by Alex Grecian
“I’m afraid so. His name’s Goodpenny. He means well.”
“I say,” Goodpenny said. He had found a clear path that wound round through the remains of toiletries and sundries and now he trotted up to them, breathing hard. “If it isn’t young Master Angerschmid. Good to see you, lad.” His hair stuck straight up, one lens of his spectacles was broken, and he was bleeding from a minor scratch on one cheek. He smiled and held up a finger, turned his back to them and tucked in his shirt before turning back and pumping Hammersmith’s hand vigorously. “Long night here, lads, but I did my best, I did.”
“Your best?”
“Looters, my boy. Looters. Got the trusty Martini-Henry from the back room, but no ammunition for it. That’s all on the top floor, and I couldn’t get at it. Most called my bluff, but I stayed the course and scared off a man or two.”
“Mr Goodpenny, that’s terribly brave of you.”
“Was it?” He looked around them and sighed. “I’ve lost everything now, Mr Angerschmid. Sold off my stall at the bazaar to buy a piece of this, and now it’s gone, isn’t it?” He sniffed and pulled himself up, offered them a wan smile. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Terribly sorry, long night, as I say. My name’s Goodpenny.” He stuck out his hand and Day shook it.
“Mine’s Day. Walter Day. And isn’t that a pleasant thing to be able to say after all this time?”
“Well, I’m sure, except that I can’t remember ever saying it before,” Goodpenny said. “No, I take it back. I’ve recently met a lovely young woman of that same name. What a startling coincidence. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Dew. You’re friends with young Angerschmid then?”
“It’s Day.”
“Indeed, and I’m glad of it after such a long night. Did I mention I haven’t slept? Not one wink.”
“I mean—”
Hammersmith put a hand out and shook his head at Day. It wouldn’t help to correct Goodpenny. He leaned in close and murmured, “Goodpenny can’t hear.”
“No,” Goodpenny said. “Nobody else here. I say, how is your young lady friend? Miss Tinsley. I saw her just a day or two ago. I do hope she was nowhere near when this happened.”
“Who’s Tinsley?”
“He means Kingsley’s daughter Fiona. You’ll remember her. He seems to think there’s something between us.”
“And is there? I’ve been away long enough, she must have grown up a bit.”
“No, she’s not interested in the likes of me. Got eyes for her father’s assistant, Pinch.”
“Don’t know him,” Day said.
“He was taking care of you this morning, before you woke up. Young fellow, well dressed, large nose.”
“I’m sorry, Nevil,” Day said. “Good Lord, but that girl fancied you.”
“Did she really?”
“She certainly did,” Goodpenny said.
Day shook his head. “How could you not know that?”
“She never told me.”
“You’re supposed to notice that sort of thing without being told,” Goodpenny said. “Not everything needs to be said aloud to be understood.”
“Well, it’s a little late now.”
“Win her back,” Goodpenny said. “Go after her and declare your love. It’s never too late.”
“I never said I loved her. She’s a little girl.”
“My wife was fifteen when I married her,” Goodpenny said.
“Different times, sir. Anyway, whoever she might have fancied at one time or another, right now she fancies Pinch. She said so.” He shook his head. “Mr Goodpenny, you say you were here all night?”
“No,” Goodpenny said. “I was here the entire night through. Never left.”
Day and Hammersmith exchanged a glance. “Was there anyone else here you thought might be especially menacing? Tall fellow, dark wavy hair?”
“Everyone was at least mildly menacing, my dear boy.”
“You must have met him. Went by the name of Oberon.”
“Doberman? A German fellow? Don’t recall. Perhaps if you described him more.”
“I can’t,” Hammersmith said. “But Mr Day might be able to. Walter, you must have seen a great deal of him.”
“I . . . I can’t describe him. I try to think of him, but the image is hazy in my mind, as if there’s a constant fog surrounding him.”
