Ripper

by Stefan Petrucha

  “Any good?” Finn asked.

  “I don’t know,” Carver said. “Maybe the Ripper fled the city and Hawking figured out where he was going. Where’d you find this?”

  Finn nodded toward a pile of papers half-covering a broken machine. Carver was wrong; the typewriter was still here, unrecognizable because it was in shambles. It looked as if Hawking had smashed it in a rage. Carver plopped himself on the floor and stared at the mangled keys.

  Delia appeared at the door, gasping so hard she looked ready to collapse. “Carver, there is no Thomasine Bond, and no one else remembers giving you any messages. They did say Hawking left early this morning, on the ferry before ours.”

  “Then who did I talk to?” He flashed on the moment he’d broken into the telephone switchboard, his mentor telling him to use a higher voice to sound more feminine. “How did I miss that? Thomasine Bond was Hawking. The ferry before ours? That gives him a head start, but if he’s planning to take a train out of the city, we could still catch up, if we knew where he was going. Keep looking!”

  Finn, still clearing the refuse, grabbed the typewriter by the chassis. When he lifted, the carriage came loose and clattered to the ground. “He’s going to need another typewriter.”

  “Another… Finn!” Carver yelled.

  “What? I’m sorry… I…”

  “No, you’re a genius,” Carver said. He handed Delia the schedule, then raced downstairs to the narrow door that led to the observation room. He’d remembered where he’d seen that schedule before. There, in the small, cluttered office space, the second typewriter remained intact. The notes, however, all seemed to be about the patients. The roller.

  He swept a space free on the table and was hunting for paper and pencil as his friends arrived.

  “Please, please, no more stairs,” Delia said. “And what are you doing, anyway?”

  “Hawking read my notes at the athenaeum by rubbing a pencil against the next blank sheet of paper on the pad. He pounded these typewriter keys. The most recent impressions would be deepest, so maybe the same thing would work with the roller here.”

  His first few efforts yielded some stray words, like idiots, but when he rotated the roller and tried again, some numbers appeared. “10:10 and 870. Delia, anything match that on the train schedule?”

  Her eyes darted along. “Yes! 870 is a locomotive number on the New York Central Line. And there’s a 10:10 out of the city.”

  “An elevated train at the 34th Street Ferry pier goes to Grand Central,” Carver said. “We can make it by ten easily.”

  “That el’s mostly for tourists getting to and from Brooklyn and Long Island. It only runs every hour,” Delia said. “He might even still be waiting on the platform.”

  As Carver ran for the door, he saw that Delia was already holding his mentor’s old coat. “You’ll want this,” she said. “It’s cold out there.”

  As he glanced at his friends, for the first time, Carver didn’t feel like much of an orphan.

  80

  THE FERRY made good time. Thanks to Hawking’s old coat, Carver was able to stand on the upper deck with Delia and Finn and watch as the landing came into view.

  Even if they did catch his mentor, what would he do, short of handcuffing him to a pole? But he couldn’t let him face the Ripper alone. Even wounded and cornered, his father had survived a head-on crash. And his mentor was looking weaker by the day.

  “That must be the train,” Finn said, pointing at a rising plume. It wasn’t moving yet, but it would be soon. The captain screamed at them as they jumped the last three feet to the dock and ran for the stairs. As they reached the platform, the engine gave off a sharp whistle. The doors were sealed, locked for safety’s sake. With a pant of steam, the train pulled out.

  “Too late,” Finn said, slowing. “But if I tip a cabdriver enough, we could beat it to Grand Central.”

  Carver scanned the passengers through the moving windows. “Okay, let’s…” In mid-sentence, he spied a familiar slouched figure. Before Carver could think to duck, Hawking looked up and saw him. His mentor grimaced unhappily and shook his head.

  “No!” Carver said. “He saw me! He’ll get off at the next stop and find some other way out of the city. We’ll never find him. We’ve got to get on that train.”

  “How?” Delia said. “You can’t just jump on it.”

  He looked up at the sheet metal roof overhanging the platform and said, “Why not?”

  Climbing up on a railing, he managed to pull himself to the roof. As he got his bearings, he heard Delia call his name in exasperation, then the heavy thuds of Finn following him.

  The train was still slowly gathering momentum as it strove to leave the station. He could make it. Feet pounding, Carver raced faster than he ever had in his life. At the edge of the roof, he took a wild leap and landed flat atop the second of the five passenger cars. His ribs ached, but after a brief roll he was able to stop himself and get to his feet. Behind him, Finn jumped as well, the crash of his heavier body leaving a dent in the top of the train.

  Before either could focus on what to do next, they saw Delia on the station roof. She was racing along, one hand holding her wool cap tightly on her head. The train was picking up speed. She wouldn’t make it.

  “Don’t!” Carver shouted. “Stop!”

