The House That Jack Built ts-4

by Robert Robert

  The shopgirl took the heavy cardstock photos and gazed at them carefully, shuffling through them. "No," she said slowly, "never clapped me minces on any blokes wot stood for these 'ere likenesses. But I'll look sharp, so I will. Some tea leaf passed me a bad fiver, I'd just about as well shut me doors an' walk the streets or starve." She handed the photos and the fake banknote back with a grim, angry look in her eyes. "Mark me, I'll keep a sharp butcher's out, so I will."

  Malcolm handed her a small white card. "If you do see them, here is where you can reach me." He handed over the shilling, as well, which she pocketed hastily, along with Malcolm's card. He put his hat on again, tipping the brim. "Good day, miss."

  They tried the next shop on Middlesex Street, then the one after that and the next in line, with Malcolm sometimes initiating the questions and occasionally Skeeter stepping in to fill that role. They had reached the end of the lane, having covered every shop in Middlesex Street, when a voice rose behind them.

  "Mister Moore, sir! Wait a bit, mister!"

  They looked around to see the first girl they'd questioned, running breathlessly toward them. They waited, hope suddenly an electrifying presence in their midst. The girl reached them and gasped out, "Cor, but I'm glad you 'adn't gone yet! Mistress just come into the shop, y'see, it's 'er shop, like, and I told 'er what you said. She thinks she knows of 'em, mister."

  Skeeter exchanged startled glances with Margo as Malcolm said, "By all means, let us speak with your employer."

  A moment later, they were showing the photographs to a stout, sallow-cheeked woman with white hair and poor teeth. "That's 'im, I don't doubt," the woman said, pointing to Noah Armstrong's photograph. "Of a Sunday, when the market's in the street, me sister-in-law sets up a stall just outside, there. Sold a fistful of suits, Sunday last, to a bloke wot give 'er a fiver. An' it weren't worth no more'n me shoelaces, come the time she went off t'spend it. I remember the bloke, as I was set up next ter Sally an' she were that excited, she were, t'get a fiver when she needed the money so desperate. Like to put 'er in the work'ouse, bastard did, 'an 'er a war widow wivout no 'usband nor child t'look after 'er in 'er age. It's me own profits, small as they are, wot's paid 'er rent an' put food in 'er Limehouse this week past."

  "Do you remember anything about him that might help us locate him? Did he say anything about where he was staying?"

  "That 'e didn't, or I'd 'ave sent a copper after 'im."

  "My dear lady," Malcolm said, producing two five-pound notes from his wallet, "you have been of incalculable service. Please see that your sister-in-law's losses are replaced."

  The old woman's eyes shot wide at the sight of so much money. She took the banknotes with a shaking hand, turned them over and over, staring at them. Wetness spilled over and traced down both cheeks as she closed wrinkled hands around the money. The crackle of crisp paper was loud in Skeeter's ears. Voice trembling, she said to her shopgirl, "Go an' fetch Sally, luv, tell 'er God sent a right proper angel t'look out for us. God bless you, mister."

  The girl's eyes were bright, as well. She dropped a brief curtsey and ran out the back way. A door thumped, marking her exit, then Malcolm tipped his hat. "Good day, madam. Thank you again. If you hear anything else, your girl has my card."

  They left her clutching the money to her bosom.

  The moment the door swung shut behind Skeeter, Malcolm said, "They are here, then, as surmised. It remains to locate their hiding place. It occurs to me that they cannot be staying anywhere in the immediate area, or the shopkeepers hereabouts would have recognized them as neighbors."

  "Well, they have to eat, don't they?" Skeeter pointed out.

  Malcolm's eyes glinted. "Which means they must procure victuals from a chandler."

  "Remember what you said, Malcolm?" Margo said thoughtfully. "If you were going to hide in the East End and knew you would be marked as a foreigner, you'd find a place with a high concentration of immigrants, so you wouldn't stand out so much. Like Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. Let's try the Chandler's Shops up there."

  "Indeed," Malcolm glanced north. "A capital idea. Let us begin at Spitalfields Market, shall we?"

  They walked rapidly north and jogged west to Bishopsgate, which they followed north again through the bustle and crowds of carts and groaning freight wagons and strolling vendors calling their wares. The market, when they arrived, was a vast confusion of Cockney voices singing out in rhyming patter that echoed with a roar of alien sound.

