Ripper

by Stefan Petrucha

  “Let’s go, then!” Delia said.

  He looked at her. “Delia, I’m sorry, but I think I should go alone.”

  He slid open a window and climbed onto the ledge.

  She rushed up, angry. “Don’t you dare think I’d slow you down!”

  “No, it’s not that,” he said as he eyed the five-foot jump down to the alley.

  “Well, what, then?”

  He hemmed and hawed. “It’s late. There are rough sorts around, and you’re too… too…”

  “Weak? Slow?”

  “No!” he said. “Too darn pretty!”

  He jumped, landed and took off running. By the time she thought to make him promise to tell her everything, he was gone. As she slid the window shut, she caught her reflection in the glass. Pretty? It wasn’t a word she had reason to associate with herself. Yet as she looked at herself now, she smiled. Aside from a few hairs out of place, she had to admit she did look quite nice.

  The time melted along with the blocks beneath Carver’s feet, the air full of smells of horses and burning coal. Worth… Duane… Chambers… City Hall and its adjoining park grew visible on his left. To his right, he saw the brightly colored awnings of Devlin’s department store.

  He stopped. The itching of his jacket mingled with goose bumps caused by the cool air. A few more steps and he reached the corner. Warren Street was chiseled into the stone of a building. Here he was. But this was a business and government district. The Pinkerton office was at least ten blocks farther down. Had he misread the maps or the numbers?

  He crossed the cobblestone, scanning all five stories. Could there be offices above Devlin’s? No.

  The only noteworthy thing was an oddly dark patch of concrete on the Warren Street sidewalk, about the length and width of a staircase. It looked as if something had been sealed up ages ago. Four two-feet-tall brass tubes, curved at the top, marked the corners. Some sort of pipes, but for what?

  Curious, Carver reached out to touch one. The moment his hand made contact, a piercing, nasal voice turned him around.

  “There, Miss Petty, I told you he’d be here within the hour.”

  Carver whirled. A few yards behind him, Miss Petty and Albert Hawking stood under a hissing streetlamp. At the curb behind them was the hansom cab that had brought them.

  Hawking continued speaking to Miss Petty, but his eyes were glued on Carver. “Send the paperwork and his things to the address I gave you. Meanwhile, you’ll have to excuse us. I’d like to take my new pupil on a bit of a tour.”

  Pupil?

  Carver was so gobsmacked, Miss Petty had to cough several times to get his attention. “Mr. Young?” she said. “I assume this is a suitable arrangement?”

  A slack-jawed Carver nodded dumbly.

  “Cat got your tongue, Mr. Young?” she prodded.

  “It’s perfectly all right, Miss Petty,” Hawking said. “I know he can speak. I heard him earlier. Frankly, I’ve had enough of it for one day.”

  But Carver found his voice. “Yes, ma’am. It… the arrangement… would be very suitable, thank you.”

  She offered the widest smile he’d ever seen on her. “I thought it might be. I want you to know that even though I forbade you certain reading material in your younger years, I always felt that your mind, and your heart… well… I just hope you realize…”

  Still overcome with shock, it took Carver several moments to realize that the stoic Miss Petty was choked with emotion. They’d known each other nearly all his life. Now they were saying good-bye. He wanted to hug her, but it seemed insane.

  Hawking nudged her. “Madam, please, the bird has left the nest. Time to move along.”

  Collecting herself, Miss Petty said, “Of course,” and stepped into the waiting cab. Hawking rapped his cane near the driver. “Take her back to Ellis, and send me the bill. You’re not to accept a penny from this woman, understand?”

  A click of the driver’s tongue set the horses in motion. Carver could see Miss Petty’s face through the window and thought he spotted a tear on her cheek. Wondering if he’d ever see her again, he felt a swell of emotion grip his throat.

  By the time the cab traveled half a block, the feeling was replaced by the realization that the clue had been some sort of test, and now he was to be the pupil of a real detective! It was as if a cover of New York Detective had come to life and swallowed him. And so far, all he’d offered his benefactor were insults.

