Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  The very memory made his private and unique anatomy ache.

  So . . . he must find Polly Nichols, obtain her letters, then cut her up the same delightful way he had cut Morgan, as a message to all blackmailing whores walking these filthy streets, and he must do it without being remarked upon or caught. He would disguise himself, of course, but John Lachley’s was a difficult face to disguise. He looked too foreign, always had, from earliest childhood in these mean streets, a gift from his immigrant mother. Lachley knew enough theatrical people, through his illustrious clientele, to know which shops to visit to obtain false beards and so on, but even that was risky. Acquiring such things meant people would recall him as the foreigner who had bought an actor’s bag of makeup and accouterments. That was nearly as bad as being recalled as the last man seen with a murdered woman. Might well prove worse, since being remembered for buying disguises indicated someone with a guilty secret to hide. How the devil did one approach the woman close enough to obtain the letters and murder her, afterwards, without being seen?

  He might throw suspicion on other foreigners, perhaps, if he disguised himself as one of the East End’s thousands of Jews. A long false beard, perhaps, or a prayer shawl knotted under his overcoat . . . Ever since that Jew, what was his name, Lipski, had murdered that little girl in the East End last year, angry Cockneys had been hurtling insults at foreigners in the eastern reaches of London. In the docklands, so many refugees were pouring in from the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, the very word “foreigner” had come to mean “Jew.” Lachley would have to give that serious consideration, throwing blame somehow onto the community of foreigners. If some foreign Jew hanged for Lachley’s deeds, so much the better.

  But his problem was more complicated than simply tracing Polly Nichols, recovering her letters, and silencing her. There was His Highness’ tutor to consider, as well. The man knew too much, far too much for safety. Mr. James K. Stephen would have to die. Which was the reason John Lachley had left London for the nearby village of Greenwich, this morning: to murder Mr. James K. Stephen.

  He had made a point of striking up an acquaintance with the man on the riding paths surrounding Greenwich just the morning previously. Lachley, studying the layout of the land Stephen preferred for his morning rides, had casually trailed Stephen while looking for a place to stage a fatal accident. The path Eddy’s tutor habitually took carried the riders out into fields where farm workers labored to bring in the harvest despite the appalling rain squalls, then wandered within a few feet of a large windmill near the railway line. Lachley gazed at that windmill with a faint smile. If he could engineer it so that Stephen rode past the windmill at the same time as a passing train . . .

  So he followed Stephen further along the trail and cantered his horse up alongside, smiling in greeting, and introduced himself. “Good morning, sir. John Lachley, physician.”

  “Good morning, Dr. Lachley,” Eddy’s unsuspecting tutor smiled in return. “James Stephen.”

  He feigned surprise. “Surely not James K. Stephen?”

  The prince’s former tutor stared in astonishment. “Yes, in fact, I am.”

  “Why, I am delighted, sir! Delighted! Eddy has spoken so fondly of you! Oh, I ought to explain,” he added at the man’s look of total astonishment. “His Highness Prince Albert Victor is one of my patients, nothing serious, of course, I assure you. We’ve become rather good friends over the last few months. He has spoken often of you, sir. Constantly assigns to you the lion’s share of the credit for his success at Cambridge.”

  Stephen flushed with pleasure. “How kind of His Highness! It was my priviledge to have tutored him at university. You say Eddy is quite well, then?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite so. I use certain mesmeric techniques in my practice, you see, and Eddy had heard that the use of mesmeric therapy can improve one’s memory.”

  Stephen smiled in genuine delight. “So naturally Eddy was interested! Of course. I hope you have been able to assist him?”

  “Indeed,” John Lachley laughed easily. “His memory will never be the same.”

  Stephen shared his chuckle without understanding Lachley’s private reasons for amusement. As they rode on in companionable conversation, Lachley let fall a seemingly casual remark. “You know, I’ve enjoyed this ride more than any I can recall in an age. So much more refreshing than Hyde Park or Rotten Row, where one only appears to be in the countryside, whereas this is the genuine article. Do you ride this way often?”

  “Indeed, sir, I do. Every morning.”

