* * *
Skeeter reached the bottom of the bone-dry gully slightly behind Kit. Before either of them could call a greeting, Paula gave a glad cry. She came hurtling out from behind a sheltering boulder and threw herself straight into Kit's arms. "Oh, God, Kit Carson! I've never been so happy to see anybody in my whole life! And Skeeter Jackson!"
"What's happened?" Kit asked tersely, fishing for a clean bandanna. Paula dried her eyes with it, gulping to control tears of sheer relief at her rescue.
The Time Tours guide with the surgeon answered through clenched teeth. "Bastards jumped us from cover, when Paula's horse threw a shoe. I was trying to reshoe the nag when they started shooting."
"Then you haven't caught up with Joey Tyrolin, yet?" Kit asked sharply.
Paula shook her head. "No. And we won't, either. Mr. Samuelson and I were bringing back the bad news."
"Too right," Samuelson growled. "Little bastard and his porter emigrated on us! They jumped a train before we could catch up and headed east. The drovers and other guides are trying to trace them, but they bought a ticket for Chicago, so they could jump off anywhere between here and Illinois. Or keep going, switch trains in Chicago and head for the East Coast."
Skeeter kicked disgustedly at a clod of dirt. "Great. Now what, Kit?"
The grizzled scout shoved his hat back and wiped sweat from his brow. "We hold a council of war."
Skeeter certainly didn't have any better ideas.
* * *
Dominica Nosette was so excited she could scarcely stand still. At last! John Lachley and James Maybrick together on the same street! The night was windy, full of rainshowers and sudden gusts that whipped Dominica's skirts against her ankles and rattled her bonnet around her ears, but Dominica scarcely noticed. Her tiny video camera rode next to her ear, mounted underneath the concealing brim of her bonnet. The lens recorded everything in front of her, whichever way Dominica turned her head, and the camera was specially fitted with low-light and infrared technology to record video signal in even the darkest alleyways. An infrared light source in the fake fruit fastened to her bonnet illuminated a wide fan in front of her, switched on whenever she pressed the plunger inside her pocket. She'd been holding it down steadily for the past five minutes, eyes riveted to the two men who conferred briefly under a grimy street lamp, one of the few scattered through the East End. The directional microphone in her bonnet picked up their low-voiced conversation and broadcast it to her earplug.
"The woman lives in this house," Lachley's voice said. "Eddowes is her name, Kate Eddowes, a dirty whore."
Maybrick's voice, breathless with sick excitement, answered. "I want her, John, I want to rip her . . ."
"Not until I have my letters."
"Of course . . ."
Dominica finally knew what was contained in the letters John Lachley sought. She and her partner had managed to make a photocopy of Long Liz Stride's priceless missive, telling her precisely why John Lachley was stalking these women to death. The queen's grandson, the firstborn son of the Prince of Wales, in the direct line of succession, had been indiscreet. Highly indiscreet. With a male prostitute, no less. If proof of that indiscretion fell into the wrong hands, Eddy would be ruined, possibly even jailed. And John Lachley's career as Eddy's spiritual advisor would come to a disastrous end. Classic motive and response. Except, of course, that Lachley was a psychopath and was using another psychopath as a weapon to rid himself of all witnesses.
Poor Kate Eddowes. She and her lover had returned to London on Friday from Kent and the hop harvest, a return Dominica and Guy had videotaped.
"I'll get a room over at the casual ward, Shoe Lane, luv," Eddowes had told Kelly. "We won't be apart long. You rest, now, and see to that cough."
Dominica had followed her down to Shoe Lane, capturing for posterity her fateful conversation with the casual ward's superintendent. "Oh, I'll get money, right enough. I know the Whitechapel murderer, I do. I'll collect that reward being offered by the newspapers!"
But if Kate Eddowes knew, she'd done nothing about it, contacting neither the police nor the newspapermen who were offering rewards of up to a hundred pounds—a literal fortune to someone like Catharine Eddowes—for information on the Ripper. She avoided constables, shunned reporters, and walked the streets as always, drinking what she earned and staring into shadows, clearly trying to drink her way through her terror or perhaps trying to drink her way to enough courage to finally act. Dominica thought pityingly that she was doubtless too frightened to come straight out and say, "Look, here, I've got a letter from the queen's grandson in my pocket and I think he's your killer . . ."
