Ripped (38 page)

Toby stepped forward, fists equally raised.

Katie moved to Toby's side and placed a restraining hand on his arm. Her head was level with his shoulder and she sensed the anger inside him—Collin was Toby's responsibility—but fighting would only make things worse.

Feeling the gentle pressure of Katie's touch, Toby dropped his fists to his side. “Collin,” he said wearily. “In the name of all that's holy, tell me you didn't offer Dora—”

“My hand in marriage? Err . . . um . . . something quite like it . . . yes,” Collin yelped, releasing his own fists and stepping back. “I believe so. I can't remember everything that transpired last night, but I do remember I gave her my ring . . . she wouldn't let me kiss her otherwise.
God
'
s whiskers
, Toby! Don't look at me like that! What would you have me do? I fancy her. She fancies me. True push and shove.”

“Well, I hope true love was worth it.”

“It was, er . . . yes,
rawther
. Or what I remember of it.” Collin gulped and his Adam's apple surged up and down. “We had a few pints at the pub . . . I woke up this morning with a blistering headache . . . and she told me I'd . . . er . . . proposed. And . . . a gentleman . . . doesn't go back on his word, as you well know, Toby.”

“What I know is this: Dora pulled the oldest round the stick in the book on you! The oldest trick, ploy, hoax, swindle, deception known to mankind . . . or, I should say,
womankind
.”

“She never!”

“She did, old sod. You were putty in her hands.”

“Boys!” Katie stepped between them. She shot Toby a warning look.

“I tell you,” sputtered Collin indignantly. “I'm pledged to Dora Fowler, and there's an end to it!” He made a grunting sound, like a sigh, and began tugging on his lower lip with thumb and forefinger. “What's more, I despise old Horseface-Prudie like poison!” He turned and sprang past the book table, bumping against it, rattling the tea set and jiggling the biscuits. One biscuit fell to the floor with a thunk. Collin bent over to retrieve it, then, in frustration, shoved the entire table and it fell over with a crash.

“So you're going to make Dora your bag for life, is that it?” Toby crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“If you mean wife, yes. She'll be the Duchess of—”

“Strife?” Toby was grinning.

Collin rose to his full height and thumped himself on the chest. “Nothing you can possibly say will in any way upset the matrimonial applecart of Collin Chesterfield Twyford, the third, or my name isn't . . . er, well . . . Collin Chesterfield Twyford, the third, heir to the Duke of Twyford, and—”

“You're right, old sod,” Toby laughed, cutting him off. “Nothing
I
say will make a bit of difference. But the Duke will have more than a few words on that account. He has his own way of dealing with what he perceives as a swinging door.”

“A swinging what?”

“What Cockneys call a—”

Katie tossed Toby a sharp glance.
If that
'
s what I think it is, don
'
t say it,
she thought. “Don't even think it,” she said aloud, moving forward. But she was too late.

“Whore.”

A moment later Collin was raining punches down on Toby, flailing his fists with a fierceness that belied his lanky frame. But Toby came from a long line of fairground fighters. His maternal granddad had been a champion bare-knuckle boxer. Collin was outclassed, outfoxed, outmaneuvered. Toby deflected his blows as easily as if he were dancing around an angry, pecking rooster.

Katie shook her head. Seemingly without effort, Toby sidestepped punch after far-flung punch until Collin grew tired and began to weave off balance. But in a final burst of frustration, Collin raised his right fist and hammered it at Toby's face. Instead of ducking, Toby wrapped his hand around Collin's high-flying knuckles, stopping the momentum as easily as if he were wearing a baseball glove and catching a hard-hit spitball. The move surprised and enraged Collin. He began to howl in anger as Toby twisted his arm and levered him down on all fours. They wrestled to the ground, Collin shrieking, but he could no more fight off Toby than a bear could an elephant, and when Collin was finally pinned and cried uncle, Toby easily released him and strode back across the room to right the tea table, hoisting it up from the floor with one hand.

“Toby! Watch out!” Katie cried.

Toby whipped around.

Behind him, Collin had sprung to his feet and was screaming with such rage, the shrill sound of it set Toby's teeth on edge. It was the piercing shriek of an enraged animal. Collin's face, as he lunged, was twisted with rage and as dark red as if suffused with beet juice.

“You're all in league against me!” Collin screeched, pulling out his penknife and jabbing it in the air like a poker.

Toby's hobnailed boots clattered back across the floor.

Another shrill howl from Collin. “I'll show you who's the boss of me. Not so bold now, eh?” Collin slashed the pocket knife this way and that.

“Put it down!” Toby hissed, circling Collin cautiously. But as he narrowed the distance between them, Collin kicked out wildly at Toby's midsection, forcing him to step back.

