Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (6 page)

“By God, Sally, that smells effing good,” said Bent, taking off his battered derby and placing it on the coat stand beside his faithful pith helmet, the one he’d bought in the souk in Alexandria. Only one previous owner, with the bullet hole to prove it. He’d be dead without it, after that pyramid collapsed right on his head, instead of just being unable to say his favorite word. He tried every day, of course, as though they were exercises and physical jerks to be done every morning, in the hope he might regain the power. But no. “Eff. Eff. Effffff.” Not a
fuck
to be had. He grinned to himself. Bit like the streets of Whitechapel.

Mrs. Cadwallader put a finger to her lips. “Not so loud and brash, Mr. Bent. Miss Maria is not yet back from whatever they have her doing with that infernal dragon, and Mr. Smith is in the parlor with guests. The Elmwoods. They have come seeking his assistance and seem most distressed.”

“Oh, yes, the ones with the missing daughter. I told him not to bother with it. Job for the police. I’ll take myself off to the study, I think. Is there a fire lit?”

“There is, Mr. Bent. And you have a visitor of your own in there.”

Bent’s eyes narrowed. “Not Big Henry, is it? I told him we was square. You know what these crooks are like, though, Sally. You think you’ve paid ’em off…”

“It’s Mr. Walsingham,” she whispered, as though saying his name too loud would attract his unwelcome attention from within the closed door of the study.

Bent blew a raspberry. “Oh, eff. What does
he
want? Did you tell him Gideon’s otherwise engaged?”

She nodded. “I did. But he wants to see
you
.”

“Double eff,” said Bent. He dug in his pocket for his flask and took a slug of rum. “Better get this over with, then.”

*   *   *

There was indeed a fire crackling merrily in the hearth of the study, but any joy it might have offered seemed to be sucked out of the room by the brooding presence of Mr. Walsingham. He was sitting upright like a black crow in one of the easy chairs, his back to the glass cabinets bearing the trophies from John Reed and Lucian Trigger’s adventures: the claw of the Exeter Werewolf, Lord Dexter’s Top Hat, the Golden Apple of Shangri-La. They were supplemented by trophies Gideon had assembled to carry on the tradition: poor old Louis Cockayne’s pearl-handled revolvers, a piece of steel from the giant steam-powered mechanical man they had fought in Nyu Edo, a lump of clay from the Golem of Manchester, the hair of a mermaid from St. Ives. Walsingham looked up sharply as Bent entered, fixing him with his piercing eyes, the neat white mustache beneath his hawklike nose twitching as though with mild distaste. Few people in the country knew Walsingham’s name, but the power he wielded was almost without boundary. Bent sometimes doubted that even Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the Prime Minister, knew of Walsingham and just how far his tendrils reached. Walsingham had both leather-gloved hands resting on the silver head of his cane, his black suit immaculate and cut to perfection.

“What brings you out on such a foul day?” asked Bent, closing the door behind him. “The smell of Mrs. Cadwallader’s baking?”

“Nothing so pleasant,” said Walsingham, indicating with a curt nod that Bent should sit in the armchair opposite.

Bent flopped down and sighed. “Been on me bloody feet all effing day.”

“So I believe,” said Walsingham mildly. “Whitechapel, I understand.”

“Had your spies out this morning?” asked Bent. “What else did they tell you?”

“They tell me that you presented yourself at the office of Inspector George Lestrade at the Commercial Road police station and informed him that Mr. Gideon Smith and yourself had been assigned to solve the murders that your erstwhile colleagues in the gutter press have attributed to one Jack the Ripper.”

“Ah,” said Bent.

“Ah indeed, Mr. Bent,” said Walsingham, raising one eyebrow. “An assignment I certainly do not recall authorizing.”

Bent leaned forward. “Thing is, Walsingham old chap, I thought, well, what with Christmas coming up, and things probably being a bit quiet on the old Hero of the Empire front, why not put my—that is, Gideon’s—talents to good use here in London, give the coppers a bit of a leg up with all this unpleasantness.”

“And this would have nothing to do with the Jack the Ripper crimes being something of a hobbyhorse of yours, Mr. Bent? Need I remind you that you are no longer a reporter with the
Illustrated London Argus
?”

