Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (42 page)

“Have you ever met an Austrian called Markus Mesmer?”

“I’m Jack the Ripper,” said the man quietly.

Lestrade sighed. “There are several hundred—perhaps thousands—of angry East Enders threatening to burn down my station unless I hand over Jack the Ripper. Perhaps I should comply with their wishes.”

Constable Ayres spoke up. “Strictly speaking, sir, that would be against the regulations.”

Lestrade ignored him. “Well, Woodcock?”

The man began to cry. Between his snotty sobs he said miserably, “I’m Jack the Ripper.”

There was a sudden noise off to his left. A door led to a utility room, and in the floor was a trapdoor.… Had the mob found the secret tunnel? He glanced at Ayres and quietly drew his revolver as the handle rattled and then the door burst open, disgorging a lumpish gray figure into the basement. Lestrade raised his gun then gaped.

“Aloysius Bent,” he said.

“Thank effing Christ,” said Bent. “You’ve not changed your effing shirt.”

Lestrade glanced at Ayres. “Lower your weapon, Constable. It’s a friend.”

“If I ever have to go down an effing sewer again within a century of tonight it’ll be too soon,” said Bent. He grinned at Lestrade and stepped to one side. “Look who brought us, George.”

Lestrade felt the strength desert him as she stepped through the doorway. “Gloria,” he said weakly. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

She stepped forward to him, Maria emerging behind her. “I know. I’m sorry, George, but it’s an emergency.” She glanced at Ayres. “I’m not trying to make things difficult, turning up uninvited.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he said, opening his arms to embrace her. “It’s not safe. The mob…”

Ayres was looking aghast at him, at Gloria. “Inspector Lestrade…,” he said slowly. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s a man. Do I need to remind you that according to section eleven of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, gross indecency between two males is highly prohibited, and—”

“Constable Ayres,” said Lestrade, still embracing Gloria Monday, “just fuck off, will you?”

Then he kissed her hard on the lips.

*   *   *

“I must say, George, you’re a dark horse, aren’t you,” said Bent as they tramped the five hundred yards along the sewer from the long-forgotten service hatch that led into the bowels of the Commercial Road police station to the nearest manhole several streets away, beyond the rampaging mob.

Lestrade, shivering shirtless under his jacket and wool overcoat, his bloodstained garment safely bagged by Bent, shrugged. “From the moment I saw her onstage, I fell in love. Even when I found out what …
who
she was, I couldn’t help myself. We didn’t dare meet in public, not at first. I used to smuggle her into the station through here, in the dead of night. We’d sleep in the cells, if they were empty. Then I started to stop caring. Sometimes the heart is beyond even the law. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Bent. “Even I’ve got a heart, George.”

Gloria, walking a little way ahead with Maria, turned. “Oh, George, I’ve gone and ruined everything for you now.”

“At least I’ll go out with a bang, not a whimper,” said Lestrade.

*   *   *

On the surface they could hear the sounds of running battle, the hand-cranked sirens on police carriages and fire carts sounding in the distance. Lestrade spied a phalanx of coppers making their way through the backstreets toward the station and went to hail them.

“You’re sure you have Siddell’s address?” asked Bent. “Miescher’s staying with him, if the idiot hasn’t managed to lose him.”

Maria nodded and took the bag containing Lestrade’s shirt from him. “I’ll get it to him now and ensure he has the results ready for court tomorrow. Then I’ll come and find you in Hammersmith.”

“You don’t have to,” said Bent. “You can go home, wait for news from Gideon.”

She shook her head. “I feel responsible for Charlotte Elmwood. I need to know she comes out of this safely.”

Lestrade returned. “We need to move quickly. The mob’s gone crazy, by all accounts, smashing up and burning anything and everything within sight. They’re moving this way.”

“Did you tell those coppers they need to get word out about Westminster?”

Lestrade nodded. “Every officer in London is on his way here, to try to contain the riot. I don’t think they understood the gravity of the situation.”

Maria bit her lip. “Gideon…”

“Let’s get Garcia nabbed, then we’ll get over to Parliament. Now go, Maria! And be careful!”

She nodded and disappeared into the night. Bent looked at Lestrade and Gloria. Perhaps not who he had expected to have at his back to rescue the Elmwood girl from the greatest swordsman in New Spain then stop a dinosaur chomping its way through the House of Commons. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. He grinned. “Come on, you two. Hammersmith. Didn’t I tell you a week ago we were going to nail Jack the Ripper, George?”

