Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (43 page)

“I am an officer of the Metropolitan Police,” said Lestrade, still aiming his gun over Bent’s shoulder at Garcia. “And I am about to arrest that man.”

“No, you’re not,” said Mesmer, “or the she-man is shot first.”

Slowly, Lestrade lowered the gun and dropped it at his feet.

“Please,” said Garcia. “I do not know who you people are, but Mesmer … take the automaton. I so dearly want to go home.”

“That is what we are all going to do, Sergio,” said Mesmer softly.

“Have you told him?” asked Bent, twisting around in the alley, putting the swordsman at his back. Had he just seen…? He asked, “Have you told Garcia that his wife and kids are dead?”

There was a half-cry from behind him. “You lie! Mesmer, he lies!”

“Typhus, wasn’t it?” said Bent coolly. “You going to tell him the truth, Mesmer?”

There it was again. He was sure this time. Bent pressed his advantage. “On top of all that, you’ve got the wrong girl, Garcia. That’s Charlotte Elmwood.”

“Mesmer! Tell me he is lying!” said Garcia.

“He’s lying,” said Mesmer. “How could he possibly know?”

“Same way as I know Garcia’s got a daughter back in New Spain. Inez.”

Garcia gasped. “How can you know that? It was a secret known only to myself and the girl’s mother.”

“And Don Juan Batiste, who took them in for you to stop you being ruined, as you had a wife and daughters already. He told her, by the way. Fed up of trying to live up to your shining example. She’s even taken up the mantle of La Chupacabras, though I don’t think she’d be too impressed to see you like this, skulking in an alley, the blood of God knows how many innocent women on your hands.”

Bent looked at Garcia, whose sword was wavering. The Spaniard eyed Charlotte. “This is not the automaton?”

Mesmer sighed loudly. “Yet more penny dreadful melodrama. You must understand, Garcia, these people live their lives as though everything is a badly written adventure story. Unfortunately, I refuse to fit their stereotype of the villain. Yes, it is the automaton. Yes, your wife and children are dead. Yes, I am going to have everyone here shot. Even you, you crazy, sword-wielding Spaniard. Your usefulness is at an end. Alfonso, the rest of you, kill them.”

Bent was just in time to see a black-gloved hand cover the face of the Spaniard behind Mesmer and drag the hefty henchman back into the shadows. Just as he’d seen happen to each of the thugs in the narrow alley. One by one, Mesmer’s henchmen had been silently and systematically taken out, and now the Austrian was alone.

Mesmer turned around. “Alfonso? Alain…?”

But the thugs weren’t there. Instead, her gloved fists on the hips of her trousers, her ponytail hanging down over the lapel of her jacket, was Maria. Bent broke out in a broad grin. Couldn’t have timed it any effing better.

“They’re out cold,” said Maria, the lamplight illuminating her as though she were some avenging Greek goddess. “You’re on your own.”

Mesmer glanced back toward Charlotte Elmwood, frowning. “But which…?”

Maria raised an eyebrow. “For the avoidance of any further doubt, Mesmer, you should be aware that never again will I deny what I am or pretend to be something I’m not. I’m Maria.”

Then she drew back her fist and let loose a punch that knocked Markus Mesmer clean out. Lestrade bent down and scooped up his revolver, training it on Garcia while feeling around with his free hand for Mesmer’s valise. “Drop that sword, matey, you are well and truly caught.”

As the rapier clattered to the cobbles, Bent felt like crying. They’d done it. They’d gotten Jack the effing Ripper at last.

30

“A L
OST
F
ATHER
D
IES
”

“You lie,” said Collier, Jip chattering on his shoulder. “Some trick to turn me from my destiny. I must admit, I thought better of you, Smith.”

“You know that Edward Gaunt was molesting your daughter. He admitted it to you. That’s why you killed him.”

Collier said, “He had been doing it since she was twelve years old. At the age of sixteen she decided enough was enough, and threw herself into the Thames.”

Gideon looked at him curiously. “This is about guilt, isn’t it? You feel guilty that you took the Indian Ocean mission over your own family. If you hadn’t been wrecked on the island, you might have been able to stop what happened. Killing Edward Gaunt I can understand, perhaps even Walsingham for abandoning you. But this?” He waved his hand upward. “Letting the dinosaur loose in the House of Commons? It smacks of showmanship, Fereng. You are better than that.”

