Ripped, a Jack the Ripper Time-Travel Thriller

by Shelly Dickson Carr

  “Gideon Brown? Major Gideon Brown?” Pinker’s tone implied there might be some doubt about whom they meant. “My dear child. What on earth—?”

  Collin scrunched up his face as if trying to come up with a plausible response. “Major—rot his soul—Brown was . . . er . . . well . . . treating Katie in an . . . unseemly . . . manner. Yes! That’s it! Unseemly. Rough, coarse, and . . . er . . . lustful!”

  Reverend Pinker bristled even as his gaze briefly dipped and fastened on the portion of Katie’s anatomy where her cleavage—or heart—would have been had she not been bundled up in a wool coat, prim ruffled dress, and whalebone corset.

  “Just point us to the rear exit and cover for us, Pinker. If Major Brown comes sniffing about, deny we were here. Now hurry, Stink-Pink! We haven’t much time!”

  “Haven’t much time for what? And my dear young lady—” Reverend Pinker bent close to Katie. Too close. “I confess I fail to comprehend why you are here at this hour. What business brings—”

  “Ruffian!” Collin intoned. “Major Brown’s a ruffian pure and simple. We need to escape!”

  Reverend Pinker nodded and gave a grave little bow. “I’ve always suspected Major Brown was not worthy of the affections of your dear sister, Lady Beatrix. However, young sir,” he said to Collin. “I shall not distort the truth, nor shall I tell lies. I will, however, shield you. It is my duty as a devoted family friend and spiritual counselor.”

  Reverend Pinker’s narrow face and elongated neck reminded Katie of a turkey, but above the beaklike nose, his grey eyes held a somber intelligence.

  “By God’s grace and my own forbears,” he said grimly, “I shall give you safe sanctuary. Follow me.”

  Spotting movement down the street, Katie’s eyes clamped onto the shadowy figure of Major Brown in the distance, scanning the dark street that extended south to the river.

  Despite her fear as she watched Major Brown step off the distant curb and hasten down the long, dark street, Katie felt an odd sense of relief that Reverend Pinker would shield them, until her mind flashed back to the waxwork figure at Madame Tussauds.

  What Manner of Man

  Could Walk the Streets

  OF WHITECHAPEL AND BE ABOVE SUSPICION?

  Katie drew in a sharp breath. This church, so close to Mitre Square, was the perfect place for Jack the Ripper to hide after killing Catherine Eddowes!

  Lifting her gaze, Katie stared into the grey-flecked eyes of the man who could easily be the Right Honourable Reverend Jack!

  Seconds later, when Major Brown strode toward the tiny church of Saint Clare of Assisi, Collin snatched Katie’s hand and pulled her into the chapel and down the center aisle toward the raised platform with a pulpit in the middle. Two silver candlesticks sat on the dais, a bucket of flowers resting on either side.

  As they raced toward the altar, the sacrificial lamb aspect of the scene was not lost on Katie.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Half a League, Half a League, Half a League Onward; Death Strikes Again

  A cold breeze rustled the leaves. Katie shivered and turned up the velvet collar of her wool coat.

  From out of the shadows of the Ten Bells Tavern stumbled two middle-aged women and a stout man in a flattened bowler hat.

  “You’ll catch your death of cold out here, Mabel!” said the first woman, stepping into the brisk night air. “Put yer cloak on!”

  Mabel hiccupped and scoffed. “God’s breath! If we run into Jack the Ripper, I’ll catch more ’n a cold. Stick close, Rosalynn! Remember what the dailies said. We need to stick together.”

  “Humph!” scoffed the squat man with the flattened hat. “I’ll protect you!”

  “You couldn’t save us from a bleedin’ billy goat if it was about to butt us in the rump!” cried Mabel.

  “Here now!” cried Rosalynn. “Let’s link arms and shove off.”

  The two women entwined their arms and pushed off into the dark night, followed by the squat man in his crushed bowler.

  •

  As Katie and Collin entered the Ten Bells Tavern, the wind seethed behind them. On either side of the front door stood cast-iron dogs, as if guarding the portals.

  The pub was filled with cigar smoke and packed with Saturday night revelers: shop girls, factory workers, clerks, butchers, porter lads — all chatting and laughing loudly. An enormous dartboard hung on the left-hand wall. Flanking it were framed prints of eighteenth-century coaching inns—most with darts sticking out of the wooden frames like porcupine quills. Angled near the back wall spanned a lopsided counter doing duty as a bar. Gas jets above the bar flickered with hissing blue flames, throwing elongated light onto a brown staircase.

