulling back the safety of the revolver he was pointing at them. “And unless you want to end up as treats for the rats to gnaw on, you’d better do as I say.”

*   *   *

“They were going to eat you?” asked Bent, looking at the shabby toshers with disgust. “Like, actually effing eat you?”

The short one, Lyall, put a grubby hand on his chest. “Man cannot live by bread alone.”

“No hard feelings, Mr. Smith, eh?” said Tait. “No need for guns and all that malarkey.”

“I hope not,” said Gideon. “In fact, if you do what I tell you we can forget all about that unpleasantness.”

“Name it, name it,” said Tait, wringing his hands.

“I want you to take us to the place you last saw me.”

Tait and Lyall exchanged glances. “See, that might not be possible.” Gideon pushed the revolver closer, and Tait held up his hands. “On account of there being some kind of roaring monster there that we couldn’t identify. Not for us, that sort of thing.”

“Dinner for the rats it is, then,” said Gideon.

“No need to be too hasty,” said Lyall, nudging Tait in the ribs. “No need for guns. All that, as Mr. Tait says, malarkey. We’ll take you there, won’t we?”

“Oh yes, we’ll take you.” Tait nodded enthusiastically. “Not too close, though, eh? And you promise there’ll be no further repercussions?”

Gideon indicated with the pistol that they should lead the way. As Tait brushed past Bent he squeezed his arm, making the journalist yelp.

“Nice bit of meat on that one,” said Tait wistfully.

“No further repercussions, as long as you stop eyeing my friends and me up as though we were a buffet,” said Gideon. “Move it.”

Bent fell into line at the rear of the procession, looking around with his oil lamp held high. “Underground railways? They’ll not catch me on one of those things.”

Tait glanced back. “Underground railways, sir?”

“Parliament’s debating it tonight,” called Bent. “They want to build tunnels all over London, run steam-trains through them. Not for me.”

Tait and Lyall looked at each other. “Oh, they don’t want to be doing that. Not under London. Oh, dearie me, no,” said Mr. Lyall.

“Move,” said Gideon, pushing the barrel of the gun into Lyall’s arm.

*   *   *

Bent was peering at his fob watch in the dim lamplight when Tait, at the front of the march, held up a hand. The tunnel forked in front of them, one side through what appeared to be a broken-down brick barrier. Gideon recognized it. “This is the place!” he said.

“Then we’ll be taking our leave, having safely delivered you to the roaring monster that we can’t identify,” said Lyall.

“Not yet,” said Gideon. “We might need you.” He passed revolvers from his pack to Maria and Bent. “Keep the weapons on these two at all times. Come on.”

Gideon pushed to the front and led the way until the tunnel widened, and a sloping tunnel forked off to the right. He whispered, “This is it.”

Gideon led them all into the tunnel, Tait whimpering. As they turned the bend there was a faint glow, from the fire that Gideon remembered Phoolendu keeping burning at all times. He put a finger to his lips and then leaped around the corner, holding up his gun.

The room was empty.

Bent joined him, pushing the toshers ahead. “This was the place?”

Gideon tugged at the ring in the wall where the tyrannosaur had been tethered. There was a small pile of dung close by. “Yes. They’re on the move. But where?”

“Collier did not tell you what his plan was for the monster?” asked Maria.

Gideon shook his head. “He spoke in riddles. His companions are Thuggees. They kill to keep the death-goddess Kali returning to destroy the world. Every life they take, they say, delays Kali’s return for a thousand years.”

Gideon walked to the abandoned camp, picking up that morning’s newspaper scattered on the ground. The front-page story was about Parliament meeting that evening to debate the underground railway.

“All Fereng said was that what he had planned would keep Kali away from the world for six hundred and seventy thousand years. I thought that was odd, very … specific.”

Bent frowned. “Six hundred and seventy thousand years? So … six hundred and seventy people would die?”

Gideon nodded, absently reading the front of the newspaper. “Where would there be precisely six hundred and seventy people in one place at one time?”

Bent stuck his lip out, thinking, then his eyes widened. “Six hundred and seventy? Jesus effing Christ, Gideon.”

Gideon stared at him. “What?”

Bent pointed at the newspaper in his hands. “There are exactly six hundred and seventy Members of Parliament.”