“How can you know what I am better or worse than?”

Gideon smiled. “Because I cannot believe the father of my very good friend Rowena Fanshawe, Belle of the Airways, holder of the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, could possibly be a true villain.”

Collier stared at him for a moment, then looked upward. “I still do not believe you.”

“Fereng. Rowena has been on trial this week for the murder of Edward Gaunt. The major plank of the prosecution’s case is a new technique that matches up blood samples. Rowena’s is a fifty percent match to samples obtained from under Gaunt’s fingernails, samples he scratched from you when he fought back. Fifty percent. As similar as a child’s blood might be to a parent’s, apparently.”

Collier stared up into the blackness. There was a distinct rumble from above. Deeptendu, beside Collier, said, “I think it is awake.”

Collier looked at Gideon. “The girl who has been mentioned in the reports from the Old Bailey? You are saying … she is Jane?”

The rumble became a dull roar.

“I have always known her as Rowena Fanshawe,” said Gideon. “But she told Aloysius Bent this very afternoon that she faked her death to begin a new life. She has followed in your footsteps. She is one of the finest airship pilots in the land. Your blood flows in her veins, Charles, or damn near it. But the jury is set to consider their verdict tomorrow morning at ten, and the case against Rowena is strong, and she will hang without your testimony and your blood.”

Now Collier’s eyes were overflowing with tears. “If you are lying I will kill you.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then take me to her. Tell me what I have to do.”

A terrible, deafening roar was funneled down the hatch, echoing out and around the dank, curved sewer tunnel.

“No,” said Gideon. “First we stop that thing.”

Collier looked up then flinched as a shower of dust rained down on him. “Mr. Smith, I fear…” He stepped out of the alcove, dragging Deeptendu with him, as the dust became an avalanche of wood and brick debris, and the monster roared again. Collier met his eyes. “I fear we are too late.”

*   *   *

“I hope we’re not too late,” said Bent, tumbling out of the steam-cab at the steps to the Palace of Westminster. The faces of the clock tower, illuminated from within by gas lamps, said it was half past eight, and despite the brightness of the moon and the rows of lamps strung along Parliament Square, and the lights burning in almost every window in the stone walls of the Mother of Parliaments, the whole edifice felt deathly quiet, as though that little slice of London had been swallowed by the night.

Maria and Gloria followed Bent, and then Garcia, his hands bound behind his back by the same rope he had earlier used to tie up Charlotte Elmwood. Lestrade came after him, his revolver in his hand. Maria turned to the driver and said, “Winchmore Hill, and you stop for neither man nor beast. Understand?”

She turned back to the window of the cab, where Charlotte Elmwood sat, half-stunned still. “And that goes for you, too. Straight home, yes?”

The girl nodded tearfully. “Thank you for everything you have done, Maria. I will never forget you.”

Maria smiled crookedly. “You will remember me every time you look in the mirror, Charlotte. Now go!”

“What should we do with him?” asked Lestrade, pointing his gun at Garcia.

“He’ll have to come with us,” said Bent. “No time to get him comfortable in an effing cell somewhere, George, and for all we know Commercial Road is burned to the ground.”

They ran up the steps to the House of Commons, where a lone uniformed police officer before the vast double doors put his hand up uncertainly.

“I am Inspector George Lestrade,” said Lestrade, digging in his pocket for his warrant card. “I’m sorry, it is somewhat bloodstained, but…”

The constable inspected it. “You are from Commercial Road? Every man is down there. They’ve got the army on their way, by all accounts. Is it bad?”

“Not as bad as it’s going to effing get in here,” said Bent, elbowing past him. “Has the underground railway debate started?”

“Half an hour ago,” said the constable. “But you can’t—”

The motley troupe marched into the marble foyer past the protesting policeman and Bent led them to the doors of the main chamber, where a warden in the livery of Westminster Palace opened his mouth to challenge them.

“No effing time,” said Bent, pushing him out of the way and leaning hard on the doors.

*   *   *

The chamber of the House of Commons was full to bursting, every seat on the four-tiered rows taken, the Liberal Members of Parliament facing the Conservatives, the Speaker, Viscount Arthur Peel, sitting resplendent on his thronelike perch between the two factions. William Hayes Fisher, the right honorable member for Fulham, was on his feet, waving papers across at the jeering Liberals.