  “Oh, splendid! I say, do you suppose we might ride out together again tomorrow? I should enjoy the company and we might chat about Eddy, share a few amusing anecdotes, perhaps?”

  “I should enjoy it tremendously. At eight o’clock, if that isn’t too early?”

  “Not at all.” He made a mental note to check the train schedules to time their ride past that so-convenient windmill. “Eight o’clock it shall be.” And so they rode on, chatting pleasantly while John Lachley laid his plans to murder the amiable young man who had helped Eddy with one too many translations.

  Early morning light, watery and weak, tried vainly to break through rainclouds as Lachley stepped off Greenwich pier from the waterman’s taxi he’d taken down from London. The clock of the world-famous Greenwich observatory struck eight chimes as Lachley rented a nag from a dockside livery stable and met James Stephen, as agreed. The unsuspecting Stephen greeted him warmly. “Dr. Lachley! Well met, old chap! I say, it’s rather a dismal morning, but we’ll put a good face on it, eh? Company makes the gloomiest day brighter, what?”

  “Indeed,” Lachley nodded, giving the doomed tutor a cheery smile.

  The scent of the River Thames drifted on the damp breeze, mingling with the green smell of swampy ground from Greenwich Marshes and the acrid, harsh smell of coal smoke, but Dr. John Lachley drew a deep, double-lungful and smiled again at the man who rode beside him, who had but a quarter of an hour to live.

  Riding down the waterfront, past berths where old fashioned, sail-powered clipper ships and small, iron-hulled steamers creaked quietly at anchor, Lachley and Mr. Stephen turned their nags up King William Walk to reach Greenwich Park, then headed parallel to the river past the Queen’s House, built for Queen Anne of Denmark by James the First in 1615. Greenwich boasted none of London’s stink, smelling instead of fresh marshes and late-autumn hay and old money. Tudor monarchs had summered here and several had been born in Greenwich palaces. The Royal Naval College, once a Royal Hospital for Seamen, shared the little village on the outskirts of London with the Royal Observatory and the world-famous Greenwich Meridian, the zero line of oceanic navigation.

  As they left behind the village with its royal associations, riding out along the bridle path which snaked its way between Trafalgar Road and the railway line, Lachley began sharing an amusing story about Eddy’s latest forays into the East End, a low and vulgar habit Eddy had indulged even during his years at Cambridge, in order to drink and make the rounds of the brothels, pubs, and even, occasionally, the street walkers and fourpence whores who could be had for the price of a loaf of bread.

  “ . . . told the girl he’d give her quid if she’d give him a four-penny knee-trembler and the child turned out to be an honest working girl. Slapped his face so hard it left a hand-print, little dreaming she’d just struck the grandson of the queen. And poor Eddy went chasing after her to apologize, ended up buying every flower in her tray . . .”

  They were approaching the fateful windmill Lachley had spied the previous morning. The screaming whistle of a distant train announced the arrival of the diversion Lachley required for his scheme. He smiled to himself and slowed his horse deliberately, to be sure of the timing, leaning down as though concerned his horse might be drawing up lame. Stephen also reined in slightly to match pace with him and to hear the end of the story he was relating.

  The train whistle shrieked again. Both horses tossed their heads in a fretting movement. Good . . . Lach
ley nodded approvingly. A nervous horse under Mr. James K. Stephen was all the better. The sorrel Stephen rode danced sideways as the train made its roaring, smoking approach. A moment later they were engulfed in a choking cloud of black smoke and raining cinders.

  Lachley whipped his hand into his coat pocket and dragged out the lead-filled sap he’d brought along. His pulse thundered. His nostrils dilated. His whole body tingled with electric awareness. His vision narrowed, tunnelling down to show him the precise spot he would strike. They passed the whirling blades of the windmill, engulfed in the deafening roar of the passing train. Now! Lachley reined his horse around in a lightning move that brought him alongside Stephen’s sweating mount. Excitement shot through him, ragged, euphoric. He caught a glimpse of James Stephen’s trusting, unsuspecting face—

  A single, savage blow was all it took.