Prince Albert Victor was, of course, safely away in Scotland with his grandmother, just now, providing him with an ironclad alibi for the murders of Stride and Eddowes. Dominica doubted the prince even knew what Lachley was doing, although he might guess. Perhaps that was why he'd fled to Scotland, leaving his spiritual advisor behind in London.
When the night of September 30th arrived, Dominica and Guy followed Lachley from his home in Cleveland Street, then lost him for more than an hour in the teeming streets of Wapping. "Where the deuce did he get to?" Guy Pendergast muttered as darkness descended over London's rooftops.
"Where the devil does he always get to? Wherever it is, I intend to find out!"
"To do that, pet, we'll have to find him again. Of course, we can always pick him up at Dutfield's Yard."
"I plan to videotape much more of his activities this evening than that! We'll go to Catharine's doss house," Dominica decided. "Surely he'll show up there?" And that was exactly where they caught up to him, in the company of James Maybrick, at long, bloody last.
"We'll find Eddowes, first, if we can," Lachley muttered, his voice whispering electronically in Dominica's ear. "She's too bloody dangerous to leave wandering the streets any longer."
Lachley and Maybrick set out, stopping at public house after public house, searching for the doomed Kate Eddowes. Dominica, of course, knew exactly where Eddowes was—at least, where she'd be at eight o'clock, or thereabouts. Lachley wandered, by chance, directly into her path just in time to see events unfold in Aldgate High Street. He watched in open-mouthed disbelief and rising fury as two police constables incarcerated the woman he had waited two entire weeks to kill.
Catharine Eddowes was drunk. So drunk she could hardly stand up. Wailing like a fire engine and giggling, one would've thought her a girl of twelve. The sight of a forty-six-year-old prostitute whooping her way into Bishopsgate Police Station, carrying a letter in her pocket that could destroy everything Lachley had worked for, had murdered for, very nearly put the man over the edge. He stood across the street from the police station, hidden in shadows, soaking wet from the gusting rain, and closed his gloved hands into fists so tight, his hands trembled. The look of murderous rage in his face left Dominica momentarily shaken. When he stepped close to Maybrick, the words he hissed at his accomplice sent a shiver up her back.
"They can't keep her there forever, God curse her! And if she shows them that letter, I'll set fire to the whole bloody police station, blow up the bleeding gas main under it!" He jerked his black cloth cap down further over his brow, all but concealing his face, even from Dominica's low-light camera. "We'll find Stride, follow her as we did the others, wait until she's drunk, then I'll approach her and secure my letters. You can have her, afterwards."
"Yes . . ."
"You remember the code, James, that we agreed upon, should anyone come upon us while we're about our business?"
"Yes, yes," Maybrick said, his voice a trifle impatient now, "if you see someone, you'll cry Lipski! and I'll do the same if I spot anyone."
Lipski . . . The name of a poisoner who'd triggered a wave of anti-Semitic hatred in these streets the previous year. That hatred was sickeningly alive and well in the wake of the Ripper's murders. John Lachley and James Maybrick were deliberately fanning the flames of anti-Semitism, throwing the police even further off their tr
ail, by using a word like Lipski as a coded warning. Anyone hearing that particular name would automatically assume it was aimed at a foreign Jewish murderer, rather than a warning between conspirators.
No wonder the constabulary had never caught the Ripper. Diabolically clever, these two. But hardly a match for Dominica Nosette. She smiled to herself as they returned to Flower and Dean Street, heading to the doss house at number 32 in search of Elizabeth Stride. And this time, they hit paydirt straightaway. The kitchen entrance opened, spilling light and warmth into the blustery night. Elizabeth Stride paused in the doorway, speaking to someone in the kitchen.
"Look, Thomas, luv, I've got sixpence! The deputy gave it to me. I'm off for a drink, but I'll be back!" Long Liz sailed cheerfully out into the evening, chuckling to herself as she passed Maybrick and Lachley, hidden in the darkness. "I'll be back, all right, but not 'til I've found me a jolly Welshman!" She laughed aloud at that, then headed briskly in the direction of Commercial Road where the kind of trade she sought would be plentiful on a night like this.