Bent didn’t need reminding at all. He had been more than happy on the
Argus
. A hack, but so what? What was it old Samuel Johnson had said? No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. He’d earned a living wage and enjoyed his work. Then after all the business last summer Walsingham had gone and had him moved to the penny dreadful,
World Marvels & Wonders,
all the better to officially chronicle the adventures of Gideon Smith, Hero of the Empire, for a sensation-hungry public.

As if reading his mind, Walsingham looked around the study and asked, “Are you enjoying living here, Mr. Bent?”

Bent narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Walsingham? Letting me know you can have me back on the
Argus
and living in the Fulwood Rents quicker than I can fart?”

Walsingham shrugged then tapped his chin thoughtfully with one long forefinger. “However … there is perhaps some conjunction of the crimes of this Jack the Ripper and the
raison d’être
of Mr. Gideon Smith’s situation. And you are one of the foremost authorities in London on the Ripper murders.…”

“
The
foremost authority, I think you’ll find,” said Bent, jabbing a pudgy thumb into his chest. “You’re talking about Maria, ain’t you? And what’s in her head? And the fact that whoever Jack the Ripper is, he’s slicing off the tops of whores’ heads
as though he’s looking for something where the brain should be
.”

“Succinctly put, Mr. Bent. The work of Professor Hermann Einstein with the item code named the Atlantic Artifact is, of course, entirely top secret.…”

“Stow it, Walsingham, I read the diaries that Gideon filched from the old boy’s house. We all know now that you gave him this Atlantic Artifact, which you found in some sunken Viking longship, and that when he asked for a human brain to experiment on you handed him the gray matter of poor old Annie Crook, who you had done in just because she fell in love with the Duke of Clarence. And that’s the brain he put in the automaton we all now know and love as Maria.”

Walsingham smiled thinly. “It must be a huge source of frustration to you, Mr. Bent, a journalist sitting on a story of such magnitude yet unable to publish it.”

Bent sighed. “Who’d believe it anyway, Walsingham? You’ve got me over a barrel. Anyway, the point is that unless these murders really are the random work of some lunatic,
someone
seems to know what they’re looking for in the heads of East End whores, and that could well be the Atlantic Artifact. And if they know of its existence, they know what it can do. And if they know what it can do, then they must have been speaking to the only bloke in the world who has that information, and that’d be Hermann Einstein, missing now for, what, nearly a year? So the chances are…”

Walsingham leaned on his cane and stood. “The chances are, if we unmask Jack the Ripper, we may well be able to find Hermann Einstein, who is so terribly important to the work of the Empire. I am delighted that we seem to understand each other, Mr. Bent. So carry on. I’m glad we had this little chat. I’ll see myself out.”

Bent watched him go, not a little confounded by it all. He let rip with a long, thoughtful fart, then went off to find Mrs. Cadwallader and her cakes in the kitchen. He paused at the door, watching the housekeeper for a moment as she bent forward to pull a tray of steaming cakes from the oven.

She was a damned handsome woman, was Sally Cadwallader. He was almost surprised he hadn’t noticed it before.

“Oh, Mr. Bent!” she said, standing and turning, the tray held in a pair of thick oven gloves. “You quite startled me, standing there. Has
he
gone?”

“He has,” said Bent.

“Good. I never liked him, not when he was bossing poor old Captain Trigger and Dr. Reed around, and not now.” She laid the tray down on the wooden work surface and lowered her voice. “It was him who sent Dr. Reed over the edge, I’m sure of it. Him and his … his
machinations
.”

Mrs. Cadwallader raised an eyebrow expectantly, as Bent continued to stare thoughtfully in silence.

“Mr. Bent? Did you want me to bring you some ale to the study?”

“No,” he said slowly. “No. I think I’ll just pop out for a moment. Tell Gideon I’ll be back soon.”

*   *   *

Gideon poured tea into the china cups on the small table in front of the Elmwoods and sat back. Henry Elmwood was stiff and frowning, his collar high and tightly buttoned, his gray suit expensive and neatly tailored. His hair was parted in the center and brilliantined, reflecting the gaslights in the sconces fizzing and popping over the fireplace. Martha Elmwood was small and mouselike with a huge bonnet hiding her face, staring down at her fingers, which she constantly knitted and unfastened, speaking rarely and with a tiny, childlike voice when she did.

“We appreciate you seeing us, Mr. Smith,” said Mr. Elmwood.

