The House That Jack Built

by Robert Asprin

  "My card," Skeeter handed over the first of several dozen Spaldergate's staff had run off for him the previous night, "if anything should turn up."

  "Deeply obliged, sir," the clerk said earnesly, "for the warning. I'll keep your card right here in the cash drawer."

  Skeeter tipped his hat as Margo thanked the clerk, then they headed for the next shop. And the one after that, moving from street to street, until Skeeter's feet ached and his throat burned and the skies poured miserable, sooty rain down their collars. He and Margo hastily opened thick umbrellas against the downpour and checked the time on Skeeter's pocket watch.

  "One o'clock. No wonder my feet are killing me."

  "And my stomach's about to have a close encounter with my spine," Margo said ruefully. "Let's find something to eat, then keep searching."

  The afternoon was no more profitable than the morning had been, just wetter. By the time Margo admitted they'd struck out, the sun was already below the rooftops and the chilly evening wind was biting through Skeeter's overcoat.

  "I'm afraid there's not much more we can do today," Margo sighed.

  "Maybe someone else found something?"

  "They would've contacted us," she said with a slight shake of her head. "Let's get back to Spaldergate. We'll cross check with everyone else and come up with a new plan of attack for tomorrow."

  "My feet aren't even going to speak to me by tomorrow," Skeeter groaned, flagging down a ratty-looking hansom cab.

  The two-wheeled, open carriage slithered to a halt at the kerbside. "Battersea," Margo called up as Skeeter handed her into the cab, "and I've consulted Mogg's!"

  "Why, I'd never cheat a lady, miss!"

  The cabbie flicked his reins and they set out at a jolting trot.

  "What's Mogg's?" Skeeter asked, hanging onto his seat and struggling with his stubborn umbrella.

  "Mogg's maps." She pulled a little booklet from her handbag and passed it over. "Study it carefully. It lists the fares for every conceivable route through the city. Otherwise, cabbies will cheat you blind."

  "I'll remember that," Skeeter said as the horse jolted around a corner and swung smartly into heavy traffic, nearly colliding with two carriages and a drayman's wagon and eliciting rude commentaries from cabbies they narrowly avoided while rounding a traffic circus Skeeter didn't recognize. "If we survive so long. Man, not even New York traffic is this nuts!"

  Margo just grimaced and held on.

  True to Margo's prediction, nobody else had found a trace of counterfeit banknotes, nor had anyone located a witness who could identify Armstrong, Catlin, or Marcus. Skeeter was feeling massively discouraged when he eased his aching, blistered feet into a basin of hot water in his bedroom. Maybe they hadn't bought their clothes in SoHo? Or maybe they'd lucked out and used genuine banknotes when making the purchase? What else would they have to buy, which could be paid for with Goldie's counterfeit banknotes? Food, of course, and coal for the cookstove and fireplace. But they weren't likely to pay for any of that with five- and ten-pound banknotes.

  "Well," he mused aloud, "they have to live somewhere, don't they?" Had they brought enough cash between them to buy a house or were they reduced to renting? Probably the latter, unless Armstrong had found lucrative employment somewhere. According to Goldie's records, she hadn't changed enough currency for "Benny Catlin" to buy a London house, not even a really ratty one. But if they were renting, they might well use larger denominations to make the payments. "I wonder how somebody goes about renting a house in London?"

  He asked that question at dinner, since Kaederman had announced his intention of taking all his meals in his room. Malcolm toyed thoughtfully with a spoonful of turtle soup—the mock variety, since no one in Spaldergate House would buy sea turtle, even if the creatures wouldn't be endangered for another century. As he pushed around bits of mock turtle meat, Malcolm's brow furrowed slightly.

  "We hadn't pursued that avenue of inquiry, Skeeter, because finding one man in all of London by knocking up every leasing agency in the city is an even longer shot than checking infirmaries and hospital wards. But we're not looking for Benny Catlin on his own, any longer, we're looking for a rather conspicuous group, aren't we? Yes, we might do well, at that, searching for some trace of such a group. One leases a house through a variety of means, generally via agencies which maintain lists of properties to let. Quite a few such agencies also have telephones, these days. We could put someone on it from Spaldergate while the rest of us continue to search along other lines. And there will certainly be agencies we shall have to check in person."