From her shadowy place of concealment, Dominica Nosette watched James Maybrick and then John Lachley set out in pursuit, moving at a leisurely pace, entirely silent on what must have been rubberized shoes, to have made so little noise against the wet pavements. She hadn't thought of that and kicked herself for not considering it. Normally she wore rubber-soled trainers for undercover work like this, but they would've garnered instant attention in the down-time world of Victorian London. Too late now to remedy the lack.
Pulse pounding, Dominica waited until both men were well ahead; then she gathered up her skirts and stepped softly out onto the rain-puddled street and glanced across the road. Guy Pendergast emerged from another cramped and dark little nook. They exchanged a brief glance, then Dominica smiled and set off. She was about to land the story of a lifetime.
* * *
Their council of war didn't last long. Despite Skeeter's urgent desire to follow Marcus' trail as long and as far as possible, they had other considerations to think of, not the least of which was Jenna Caddrick's conspicuous absence from Armstrong's party.
"Their luggage couldn't have had anyone stuffed inside it," Willie Samuelson said glumly. "We bribed the station manager to tell us everything he could remember. He said their luggage must've been almost empty, it weighed so little."
"Which means Jenna Caddrick was never with them in the first place," Kit sighed. He dragged his hat off and ran a hand through sweat-soaked hair. "Much as I hate to say it, it looks like we've been hoodwinked by Armstrong's sleight of hand. I suggest we abandon the hunt for Noah Armstrong and his porter. Either Jenna's already dead or she never was with Armstrong."
"In other words," Skeeter muttered, "the little bastard deliberately sent us on a wild goose chase."
"If you were a terrorist leader running for your life," Kit said in a disgusted tone, "with up-time authorities bound to be on your trail, wouldn't you try to set up a false trail to follow? Remember, Julius was dressed as a girl, so he must have been acting as decoy for whoever was bound to follow Armstrong. The names Cassie Coventina and Joey Tyrolin have been bothering me for quite a while. We were meant to follow Armstrong, presumably so whoever took Jenna Caddrick and Ianira Cassondra could slip away quietly someplace else."
Kaederman muttered under his breath. "But where, dammit?"
No one had an answer to that question. Skeeter rubbed the back of his neck and said under his breath, "I do not look forward to telling the senator how Armstrong tricked us. Christ, this is all we need. Riots all over the station, that jackass Benny Catlin missing in London—"
"Benny Catlin?" Paula echoed, staring. "You mean that nice young kid is missing?"
Kit jerked his gaze up. "You know Benny Catlin?"
Paula blinked, started by the sudden intensity of the stares levelled at her. "Well, yes. I mean, it isn't every day I give a whisker-job to a girl."
Kit's lower jaw came adrift.
Sid Kaederman actually grasped her arm. "What?"
"Take your hand off me!" Paula snapped, yanking herself loose.
Kaederman flushed and apologized. She shrugged her shoulder, rubbing her bicep, then asked Kit, "I take it you didn't you know Benny Catlin was a girl? She told me she wanted to disguise her gender, which was a big disadvantage in London. It's not that unusual, actually, I've just never done a whisker job on a girl that pretty."
"My God!" Skeeter matched the face in the senator's photo to one in his memory and came up with an unpleasant, inescapable conclusion. "Benny Catlin is Jenna!"
Sid Kaederman swore in tones that caused several horses to lay back their ears. "God damn it! Armstrong duped us again! That stinking little bastard ordered his men to take her to London . . ."
"Yeah," Skeeter agreed, "but how did they get tickets? The Britannia's been sold out for nearly a year!"
"Jenna and her roommate must've bought Britannia tickets from that up-time scalper," Kit said slowly. "A year ago, when they first planned to go down time. There would've been plenty of Ripper Tour tickets floating around the black market, a year ago."
Skeeter groaned, "The senator said she wanted to film history. She must've planned to videotape the Ripper terror."
"Yes. And landed right in the middle of the Ansar Majlis terror, instead." Kit scrubbed at his lower face with one sweat-begrimed hand. "We have to get back to TT-86. We'll sleep here tonight, set out first thing in the morning. I'm afraid we'll be riding hard, to make it back to Denver in time to catch the gate. Can you keep up?" He glanced from Paula to Kaederman.