  As Katie and Collin moved forward into the crowd, they spotted Dora Fowler sitting at a table in the corner. Drinking from a pint of ale and wearing a paisley shawl around her shoulders, Dora sat chatting with a man in a blacksmith apron. When her eyes clamped onto Collin’s, like a whippet in pursuit of a rabbit, she shot off her stool and forged a path through the jostling crowd.

  Dora pushed past Oscar Wilde, who leaned languidly against a side wall where a chalkboard menu hung from a peg. Dressed in a long, plum-colored evening coat, his top hat cocked to the side, Wilde was deep in conversation with a stocky man hidden in shadow and puffing on a cigar.

  “Hoy, there, luv!” cried out Dora, elbowing her way through the last of the crowd. “Fancy meeting you here!” She patted her dark curls and giggled. “Give us a kiss, ducks.”

  Dora held out her cheek to Collin and winked at Katie. “He’s a proper gent, is my Collin.” She nudged Collin in the ribs and asked in a stage whisper, “Who’s this then, eh?”

  “This is my American cousin, Miss Katherine Lennox. Remember I told you about her?” Collin said, shuffling from foot to foot, looking sheepish and uncomfortable.

  “Right! She’s the ham shank Toby fancies!” A hint of amusement crossed Dora’s expression. “Nice ter meet yer, Katie. Collin calls you Katie, ain’t that right? Did he tell you we gots an understanding?” Dora grinned, lifting her gaze trustingly to Collin. “Did you tell ’er, Collie?” she asked, using the pet name that Katie called her cousin Collin back home.

  “I . . . er . . . um . . . ” Collin stammered, a red flush suffusing his neck and washing upward into his freckled cheeks.

  Dora tugged at his sleeve.

  “Dora—” Katie cut in, “I saw you give testimony at the inquest for Mary Ann Nichols, and Toby told me all about your talking birds. It’s nice to meet you, too. But we’re here because we’re looking for a woman named Catherine Eddowes. She’s a cabaret singer at the London Music Hall—”

  “What’s it to you, eh?” Dora’s eyes narrowed and she clamped her hands on her hips.

  “We need to find . . . that is, I need to find”—Katie quickly amended, seeing sparks of jealousy in Dora’s dark eyes—“Catherine Eddowes. Do you know her?”

  Dora scrunched up her plump face and let out a little laugh. “Whaddya want wiff that old cow? She’s close to forty if she’s a day. Me mum says, ‘Cathy Eddowes is long in the tooth and short on virtue.’ ”

  “You know Catherine Eddowes?” Collin stiffened. Katie thought she heard him groan.

  “ ‘Course I do! Everyone at the Ten Bells knows Cathy. She’s me Uncle Thaddeus’s second wife’s niece. And the barkeep’s cousin.” Dora gave a little shrug. “I ain’t saying she’s a swinging door, mind. Not Cathy. But she likes a bit of the grab-and-tickle wiff the gents, specially the ones who buys ’er gin. She’s not for the likes of gentry like you.” Dora pointed at Collin and tick-tocked her finger to include Katie.

  “Do you know where she is? Can you help us find her?” Katie implored, trying to tamp down the urgency in her voice.

  “Blimey! She’ll be here afore you can say Jack Robinson . . . or should I say, Jack the Ripper?” Again, the impish little laugh.

  “How do you know she’ll be here?” Katie heard the strain in her own voice.

&n
bsp; “Cuz Jago’s here.”

  “Jago?”

  “Her new fancy man, what buys her gin.” Dora nodded to the short, muscular man in front of the chalkboard menu in deep conversation with Oscar Wilde. Standing in shadow, the only thing visible about Jago was the red gleam of his cigar.

  Somewhere outside the tavern a clock began to strike.

  The loud gong-notes seemed to float through the Ten Bells Tavern above the noise and laughter. Katie counted the booming bells.

  One, two, three, four—

  As if sensing Katie’s eyes boring holes in him, Jago turned.

  Five, six —

  The flickering gas globes upon the wall illuminated his striking face.