  Fresh flowers spilled a heady perfume into the wet morning air, thousands of blossoms tied in dripping bunches. Flower girls piled them high into heavy baskets and trays for sale in better climes. Fresh vegetables heaped in mounds lent a more sober note to the riot of hothouse flowers. Fishwives haggled over the price of mussels and eels and ragged urchins bartered for coarse-ground flour while their harried mothers counted out pennies for bricks of tea.

  "If we can't find a trace of them here," Malcolm shouted above the roar, "I shall be very much surprised. Mr. Jackson, why don't you take the right-hand side of the market. Miss Smith, try the left-hand way and I shall tackle the middle."

  They split up and Skeeter approached the first stall, where a sweating woman in her fifties manhandled huge rounds of cheese, hacking off wedges for sale. He gave her the pitch, holding up a shilling to catch her attention.

  "Ain't seen 'em," she said shortly, pocketing Skeeter's money.

  He tried again at the next stall, where re-dyed tea sold briskly. The negative response cost him another shilling and several elbows in his ribs from customers anxious to buy a brick of tea for tuppence. He moved on to a flower vendor who gave him a suspicious glare over the nodding heads of pure white daisies, their centers yellower than the sun over Spitalfields' grey sky. The woman shook her head impatiently and pocketed the coin. Skeeter glanced around, searching for Margo and Malcolm, making their grim, determined way through the stalls. He turned back with a sigh and tried the next vendor, where slabs of fatty bacon hung from meathooks.

  "Why d'you ask about 'em?" the man behind the counter demanded sourly, eyes narrowed as he peered at the photographs.

  "We believe they're counterfeiters. They've cheated a young lady who runs a shop up in Bethnal Green, gave her a counterfeit banknote that nearly landed her in the workhouse, unable to pay her bills. I've followed them all the way from America, where they printed dollars instead of pound notes." The man hesitated, giving Skeeter cause to hope. He fished out a glittering half crown coin. "I realize you don't like to grass on anyone," Skeeter said, holding up the coin, "but these men are cheating women who can't afford the loss. An elderly war widow in Middlesex Street lost five pounds to them."

  The man's jaw muscles bunched. He spat to one side, then tapped the photograph of Marcus. "I seen 'im, lots o' times. Lives wiv 'is sister and some chap who come over from America. And a pair of sweet little girls, God 'elp 'em, wiv a father like that. Comes 'ere regular, like, t'buy bacon an' flour, 'e does, along wiv 'is sister."

  Skeeter handed over the half crown and produced a full sovereign, glittering gold in the light. "Where do they live?"

  The man jerked his head to the east. "Be'ind Christchurch, someplace along Fournier Street, is all I know."

  "Thank you," Skeeter said quietly, handing over the sovereign and retrieving his photographs. "More than you can know."

  He hurried through the mob, finding Malcolm near the end of his own row. The guide wore an expression of frustration. Skeeter waved him over. "Malcolm! I've got a solid lead! Behind Christchurch, on Fournier!"

  Malcolm's eyes came violently alive. "By damn, Jackson, good work! Where's Miss Smith?"

  They found Margo deep in conversation with a woman selling flour by the scoop. Malcolm caught her eye, but she lifted a hand, so they waited. When the woman finished talking, Margo handed her a whole sovereign and turned toward them, cheeks glowing with excitement.

  "You've found them, too?" Malcolm said without preamble.

  "Yes! Fourni
er Street, seventh house on the right. Mr. Anastagio," she tapped Marcus' photo, "and his sister and their friend, Mr. Dillon, from America."

  "All I got was Fournier Street," Skeeter admitted wryly.

  "Cockney women," Margo chuckled, "love a good gossip. Especially when there's money in it. Let's go beard Mr. Anastagio in his den," she added, eyes bright with excitement.

  "By all means," Malcolm agreed, heading out of the crowded market. "And let us pray that Mr. Dillon and Miss Anastagio do nothing rash before we convince them we are Marcus' friends."

