The House That Jack Built ts-4 Read online

  John Lachley, they had since discovered, had ties to the royal family, as well, through the queen's grandson, Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward. And John Lachley had been born right in Whitechapel itself, in Middlesex Street, which explained the Ripper's familiarity with the streets. He'd gone to charity school, had John Lachley, and acquired his medical education in Scotland. Once known throughout the East End as Johnny Anubis, séance parlour medium and small-time occultist, Dr. John Lachley now lectured on mesmerism and other occult subjects to large audiences drawn from London's finest families. He was a member of the Theosophical Society, a respected physician with a surgery in Cleveland Street, a model subject of the crown in every way.

  That much, Dominica Nosette and Guy Pendergast had managed to discover thus far, working on their own without those repressive, overly cautious Time Tours guides curtailing their every move. But why John Lachley was working with James Maybrick to murder East End whores, and what was in the letters Lachley was slowly tracking down, killing the previous owners to keep some dark and clearly critical secret, Dominica had no idea. She intended to find out.

  The video she had already obtained of Lachley was worth a literal fortune, video footage showing him in company with the young prince, footage of him meeting the soon-to-be-notorious Aleister Crowley, and with the founders of the Golden Dawn magical order, Mathers and Waite and the rest. Whether or not these occultists were also involved in the conspiracy of the letters, Dominica didn't know. That, too, she intended to discover.

  "We're going to win that Carson Historical Video Prize!" she told Guy Pendergast as they set out from the flat they'd rented in SoHo. "Lachley will strike again September 30th. The night of the double event..."

  "Which means Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes must have possession of the letters he's after!"

  "Yes. And Mary Kelly must have another one. Guy..." Dominica mused, slanting a glance up at her partner. "How good are you at picking pockets?"

  "Picking pockets?" he echoed, brows drifting upward in startlement.

  She smiled. "Well, it occurs to me that we could probably unlock the key to this whole thing if we could lay hands on one of those letters. Just long enough to photograph it. Then we slip it back into the pocket you steal it from, long before he kills Stride and Eddowes. All we have to do then is follow him after the double-event murders. Videotape those, then collect our Carson Prize. And rather an enormous amount of money," she ended smugly.

  Guy Pendergast smiled slowly. "Dominica, my pet, you are brilliant."

  "Of course I'm brilliant! I didn't get where I am by being stupid. We'll have to tackle Stride, since Catharine Eddowes is leaving London to head out to Kent, picking hops. It might be interesting to videotape Eddowes out there, working the harvest." She frowned. "You know, it doesn't make sense, that. If she's in possession of something so valuable that Lachley is committing brutal murder to obtain it, you'd think a woman like Catharine Eddowes would try to convert it into cash. She's plagued her own daughter for money so often, the poor thing moves every few weeks around South London, just to keep her mother from tapping her for tuppence. Yet Kate Eddowes walks—walks, mind you, in this weather—all the way from London to rural Kent, just to break her back working in wet fields picking hops as a migrant agricultural laborer."

  "Maybe," Guy suggested dryly, "she hasn't cashed in on her letter because she can't read it."

  Dominica dismissed that as chauvinist nonsense. "Don't be a boor. She was educated in St. John's Charity School, Potter's Field, Tooley Street. And all her friends described her as a scholarly, intense woman. Of course she can read it."

  Her partner shrugged. "It was just an idea."

  "Well, when we get our hands on whatever Long Liz Stride has, we shall find out, shan't we?"

  Guy Pendergast chuckled. "Right."

  So they set their faces east and started combing the dismal streets of Whitechapel, looking for one particular Swedish-born prostitute who had barely two weeks left to live.

  * * *

  Victoria Station was jam-packed with Ripperoons.

  Skeeter, like most of the others jammed in the station's Commons cheek-by-jowl, felt better for a good night's sleep. Memory of the previous evening's riot at Primary was fading in the face of anticipated news from London. After a century and a half of waiting, the world was finally going to learn who Jack the Ripper really was. If, of course, and Skeeter grinned to himself, the Ripper Watch experts in London had figured it out.