  Seven, eight —

  With jowls and a torn ear, Jago looked like a pug-ugly bulldog chewing on a cigar. The tattoos ringing his neck and forming a spiky chain above the canvas collar of his burlap jacket did little to alter the impression.

  As the gong of eleven faded into the din of noisy laughter, Jago smiled with a sharp-toothed, underbite of a jaw. Katie had a momentary impression that he might make a “woofing” sound and start barking at her. She quickly glanced away.

  “That’s him. That’s Jago!” cried Dora. “Sells gimcrack south of the Thames.”

  “Gimcrack? What’s that?” Katie asked, sneaking another peek at the man. Gimcrack sounded like some new—or old—type of drug.

  “A hawker of swag!” A glimmer of laughter sparkled in Dora’s eyes.

  “Swag?” This time it was Collin’s red brows that shot up.

  Swag was slang for cocaine in Katie’s own century.

  “Blimey! You two starlings are like baby birds what dunno where to roost! Jago’s a costermonger ’oo owns his own pony wagon—the kind you let down the sides and it forms shelves to sell gimcrack — brooches and pendants made o’ colored glass.” Dora pointed to the large cameo fastened at the front of her paisley shawl. “Jago gave me this lov-er-ly pin made o’ genuine turtle-bone in exchange for me best talking parrot!” She winked and tapped the side of her nose conspiratorially.

  Katie smiled. She remembered Toby telling her how Dora Fowler could throw her voice to make her parrots sound like jabbering chatterboxes.

  Dora glanced over her shoulder. “Look. Just like I told you! Her highness just waltzed in.”

  “Where?” Collin scanned the crowd.

  Katie swiveled around just in time to see Catherine Eddowes sashay in from the rear of the tavern, shrug off her fur-trimmed cape, and move with catlike fluidity through a throng of people toward the bar. Her tawny curls, bobbing across pale shoulders and white-powdered cleavage, were threaded with the same glossy red ribbons she’d worn earlier.

  Catherine Eddowes gave a slow, curling smile as she glanced around but jerked back when she spotted Katie and Collin. The smile that had been spreading across her face disappeared, and a second later she vanished into a knot of people near the staircase.

  •

  Almost an hour later, Katie was standing guard outside a private little room behind the staircase at the Ten Bells Tavern, watching for Major Brown.

  Katie’s lace-up boots, where she had been pacing in front of the closed door, had left scuff marks in the sawdust across the floorboards.

  An empty wine cask lay upended at the end of the small, confined passageway. Katie dragged it closer to the door and hopped onto it. Only a few minutes left before midnight. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  The air in the tiny passage smelled of beer and gin. From her perch on the wine barrel, Katie glanced at the closed door. The room on the other side looked nothing like the main tavern area. Instead of pictures of eighteenth-century coaching inns, a dozen gilt-framed mirrors hung on walls covered in scarlet wallpaper. Long windows, cracked open a half-inch on either side of a smoldering fire grate showed curtains dangling down in dark green velvet.

  When Katie first entered the room with the others, it had reminded her of a grim, if plush, parlor in Ebenezer Scrooge’s house. Oriental chairs skirted a wooden table that held an hourglass full of sand. Candles glowed in sconces on the walls between the mirrors; in the far corner, opposite the fireplace, stretched a tufted, sagging daybed with several throw-pillows trimmed in red lace.

  Katie glanced at the pendant watch hanging from her neck.

  Almost midnight.

  Catherine Eddowes was slated to die at the hands of Jack the Ripper just before midnight. Katie inwardly smiled. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Mitre Square was a twenty-minute walk from the Ten Bells Tavern, and Catherine Eddowes was secure behind this door with Collin and Dora. Katie could hear her singing a lusty ballad:

  Soldier, soldier, will you marry me,

  With your musket, fife, and drum—

  Oh, no, sweet maid I cannot marry you,

  For I have no shirt to put on.

  So up she went to her grandfather’s chest,

  And she got him a shirt of the very, very best,

  And the soldier put it on.

  Listening to Catherine’s husky voice, Katie chuckled remembering how Eddowes had craftily tried to renegotiate a higher fee. But Collin was not without resources and a certain guile of his own. Catherine Eddowes had sauntered into the room and theatrically lowered herself with a flourish onto one of the Oriental chairs at the wooden table. The air in the little room, Katie remembered, smelled—not of gin or beer—but strongly of perfume from the previous occupant.