  Miss Tansy, Spaldergate's capable administrative assistant, offered to compile a list. "I'll begin telephoning when the agencies open tomorrow."

  "Thanks," Skeeter said, flashing her a grateful smile.

  When he finally crawled into bed, he dreamed of endless shopfronts, their windows streaming with sooty grey rain, and of endless, babbling voices and blurred faces reflecting only puzzled bafflement as he posed question after question. When Skeeter finally woke, aching and tired with the unfair exhaustion that comes of too many stressful dreams, he roused into consciousness with an immediate awareness of a renewed throbbing from his feet, a gradual awareness of watery light and the spatter of rain falling against his window, and the unhappy knowledge that he would have to coax his swollen and protesting feet through several more miles of London's maze-like collection of storefronts. He sighed, eased gingerly out of bed, and got ready for another day of searching.

  Surely there had to be an easier way to go legit?

  Shahdi Feroz knew she was lucky when she woke up on the Commons floor. She was alive. Frankly, she hadn't expected to wake up again. She tried to move and bit her lips over a gasp of pain, then opted for lying very still, instead. A station riot had erupted as far as her swollen right eye could see. Given the shocking bruises she could feel the length of her body, Shahdi suspected panic stricken tourists had stepped on her, multiple times. John Lachley's single, if somewhat devastating, right cross to her temple couldn't begin to account for her stiff, unresponsive limbs and aching back muscles.

  At the moment, she could only give profound and shaken thanks that John Lachley had dropped her at all. What he would've done to her . . . She shuddered, recalling the sight of Dominica Nosette's severed head clutched in his hand. Poor, stupid reporter. The rest of her lay in the basement of New Scotland Yard on Whitehall; they'd watched Lachley drop off the mutilated torso and bid her a flippant farewell, via the camera hidden at the construction site. Shahdi was gingerly flexing her fingers, trying to decide whether or not her body would accept being pushed to hands and knees, when someone literally dragged her to her feet. Blinding light caught her square in the eyes and the world erupted into a chaos of shouting voices.

  "Dr. Feroz—"

  "—comment—"

  "—really Jack the Ripper—"

  "—how could you allow that monster—"

  She stumbled and swayed sharply, and would've fallen again if she hadn't collided with someone far taller and heavier than herself. The man grasped her by the shoulders, keeping her on her feet, then a new voice thundered into her awareness.

  "By God, you're going to answer for this!"

  Before she could even blink her vision clear, Shahdi was dragged forward, tottering off balance, literally hauled through the chaos by a man whose grip added another layer of bruises. Still half-stunned from Lachley's blow, she couldn't even offer a struggle for the first hundred paces. By the time her head was clear enough to realize she'd just been assaulted—again—and had been kidnapped by some new maniac, there wasn't a security officer in sight.

  Shahdi dug in her heels. "Let go of me!"

  She wasn't sure whose face she expected to swing furiously into focus.

  Senator John Caddrick hadn't even made her list of possibilities. She gasped, then wrenched her arm free. "Who do you think you are? Take your hands off me at once!"

  "Oh, no you don't!" Caddrick snarled,
dragging her forward again. "You and I have an appointment with federal authorities. I want some answers!"

  She twisted free once more, ready for combat. "Touch me again and I will have you jailed for assault and battery!"

  Before Caddrick could reply—or grab her wrist again—a howling mob of reporters descended, screaming questions and thrusting cameras and microphones into their faces. From somewhere out of the confusion, a uniformed BATF agent appeared.

  "Thank God! You found her!" the agent cried, speaking briefly into her radio. "Secure from Signal Eight-Delta, I have Dr. Feroz, unharmed."

  "Roger, bring her in."

  "Dr. Feroz, please come with me immediately. Your life is in danger."

  Another security patrol rushed toward them, flanking Shahdi and pushing back reporters with a certain callousness that shocked her.

  "What's going on?" Caddrick demanded.

  "Dr. Feroz is being taken into protective custody. The Ripper cults have targeted her for murder."