  Skeeter's heart was triphammering as they turned into Fournier Street and passed poor but well-scrubbed houses where stout women called to one another in Yiddish. At the seventh house on the right, they found shuttered windows and a closed door, but flowers grew in pots along the steps and smoke curled upwards from the chimney. Inside, Skeeter could hear the squeal and laughter of children's voices. His throat tightened. Artemisia's voice... teasing her sister... Malcolm and Margo waited expectantly, gazes locked on him. Skeeter nodded once, then climbed the stone steps and knocked on the door.

  The voices inside cut off sharply, then footsteps hurried their way. Margo joined Skeeter on the top step, just as an unknown voice called out, "Who is it?"

  Margo glanced at Skeeter, winking, then raised her voice to carry through the door. "Eh, luv, you got a dog?"

  "What?"

  "I ast, 'ave you got a dog? There's a bitch wot's littered pups on yer front steps."

  The door opened quickly and Skeeter found himself staring at "Benny Catlin"—Jenna Caddrick in the flesh, wearing woolen trousers and a heavy flannel shirt. Wide eyes swept down, looking automatically for the mythical puppies. Suspicion and wild terror leaped into Jenna's eyes and she tried to slam the door in their faces. Margo shoved her foot against it and said, "It's no use running, Miss Caddrick. We're here to help."

  At that instant, a childish voice squealed from the dim interior.

  "Uncle Skeeter!"

  An instant later, Artemisia had flown into his arms.

  Skeeter buried his face in her thick hair to hide the tears.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kit Carson arrived at the security office complex with a mob of screaming reporters on his heels. As Kit fled through the doors, someone in a BATF uniform looked around at the howling noise. "Oh, God, who let them in?"

  Irritated time scouts joined forces with security personnel to bodily shove the horde of newsies back out the door. Several cameras and more than one face failed to survive the process. A cordon of armed guards was hastily thrown into place in front of the doors, pulled from off-duty shifts called in for riot control and search teams.

  "What can I do to help?" Kit asked the nearest harried desk jockey, who was manning five phones at once and handing out search assignments. The officer glanced up and three phones shrilled at the same time. She lunged for the nearest, listened, jotted notes, grabbed the next one without bothering to hang up the first. Then swore and grabbed a microphone.

  "Code Seven Red! Zone Nine! All visitors on station are hereby ordered to seek the nearest available shelter. Repeat, Code Seven Red, Zone Nine!"

  Somebody else was snarling, "I don't care who the hell you are, get off this channel! We're in a state of emergency, here..."

  Kit ground his teeth and waited for somebody to tell him how he could help. He was still waiting when Bull Morgan, slightly thinner than the last time Kit had laid eyes on him, arrived. Bull had already managed to scrape up a cigar someplace, despite the fact he couldn't have been out of his own jail more than five minutes. The station manager was busy masticating the end of it into a pulpy, wet mess that indicated his current level of stress. Kit wondered who'd had the audacity to unlock his cell door. Ronisha Azzan, no doubt. With Jack the Ripper loose on station, she very well might have thrown the federal marshals into jail, just to keep them out of everyone's hair.

  Bull caught Kit's eye and waved him over. "Kit, I need someone to hustle downstairs to the weapons ranges and open up the arsenals, Ann's and Sven's, both. We don't have enough arms for our security officers. And I want a couple dozen Found Ones deputized as security to search the subbasements. You know the Found Ones, and they trust you. Give 'em weapons from Sven's lockers, they'll know how to use bladed weapons. And if we had some clubs..."

  "What about those 1880's style baseball and cricket bats the outfitters stock?"

  "Good idea. Get 'em. Every Ripper cult on station has gone nuts, killing women. We need all the help we can get, stopping this mess."

  "I'll organize the men in the Found Ones, put together sweep teams."

  "Make damned sure the women stay out of harm's way. Especially the dark-haired, petite ones, who look like Dr. Feroz."

  "Has anyone seen her?"

  Bull twitched the unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth. "She's back with Ronnie, right now, telling us what she knows about this maniac. If he wasn't totally insane before he got here, chances are, he is now. Even the most balanced down-timers go a little bit nuts when they first arrive on station."

  The coldness in the pit of Kit's belly deepened. At least the Ripperologist was safe.

  "Kit, why don't you join the briefing Dr. Feroz is giving our sweep teams before you organize the Found Ones. You can pass along what she has to say. The briefing is back in Mike's office."