  “I’m very sorry about my tone earlier, sir,” Carver said, mustering his sincerity. “And anything else I said that might have offended you.”

  Hawking cackled. “Of course you are.” He narrowed his gaze and pointed at him with the tip of the cane. “But at least you know, boy, at least you know.”

  10

  THE HUNCHED man nodded at a spot behind Carver.

  “You were doing something before you were interrupted. Go back to it.”

  Carver didn’t understand. “Excuse me, sir?”

  Hawking bristled. “Your letter to Roosevelt said you wanted to be a detective, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, but how did you—”

  “No, no, no!” he said, snapping his head back and forth. “An answer to one question will lead to another and we’ll be standing here all night. If you want to be a detective, go back to what you were doing. Detect.”

  He waved his cane at the quartet of brass pipes marking the dark patch of concrete. “What were you looking at?”

  Confused, Carver answered, “Just that the concrete was different, like something was sealed in, sir.”

  “In 1873, to be precise. Look again, tell me more. And don’t call me sir every two seconds. I despise repetition.”

  Carver stared at the tubes. “The tubes… don’t belong?”

  Hawking crinkled his lips. Irritation emanated from his form in waves. “Of course they belong. Everything belongs. You just don’t know what the devil they belong to! How might you find out?”

  Carver had barely spoken, but already felt he was doing everything wrong. It was like talking to Delia, only worse.

  “Ask?”

  “Ask? Who?”

  “You? Someone at Devlin’s.”

  “Devlin’s is closed. And I’m not going to tell you.”

  It was another test, like the writing on the card. Carver concentrated, but nothing came to him.

  Hawking’s steely gaze was hard at work, sizing up his new pupil. Carver wondered if he could read his mind from the way he stood or tell what he’d had for breakfast, the way Sherlock Holmes might.

  “This isn’t a done deal, boy. Give me less than your best and I’ll send you straight back to Ellis. Stop wasting time! Use the skills that got you here!”

  Feeling more intimidated than he ever had in Finn’s presence, Carver knelt beside the nearest tube. It was a tube, just a brass tube. What else could it be? He poked his hand into the opening. A few inches inside, his finger felt a metallic mesh. A filter.

  Maybe it was connected to something below. Was it part of the store’s basement? Hawking leaned against the building, looking relieved at no longer having to support the burden of his body. There was an odd door behind him. It fit the store’s design but seemed newer, different, like the concrete. It didn’t have any doorknob or keyhole. A gilded metal frame curled intricately over its glass center. The glass was smoky, whatever beyond it dark.

  The older man tapped the whitish hair at his temple. “Don’t just think, give yourself something to think about. The brain’s like a rat spinning on a wheel in a cage. Trapped, and it doesn’t even know it. All it knows is what the senses tell it. Use them.”

  Carver was nervous, feeling stupid, but determined not to give up. He wrapped his hands around the tube. It was thick, polished clean. In intervals, decorative rings bulged neatly from the surface.

  “It’s expensive,” he announced.

  “Well, that’s something, at least. What might it be for?”

  If it was a water drain, it was upsid
e down. Carver put his ear against the opening, but couldn’t hear anything because of the surrounding noise. A chilly wind whistled along Broadway, horses clopped, wheels rolled on the cobblestone. Covering his exposed ear, he concentrated, managing to hear and feel a steady, almost mechanical movement of warmer air.

  “It’s a vent!” Carver blurted.

  “Congratulations, you’re not a complete moron,” Hawking announced. “Now, how do you figure out what’s down there?”

  The small victory rallied Carver. A New York Detective Library story with Nick Neverseen came to mind. Nick was no Holmes, but while trying to find some kidnappers hiding in a mine, he’d found the mine’s air shaft and…

  “Plug up the air hole,” Carver said. “Whoever’s down there would have to come up.”

  Hawking’s laugh surprised him. It was different from his cackle, sharp and resonant.

  “I like that,” the detective said. “But whoever’s down there wouldn’t appreciate it. Didn’t think to try to pull or move it, did you? Well, why would you? The thing’s set in solid concrete. Put your hand around again and this time, twist to the right.”