  Lazily crossing her pantalooned legs, Catherine Eddowes slowly raised up a glass of Madeira wine to the candlelight. Batting her eyes at Collin, she began to suck the red liquid through a gap in her front teeth, making air-popping, gurgling noises. It was so blatantly vampish that Katie had had to stop herself from laughing aloud.

  She glanced at the pendant watch again.

  Was the word “vamp” even used in this century? Katie wondered. She thought about the True Blood series on HBO, her sister’s favorite show. Ironically, Courtney had recorded a best-selling song called “Femme Fatale,” which won an MTV music video award. Dressed as Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, Courtney had gyrated in front of the cameras to the “Dance of the Seven Veils.” In the guise of an enchantress, Courtney had seductively offered an elixir in a golden chalice to all the male dancers. Alternating between Morgan le Fay and the Bride of Dracula, she had danced across the stage, heaving her belly and hips, gyrating her thighs until finally singing out the climactic words of the song that had rocketed her to super stardom: “Bring me the head of John the Baptist!” Whereupon a chorus of nearly naked girls with blood-red fangs had slithered forward carrying silver platters offering up the boy dancers’ heads. The music video shot Courtney to the top of the charts and she won the Best Dance Recording Grammy, beating out Lady Gaga.

  If only I could have gone to the Grammys!

  Katie inwardly bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t been allowed to attend. Their grandmother had been so outraged by the scanty costumes and the song—for “its blatant stealing of literary allusions and mixed metaphorical historical characters,” that Grandma Cleaves and Courtney had not spoken to each other since.

  Thinking of her sister brought a lump to Katie’s throat. She fiddled with the velvet collar of her brocade jacket and fingered the cream silk lining. Her old life with TV and VMA awards seemed a distant memory. The nineteenth century felt more real than her own. Ever since her parents had died, Katie had felt more lonely than she’d ever felt in her entire life. But here—even with a mass murderer on the loose—Katie felt alive and more useful than she ever had at home. And what about Toby? she mused. I won’t leave until he’s cleared of all suspicion, Lady Beatrix and the others are safe, and Jack the Ripper is behind bars. And in a year from now, Toby will have to make sure Collin stays off the moors. . . .

  Katie tugged her mind back to the present. From the other side of the closed door she could hear Catherine Eddowes singing the Jack the Ripper ballad. There was no orchestra as there had been at the
music hall, no fiddles playing, no cymbals crashing, but the lack of accompaniment made the lyrics sound more poignant—

  Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay! (Catherine’s voice was pitched slightly higher)

  Jack the Ripper’s out to play

  He’ll take your girl away—

  And cut 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!

  Katie thought about how Catherine Eddowes had tried to hold out for more money. Collin had paced the room back and forth trying to decide how to make Catherine Eddowes honor her promise and stay until midnight. There had been a loose-fitting, rusty bolt on the inside of the door and when Collin moved to lock it securely, it wobbled and sagged and pulled free in his hand with a splintering groan.

  “I have vowed, madam,” Collin said, staring down at the rusty bolt in his clenched fingers as if he couldn’t quite understand how it had gotten there, “to keep you safe. And yet, you demand more money! My friend Tobias Becket has already paid you. Your request for a higher fee doesn’t appear to be fair or sporting.”

  “So it’s sport you want, is it?” Catherine Eddowes lifted her gaze seductively and hiked up her skirt to show a portion of her pantalooned ankle. Then, sniffing at her glass of Madeira in an exaggerated way and swooshing it around in her mouth, she said, “And why should you be wantin’ to keep me safe, hmmm? What concern is it of yours?”

  Katie had glanced at the window behind Eddowes near the fire grate and noticed that the fastening bolts there, too, were as rusty as the one on the door.

  “In blunt language, madam!” Collin said, his voice rising. “It’s my concern because we hired you. What we choose to do . . . is . . . well . . . er . . . our concern,” Collin had sputtered indignantly.

  “Tha’s right!” cried Dora, jumping into the fray. “We hired you, so you gots no say.”

  “I gots every say!” Catherine Eddowes boomed in a heavy Cockney accent. She slammed her free hand on the tabletop, and the hourglass jumped and rattled. “It’s me what’s being paid by the hour!” She snatched up the hourglass, inverted it, and banged it back on the table. A whoosh of sand began trickling down the narrow tube into the inverted glass bulb below.