  While she tried to take in the implications of that shocking statement, the security agents hustled Shahdi through the station, leaving Caddrick and the reporters to trail after them, shouting questions nobody answered. They literally dragged Shahdi through the doorway into security headquarters, with the senator and fifty screaming newsies on their heels. The lobby was in chaos. Agents scrambled past them, swearing and shoving reporters aside with scant regard for broken equipment. Telephones shrilled for attention between deafening hoots from the station's emergency sirens. Dispatchers shouted instructions into radios, scribbled information from the reports crackling over the speakers.

  John Caddrick stood staring at the confusion, then strode toward the main desk, mouth thinned to near invisibility. Shahdi was escorted past the uncertain haven of the dispatcher's desk where a harried woman was shouting into a radio. A moment later, Shahdi found herself in a nearly empty corridor lined with closed doors. "This way, Dr. Feroz," her escort said, steering her around a corner. They cannoned straight into someone at least two feet taller than Shahdi was. She staggered and fell against the wall, then found herself staring up at Ronisha Azzan, Shangri-La's Deputy Station Manager.

  "Dr. Feroz?" Ronisha Azzan blinked. "Thank God, I was told you'd been located. Come with me, please. I was just coming down to meet you."

  Behind the tall deputy station manager, a squat, fire-plug shape was storming down the corridor like a torpedo fired at a battleship. Shahdi blinked in surprise. Bull Morgan was out of jail. Caddrick rounded the corner at just that moment, then stood sputtering. "What's he doing out of jail?"

  The squat station manager growled, "What the hell is he doing here?" reminding Shahdi of an angry pit bull.

  Caddrick flushed, nostrils flaring with barely controlled anger as he stared up at the tall deputy station manager beside Bull Morgan. "Azzan, I will have your head for this! Letting a known criminal out of jail before—"

  Bull Morgan shouldered him aside. "Get out of my security headquarters. You're obstructing an emergency operation during a declared state of martial law. Leave right now or pick out your cell in the detention block. The one I've been using is free."

  "How dare you—"

  The security agents who'd escorted Shahdi to safety produced handcuffs and startlingly effective grins. The nearest said with a chuckle, "Mr. Morgan never bluffs, Senator. And neither does the BATF."

  Caddrick sputtered for an instant longer, then turned on his heel and strode away. Bull bit the end of a cigar he'd magicked out of a pocket. "Better give that schmuck an escort back to his hotel. God knows, we don't want anything happening to him out there."

  Security pelted after him as Bull appropriated his deputy manager's radio. "Benson! Report, goddammit!" He strode off before Shahdi could hear the reply. Ronisha Azzan stalked after him, drawing Shahdi along.

  "Ms. Azzan," she said, wincing as the rapid pace jolted her bruises, "I don't know what a Code Seven Red is, but I do know Jack the Ripper is loose on this station and right now, I know more about Dr. John Lachley than anyone else on TT-86. I'd like to help."

  The tall deputy manager nodded her thanks. "Doctor, you just got yourself a job."

  Moments later, she was at ground zero of the biggest crisis in the history of time tourism, wondering what on earth she was going to tell the harried, white-faced security officers looking to her for answers.

  * * *

  By the end of his first week in London, Skeeter Jackson had begun to think Jenna Caddrick and Noah Armstrong had made their own clothes. Or that Noah had bought their entire wardrobe in the States and brought it over by ship. Hundreds of tailors' shops and ready-made clothing stores, scattered throughout SoHo, had yielded not so much as a trace of the missing senator's daughter and her companions. Even the inquiry into leasing agents had drawn a blank. None of the agents they consulted had found any counterfeit banknotes, nor could they identify the photos Skeeter and the other searchers circulated.

  At Malcolm's suggestion, they turned their attention to the East End, a far more dangerous territory to search. Teams consisted of three searchers minimum, for safety's sake. Also at Malcolm's suggestion, Sid Kaederman remained at Spaldergate, supervising the teams fielded to question private physicians and surgeons; the actual questioning was done by Spaldergate staff and Time Tours porters.