  Carver gave Hawking a puzzled look and then did as he was told. The section above the top ring pivoted easily. It moved a quarter turn, then clicked into place.

  Reading his expression, Hawking said, “If that little bit of nonsense impresses you so much, you won’t last the night. Push down, twist left, pull up, and twist right. Go on.”

  Carver moved the tube in sequence, having no idea what to expect. He remembered another story in which Allan Quatermain entered an ancient temple by pressing stones in sequence. But this was in the middle of the street in New York City, a city Carver thought he knew well.

  After the final twist, a series of small metallic sounds echoed from the tube. Carver rose and stepped back, half-expecting the sidewalk to grind open. Instead, there was a final, tiny click, not from the tube, but from the ornate door behind Hawking.

  It had popped open.

  Carver grinned like a seven-year-old. “A combination lock?”

  “Yes. The designer is fond of gadgets. Can’t stand them myself.” He put his hand on the edge of the door. “Shall we go in?”

  Hawking hobbled in about two feet, then turned to face the street. Carver thought he was waiting for him but as he approached saw there was no place else for Hawking to go. The room was five feet square at best, barely enough space for four standing adults. There were no other doors. All three walls were covered with metallic designs similar to those on the door.

  Once Carver was beyond the door frame, Hawking grabbed a small handle and pulled the door shut. There was an oily machine smell, and the small room filled with a sound not unlike what followed the last click of the tube—the soft, steady whir of hidden gears. Stranger still, the wind hadn’t stopped. Only now the breeze ran not from left to right, but from the ceiling to the floor.

  Carver looked around the cramped space in wonder.

  Hawking shrugged. “Haven’t you ever been in an elevator?”

  11

  HAWKING’S shaky index finger pressed a button hidden by the wall pattern. The grinding gears became more insistent, the breeze stronger. Carver had been in elevators, but he could always feel the rumble, the sense of movement. Here there was none.

  “It’s pneumatic,” Hawking explained. “The shaft is nearly airtight, the car pushed and pulled by a large fan. It’s a later addition by the fellow who built this place.” He sneered slightly. “It does offer a smoother ride, I suppose.”

  In moments, the wind died and the door clicked open, revealing a huge room, dimly lit by a series of small gas fixtures. A huge steel cylinder and cogwheel were at the room’s far end. It was so tall, it ran nearly all the way to the high ceiling. The metal was covered with frescoed woodwork. Between the gaps he could see huge blades turning.

  “Is that the fan?” Carver asked.

  “The top,” Hawking replied absently. “You’ll see the rest in a moment. No more questions, you’ll slow us down.”

  They passed a metal sign reading Broadway Pneumatic Transit Co. Otherwise, the place seemed abandoned. They entered a long featureless hall, then walked down several steps into a tiny room. Carver thought it was another elevator, but here Hawking simply opened a second door and, with a vague wave of his hand, said, “Welcome to the future. At least what Mr. Alfred Beach thought would be the future about twenty-five years ago.”

  Carver gasped. There were chandeliers, couches, curtains, easy chairs and settees, a piano and, in the center, a working fountain with goldfish swimming in its shallow pool. To the right, beyond a low wall, were the slowly turning gears and shaft of the vast fan in the room above. It would all seem more at home in the Astor family’s finest mansion or a Jules Verne novel than hidden beneath the ground.

  But the most exciting part was the shining train car sitting below twin staircases. A tall metallic cylinder with oval windows on either side of a door, it was unlike anything Carver had ever seen or read about. There was just the one car, no locomotive. Beyond it was a round tunnel, an iron tube, a perfect match for the car’s shape, its entrance ringed by colored gas jet flames glowing red, white and blue.

  Carver longed to study every inch of this odd and wonderful place, but Hawking pushed him forward. “I’ll explain it when we get into the car. I want to sit down!”

  At the stairs, the reason for his testiness became clear. After putting his cane to the first step and twisting his hips to lower his foot, his face registered intense pain. Overcoming his hesitation about touching the grisly man, Carver grabbed Hawking’s arm. The detective mumbled something that sounded like “good,” then continued grunting until they entered the car.