Toby continued to circle, slowly, deliberately. “Every Thursday night,” he said in a deceptively matter-of-fact voice, “a thousand East Enders pack into Joey's Music Hall. I'll take you someday, Katie.” He spoke so softly and conversationally, it was as if he were talking about the weather, but his attention remained riveted on Collin.

“For a shilling I can get us ringside seats. Isn't that right, Collin? You and I like to stand at the back . . . placing bets. Working-class stiffs number fifty to one against toffs. It's a sight to behold, isn't it, Collin? All the lads wear bright red scarves instead of collars. Not like the tournaments at Albert Hall.” His voice was soothing.

But Collin was not mollified. He continued to jab at Toby, his freckled face bathed in sweat, his red hair falling over his furrowed brow. His eyes held a watchfulness that matched Toby's. He was waiting for his moment.

“If anger could win this for you, Collin,” Toby said with a wry smile, “you'd be the victor hands down.”

When Toby inched closer, Collin saw his opportunity and punched out with his free hand, then kneed Toby in the abdomen. Toby had deliberately gone in close, bracing for the kick—and when it came, it seemed to Katie, he absorbed the blow like a punching bag, inured to the pain.

Emboldened, Collin followed with a jab and a right cross. Toby seized Collin's wrist and pivoted him around into a half-Nelson, then wrapped his right leg around Collin's left. Collin buckled. Twisting his wrist like a corkscrew, Toby ordering Collin to drop the knife. But when Collin stubbornly refused, Toby bent back his fingers one by one, until an expression of agony washed over Collin's face and the pocketknife clattered to the floor.

Chapter Forty-four

Kettles of Fish say the Bells of Shoreditch

I
n
the orchestra pit
at the London Music Hall in Shoreditch High Street, the bandleader raised his baton. The vast auditorium was only half full with Saturday night patrons who had paid a hefty sum to be entertained with bawdy music, juggling acts, knife throwing, sword swallowing, dancing girls, and a rousing ventriloquist act. A half circle of burning lanterns threw spheres of quivering gaslight onto the stage, lending a tremor of anticipation to the charged atmosphere.

Katie, standing next to Collin in the left-hand aisle against a dull brick wall, watched as a dozen black fiddle bows rose from the orchestra pit in unison. Cymbals crashed hard on the opening bar of “Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay,” rising with a pendulum cadence and a burst of cheers from the audience as Catherine Eddowes, a striking young woman, sashayed onto the stage and began to sing with deceptive demureness, even as she coyly displayed a flash of her ankles and calves wreathed in lacy pantaloons, and a portion of her prodigious white-powdered bosom, enveloped in see-through silk. Her voice was strong and sweetly feminine as she belted out the lyrics.

Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay!
(the cymbals struck again)

Jack the Ripper's out to play

He'll take your girl away—

And slice her up today

He'll take her organs, too,

And when he's good and through

He'll take your sister Lou

And cut her up for stew

Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay!

Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay!

Throughout the dimly lit theater, people whistled, hummed, and clapped to the rousing tune. Collin, too, joined in. An infectious merriment filled the auditorium, which Katie might have felt if it weren't for the fact that Catherine Eddowes, singing with such gusto, was slated to be Jack the Ripper's next victim.

It was the thirtieth of September, the night of the double homicide of Catherine Eddowes, in Mitre Square, Aldgate, and a very pregnant Molly Potter in Berner Street, Whitechapel.

Catherine Eddowes sang the lyrics again, and then launched into a lusty refrain with a sort of kick dance, like the cancan, displaying her long legs and deep cleavage. Bras hadn't been invented yet, Katie knew, but even so, Catherine Eddowes would have been the last person on earth to need a Victoria's Secret push-up.

She went on to sing “The Boy I Love” and “Daisy Bell,” and after several prolonged curtsies, Catherine Eddowes exited the stage to a chorus of cheering. Katie cast her eyes about, then nodded to Collin, and together they retraced their steps down the red-carpeted aisle.

The theater was large and amazingly ornate, with plaster molds of cupids and nymphs on the gilded proscenium arch. Poster boards in the foyer announced the return of the Flying Mephisto Brothers with colorful renditions of acrobats in scarlet tights.

Guarding the stage door outside the music hall sat a man in a monk's costume who let them pass into the bowels of the theater when Katie palmed several silver coins into his waiting hand. Inside they moved haltingly down a long, dark passageway, musty with the smell of theater props and scenery. Nobody stopped them as they hurried along past broken rows of orchestra seats shrouded in white dust covers until they came to a set of padded swinging doors. Entering, they could see the side panels of the gas-lighted stage to the right. They were in the wings below a snarl of ropes, levered pulleys, and scaffolding, and could clearly hear laughter from patrons in the front orchestra stalls.