  Tourists who'd appointed themselves lay experts had gathered from all over Commons, surging into Victoria Station and talking nineteen miles to the minute, consulting Ripper-suspect biographies as they argued the merits of various theories. Skeeter, with Kit Carson at his heels, strolled through the madhouse crowd, eyes sharp for any sign of pickpockets or con artists working the throng. Voices like a mile-long swarm of locusts bounced off the girders high overhead with echoes that hurt the senses, expounding favored Ripper theories and wondering what had become of Senator Caddrick's daughter.

  "—witness descriptions don't tally well with one another. I mean, they range from a guy in his thirties with fair skin, sandy hair and light brown mustache to a guy in his forties or fifties, dark hair and mustache, dark eyes and complexion, with a `foreign' look. Personally, I don't think any of the witnesses saw the real Ripper. Except maybe Israel Schwartz, the Jew who didn't speak English. He saw Elizabeth Stride attacked..."

  "... whole slew of people claimed they were Jack the Ripper, including a manure collector who emigrated to Australia. Fellow got murderously angry when drunk, at least he did if a prostitute approached. Told his son he was the Ripper and intended to confess before he died, but never did. Confess, I mean. He died, no problem. 1912."

  "—they bring I.T.C.H. agents in to monitor this mess, the Inter-Temporal Court will shut us all down!"

  "I heard it was Lewis Carroll—"

  "The author of Alice in Wonderland? The Ripper? You gotta be kidding! I mean, so what if he liked to photograph naked little girls? That's pretty weird, but it doesn't fit the profile of a man who'd rip women open with an eight-inch knife!"

  "No, I don't think it was Aleister Crowley, even if he was a sick puppy. Worshipped anything evil and violent, claimed to be the prophet of the anti-Christ. But as a Ripper suspect, I think the evidence is pretty thin..."

  "—somebody's going to shoot that bastard, that's what I think, and Caddrick's got it coming to him, walking onto this station and tear gassing a crowd full of innocent women and kids—"

  "... convinced the prime minister did it, covering up for the queen's grandson Eddy. Although why he would've married a poor Catholic girl when he was screwing half the women in London, and supposedly several men, as well, is anybody's guess..."

  "Nuts," somebody else nearby muttered. "We are hip deep in nuts. Sheesh. I need another beer..."

  And finally, from the loudspeakers overhead: "Your attention please. Gate Two is due to cycle in three minutes. All departures, be advised..."

  Thank God, Skeeter thought. He glanced back at Kit and found the retired scout trailing him half a dozen paces back. Kit rolled his eyes at a mob of sign-carrying loons, chanting the praises of their Immortal Lord Jack and heckling the Time Tours guides trying to organize the outgoing Ripper Watch Tour, then indicated with a gesture, "Okay, hotshot, get busy!"

  So he worked the crowd, quartering it leisurely, keeping his gaze sharp. When the immense Britannia finally began its cycle, the roar of voices reached a fever pitch. Wagers rattled like hailstones off every echoing surface in Victoria Station. Skeeter prowled through the surging crowd, alert as a snow leopard and beginning to grow impatient, aware of Kit's presence behind him, watching, judging. He knew his particular brand of prey was out here. His senses twitched, searching for telltale movements, the little signs he knew so well. High overhead, the huge gate dilated slowly open... And Skeeter rocked to a halt. His gaze zeroed in, a stooping hawk spotting his next meal. The
pickpocket was stalking a man in his fifties whose tanned face, lean build, and expensively casual clothes shouted, California millionaire. The pickpocket lifted a fat wallet from the Californian's jacket with a practiced stumble and a hasty apology given and accepted with ease.

  Skeeter grinned. Gotcha!

  The handcuffs he slipped out of his pocket weren't real. He'd picked them up cheap from a station outfitter's bin of discount toys. But they were functional enough for Skeeter's purposes. He slid forward between the Californian and the pickpocket just as the latter slipped the wallet into his own jacket. Skeeter tapped the thief on the shoulder. "Hi, there!"

  And clicked the cuffs around the guy's wrists before he could blink.

  "Hey! What the—"

  "Security!" Skeeter bawled, grabbing the guy's jacket lapel. "Got a pickpocket over here! Say, mister," Skeeter got the victim's attention, "this guy just lifted your wallet."