Gideon sat back in the chair, putting his left boot on the right knee of his serge trousers, tugging at the open collar of his plain white shirt. It was warm in the parlor, warm in the entire house, with every fire blazing at Mrs. Cadwallader’s insistence. He ran a hand through his thick, black curls and said, “I was very touched by your letter. I’m just not that sure what I can do.”

Mrs. Elmwood looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. “But you’re the Hero of the Empire, Mr. Smith,” she almost whispered.

Yes, the Hero of the Empire. Charged by none other than Queen Victoria to keep Britain and her interests safe from threats at home and abroad. Dinosaurs and metal men and Texan warlords that were more machine than human, mummies and vampires and things that screamed in the night. Villains and monsters were Gideon’s bread and butter. But not …

“Not missing persons, I’m afraid,” he said as gently as he could. “This is really a matter for the police…”

“Pah, we’ve tried them,” said Elmwood with disgust. “Can’t do a thing for us. It was my wife’s idea writing to you. I told her, I said, ‘
He’s the Hero of the Empire, he won’t be bothering with the likes of us
.’”

Elmwood made to stand, but Gideon held up his hand. “Wait.” He had the Elmwoods’ letter in front of him. Their daughter, Charlotte, had been missing for three days now. It was indeed, he would have thought, a matter for the Metropolitan Police. Aside from one thing.

“Your letter mentions Markus Mesmer,” he said. “Perhaps you had better start from the beginning.”

*   *   *

Gideon knew the name Markus Mesmer well, though not from firsthand experience. He had been a regular in Captain Trigger’s adventures in
World Marvels & Wonders
—adventures that Gideon, when he read them as a callow youth, had no way of knowing were actually the escapades of Dr. John Reed, disguised as the travails of Captain Trigger to present a more heroic digest of events for the reading public and to preserve Dr. Reed’s covert operations.

Gideon could, even now, remember the words in the story “Escape from Bedlam,” from the April 1887 issue.
My tale picks up where last month’s ended. You will recall that I had confronted Markus Mesmer, the criminal mastermind and grandson of the much gentler pioneer of “animal magnetism,” who had been controlling, through hypnosis, the minds of members of polite London society in order to fleece them of their valuables.…

It was the central tale in a triptych of stories featuring the dastardly German, beginning with “The Mind-Forged Manacles of Markus Mesmer” and ending with the thrilling “The Final Battle.” Mesmer was one of the most exciting recurring villains in the Captain Trigger adventures, though that final story had concluded with Trigger turning Mesmer’s own Hypno-Array upon him and convincing the crook that he was actually a force for good.

Of course, as Gideon had swiftly found out upon meeting Trigger earlier that year, the adventures did not often live up to the lofty claim that began each story:
This adventure, as always, is utterly true, and faithfully retold by my good friend, Doctor John Reed.—Captain Lucian Trigger

With a start, Gideon realized Mr. Elmwood was speaking to him, and not for the first time reprimanded himself: He was no longer a mere fan of Captain Trigger’s adventures. Now he was
living
them.

*   *   *

“Our daughter Charlotte has just turned twenty-one,” said Henry Elmwood. “She is a very beautiful girl, though you would perhaps expect a father to say that. Beautiful and vulnerable. I confess, Mr. Smith, that I have tried to protect Charlotte from the worst excesses of this world as much as possible, but there comes a time … well. You cannot keep them cosseted forever. My wife thought it would be a good idea to have Charlotte mix more with girls her own age, so a year ago we enrolled her in a finishing school in Holborn. Last Sunday one of the girls who attends her classes held a birthday party, to which Charlotte was invited. The entertainment was provided by Markus Mesmer.”

“After all that has been written about Mesmer, someone thought him a suitable choice for a young woman’s party?” asked Gideon.

Elmwood frowned. “I understood the stories in that penny dreadful were mere fantasies … but yes, Mesmer was the entertainment. We attended, of course, as chaperones. Mesmer put on quite a show, and hypnotized the girls to perform a variety of comical tasks. One quacked like a duck, and another danced around as though she were an African savage. Then, with a snap of his fingers, they were back to normal.”

Gideon shook his head. Elmwood said, “Mr. Mesmer seemed to take an inordinate interest in Charlotte.… He seemed very taken with her blond hair. He asked us many questions about ourselves, and seemed rather peeved at our responses. When it came to Charlotte’s turn to be hypnotized…”