Gideon looked down at the front page again. “And they are all meeting right now.” He looked up. “Collier’s going to let loose the tyrannosaur in the House of Commons.”

Bent looked at his watch and moaned. “We need to get to Hammersmith if we’re going to nab Jack the Ripper.” He swore loudly and long. “All we needed was a bit of Collier’s blood to get Rowena off the bloody hook. One effing drop. What if he’s not at Parliament? What if he’s gone for good, left his Thuggees to do his dirty work? She’s going to hang, Gideon.”

Maria put a hand on Bent’s arm. “Aloysius … did you say a drop of blood?”

He nodded. “For Miescher and his machine.”

Maria looked at Gideon, and back to Bent. “Wasn’t Inspector Lestrade’s shirt covered in Charles Collier’s blood?”

Bent’s mouth fell open. “By eff, you’re right, girl!”

“Right,” Gideon said. “Aloysius, Maria, you get back up there, go to the Commercial Road police station, and get the shirt from Lestrade. You’ll have time to get it to Miescher and then be at the Dove to catch Garcia. Alert Lestrade about the impending attack on Parliament, have him send the police, the bloody Duke of Wellington’s Regiment.”

“What are you going to do?” said Maria.

Gideon smiled tightly. “Mr. Tait and Mr. Lyall are going to show me the quickest way to the House of Commons, where I’ll try to stop this insanity.”

Bent put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be reckless.”

Gideon nodded. “Then don’t be long.”

*   *   *

As Bent helped Maria out of the manhole cover he had shouldered out of the way, she stepped up and cursed as the heel on her right ankle boot snapped clean off. “These clothes are quite impractical,” she said.

Bent looked around to get his bearings. “That’s what ladies wear, unfortunately. Ah, I think we’re on Milk Street, off Cheapside. Had we better get a cab to Commercial Road?”

Maria hobbled off to the busy thoroughfare of Cheapside, Bent behind her, as a horse-drawn police carriage suddenly rounded the bend, siren wailing, and thundered up the street.

“Hold on!” shouted Bent, waving at the driver, who ignored him. But running behind was a knot of constables on foot. Bent hailed the nearest one. “Where are you going? You need to get to Parliament, immediately!”

The policeman glared at him. “There’s a bloody riot! They’re attacking the Commercial Road police station! Going to burn it down! Every copper in London is on his way there.”

As he ran to join his comrades, Bent turned to Maria. “Effing hell. We’ll never get in there now. And we need George Lestrade’s shirt.”

Maria snapped her fingers. “How far are we from Soho?”

“Wrong bloody direction, girl! Why?”

“Because I think I know someone who can get us into the police station, riot or no riot.”

*   *   *

“Who exactly are we here to see, again?” asked Bent, breathless after huffing up three flights of cramped stairs to the apartment above a gin palace on Manette Street. He’d gazed longingly through the window of the establishment, from where music and laughter emanated, until Maria hauled him up the stairs to the address she had written on a piece of paper. She banged on the door until it opened and a cautious face appeared, framed by unruly hair.

“Gloria Monday!”

“Maria!” said Gloria, opening the door wide. She glanced at Bent. “Who’s your friend? If he’s going to gawp at me like that, tell him to come back in the summer when he can at least catch the flies.”

“This is Aloysius Bent, a journalist and a very good friend of mine,” said Maria. “We need your help.”

Bent nudged Maria and whispered, “It’s a feller! Done up as a woman!”

Maria glared at him. “No, she’s not. She’s a woman.”

Gloria, wearing a silk housecoat with embroidered dragons chasing each other along it, opened the door and let them into the small apartment, furnished with a bed in one corner and a small living area with cotton throws over moth-eaten sofas.

“Are you in trouble?” asked Gloria.

Maria limped in. “Gloria, you said you had a sweetheart? At Commercial Road?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s this about? He’s a journalist?”

Maria took hold of Gloria’s arm. “You said you had a secret way in. The police station is under attack. Some kind of mob. We urgently need to get to—”

“George!” said Gloria, her hand flying to her mouth.

Maria blinked. “Why, yes. George Lestrade. How did—”

Gloria grabbed Maria’s coat. “Is George hurt?”