  The dim, eighteen-foot space held two rows of long cushioned seats, broken up by tables with gas lamps. It looked like a luxurious, but narrow, living room.

  Hawking dragged himself to one of the lamps and settled into the cushions beside it. After a single exhale, he leaned over and twisted the valve. “The zirconia light,” he said with a sigh. “Two small cylinders, one with oxygen, the other hydrogen, are under the seats, feeding this nozzle, which contains a bit of zirconium.”

  Lowering his head to shield his eyes, he struck a match and held it to the lamp. A brilliant pencil-thin flame erupted, casting a powerful brilliance.

  Unlike the usual yellow gaslight, this was like sunlight. Carver loved it.

  Hawking waved at the light as if it were a mosquito. “It’s toys, boy, all toys. You’ll see more and more contraptions as you get older, but if I teach you anything, you’ll learn that this is all decoration. What counts is what’s inside you and what you can see in others. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No, you don’t. When our time together is nearly over, you may start to understand.”

  He shifted his back to the glow and motioned for Carver to sit beside him.

  Using his heel, Hawking kicked a lever at the base of the lamp table. In response, the car moved, but so smoothly, so quietly, it was only because he could see out the windows that Carver realized they were moving at all.

  “Back in 1870,” Hawking said, “Alfred Beach worked secretly, digging this tunnel to demonstrate what he thought would be a more elegant way of traveling than the elevated trains that hiss and fart and stink up the air. People rode his little subway as a curiosity, but he never won the contract to expand. It was sealed up, forgotten, until I helped purchase it.”

  It was another surprise in a day full of them. “You own this?”

  “Don’t go picturing any big inheritance. The money wasn’t mine, and it’s nearly all gone. It belonged to Allan Pinkerton. I know you’ve heard of him; otherwise my card wouldn’t have piqued your curiosity.”

  Carver nodded. “He was amazing.”

  Hawking’s harsh demeanor faded slightly. “You’re right about that. I was there when he foiled an assassination attempt on President Lincoln. I worked undercover f
or him during the Civil War. After that, I helped him track some of the worst criminals the country’s ever seen. Amazing? He was more a force of nature than a man. Or so I believed. In 1869 he had a stroke. The doctors said he’d be paralyzed permanently. Pinkerton insisted they were wrong. It was painful as rising from the dead, but day by day, inch by inch, he forced himself to stand, to hobble and then to walk. Inside of a year he was back on his feet, slower but still worth ten men half his age.” He paused. “Wish I could say the same for myself.”

  “What… happened to you?” Carver asked.

  “One life at a time, boy. While Allan Pinkerton recovered, his sons ran the business and never quite gave it back. He spent the rest of his life struggling with his blood over his own company. They saw the future in factory security, not exactly what he saw as his legacy. So, in his will, he left his two most trusted agents, myself and Septimus Tudd, a considerable amount to establish a new agency, dedicated to fighting criminals. Tudd always loved contraptions, so I let him talk me into using this place as our base.”

  “Why haven’t I ever heard of you?”

  Hawking bristled. “The New York police department has an annual budget of five million dollars. They collect another ten million in bribes. Pinkerton stipulated our organization remain secret to avoid corruption, even fight the police if need be.”

  The little car slid into a wide, open area. They were still underground, but this place was so airy, it felt as if they were outside again. High above, Carver saw an arched brick ceiling supported by steel girders. The track ended at a small platform at the edge of a plaza. On either side were two three-story structures, buildings of a sort. One was open faced, the other a windowless mass.

  In the open building, Carver could see inside many of the rooms. There were offices full of file cabinets, rooms that stocked pistols, rifles and strange devices. A wide space full of wires and tubes looked like a laboratory. Unlike the elegant but abandoned spaces beneath Devlin’s, these were brightly lit and bustling with activity. Of the twenty people he could see, some worked in suits with bowler hats, others in shirtsleeves. There were even several women present. A man and a woman wearing goggles and greasy overalls were hunched over mechanical equipment whose function Carver couldn’t even guess at.