  The tourist gasped, hand flying to his extremely empty pocket. "Good God! I've been robbed! Why, you sneaking—"

  Security arrived before the irate Californian could take a swing at the struggling pickpocket. "What's going on?" The uniformed security guard sported a bruise down one cheek from the previous day's riot.

  "Caught this guy lifting a tourist's wallet," Skeeter explained. "It's in his front jacket pocket. Oh, those cuffs are toys, by the way. Just thought you might want to know."

  Skeeter indulged a grin at the look on all three faces, then melted into the crowd, leaving the stunned security officer to deal with the irate tourist and the even more irate pickpocket. He could hear the latter howling his outrage all the way through Victoria Station. Skeeter chuckled. This was almost as much fun as picking pockets, himself. More, maybe. Less risk involved, certainly. He was still chuckling when Kit caught up, grinning fit to crack his face.

  "That was impressive. Kids' toys!"

  "Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta make do."

  "As far as I'm concerned, you won't have to `make do' with toy handcuffs any longer. You're definitely hired. I was watching close, following your gaze, and I didn't see a thing."

  Skeeter's face went hot, but it was a proud flush. He'd done a good job and Kit knew it. High overhead, the returning tour started pouring through the open gate. A Time Tours guide rushed down the stairs, well in advance of the tourists, clutching a heavy pouch. Waiting newsies mobbed him.

  "Who is it—?"

  "—that a videotape?"

  "Has the Ripper Watch Team solved—?"

  The grim-faced guide vanished into the Time Tours ticket office and slammed the door, leaving the newsies screaming at sound-proofed glass.

  "You know," Skeeter mused, "that guy didn't act like an excited courier carrying the news of the decade, did he?"

  "No," Kit agreed, expression thoughtful.

  A moment later, the rest of the tour reached Commons floor and word spread like racing wildfire: Two killers!

  "James Maybrick, after all—"

  "Complete unknown! Some doctor, nobody has the faintest idea who—"

  "Working together—!"

  And hard on the heels of that shock, yet another, potentially fatal to the entire station: Missing tourist!

  "—shot two up-time baggage handlers to death—"

  "—said he vanished over in SoHo—"

  "Oh, my God," Skeeter groaned. "Another missing person!" And another shocking murder spree for TT-86 to explain to the press and the government agencies and Senator Caddrick.

  "Who was he?" a woman dressed as a Roman matriarch demanded at Skeeter's elbow.

  "I don't know!"

  "Someone said he's a graduate student..."

  "... heard his name was Benny Catlin..."

  Benny Catlin?

  That name rang alarm bells in Skeeter's memory. Lots of them. Big, fat, warped ones. Benny Catlin was the name on all that luggage Skeeter'd hauled through the Britannia Gate, last time out. What was a graduate student doing with that much luggage? Skeeter hadn't met a grad student yet with enough money to haul five enormous steamer trunks through any gate, much less the Britannia. And that trunk Skeeter had almost knocked off the platform had belonged to Benny Catlin, too. Which meant the white-faced, mutton-chopped, short little jerk who'd started screaming at him was their missing man. And a double murderer.

  He narrowed his eyes, wondering just what Benny Catlin had stowed in all that luggage. And whether or not the tourist responsible for Skeeter losing his job as baggage porter might look anything like the mysterious doctor in the Ripper Watch video. The thought unsettled him. Not that an up-timer might've committed the murders. That theory had been kicked around so many times, it was old news. But Skeeter might have carried through the murderer's own luggage, had maybe talked to Jack the Ripper, himself, without realizing it.

  And that was a decidedly uneasy thought. That a serial killer as seriously depraved as the Ripper could pass through society looking and behaving like a completely normal person, while inside... Skeeter shivered. And was damned glad he hadn't stayed in London, after all, which he'd planned to do before Ianira's disappearance. If he'd stayed, he'd doubtless have been pressed into searching for the missing Benny Catlin. And hunting Jack the Ripper was not Skeeter's idea of a sane way to pass the time. He'd stick to stalking pickpockets and small-time grifters. Those, at least, he could understand.

  He didn't want to understand serial killers.

  Not ever.

  "Skeeter?"

  Kit's gaze was centered squarely on him, brows twitching downward in concern.

  "Yeah?"

  "What's wrong?"

  "I think I saw Catlin, the day the gate opened last week."

  "Really? What do you remember about him?"