“No one like that was in here,” Goodpenny said. “Only normal folks fallen on hard times, looking for free wares. Come to think of it, I’m glad this wasn’t loaded.” He hefted the Martini-Henry and all three of them jumped back as it fired. Immediately a sofa that had already been torn nearly in half exploded in a cloud of cotton batting and wooden splinters. Goodpenny gave them a halfhearted smile and bit his lip. “Well, it’s not loaded now.”
“Bloody hell,” Hammersmith said. “Even if I could’ve heard proper before, I’m sure I can’t now.”
“At least you didn’t shoot anyone,” Day said.
“No, I’ve never shot anyone,” Goodpenny said. “Nearly did just now, though. Frightfully sorry, gentlemen.”
“No harm done.” Hammersmith looked at Day and suddenly couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing. Even Day cracked a smile.
“That would be quite a homecoming,” Hammersmith said. “You disappear for a year and then suddenly . . . shot dead before you’ve even seen your wife. Welcome back, Walter Day!”
Day’s smile disappeared. “Nevil, we’ve got to find Jack and make him undo whatever it is he’s done to me before I can go home or see Claire.”
“I understand. I’m sorry. We’ll find him.”
“Well, he’s clearly not here. That shot would have brought anyone out. This place is deserted. He’s not in his office.”
“And he’s not in the workshop.”
“Which leaves . . . what?”
“There are flats round the back,” Goodpenny said. “Some of the staff live there, on and off. I never did. Got my own place. But the rooms were all cleared out after this happened.” Goodpenny swiveled his head to take in the mess all round them. “They’d be empty now.”
“Be a perfect place to go to ground if he’s injured, as you say he is,” Hammersmith said. “Beds, fresh clothing.”
“Let’s go,” Day said. “Is there a street entrance? Or a way in through the store?”
“Both,” Goodpenny said. “You can go round by the outside or straight across there. There’s a passage behind the lift.”
“There’s an alley,” Day said. “But it dead-ends at a storeroom. It’s how Ambrose . . . Anyway, we’d have to circle wide.”
“He might see us coming from the street.”
“I don’t fancy the idea of all that collapsing on us.” Day nodded at the gallery.
“Then you go by the street and I’ll go through there and we’ll have him trapped.”
“I’ll stay here,” Goodpenny said. “There’s still a possibility I might discover some of my own merchandise under all this. The stationery will be lost, of course, but I had many fine items of silver and teak. An ivory piece or two. They might have survived.”
“You be careful, Mr Goodpenny,” Hammersmith said. “That thing’s not loaded anymore.”
“Nobody knows that but us, lad.”
Hammersmith nodded and turned to watch Day, who was already picking his way back across the littered sales floor, but Goodpenny grabbed his arm and leaned in close. “If you’ve got any feelings for that girl, Mr Angerschmid, you’ve got to do something about it before it’s too late. I miss my wife every day now, but I still wouldn’t trade our years together for anything, though they surely led to heartbreak at the end.”
“It’s not—”
“Whatever it is, don’t make it so you’re lonely, lad. Don’t wait until it’s too late. A man’s not a man unless he’s got someone to share h
is life.”
“Um, right. Thank you, Mr Goodpenny. I’ll be off.”
“Watch yourself. If you run into that foggy gentleman, you ring for the police straight off. Don’t try to be a hero. You don’t have the constitution for it.”
Hammersmith saluted and trotted away, jumping over a ruined credenza. He didn’t look back, but he knew Goodpenny was watching him go. The man was kind, but completely addled. Still, he wasn’t wrong in his warning about Jack, and Hammersmith suddenly wished he were armed. He bent and picked up a length of iron pipe. He swung it in a low arc and thumped it into the palm of his hand.
Almost as good as a truncheon.
54
Hatty was halfway down the stairs when a long shadow stretched across the floor below her. A man turned the corner and looked up at her, and in the split second it took her to recognize him, Hatty panicked and stumbled.
Hammersmith bounded up the stairs and caught her as she fell. The impact caused him to take a backward step down, but he held on to her. When she looked up, he was frowning at her.