“Progress, sirs! Progress! Would the honorable gentlemen opposite stand in the way of this, the greatest city upon God’s Earth, becoming yet greater? The streets are choked with steam-cabs and omnibuses, horse-drawn carriages and stilt-trains. The skies are filled with dirigibles and aerostats. We have not a pennyworth of space left in London, so we must go down, underground!”

The Speaker nodded to a Liberal, and said, “Thomas Bolton for Derbyshire North East will respond.”

The gentleman stood and hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. “And how much will this cost, sir? Once again the provinces are squeezed dry to pay for London’s largesse. And, pray tell, what do we know of the subterranean world below our feet? Is it really safe? Can we be sure there are no…”

The MP tailed off at the sound of a huge crash, and all eyes turned to the doors, where Aloysius Bent, Maria, Gloria Monday, and George Lestrade, pushing the bound Sergio de la Garcia before him, burst through.

“Thank eff!” cried Bent. “We’re in time!”

Then there was a shrieking of splintering wood, and the polished floor before the Speaker’s chair buckled and erupted, the green head of the young Tyrannosaurus rex emerging and opening its mouth, lined with cruel rows of daggerlike teeth, to emit an earsplitting roar.

*   *   *

“Go,” said Collier to Deeptendu. “Wait at our appointed meeting place for two days, then if I do not turn up you must make your way home. May Ganesha ease your passage.”

“We will not abandon you, Fereng,” said Deeptendu.

“Go!” hissed Collier. “I … I must see my daughter. I cannot have her remember me like this, the man who brought war to England. Gideon Smith is right. This is not the way. This is personal vengeance, not for the greater good.”

The Thuggees all clapped Collier on his shoulder then melted into the shadows of the tunnel. He nodded at Gideon then began to climb, swiftly for a man with one wooden leg, up the iron rungs set into the brick service hatch.

They reached a wide but cramped space, light flooding in from the smashed trapdoor above them. Below it was a web of ropes where the Thuggees had slung the drugged dinosaur, its only escape to claw its way upward and through the hatch. From above rang the sounds of chaos and panic, shouts and screams providing a counterpoint to the rumbling roars of the tyrannosaur.

“You cannot have thought the beast would kill all six hundred and seventy Members of Parliament,” said Gideon.

“It will kill enough,” said Collier grimly. “Such a primal engine of destruction, such a forgotten force of nature, loose in the black heart of the most advanced empire on Earth.”

“As my friend Aloysius Bent would say, the symbolism is not effing lost on me,” said Gideon through gritted teeth. “Come on.”

Then he began to climb the rope netting to the chamber of the House of Commons.

*   *   *

“Ouch,” said Bent, wincing as the beast, standing between the opposing rows of seats on its powerful hind legs and casting this way and that with its massive head, eventually decided to lunge for a panicking front-bencher on the Conservative ranks trying to climb over the seat behind him. “Looks like they’re going to be calling a special election in Dorset.”

The chamber was a chaotic scramble of bodies fighting their way toward the double doors, but the sheer mass of them created a huge bottleneck behind the Speaker’s chair.

“This way, this way!” cried Maria, waving them on. “But you must stop pushing and fighting!” She looked at Bent in despair. “They’re like stampeding bulls.”

Lestrade was trying to get a bead on the beast with his revolver but was constantly shoved and elbowed by screaming politicians. “Does anyone actually have a plan?” he shouted.

“Free me!” cried Garcia. “Take off my bonds!”

“Not now, there’s a good chap,” said Bent. “We’ve got our hands full.”

“Free me!” said Garcia. “I can stop it!”

“Wait,” said Maria. She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

His eyes met hers. “Please. I am going to die anyway, yes?”

Bent shrugged. “I imagine you’ll hang for what you’ve done, yes.”

“Then let me die a hero!” he cried. “My wife and children are dead; at least let Inez remember me for the right reasons.”

Bent looked at Lestrade, who shrugged. Maria gripped the ropes binding Garcia’s hands and tore them off. “My sword,” he said.

She took the rapier from Gloria and handed it to him. He seemed to grow in stature, straighten, as though life flooded back into him. He looked at them each in turn and pulled his cowl over his head, holding the shaft of his sword in front of his face, his eyes shining.

“El Chupacabras!” he said, then turned and ran through the scrambling mob.