  The thud of the lead sap against his victim’s skull jarred Lachley’s whole arm, from wrist to shoulder. Pain and shock exploded across Stephen’s face. The man’s horse screamed and lunged sideways as its rider crumpled in the saddle. The nag bolted straight under the windmill, crowded in that direction by Lachley’s own horse and the deafening thunder of the passing train. Stephen pitched sideways out of the saddle, reeling toward unconsciousness. And precisely as Lachley had known it would, one of the windmill vanes caught Stephen brutally across the back of the skull. He was thrown violently to one side by the turning blade. The one-time tutor to Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward landed in a crumpled heap several feet away. Lachley sat watching for a long, shaking moment. The sensations sweeping through him, almost sexual in their intensity, left him trembling.

  Then, moving with creditable calm for a man who had just committed his second murder with his own hands—and the first in open view of the public eye—John Lachley wiped the lead sap on his handkerchief and secreted his weapon in his pocket once more. He reined his horse around and tied it to the nearest tree. Dismounting from the saddle, he walked over to the man he’d come here to kill. James K. Stephen lay in a broken heap. Lachley bent down . . . and felt the pulse fluttering at the man’s throat.

  The bastard was still alive! Fury blasted through him, brought his vision shrieking down to a narrow hunter’s focus once more. He stole his hand into his pocket, where the lead sap lay hidden—

  “Dear God!” a voice broke into his awareness above the shriek and rattle of the train. Lachley whirled around, violently shaken. Another man on horseback had approached from the trail. The stranger was jumping to the ground, running towards them. Worse, a striking young woman with heavy blond hair sat another horse on the trail, watching them with an expression of shock and horror.

  “What’s happened?” the intruder asked, reasonably enough.

  Lachley forced himself to calmness, drew on a lifetime’s worth of deceit and the need to hide who and what he was in order to survive, and said in a voice filled with concern, “This gentleman and I were riding along the trail, here, when the train passed. Something from the train struck him as it went by, I don’t know what, a large cinder perhaps, or maybe someone threw something from a window. But his horse bolted quite abruptly. Poor devil was thrown from the saddle, straight under the windmill blades. I’d just reached him when you rode up.”

  As he spoke, he knelt at Stephen’s side, lifted his wrist to sound his pulse, used his handkerchief to bind the deep wound in his head, neatly explaining away the blood on the snowy linen. The stranger crouched beside him, expression deeply concerned.

  “We must get him to safety at once! Here . . . cradle the poor man’s head and I’ll lift his feet. We’ll put him in my saddle and I’ll ride behind, keep him from falling. Alice, love, don’t look too closely, his head’s a dreadful sight, covered in blood.”

  Lachley ground his teeth in a raging frustration and gave the man a seemingly relieved smile. “Capital idea! Splendid. Careful, now . . .”

  Ten minutes later the man he’d come all this way to murder lay in a bed in a Greenwich Village doctor’s cottage, in a deep coma and not—as the doctor said with a sad shake of his head—expected to survive. Lachley agreed that it was a terrible tragedy and explained to the village constable what had occurred, then gave the man his name and address in case he were needed again.

  The constable said with genuine concern, “Not that there’s likely to be any inquest, even if the poor chap dies, it’s clearly an accident, terrible freak of an accident, and I appreciate your help, sir, that I do.”

  The bastard who’d come along at just the wrong instant gave the constable his own name, as well, a merchant down from Manchester, visiting London with his younger sister. Lachley wanted to snatch the lead sap out of his pocket and smash in the merchant’s skull with it. Instead, he took his leave of the miserable little physician’s cottage while the constable arranged to contact James Stephen’s family. It was some consolation, at least, that Stephen was not likely to survive much longer. And, of course, even if Stephen did live, the man would not realize that the blow which had struck him down had been an intentional one. The story of the accident would be relayed to the victim by the constable, the village doctor, even his own family. And if Stephen did survive . . .

  There were ways, even then, of erasing the problem he still represented.

  The matter being as resolved as he could make it at this juncture, John Lachley set his horse toward Greenwich Village pier for the return trip to London and set his seething mind toward Polly Nichols and the problems she represented.