“Hatty? What are you doing here? It’s not safe.”
“I know it’s not safe. Let go of me.” She pushed him away and they stood awkwardly mashed together in the narrow stairwell. She felt embarrassed for having tripped and ashamed for snapping at him when he had helped her. She wished he hadn’t seen her lose her balance. She was certain he thought she was nothing more than a silly little girl.
“Hatty, there’s a dangerous man somewhere around here. You can’t be—”
“He’s upstairs,” she said. She could already hear the crackle of flames behind her. Soon, the fire would be visible and the stairs would become unpassable. “You’re talking about Mr Oberon, right? I don’t think that’s his real name. He’s killed Mr Hargreave, so we’re not going to be paid for that case, I don’t think.”
“I don’t care about that. I need you to get far away from here. But where is he up there?”
“There’s a room at the end of the passage on the next floor up. He’s injured, and I don’t think he can move.” She grabbed Hammersmith’s arm as he stepped around her. “Mr Hammersmith, I set it on fire. He’s going to burn up there. Leave him.”
“You have no idea what this man is capable of.”
“How do you know him? He mentioned you to me.”
“We have a history. I’ll tell you about it if we survive until tomorrow.”
As they spoke, the landing above them had grown gradually darker and smokier. The wallpaper at the corner of the stairwell began to peel away, curling toward them in long strips.
“Go!” Hammersmith pointed the way down and out, then turned away from Hatty and ran up the stairs, two at a time. He disappeared in a billow of dark smoke.
Hatty looked down, then up, then shrugged her shoulders and followed Hammersmith back up toward the room where she knew Mr Oberon was waiting.
• • •
SIR EDWARD BRADFORD GRABBED his hat and stopped at the door, looking back at his office and trying to think of anything he might need. He had learned long ago never to rush into anything without first considering what might happen. The price of that lesson had been his left arm, and he had determined that the loss would only strengthen him. He went back to the desk and took his Webley from the top drawer, stuffed it into his belt.
He rushed down the stairs with Fawkes at his heels and he pointed at Inspector Tiffany, who stood at his desk with a sheaf of papers in his hands. Tiffany was in his shirtsleeves and had the rumpled look of someone who had not slept.
“Inspector Tiffany, you’re with me,” Sir Edward said. “And I want Inspector Blacker, too. Sergeant Kett, you can come. Fawkes, you’ll coordinate from here. Kett will relay anything needs doing.”
“What’s happening, sir?”
“That damn telephone again. And every time it rings, it’s always something about Inspector Day.”
“What,” Tiffany said, “he’s been found yet again?”
“Indeed. We’re off to that new department store. Plume’s.”
“Plumm’s, you mean,” Kett said. “But, sir, there’s nothing there. The place is a ruin and everyone’s been cleared out. If Mr Day was there, he ain’t anymore.”
“I have just received word from Dr Kingsley that our man Day is indeed at that store. And I’ll be damned if I let him slip away from us again. I’m going out there myself this time, and I’ll grab him by the scruff of his neck and drag him back to the land of the living if I have to.”
“As you say, sir.”
Tiffany dropped the papers on his desk and grabbed his jacket. Blacker saluted and grinned, and they both hurried after Sir Edward, practically running in order to keep up with the determined commissioner.
• • •
“IT’S EERIE,” CLAIRE SAID.
“It is very quiet,” Fiona said. “Where are all the shoppers?”
People were, in fact, passing by them on the cross streets, but the space in front of the store was being avoided. “It amazes me how something can go from overcrowded to abandoned in the blink of an eye,” Claire said. “Do they all think the building will fall on them?”
A man passed by them, watching them from the corner of his eye, but he said nothing. Claire and Fiona stood on the street and watched him until he had crossed over and walked away round the corner. A carriage drew up to the curb opposite them and stayed there, the driver up top making a point of not looking their way.
“Should we tell him the place is shut down at the moment?”
“I think that’s obvious.”
“Well, what’s he waiting for?”