  But by then she’d jumped. Carver held his breath as she flew into the air, exhaling only when she landed dead center on the fifth and last car. She rose, still holding her cap, wobbled slightly, then came resolutely forward. Carver and Finn eyed each other, impressed and relieved.

  The relief was short-lived. An abrupt bump in the tracks nearly shook them off the train. Carver knew it wouldn’t be the last bump. The tracks would take the train sharply right onto Third Avenue and then again onto 42nd before the final stop at Grand Central Station.

  “We have to get inside!” He waved to Delia and pointed down.

  Ignoring him, she trotted up to the edge of her car and jumped to the next.

  “I don’t think she likes to be left out,” Finn said.

  Carver shook his head. Getting down on all fours for better balance, he made his way to the front of the car he’d landed on, thinking it should be an easy matter to climb down and enter.

  Below, he saw a stream of frenetic businessmen and workers pushing and shoving their way out of the first car and back into the second. Finn squatted beside Carver and frowned.

  “What’s going on?” he wondered aloud.

  “Wait for me!” Delia called from behind. She was on the third car now. Sensing something wrong was going on, he tried to wave her back, but she just scowled.

  He looked ahead. “We’re coming to the Second Avenue stop. When the train slows, we can climb down and try to cut off Hawking,” Carver said to Finn.

  But the train sped up, making the people waiting at the station a confused and annoyed blur. Something was definitely wrong.

  As the last few riders dashed from the first to the second car, Carver tensed, readying for the climb down. Before he could, a tall figure in black cape and top hat appeared at the first car’s rear door, hurrying the passengers along.

  His father. The Ripper.

  He must have realized Hawking was after him and decided to return the favor. Carver gritted his teeth. Instead of fear, he felt rage. He had to end this, once and for all. He had to.

  A rattle shook the train. The killer winced as his right leg nearly buckled. He was still wounded, at least. With Finn here and Hawking below, the three of them might be able to capture him.

  The moment the last passenger fled into the second car, the Ripper withdrew something long and gleaming from the folds of his cloak. Carver furrowed his brow. It wasn’t his blade; it was the brass gadget Hawking had worked so hard to assemble. He choked. How did he get it? Was Hawking already dead?

  Despite the huffing of the train and the rattle of the wheels, it was as though the Ripper heard Carver’s gasp. He looked up and, with a feral grin, t
hrust the pole into the space between cars and twisted. With a wink and a tip of his hat, he vanished back into the car.

  Carver felt a lurch as his car slowed. The first car, along with the locomotive, did not. The Ripper had uncoupled the cars. The gap between them was increasing. His father was getting away.

  Carver stood shakily. The space widened by one foot, then two…

  “My father’s on that car! I have to jump!” Carver said.

  “Are you crazy?” Finn said, rising beside him.

  “You’ll never make it!” Delia shouted as she caught up. “And if you do, you’ll be alone with him!”

  Three feet. Four.

  Carver turned to Finn. “Throw me!”

  “What?”

  “Like you did in the attorney’s office! On three, I jump, you throw!”

  “Finn, don’t do it!” Delia shouted.

  “Whether you do or not, I’m jumping!” Carver said. “One… two…”

  “No!” Delia called.

  Finn grabbed Carver’s coat at the neck and his belt at the waist.

  “Three!”

  Carver leapt. Finn’s powerful arms lifted. The pants dug deeply into his crotch. The back of the old coat tore, but the moment his legs were fully stretched, Finn let go, and Carver was air bound.

  81

  CARVER landed flat on his belly. For a second he thought he’d made it, but the train was traveling much faster than it had been as it left the station. Unable to stop himself, he rolled backward off the roof. Snagging a metal pole, he held on for dear life, then swung onto the small space at the back of the car.

  His father was inside. Hawking, too, unless he was already…

  The speeding car jangled violently. Panting, steadying himself, Carver tried to find even a small drop of calm in the ocean of rage and fear inside him. There was none. There was nothing left to think or do but push the door open.

  At the opposite end of the car sat Albert Hawking, his hunched form blurred by the staccato movement of light and dark as the train hurtled past buildings and sky. An old blanket covered his chest and shoulders.

  He was as motionless as a corpse.

  Slowing his breath, Carver scanned the space between them. On the seats he saw coats, briefcases and lunch pails, all left by the fleeing passengers. Snacks and drinks were set out on some of the tables that sat between the seats, many spilled or spilling from the jarring car. Otherwise the car seemed vacant.

  Carver ached to reach Hawking but knew any mistake he made now could be his last. He took a tentative step, then halted. The floor space under the tables seemed too small to hide anything bigger than a small child, but the Ripper had to be hiding somewhere.

  “Don’t stop now, boy. You’ve come this far.”

  Hawking, suddenly animate, raised his clawed hand and motioned him forward.

  Carver walked up, glancing nervously between the seats. “Is he here? Are you all right?”

  Hawking muttered to himself. “Serves me right. The papers said you were fine, but I had to see for myself. Found the second typewriter, did you? Well, don’t expect a pat on the back for it.”