  He was still wrestling with the problem when he returned home to find a letter which had arrived, postmarked, of all places, Whitechapel, London, Liverpool Street Station. “My dearest Dr. Lachley,” the missive began, “such a tremendous difference you have made! Many of my symptoms have abated immeasurably since my visit to your office, Friday last. I feel stronger, more well, than I have in many months. But I am still troubled greatly by itching hands and dreadful headaches. I wondered if you would be so good as to arrange another appointment for me in your surgery? I am certain you can do me more good than any other physician in the world. As I have returned to London on business, it would be most kind of you to fit me into your admittedly busy schedule. I eagerly await your response. Please contact me by return post, general delivery, Whitechapel.”

  It was signed James Maybrick, Esquire.

  John Lachley stared at the signature. Then a slow smile began to form. James Maybrick, the murderous cotton merchant from Liverpool . . . With his delightful written diary and its equally delightful confession of murder. And not just any murder, either, but the murder of a whore, by damn, committed by a man with all the motive in the world to hate prostitutes! Maybrick wasn’t a Jew, didn’t look even remotely foreign. But if Lachley recruited Maybrick into this hunt for Polly Nichols, worked with him, there would be two descriptions for eyewitnesses to hand police, confounding the issue further, throwing the constables even more violently off Lachley’s trail. Yes, by damn, Maybrick was just the thing he required.

  It was so simple, he very nearly laughed aloud. He would meet the man in Whitechapel this very night, by God, induce a state of drugged mesmeric trance, then turn that lethal rage of his into the perfect killing machine, a weapon he could direct at will against whatever target he chose. And the diary would ensure the man’s death at the end of a rope. Lachley chuckled, allowing the seething frustration over his failure to silence the prince’s tutor to drop away. He would encourage Maybrick to dutifully record every sordid detail of Polly Nichols’ murder, would even place mesmeric blocks in Maybrick’s mind to prevent the imbecile from mentioning him in the diary.

  James Maybrick was a godsend, by damn, a genuine godsend!

  But as he turned his thoughts toward the use he would make of Maybrick, the enormity of the threat Polly Nichols represented drained away his jubilant mood. God, that Nichols bitch had been in possession of the letters long enough, she might have found someone to translate the bloody letters into English! He had
to move quickly, that much was certain. Tonight. He would risk waiting no longer than that.

  Lachley opened his desk and removed pen, paper, and penny-post stamps, then composed a brief reply to his arsenic-addicted little cotton merchant. “My dear sir, I would be delighted to continue your treatment. It is an honor to be entrusted with your health. I am certain I can make a changed man of you. Please call upon me in my Cleveland Street surgery this evening by eight P.M. If you are unable to keep this appointment, please advise me by telegram and we will arrange a mutually agreeable time.”

  He left the house to post the letter, himself, wanting to be certain it would go out in plenty of time for the late afternoon mail delivery bound for Liverpool Street Station, Whitechapel—no more than a handful of miles from his house in Cleveland Street. London was the envy of Europe for its mail service, with multiple pickups a day and delivery times of only a few hours, particularly for general delivery mail service. Lachley smiled to himself and whistled easily as he strolled past the fashionable artists’ studios which lined Cleveland Street, giving it the air of respectability and fashion its other, less reputable inhabitants could never hope to achieve. Men of wealth and high station patronized the studios on Cleveland Street, commissioning paintings for their homes, portraits of their wives and progeny, immortalizing themselves on the canvasses of talented artists like Walter Sickert and the incomparable Vallon, who’d recently painted a canvas which the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, had just purchased for the astonishing sum of five hundred pounds, merely because members of his family were included in the work.

  John Lachley had chosen Cleveland Street for his residence because of its association with the highly fashionable artistic community. Here, a mesmeric physician and occultist appeared to his wealthy clientele as a model of staid respectability compared with the somewhat more Bohemian artists of the district. Lachley knew perfectly well he would have been considered outlandish in more sedate surroundings such as Belgravia. So to Cleveland Street he had come, despite the reputations of one or two of its pubs and houses, which catered to men of Eddy’s persuasion. And it was in Cleveland Street where he had first met the darling prince Albert Victor Christian Edward and turned that chance meeting to his considerable advantage. His scheme was certainly paying handsome dividends.