The four-wheeler sat there unmoving, but a curtain was pulled aside at the edge of one window and then closed again.
“Go over there,” Claire said. “Ask him if he’s waiting for someone.”
“I’m not going over there. You go over there.”
Claire had just made up her mind to cross and rap on the carriage door when it opened and her father stepped out into the street.
“Claire,” he said, “how lovely to run into you here. What a coincidence.”
“Father, are you following me?”
“Not at all. I was . . . Your mother sent me to Plumm’s. She wants something for the house.”
“What does she want?”
“I’ve got a list here.” Carlyle made a show of patting his jacket pockets and even grabbed the brim of his hat as if the list might be tucked in his hatband. “I seem to have misplaced it.”
“As you can plainly see, the store isn’t open for business today, Father. It’s been wrecked.”
Carlyle looked up for the first time at the broken windows, the litter in the street, the lack of pedestrian traffic. “What’s happened?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but Walter was involved somehow.”
“Walter did this?”
“Well, I don’t think that’s even possible, but he was here. He may be here again. Fiona and I are looking for him.”
Fiona raised her hand in an awkward greeting.
Carlyle shook his head as if clearing it and swiped his hand through the air in front of him, dispelling the lies between them. “Look, Claire, I want you to come with me. Your friend, too. There’s great danger. I can’t explain, but—”
“What are you talking about?”
“I said I can’t explain. But there are people about who might wish to harm you. Or harm Walter. I’m not sure anymore what they intend, but we should leave here, get out of the city, maybe back to Devon, and wait until we hear from your husband.”
“Why would I leave with you if my husband’s in as much danger as you say?”
“Because, for once in your life, you could simply choose to obey your father. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“I’m here to find Walt
er. Fiona and I both are. Help us and I’ll go with you afterward. Then you can explain yourself. Right at this moment, nothing matters to me except that after a year, I’m finally close to being with my husband again. Nothing, nothing else matters.”
“Walter.” Carlyle’s eyes were wide, and he spoke in a whisper.
“Yes, Walter,” Claire said.
“No, I mean, look. It’s Walter.”
Claire turned and saw her husband climbing out through the smashed front window of Plumm’s. Walter was gaunt and had the beginnings of a dark beard. His eyes were shadowed, and he was dressed like a pauper, in a torn and tattered suit with no hat. But it was undeniably him, and he was alive and he was only a few feet away from her, clambering over the remains of a window display.
For a moment, Claire couldn’t breathe and the world seemed to hold still, but for the struggling form of her husband. She thought she could hear Fiona saying something, perhaps her father continued to speak, but everything receded and became unimportant.
Then she caught her breath. “Walter!”
She ran toward him, her arms out, her skirts dragging behind her on the ground, as he looked up. But she stopped when she saw his eyes. There was no recognition there. He wasn’t even looking at her. He stared past her and his eyes flashed with hatred and anger. She heard a click as the handle of his walking stick disengaged. He drew the blade from his cane and pushed past her. She stumbled and gasped and fell to the ground, looking up just in time to see her husband lunge at Leland Carlyle and impale him on his sword.
• • •
MR AND MRS PARKER stood in the shadows of an apothecary down the street from Plumm’s. Mr Parker’s mind had begun to wander when Mrs Parker grabbed his arm and pointed. They watched a man run out of the abandoned store and stab the high judge of the Karstphanomen.
“That’s him,” Mrs Parker said. “That’s our quarry. Jack the Ripper’s finally made his move.”
“But we’re too late. He’s killed our client.”
“Can’t blame him for that. We considered the same thing ourselves. Anyway, Carlyle’s not dead yet.” With that, Mrs Parker leapt forward and raced down the street with Mr Parker fast at her heels. They separated in front of the store. Mrs Parker chased the attacker, who had dropped his sword, while Mr Parker stopped to check on Leland Carlyle, who was breathing but was quickly losing blood. Already a crowd had begun to form, as if from nowhere. The street had been virtually empty, and now people sprang up in twos and threes, gathering around the man on the ground.
