Ripper

by Stefan Petrucha

  Three men waited at the platform. Two, tall and fairly young, flanked an older, rounder man in a bowler hat. Closer to Hawking’s age, he looked something like a friendly sheepdog.

  “It worked well for a while,” Hawking mused. “Until the money started running out.”

  “Are you in charge of all this?” Carver said, ecstatic.

  The car door opened. The sheepdog man stepped in front of it, blocking the way, hands on his hips. “You gave him the combination, Hawking! We hadn’t agreed on that!” he said.

  “No, I’m not in charge,” Hawking said. “He is. That’s Septimus Tudd.”

  12

  HAWKING prepared to rise. “I didn’t ask if I could use the loo, either, Septimus. If he’s to be my apprentice, he’ll need to get in, won’t he?”

  “I beg you, Albert, no more surprises,” Tudd responded.

  Hawking offered an even smile. “I’ll try, but I won’t make any promises.”

  The two younger men tried to hide their chuckles. “Welcome back, Mr. Hawking,” the slighter one said, beaming. “It’s been too long.”

  Hawking put his cane to the floor. “Not long enough, Emeril and… hmmm… Jackson, isn’t it?”

  The two nodded appreciatively.

  Carver moved to help Hawking, but the old detective nudged him off. At the door, the round Tudd hooked a big hand through Hawking’s arm. He pulled him close and whispered, just loud enough for Carver to hear.

  “Please don’t demean me in front of the agents. It’s difficult enough when I can’t pay their salaries.”

  Hawking gave a noncommittal shrug. As they stepped onto the tile-and-brick platform, Tudd made a show of leading the way, but Hawking clearly knew where they were headed. As they walked, everyone’s eyes were on them. Carver thought they might be looking at him, a stranger, but realized they were much more interested in Hawking.

  After a lifetime of being bullied, Carver could only imagine how it must feel to be so respected. Hawking only grimaced and quickened his lopsided stride, as if their admiration were an ordeal.

  They entered an open hall that ended in a set of wide mahogany doors. Two plaques hung to the side. The first read Office of the Director, the second, Septimus Tudd. A faded rectangle along the edges of Tudd’s name meant his predecessor had warranted a bigger plaque. Hawking?

  Emeril and Jackson opened the doors but remained outside. Tudd, Hawking and Carver entered a large, wildly cluttered office. It held an enormous desk and three long oak meeting tables stacked with files, photographs and newspaper clippings. The dark-paneled walls were papered with maps marking streets, ferry lines and railroads.

  The only decoration Carver noticed was an odd oval mirror. It looked broken, everything reflected in it distorted, as if it were from a house of mirrors. Carver snickered to remember how jealous he’d been when Delia had gotten to see one at Coney Island, having gone along to help watch the younger children.

  He couldn’t wait to tell her he’d visited a secret detective facility. But he couldn’t tell her, could he? That was the point of it being secret, why it had such a strange and wonderful lock.

  He also realized something else.

  “Mr. Tudd?” Carver said, speaking for the first time. “Can I ask how you knew Mr. Hawking gave me the combination?”

  The hefty man turned to him with a twinkle in his eye. “Because I saw him.” He pointed to the mirror. “It’s something our research department came up with. Go on, take a look. It’s not as if I get to show off the operation often.”

  Carver stepped up. The periphery of the glass remained blurry, but in the center he could see the side of Devlin’s, the elevator door, the brass tubes rising from the concrete, even the bottom half of a hansom cab and horse clicking along down Broadway.

  “How… ?”

  Tudd indicated a silvery tube rising from the back of the glass. “Mirrors, placed at careful angles in this pipe, leading up to the surface. They call it a periscope.”

  “That’s amazing!” Carver said.

  “And expensive,” Hawking growled. “And you wonder where all the money’s gone.”

  Tudd scowled. “I’ll have you know the army is considering purchasing the patent.”

  “Considering, as in, they haven’t given you a penny.”