*   *   *

One disadvantage of being down in the sewers with his full faculties about him was that it was much more difficult to stave off his looming fear that he was about to be crushed by the tons of earth and stone pressing down on him from above. It was an irrational fear—there was much more to be afraid of than the possibility of being suffocated in a tunnel collapse, not least the pair of cannibalistic toshers he had co-opted as his guides and the ring of assassins and their pet dinosaur they were taking him to. That didn’t stop the constricting feeling about his chest, though, nor the shortness of breath and the distant pounding in his ears.

Mr. Lyall was taking a deep breath and about to burst into song when Gideon slapped him suddenly in the chest then put a finger to his lips. Had he heard voices up ahead? It was difficult to tell.… Sometimes the rising and falling of the sewer ledges brought them tantalizingly close to the surface, and voices drifted down through the grates. And the gases Gideon was sure the putrid river of effluent gave off must affect a man’s mind—how else did one account for Tait and Lyall? But no, there were definitely voices ahead. He indicated for the toshers to be quiet again, then crept forward to where the sewer split into a crossroads. Tait had said they were pretty much under the Palace of Westminster now, but Gideon had refused to let them go until he was sure.

Tait and Lyall had evidently decided that they had gone far enough, though, for Gideon hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when he heard a jangling of pans and sudden shouts, and looked over his shoulder to see Lyall running along the ledge back the way they had come, the taller Tait sloshing after him in the shallow channel of filth.

The element of surprise was lost in any case, so he shouted after his retreating guides, “And no eating anyone! I’ll find out if you do, and I’ll come for you.”

He sighed and turned back, jumping despite himself at Kalanath’s scarred visage, smiling viciously just two inches from his own. He felt a hand relieve him of his gun, Naakesh melting out of the darkness beside him, and the snap, snap, snapping of Phoolendu’s leather garroting thong.

They led him forward toward dull but brightening lights, a ring of rusting oil lamps illuminating a shadowed alcove in which Deeptendu stood with Charles Collier, the monkey, Jip, sitting on his shoulder.

Gideon inclined his head slightly. “Fereng. I am relieved to see you are not injured. There was a lot of blood.”

Collier kept his eyes locked with Gideon’s. “A slight wound in the fleshy part of my thigh.” He paused. “You killed Walsingham for me?”

Gideon raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t stay around long enough to find out.”

Fereng’s eyes flickered for the first time. “No. I was not prepared for the response. I could not allow myself to be taken. Not so close to my vengeance being fulfilled.”

“Where is the beast?” asked Gideon.

Fereng indicated upward with a nod of his head. Above him in the alcove Gideon realized there was a black shaft; iron rungs were inlaid into the slimy brick wall.

“Some kind of service tunnel, which accesses the space directly below the chamber of the House of Commons,” said Gideon.

It was Fereng’s turn to raise an eyebrow in surprise. “Who are you?”

“Gideon Smith. The Hero of the Empire.”

Fereng shrugged. “Never heard of you. But I have been away a long time. And, you’ll come to realize just as I did, heroes are ten a penny.”

“How did you get the monster up there?” asked Gideon. “I’m genuinely interested.”

“We drugged it. With opium. It should be waking up soon, with a fearful hunger on it. We trussed it up in a rope net and hauled it up there, the five of us. It is suspended beneath a service hatch hidden beneath a rug just in front of the speaker’s seat. When the monster wakes, there is only one way for it to go. Up.”

“Its name is Tiddles, would you believe?” said Gideon with a crooked smile.

Fereng’s eyes narrowed. “Did you genuinely lose your memory, or was that merely a ruse to infiltrate us?”

“There was no plot, Fereng. I really had my mind wiped, by a man called Markus Mesmer. It was serendipity that brought me to you.”

Collier bared his teeth. “That means ‘happy accident.’ I hardly think it was that, Smith.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You should have stayed at Grosvenor Square, Fereng. You might have learned something interesting.”

“What, that the man I thought my ally was in fact my enemy, and now he has come to try to foil my plan?”

Gideon leaned in and peered up the pitch-dark shaft. Did he fancy he could hear the snuffling of the tyrannosaur, emerging from its slumber? He said, “I met one before, you know. That one’s mother, in fact. Three times as big. I defeated that one without much trouble.”