  Kit found Shahdi Feroz speaking tersely to a group of security officers, Pest Control units, and BATF. Even the I.T.C.H. agents had put in appearance, listening intently and recording notes of their own.

  The Ripperologist was just answering a question. "Yes, that would fit the pattern of a psychotic serial killer. They usually kill to a pattern. If you can unravel the pattern, you can go a long way toward stopping the killer. Unfortunately, in John Lachley's case, it is not so simple. He was killing women in possession of letters which he was desperate to recover. What sort of letters, we still do not know. Clearly, he didn't come to Shangri-La Station looking for them, which suggests he has abandoned whatever plans he'd made, which these letters threatened. I believe he has come forward in time looking for bigger game. Power is what lures him. He rose from obscure beginnings in the East End and pursued a medical degree as a means to greater power. Occult scholarship was another tool he used. Aleister Crowley studied under him and Lachley succeeded in positioning himself as personal advisor to the queen's grandson, Prince Eddy."

  A nearby scout muttered, "Now there's a scary thought. The man who bills himself as the prophet of the anti-Christ, studying Satanic ritual under Jack the Ripper."

  "What about the Ripper cults?" a BATF agent asked worriedly.

  Dr. Feroz thinned her mouth. "That is part of the bad news. Lachley has already begun to wield immense power through the Ripper cults. We must deprive him of his new worshippers, quickly. Isolate him in a time he does not yet understand, while he is still vulnerable to technology which baffles him."

  One of the I.T.C.H. agents spoke up. "You can isolate him all you like," the woman said coldly, "but it won't do any good if he can't be killed."

  The Ripperologist surprised Kit—and everyone else—with her answer. "We have no guarantee he cannot be killed. After all, Jack the Ripper was two men. It is entirely possible James Maybrick will act alone in the murder of Mary Kelly. The girl looks enough like his adulterous wife to send the man into a frenzy. In crime scene photographs taken the day of her murder, there are initials visible in blood on the walls, an F and an M, suggesting the name Florie Maybrick.

  And Catharine Eddowes, poor woman, had an M carved through her eyelids, another clue to Maybrick's identity, had the police realized it. With Lachley out of the picture, Maybrick is on his own, without a mentor to guide or goad him into repeated murders. If one studies Maybrick's diary, one finds a startling change of tone and attitude after Mary Kelly's murder. It is almost as though Maybrick had roused from a murderous stupor of some sort, returning to sanity and remorse.

  "Importantly, Lachley is a m
esmerist of some note. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Lachley had used that skill to gain control of Maybrick, using hypnotic suggestion to bring his hatred of prostitutes boiling over to critical levels, then pointing him at the victims Lachley chose. Without Lachley to reinforce the hypnotic suggestions, Maybrick might well come to his senses after the butchery of Mary Kelly and look back on what he has done with the very shock one reads in the diary. Given all this, with Maybrick quite probably acting alone in the Kelly murder, we cannot assume that Lachley is impossible to kill. Not based on the assumption that he must be present for Mary Kelly's death."

  Kit was impressed. Maybe there was hope, yet?

  Mike Benson spoke up quickly, however. "We're going to play it safe and assume the worst, just the same. I don't want anyone tackling this guy alone. We've cleared Commons, which has robbed Lachley and his worshippers of easily available victims, but his fury will make him dangerously unpredictable. He may well go to ground somewhere. Or he may start breaking down doors, looking for Dr. Feroz or the next best substitute. There may be no way to stop his killing spree, short of evacuating the station."

  "You can't be serious!"

  "My God, Benson—"

  "Quiet!" The bellow came from behind Kit's shoulder. He jerked around to find Bull Morgan striding into the briefing room. "I'm not evacuating this station, get that clear right now. One, it's impossible to do, not in time. There is no physical way to get everyone on this station through Primary during its next cycle, not to mention trying to herd every man, woman, and child in Shangri-La down to Primary precinct in the next three minutes, just to make the gate opening."

  Glances at wrist watches caused a miniature sea of bobbing heads, a flock of guinea hens popping up and down in tall grass. As though on cue, the station announcer came on, the sound muted through the walls: "Your attention please. Primary is due to open in three minutes. Be advised, all station passes through Primary have been revoked for the duration of the station emergency. Remain in your hotel room or your current place of shelter with the door locked. Do not make any attempt to reach Primary..."