  Tudd straightened. He suddenly looked quite formidable despite his girth. “I don’t have to explain myself to someone who hasn’t even been here in months! I’ve molded this place into the cutting-edge crime facility Allan Pinkerton envisioned! You can’t begin to imagine the strides we’ve made. In just a few weeks, we’ll take delivery of our first electric carriages.”

  “Electric carriages?” Carver blurted.

  “Quiet, boy!” Hawking snapped. “And how much did they cost?”

  Tudd stepped behind his desk. “Cost isn’t the issue!”

  He went on, but Carver noticed Hawking wasn’t paying attention. His sharp eyes were casting about the desk, studying the photographs and newspapers. When Carver followed his new mentor’s gaze, he realized they were all about the library murder. The photographs showed the crime scene. The rumors were true: the body had been mutilated. Never having seen a real dead body, let alone one so mangled, Carver felt queasy. It was exactly the sort of thing Miss Petty had prevented him from seeing or reading about.

  A loud hissing, like a teakettle, erupted from Tudd’s clenched teeth. He motioned Carver away from his desk. “I’m sorry, Mr. Young, but the information the agency collects is not for public consumption.”

  “Still chasing ghosts?” Hawking asked. He snorted.

  The dismissive gesture clearly angered Tudd. “A pity we don’t all share your fierce instincts!” he said.

  Hawking chuckled. “If you had half my instincts, you wouldn’t waste your time.”

  13

  “IT’S A theory,” Tudd said. “The police are stymied. If we solved the murder, it would give us just the right opportunity to bring the New Pinkertons out in the open.”

  “If that’s your goal, why not just do it? Why do you need some imaginary victory to hide behind?” Hawking said.

  “Aside from the fact it’s against Allan’s explicit wishes,” Tudd said with a shrug, “we have to be in the right position. And I have to admit the thought of catching the world’s most famous murderer is enticing.”

  “It’s your ego, then?”

  “No! I mean to say…”

  As the two men argued, Carver leaned forward for another look at the desk. A police report describing Mrs. Buckley’s attacker as an “impossibly powerful man” caught his attention, but Tudd snatched it away. He motioned a chagrined Carver into one of two plush chairs facing the desk.

  “I could use your help, Albert,” Tudd said. “If only so the men would—”

  “My involvement is not open for discussion.”

  Tudd sighed. “Damn shame a man of your ability spends all his time among the mad.”

  Among the mad? What did that mean?

  “So do you, in a way.”

  “Roosevelt?” Tudd said. “I’ve not met a man with his integrity since Allan himself. It’s positively difficult for me to lie to him each morning when I go to work.”

  Carver didn’t know what to ask first. “You work for Roosevelt? Is that how you saw my letter?”

  “Giving away your own secrets now, eh, Tudd?” Hawking chortled. “Intercepted might be a better word, boy. Go on, tell him. You’re Roosevelt’s clerk.”

  Tudd narrowed his eyes. “I could name some undercover positions you’ve held I wouldn’t brag about.” He turned to Carver. “Son, nearly all our agents hold posts among the police, politicians and newspaper offices. I am one of the commissioner’s assistants.”

  “Clerk,” Hawking interjected.

  “Ahem. Your correspondence… impressed me. Mr. Hawking needed an assistant. I also hoped bringing you here might lure him from retirement. I didn’t realize he planned on giving you my job during your first visit.”
<
br />   Hawking said, “There is only one job I’m interested in currently, for the boy.”

  “Really?” Carver asked. “What would that be, sir?”

  “Finding your father.”

  Carver’s heart nearly popped into his throat.

  “It’s an excellent way to begin your education, a mystery you’ll be motivated to solve. If you think you can handle it. You’ll have to do most of the legwork, but you’ll have access to these facilities—”

  Tudd interrupted. “Only to an extent. I want to help, of course, but we’re stretched as it is. I suppose I could have someone take a look at that letter you found. Check for fingerprints, analyze the handwriting…”

  Carver swooned. Use this place to find his father?

  Hawking leaned forward. “Mr. Tudd has a new forensic document examiner who dabbles in graphology. You know the difference?”

  Carver nodded. “The examiner tries to confirm the identity of the author; a graphologist tries to figure out their personality.”