  Skeeter described Catlin, then added, "He had too much luggage for a grad student. Five big steamer trunks. Expensive ones."

  "He's not the guy whose steamer trunk almost went off the platform, is he?" Kit asked abruptly, eyes narrowed.

  Skeeter blinked in surprise. Then rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Uh, yeah. I think so. That was the name on the luggage tag. And he was white as any ghost, trying to keep it from falling."

  "I think," Kit said in a tight, dangerous voice, "we'd better tell Ronisha Azzan about this, because it looks to me like Catlin may well have been one of the Ansar Majlis goons on Armstrong's payroll. I find myself wondering what—or who—was in that trunk. And I'll bet Ronisha Azzan will, too."

  "Aw, nuts... Kit, I heard she was meeting with Senator Caddrick again this morning, trying to figure out where his kid went. And if he sees me, he's gonna remember I assaulted him, back at Primary. That kind of attention, I don't need."

  "Nonsense," Kit said firmly. "Nobody's going to jail the guy who figured out where his kid's kidnappers went."

  Skeeter had a terrible feeling he would find himself dragged down the Britannia Gate eight days from now as part of the search teams, after all. He wondered briefly if a bullet would've been waiting for him, if he'd stayed to haul those heavy steamer trunks to Catlin's hotel? Skeeter sighed, then ran a hand through his hair. Why was it, going legit had turned into the hardest thing he'd ever tried to do? And considering his background, that was saying a lot.

  "Well," he muttered, "I guess I'll just have to play it by ear, won't I?"

  "That's the spirit!" Kit grinned. "Come on, Skeeter. Let's go find you a security squawky someplace, then maybe by the time we've done that, Ronnie's followup meeting with the senator will be over?"

  Skeeter managed a weak grin of gratitude. "Okay. Thanks."

  Wondering if he knew what he was doing, he followed Kit Carson's lead. Just go with Kit, he told himself, and tried not to think too closely about where the grizzled old scout would end up leading him. He was quite sure he did not want to find out.

  * * *

  Mary Jane Kelly was afraid of the man she'd come to visit. Black magic and demon worship and an appetite for the unholy...

  Marie Jeannette, as she'd been
born, knew the whispers were not just hideous rumour, either, they were terrifying fact. He'd told her so, himself, on his many visits to the high-class West End house where she'd worked at the time, the one she'd been thrown out of shortly afterward for excessive drinking, a habit she'd picked up after becoming this particular gentleman's favorite.

  "A whore," he'd smiled down into her eyes, "is my ideal of the perfect unholy woman. A sower of immorality, a merchant of sin. A perfect vessel for wreaking the destruction of prudish social convention and absurd, medieval morals. Don't you agree, my dear?"

  Whatever the customer wants, had been her initial response to his blazing eyes and strange appetites. The fear had come later, when he whispered between savage thrusts, mouth half full of her left breast, "The Second Coming will bring a Great Year to its close... and the powers of hell will destroy all the weak and foolish lunacy Christians call goodness. And I..." he murmured darkly as he gave her a particularly hard pounding, excitement glittering in his eyes, "I worship those powers of hell. I shall rule upon this earth when the destruction sweeps away godliness and everything it stands for. I shall be the most powerful of men, preparing the way for the anti-Christ... Does this shock you, my dear? Or," he laughed and kissed her hard, "does it excite you?"

  Of all the men who'd paid to use her body, rich men who'd plied her with furs and beautiful clothes and trips to faraway, exotic places like Paris, East End costermongers reeking of gin and dead fish, violent louts who'd blacked her eye, afterwards, and the half-grown boys brought to a certain fancy West End address by their wealthy fathers to learn what to do with a woman, of all those many men, none frightened twenty-six-year-old Mary Kelly as deeply as Mr. Aleister Crowley.

  But Mary Jane Kelly had been living in fear so deep, she would almost rather have faced Satan, himself, than continue in this terror. So she had brought herself, quaking in her once-fine boots, to Satan's very doorstep, praying that Mr. Crowley's ambitions would cause him to find her plight interesting—and that his dark powers would help keep her alive. The butler who answered the door sniffed irritably, but allowed her to step out of the cold wind into a polished, gleaming hall to wait while he took her message to his master.