  Skeeter's first run into the East End was supervised by two seasoned pros: Malcolm and Margo, who wanted to be sure he knew the ropes before turning him loose with a couple of groomsmen. Whitechapel, with its dismal, dirty streets and its stench of rotting refuse in the gutters, was open for business well before Skeeter arrived, less than an hour past dawn.

  Immense wagonloads of freight groaned their cumbersome way down Houndsditch, Aldgate High Street, and Commercial Street. Heavy drays with chipped, ponderous hooves and shabby coats of hair growing in thick for winter, strained against worn leather harness and collars. The big draft horses carted vast tonnages of export goods to the docks for shipment across the face of the world, and brought out staggering amounts of raw lumber and bales of cotton arriving from foreign shores, huge bundles of animal hides and fur for the leather and garment industries, ingots of pig iron and copper and tin for the smelting plants and iron works which belched their stinking smoke into Whitechapel's skies. The high whine and rasp of industrial saws poured from open factory windows, like clouds of enraged wasps spilling furiously from a nest shaken by a foolish little boy.

  And everywhere, the people: dirty to the pores with coal smoke and industrial grime no amount of scrubbing with harsh lye soap could remove. Women in frowsy dresses ran bakeshops, trundled basketloads of fish and flowers, plied meat cleavers against stained butchers' blocks in grimy little storefronts whose back rooms often hid the misery and desperation of illegal abortions. Men hauled butchered carcasses over their shoulders or gutted fish in stinking open-air markets where feral cats and fat, sleek rats fought for discarded offal and fish heads.

  Other men hauled handcarts piled high with bricks and building stone or carried grinding wheels on frayed leather harnesses, calling out in roughened voices, "Knives to grind!" as they wandered from shop to doorstep. Boys ran urgent errands, clutching baskets of vegetables and heavy stacks of newspapers, or trundled rickety wheelbarrows spilling over with piles of red, coarse brick dust which they sold in little sackfuls. One boy jogged along with a ferret in his arms, leading a bright-eyed spaniel on a worn leather leash.

  "Good grief, is that a pet ferret?" Skeeter turned to stare.

  Malcolm followed his glance. "Not a pet. That boy's a rat-catcher. `You maun have a ferret, to catch a rat,' " he added in what sounded suspiciously like a quotation. "He'll spend the day over in the better parts of town, de-ratting some rich woman's house. The ferret chases them out and the spaniel kills the sneaky little beasts."

  "And the boy gets paid a small fortune by some hysterical housewife," Skeeter guessed.

  Margo shook her head. "More likely by some frantic housekeeper
who doesn't want to lose her place because rats have broken into the cellar or littered in the best linens."

  "There is that," Skeeter admitted as the boy dodged past, heading west. Then he spotted a long, shallow wooden trough where girls appeared to be dunking handfuls of dried leaves into stinking dye. "What in the world are they doing?"

  "Dying tea leaves," Malcolm said drolly.

  "Dying them? What for?"

  Margo chuckled. "There's fortunes to made in the tea recycling business. Housekeepers in wealthy households sell used tea leaves for a tidy sum, then girls in the tea trade dye the leaves so they look new and sell them in the poorer parts of town."

  "Remind me not to buy tea anywhere around here. What's in that stuff they're using? It smells horrible."

  "Don't ask," Malcolm said repressively.

  "You don't want to know what's in the food around here, either," Margo added. "They keep passing laws against putting in the worst stuff. Like brick dust in sausages, as filler."

  "Remind me to skip lunch. And I'm not a squeamish eater." A guy couldn't spend five years in Yesukai the Valiant's tent and stay finicky, not if he wanted to survive. But he'd never eaten brick dust—of that, at least, he was morally certain. They passed the Ten Bells, a public house strategically poised on the corner of roaring Commercial Street and Fournier, within sight of the gleaming white spire of Christchurch, Spitalfields. Rough-dressed men loitered near the entrance, eyeing tired women who walked slowly past, returning the interested stares with calculating glances. A shabby woman selling roasted chestnuts beside the door paid the prostitutes no attention, reserving her efforts for paying customers. One woman who'd stopped to rest against the pub's wall was driven away by a nearby constable.