The clang of a xylophone rang out, followed by the thumping clatter of stilt-walkers, dressed like cowboys, stomping across the stage. Peeking through the curtained wings, Katie watched the stilt-walker nearest her at the rear of the stage. He was so tall, she could see only the bottoms of his wooden legs draped in leather chaps, ending in giant spurred cowboy boots.

She drew back. A shadowy figure was approaching from the dark recesses to the rear, moving stealthily under the scaffolding. Emerging from the dimness he looked disturbingly like Major Brown. Katie and Collin ducked behind a curtain wing. There was a stash of props on a side table: a white, ten-gallon cowboy hat, a rodeo-style blacksnake whip, two cross-belt holsters, and a pearl-handled six-shooter. Katie plunked the ten-gallon hat on top of Collin's head, smushing it over his eyes, and ducked behind him into the shadows.

If Katie were to bump into Major Brown in a dark alley, he would have scared her to death. Tall and commanding, he exuded a raw masculine energy that was more than a little menacing. But backstage in this burlesque theater she felt only apprehension and something like anger. What was Major Brown doing here? Had he spoken to Catherine Eddowes? Had he already killed her and sliced her open?
No
, Katie told herself. Catherine Eddowes was supposed to die in Mitre Square, just after midnight, not backstage in a dark theater.

“Howdy, buckaroo!” Collin couldn't resist saying in an imitation drawl as Major Brown pushed past.

“Stop that!” Katie whispered, tugging at the back of Collin's greatcoat.

“This here hat is mighty fine!” Collin continued the parody, but luckily Major Brown was out of earshot, having left through the padded swinging doors.

“Quit fooling around,” Katie whispered, swiping the ten-gallon hat off his head and replacing it on the prop table. “That was close.”

“Sho-nuf, little lady.” Collin eyed the pearl-handled six-shooter longingly.

“Forget it,” Katie said, shaking her head. “It's only a prop. And stop with the Southern drawl already.”

“T'aint Southern!” Collin scoffed. “Can't y'all tell ah'm from Texas?”

“Last time I looked, Texas was in the
South
.” Katie tried not to smile.

“
No-sir-ree
, little lady. It's in the Wild West. Don't y'all know anything? Haven't y'all heard of Buffalo Bill?” Collin explained that Buffalo Bill had performed in London last year for the Queen's Jubilee. “
Tarnation
, I saw the show twice! Wish I was a genuine cowboy . . . or maybe a bison hunter! That's the life for me!”

Katie laughed. “Even so, Texas is
not
the Wild West.” She didn't know anything about Buffalo Bill except that his name sounded familiar. When she got home, she'd look him up on the Internet. Katie had a vague idea he was related to Annie Oakley. “The only thing worse than imitating a Texan accent,” she said, “is a Brit doing it. Come on, let's go.”

A dozen firecracker
pops!
sounded across the stage to Katie's right, making her jump. The stilt-walking cowboys were blasting cap-gun six-shooters at one another, all the while stomping long-legged around the stage, as if doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe. The audience rose to their feet, hooting and hollering just as the orchestra started up again.

For a hefty sum, Toby had arranged for Katie and Collin to meet Catherine Eddowes in her dressing room after her stage performance, and then to stay with her throughout the evening—with an even heftier bonus to follow in the morning. But when Katie and Collin arrived at the backstage room where the performers donned their costumes and makeup, Catherine Eddowes was nowhere to be found.

A grim little man in a red clown's costume, wearing black face paint, approached. “If you be looking for Miss Eddowes, she said to tell you she received a better offer, and to say good day to you. Or, should I say, good night.” He scurried past several ballet dancers, whose bell-shaped tutus, draped in long pink netting, fluttered outward from their hips.

“
Ballerinas
!”
bawled a low voice from the darkness.
“
Places!
You
'
re on in five!
Hey! You. What you doing backstage?
Places! Places, girls! Half a tick! Wait for it. Wait for it. You
'
re on in three seconds. Two, one—
”

Scampering toward the stage, several ballerinas gave Collin appraising looks. Collin, in turn, stared back at the pink-clad girls, a wolfish grin on his face.

“Wait!” Katie called after the clown man, elbowing past Collin. “Where did Catherine Eddowes go? Did she go home?”

“Not that one,” chuckled the clown. “Not by a long shot. Probably taking a stroll past the pubs, see what catches her eye. She likes her gin. Likes it more 'n most. Now me, I'm a pint man, m'self. Don't go in for—”

“Where? What pub?”

“Ten Bells, more'n likely.”

Katie thanked the clown-man then narrowed her eyes at Collin who seemed oblivious to anything other than the dancing girls twirling onto the stage in their long, netted tutus, fitted bodices, and pink tights.