  “Well, then,” Tudd said. “Maybe you will be running this place one day. Um… did Mr. Hawking have you bring the letter?”

  “I didn’t have to. I assumed he’d keep something so precious on his person. Am I right, boy?”

  Carver grinned. “Yes.”

  Tudd put his hand out. “It won’t be a priority, but no reason we can’t put it in the queue.”

  Excited, Carver reached into his pocket, only to have his hand blocked by Hawking’s cane.

  “Wait,” Hawking said. “If you are going to be my assistant, I want you to have complete access to the facilities. You can’t analyze the handwriting yourself, but I want you doing everything else.”

  “That’s not possible!” Tudd said, blustering.

  “To the contrary. It is.”

  Tudd exhaled so hard, his mustache quivered. “May we discuss this privately?”

  Not wanting to seem as if he were someone who might need “babysitting,” Carver promptly stood. The two men were silent as he opened the door and stepped outside, his head ready to explode from all the questions it contained.

  14

  THE TWO younger agents were waiting when Carver emerged.

  “The older guns wanted some words alone, eh?” Emeril said. He put his hand out for Carver to shake. “John Emeril. Been with the agency three years now.”

  Jackson did the same, though with a considerably stronger grip. He also had a bent nose, as if it’d been broken in a fistfight, and a slight scar on his right cheek. “Josiah Jackson. Quite a place, isn’t it?”

  “I felt like I’d stepped into a Jules Verne novel first time I set eyes on that subway,” Emeril put in. He was unblemished, though paler, and perpetually squinting, as if reading tiny print.

  “I’ll say,” Carver answered. After the grim Hawking and the blustery Tudd, these two were a relief.

  “Subway’s not the half of it,” Jackson said, unbuttoning his jacket and leaning against the wall. “They’re developing things that’d make Verne’s head spin.”

  “I just wish they could invent a steady paycheck,” Emeril put in.

  “So you’re both detectives?” Carver asked.

  “That’s right,” Emeril said. “We don’t stand outside doors all day. Matter of fact, we asked for the duty because we’d heard Mr. Hawking would be here.”

  “What sort of cases have you worked on?”

  “Not certain we should say,” Jackson said. “But nothing as exciting as you might read in a book.”

  “Don’t tell him that!” Emeril said. “Jackson and I have handled kidnappings, blackmail and bank robberies! Not that we’re allowed to discuss specifics. And he’s right about one thing. It’s not all running around in sewers with pistols drawn, ruining your best clothes to sneak up on a thief.”

  Jackson warmed to the bragging. “That’s the trick, isn’t it? Catching them before or during. Afterward, the damage is already done. There’s a lot of research and guesswork, trying to peer into the workings of the criminal mind.”

  “Which Jackson usually leaves to me,” Emeril said. “Of course, Mr. Hawking knows the most about the criminal brain. I hear he keeps one in his desk. Quite a fellow, old Hawking.”

  “You’ll be training with the best,” Jackson agreed.

  “Why did he retire?” Carver asked.

  “He didn’t tell you?” Emeril said. “Don’t know much about his work with the original Pinkertons, but the story goes that by the time he started up here, he was the brainy sort, like me.”

  “Oh? I heard he was more the brawny type,” Jackson said, flexing his muscles. “Like… ahem.”

  Emeril rolled his eyes. “About eight years back he became obsessed with a street gang that specialized in kidnapping.”

  “Extortion, too, no?” Jackson said.

  “But it was mostly kidnapping,” Emeril said. “As luck would have it, or lack of luck, they kidnapped the wife of a very wealthy fellow. The crooks gave him the usual bit about not contacting the police. Given the corruption, he had no reason to think the police weren’t involved themselves, so he hired us.”

  “Hired?” Carver asked.

  Emeril shrugged. “We’re not averse to taking money…”

  “…from those who can afford it,” Jackson corrected.

  “Anyway,” Emeril continued, “Hawking jumped on it. No leads, no clues. He pulled the answers out of the air…”

  “Out of his ass, you mean!”