Paula Booker thinned her lips. "I'll cope. The last thing I want to do is stay here. I've had about as much vacation as I can stand, this year."
Kit turned his attention to Kaederman. "I'd suggest you try pain pills for those muscle cramps, or we'll leave you behind."
"I'll take the pills," Kaederman growled. "And when this is over, I am never setting foot down another gate in my life! I hate it!"
"Suits me," Skeeter muttered.
Kit's hard-eyed gaze met Skeeter's. "Well, Jackson, looks like you'll be going to London, after all."
"Great," Skeeter groused. "Jack the Ripper and the Ansar Majlis. Just my cup of tea. Anybody want to place a bet on what the senator has to say about all this?"
He didn't have a single taker.
Chapter Seven
The stalk was in James Maybrick's blood, hot fire that only the red stuff of a life pouring out across his hands could quench. The wild night, with its gusting rainshowers and biting cold winds, spoke to the demons raging in his soul. It called them forth, hungering and slavering, until they ran barefooted through the flames of his own private hell. She shall pay! By God, the bitch shall pay, her and her whoremaster both! All London knows my work, now, and she trembles with fear when people speak of Sir Jim's deeds. Soon, I will pay her the same as I gave the others, whores all . . . and my knife will drink the bitch's blood, as well . . . Maybe I'll take her before I rip her open . . . take her while her whoremaster watches, then rip them both, God damn them!
James Maybrick held in his mind the face of his beautiful, stupid wife, who had whored herself again and again with that fool Brierly. He summoned up the memory of the terror he'd inflicted on that prostitute in Manchester, the even more delicious terror of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman here in London, painted that same wild-eyed fear across his wife's vapid face . . . and smiled as he watched his mentor close in on the common streetwalker chosen as Maybrick's next victim. Maybrick's blood pounded in anticipation.
The potent medicine Lachley gave him each time he visited London left James absolutely invincible, stronger and more sure of himself than he'd felt in his entire fifty years of life. He laughed behind his moustaches, laughed at the notion of Abberline and those bumbling idiots in the Metropolitan Police Department actually catching anyone, let alone Sir Jim and his personal god. So many constables and fine inspectors, wasting their time searching for a foreign Jew to hang!
The game delighted him. That leather apron left in the basin beside Annie Chapman had been a most diverting clue. It had sent the idiots of Whitechapel's H Division chasing after the wrong sort of man. They'd actually arrested a fellow over that lovely apron, so they had! A dirty Jewish boot finisher they'd desperately wanted to be guilty.
Too bad he'd had an alibi, an unshakeable one, at that. Not that they'd have believed him guilty for long, when other filthy whores had to be punished, had to be ripped with his shining knife. No, they wouldn't have held Mr. Pizer forever, certainly not past tonight. Tomorrow, all London would quake in its shoes at the work he would perform, he and John Lachley. A clever cotton merchant from Liverpool and a doctor of occult medicine from London's own SoHo, playing them all for the fools they were . . .
Rain spattered down from dirty skies, black and cold as last winter's ashes. The whore they'd been following for almost two hours, now, was a filthy foreigner. Lachley had told Maybrick about her. She frequently went begging at the Swedish parish church, spinning lies about a nonexistent husband and children. She'd supposedly lost them ten years previously, when the saloon steamer Princess Alice had collided with the steamship Bywell Castle in the Thames, killing nearly seven hundred people. Lachley's inquiries, quiet but thorough, had revealed that the bitch's real English husband had died of heart failure only four years previously, in 1884, not in the famous steamship collision. Children, she had apparently never had.
The one thing about Liz Stride that fretted Maybrick was her nephew, or rather, the late John Stride's nephew, who was a member of the bloody Metropolitan Police Force, of all things. But that didn't worry James too much. Clearly, the nephew couldn't care overly much for his aunt, not if Liz Stride were living in Whitechapel, charring for Jews and mending their garments for them, selling her body to whatever man would have her. He must remember to leave some nasty little clue on the streets, tonight, pointing the finger of suspicion at the foreign Jews again, he really must. He'd remembered to bring his chalk, this time, too.
The House That Jack Built Page 14