Bent snapped his fingers. “You! You’re Lestrade’s secret love!”

Gloria sighed. “Not any longer, by all accounts. But yes, come, we must go. I can get us inside.” She looked down at Maria’s feet. “You have broken a heel. You need boots?”

“These blasted clothes are useless,” said Maria. “I don’t know why anyone would want to be a lady, Gloria, honestly. The outfits are no use at all for adventuring.”

Gloria tapped her chin with a painted nail. “Quick, come with me. I was never a big man, and my old clothes probably would not look too amiss on you. If you really want something more … pragmatic…”

“Is this strictly necessary?” moaned Bent.

Gloria put her face against his. “Whatever your need at Commercial Road, mine is probably greater, Mr. Bent. But a woman cannot function properly without appropriate clothes. We shall be one minute.”

They were ten seconds less than that, by Bent’s watch. Gloria came first, dressed in a long, flowing dress and petticoats, boots laced to her knee, and a woolen shawl. Behind her came Maria.

“My old suit,” said Gloria. “It was silly keeping it, but I hung on to it in case … well, I needed to make a sharp exit sometime, disguised as my old self. But I’m glad to let it go, let my old life go, at last. And I think you’ll agree that Maria looks stunning.”

Maria had tied her hair back in a loose ponytail and kept her ruffled-lapel white blouse on beneath the elegantly tailored two-piece suit in brown and sky-blue pinstripes, the trousers forced into a pair of black leather boots with a short heel.

“I’m ready,” said Maria. “Now let’s finish this.”

29

F
OR
THE
A
VOIDANCE
OF
F
URTHER
D
OUBT

George Lestrade was searching through the uniform store looking vainly for a clean shirt when Constable Ayres found him.

“Crikey, sir. Are you injured?”

“No, the blood is not mine, Constable. I would quite like a clean shirt, though. Do we have any?”

Ayres coughed. “I think that might have to wait, Inspector. We have what you could call a situation.”

Lestrade glared at him, inviting him to tell his superior officer what was more important than him getting out of a bloodstained shirt. Ayres said, “The station is under attack, sir. By a very angry mob.”

Five minutes later Lestrade was on the steps of the station, flanked by two uniformed officers wielding revolvers.

Not that the peashooters would do much good. There were hundreds of them. Commercial Road was a sea of bodies, shouting and jostling, waving burning torches and jeering at him.

“I am Inspector George Lestrade,” he shouted. The mob quieted somewhat. “Who is the leader here?”

A big man with an eye patch wielding a length of iron pipe waved at him from the front of the crowd. Beside him was a hatchet-faced woman with skin the color of rancid bacon, spilling out of a grubby dress. Lizzie Strutter.

Lestrade addressed the man but directed his narrow-eyed gaze at the woman. “What is the meaning of this?”

“You’ve got Jack the Ripper in there!” bellowed the man. The mob began to bay and cheer.

“Nobody of that name here,” said Lestrade calmly.

“We know you’ve got him! Hand him over.”

Lestrade took a deep breath. “If indeed we have anyone arrested in connection with any crimes, it will be a matter for the courts to decide—”

“Hand him over, or we burn the fucking place down!”

A stone smacked into the brickwork beside Lestrade’s head, and he flinched as another and another rained on him.

“Inside,” he hissed to the constables, then called, “Disperse now, or we shall be forced to arrest you for breaching the public peace.”

Another stone narrowly missed his head. “All of us?” someone called back.

Lestrade decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valor, and he hurried inside as a hail of missiles began to pelt the frontage of the station.

“Constable Ayres,” he said as the two officers secured the doors. “Call Scotland Yard and—”

“Tried, sir,” said Ayres. “I think they’ve cut the telephone wires. And I’ve been on the roof, sir. They’ve got us surrounded. There are thousands of ’em, I should say.”

Somewhere there was the sound of smashing glass. Lestrade said, “Then let us hope someone notices something is amiss and gets reinforcements here before things turn very nasty indeed.”

*   *   *

“Who are you?” asked Lestrade.

The man in the cell in the basement looked miserably at him through the bars. “I told you. My name is James Woodcock, and I’m Jack the Ripper.” But his words lacked conviction, and fear brimmed in his eyes.