Though
with
a brass dragon that could spit fireballs, he neglected to add. And now he didn’t even have a gun. Fereng, though, looked mildly impressed. “Is that why I should have stayed at Grosvenor Square? Would I have learned that you are a good little soldier who even throws himself into the jaws of long-extinct beasts for a pat on the head from his paymasters?”

That hurt Gideon enough for him to know for sure that it hadn’t been Mesmer’s hypnosis that had made him so ready to accept Fereng’s words. Perhaps he did believe in the old hero; maybe on some level he did share his disgust and dismay at how his empire behaved. But it was just as Aloysius had said.…

“I don’t do it for Walsingham. I do this for the people.”

Fereng laughed. “Those who are not complicit are sheep. Either way, they are worthless.”

“That’s what John Reed thought,” said Gideon. “He was wrong, too. And worthless, Fereng? All of them? Even your daughter?”

Charles Collier’s brow darkened. “Don’t even dare, Smith. Jane is dead.”

Above, there was a creaking of ropes and the tentative growl of a hungry, disoriented beast waking up in the darkness. It was time to play his trump card.

“No, she isn’t,” said Gideon. “She isn’t dead, Charles. Jane is alive.”

*   *   *

For the first time in what felt like weeks, the dense white cloud that had smothered London thinned and parted, allowing the light of the full moon to break through and lend an eerie glow to the snow-covered streets. There was an alley alongside the Dove, a venerable tavern that backed on to the Thames, from where Aloysius Bent swore they drew the water with which they watered down the beer and whisky.

“Stuff that’s in that water, it’s kill or cure, a drink in the Dove. Either sees you off or gives you an iron constitution.”

Bent, Lestrade, and Gloria had done a circuit around the busy pub and decamped outside to the mouth of the alley, unlit but possessed of a blue gloom as the slush reflected the moonlight. Bent watched Lestrade and Gloria hand in hand; a year ago he’d have been splashing them all across the
Argus
. Today … well, he privately found it did his old heart good. Either he was getting soft in his old age, or … He thought briefly of Mrs. Cadwallader, throwing her shield and spear aside with a clatter, tearing down her own dress.

Keep your mind on the job, Aloysius.

“Ssh,” said Bent, suddenly alert. He peered down the alley. It was very narrow—wide enough for one person to pass comfortably along, or perhaps not so comfortably if that person was Aloysius Bent. He took out his watch. They were still an hour ahead of the appointed meeting time, but he’d seen some movement down the way.

He motioned for George to get out his gun and for the pair to follow him, then edged down the alley, calling softly,
“Señor Hombre de Negro! Señor Hombre de Negro!”

There was silence, then Bent caught a sudden movement, and a deep voice said uncertainly, “Mesmer?”

Bent looked back at Lestrade, his eyes wide. At last. After all these years, he was going to nab Jack the Ripper.

He put out his hand to Gloria, who handed over the oil lantern, lit but shielded by hinged copper doors. Bent held it aloft and flipped open the shutters, flooding the alley with yellow light.

And there he was, Sergio de la Garcia, dressed from head to toe in black, his eyes white behind the holes cut into his cowl, his rapier point held at the throat of a terrified-looking Charlotte Elmwood, gagged and bound by many coils of thick rope around her arms and torso.

Bent held up a hand. “Don’t panic, Garcia. Yes, we know who you are. And what you’ve done. Hand over the girl. It’s not who you think it is. You’re going to put the sword down and hand over the girl.”

“Yes, indeed, you are,” said a new voice from the alley behind George and Gloria. “But not to these people. As you were, El Chupacabras.”

“Ah, those clipped Germanic tones. Mr. Mesmer, I presume,” said Bent, glancing over his shoulder but not wanting to take his attention away from Garcia for too long.

“Mr. Aloysius Bent,” said Mesmer. “And Inspector George Lestrade. And, how curious, the she-man who has been performing in the very same theater as myself. What an odd coincidence. I suggest you all lay down your weapons; I have five men, all armed.”

Bent looked behind him again. He could indeed make out two or three shapes behind Mesmer, pointing guns over the shoulder of the Austrian, who Bent saw was carrying a heavy-looking leather valise. The others were lost to sight in the shadows. He said, “He’s right, George. Put down your gun.”