  “Does it matter from where? He got things right. Figured out where she was being held.”

  “A warehouse. He went down there with a vengeance. Brought five agents…”

  After sounding terribly excited, both men grew suddenly quiet.

  “And?” Carver finally asked.

  “Turned out the police were in with the kidnappers. They also had new pistols that fired off rounds faster and more accurately than anything else at the time. Hawking hadn’t bargained on stumbling in on so much firepower. The wife was killed, along with all the agents. Hawking took five bullets.”

  Carver exhaled. He’d imagined the operation was dramatic, just not that it’d also been a tragic failure.

  Jackson spoke softly. “He went overseas for surgery, gone nearly a year. Best they could do was return some of the use of his arm. You see what he’s like now. Didn’t want anything to do with the work anymore, handed the reins over to Tudd… and Tudd’s…”

  “Not a bad man… Wouldn’t trust him to invest my savings, but he’s a solid detective.”

  “Though no Albert Hawking.”

  Carver’s new mentor was beginning to make sense. Who wouldn’t be bitter and cranky after that?

  Tudd’s voice, hollow and tinny, erupted from thin air. “Send Carver in.”

  Carver looked around, unable to figure out where the sound was coming from.

  “Voice pipe,” Emeril explained. “Carries sound along a tube. Been used on ships for a hundred years. Best offices have them.”

  As Jackson reached for the door, Emeril pulled a small rubber hose from along the wall molding and spoke into a brass funnel at the end. “On his way, Mr. Tudd.”

  When Carver stepped in, Hawking waved at Tudd with his gnarled right hand. “Give him your letter.”

  Carver paused. “What… ?”

  “I’ll tell you shortly. For now, hand your precious note over to Mr. Tudd. Maybe in a year or so, when they get to it, you’ll find out you’re the Prince of Wales. Go on.”

  Carver reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded note. So much had happened so quickly. A short while ago this was the most precious thing in his life. Hawking, Tudd, the New Pinkertons—they still felt unreal. The note was solid, real. He wasn’t sure he should hand it over but couldn’t imagine why not. Even though he could close his eyes and still see every blotch of ink, he felt a pang as he relinquished it.

  As he took it, Tudd, sensing its importance, gave Carver a sympathetic smile and treated it with the utmost c
are as he unfolded and scanned it. “A year? Not that long,” he said. “But it will be a while, son.”

  “I’m… so grateful…,” Carver said, stumbling over the words.

  “Mmm,” Tudd said. He rummaged about his desk until he found a glass tube about three inches wide, stopped at both ends with rubber caps. He pulled one cap off, carefully rolled the letter and inserted it. After resealing the other end, he inserted it into a thicker tube behind his desk. With a sudden thok it was sucked in.

  “A pneumatic message system courtesy of the gentleman who built the subway,” Tudd explained cheerfully. “They’ve been using a similar system at the London Stock Exchange since 1853, but I suppose our dear Mr. Hawking would think that a waste of money as well.”

  “If they were going bankrupt, I would,” Hawking answered. He pushed himself to his feet. “The laboratory is only a few hundred yards away, isn’t it? I thought I was the one who had trouble walking.”

  Hawking loped toward the door, giving Carver a twitch of his chin to indicate he should follow. “Be seeing you, Septimus.”

  Once they were in the hall, Carver figured it was safe to start asking questions.

  “What… ?” he began.

  Hawking sliced the air with his good hand. “Not in front of the agents. Good night, Jackson, Emeril.”

  “Always good to see you, sir.”

  “Good night, Mr. Hawking.”

  Between the voice pipes, pneumatic subways, and spyglasses, Carver never wanted to leave, but Hawking led him back to the subway. He didn’t speak again until it was gliding back along the tunnel.

  “It’s been settled,” he said. “You’re to be allowed full access.”

  Carver let out an amazed laugh. “That’s terrific, sir. But Mr. Tudd seemed so against it. How did you get him to agree?”

  Hawking shrugged. “A white lie. I told him part of the reason I wanted you to have access was because, from time to time, I’d have you run errands here for me. Giving you access would be the same as giving me access.”