  A covered teapot sat on the table before his mentor, wobbling before an empty cup. Hawking unfurled the fingers of his clawed hand, straightened them completely. Despite the train’s bouncing, he lifted the pot with perfect poise and held it steady.

  “Some poor fellow left this behind,” he said, pouring himself a cup. “No sense letting it go to waste.”

  Once the cup was full, Hawking sat up. Briefly, he was at the hunched height Carver was used to seeing. Then came a sharp, bony pop as his back straightened further, adding half a foot to his stature. He paused to wipe some white powder from his hair, revealing how black it was beneath.

  Carver tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but sense was the one thing that wouldn’t come.

  Hawking twisted again and rose further. The covering blanket fell away, revealing his cape and dark formal attire.

  “You’ve no idea how difficult it is to stay in that position,” he said, his voice gaining resonance and depth. “Especially after your thuggish friend wrecked my knee and my own blood smacked me with a brick, shocked me twice with that infernal baton and ran me over with an electric carriage!”

  Wide-eyed, slack-jawed, Carver managed to say, “It can’t be.”

  His mentor seemed annoyed. “Can’t? No fire trucks on a stage? Really, boy, unless you’re ready to deal with the monster, you shouldn’t go looking under the bed. “

  He lowered his head, pressed two strips of black hair along his cheeks, and stretched his jaw. When he looked back up, instead of Hawking’s ragged face, Carver saw the leering wide-eyed grin of Jack the Ripper.

  Quickly as it came, the demonic visage vanished, leaving Hawking looking more like his narrow-eyed self, save for the muttonchops and darker hair.

  He ran his fingers along his black cape and suit. “You know, I didn’t even dress like this in London. This is how a bunch of lurid artists rendered me. A dime-novel character for dime-novel mentalities. A costume,” he said with obvious distaste. He pulled a top hat from beneath the table and held it out. “Care to try it on?”

  Carver didn’t know whether to scream or sob. “I saw you knocked out at the apartment on Leonard Street!” he said, as if reason could somehow make the image before him vanish.

  His father bristled. “Surely you can guess some, now that you have the answer? The fact I used the typewriter so no one would recognize my handwriting? Then again, you wouldn’t know it was different before I was wounded. As for Leonard Street, Rowena Parker was more worried about her ostrich hat than she was about dying. She clocked me on the head. I almost passed out before I killed her.”

  “You did it. You killed those women…,” Carver said.

  “And Mr. Tudd. Don’t forget dear Septimus.”

  “Him, too?”

  Hawking seemed briefly regretful. “That was harder than I’d imagined. Not technically. You’d be surprised how easy it is to start a riot once you’ve snuck inside a prison. Easier still to strangle someone in the middle of all that delightful chaos. He never even knew it was me. Better that way, don’t you think?”

  “Your own partner,” Carver said.

  “Interesting fact: most murder victims are done in by people they know. Tudd made the luckiest guess of his career, but I couldn’t have him figuring out the rest before you. You did help there, though, didn’t you? Set him up? Even rifled through the corpse.” He smiled. “You are my blood.”

  Carver hesitated. “I’m nothing like you.”

  “We’ve been through that. Of course you are. Still a bit raw, though. And I am far more entertaining.” He raised the pitch of his voice and sounded like Thomasine Bond. “Sorry, Mr. Hawking isn’t here.” He twisted his head. “Thomas Bond was the only examining pathologist convinced Alice McKenzie was another victim of the Ripper. Never caught that clue, did you?”

  “Why? Why did you do this?”

  “We’ve been through that, too. It was a game, for you. Planned it from the moment I learned you were alive. After Whitechapel, I couldn’t be the detective I’d wanted to be anymore, but my son could. Why not let him catch the greatest killer in the world? Pretended I was English born; when the boat docked, signed my name Jay Cusack, became Raphael Trone, sent that last letter to Ellis, then waited until you were ready to find me. And here you are, at the brink of greatness. Could have stayed there, too, if you hadn’t followed me.”

  The train lurched sideways. They were turning onto Third.

  “You were a great detective!” Carver shouted. “You helped stop an assassination attempt on the president! What could have been so horrible that it changed you into this?”

  Hawking slammed his hand onto the table, rattling the teacup. “You’ve no idea, boy, no idea. I thought you and your mother were dead, mutilated worse than anything the Ripper’s ever done, and they made me believe I did it. That was my abyss. I lived
through it, or thought I did, until that last gunfight. Finest doctors in London worked on me after that. I got stronger, grew smarter, but they couldn’t heal my soul. That, I had to do myself. Killing was the only way I had of crawling back! But you couldn’t possibly understand that. Not yet, at least.”

  82

  CARVER staggered back in disgust. He’d seen the abyss now, fully. It was standing right in front of him.

  His father grew somber. “I was going to die for you, die as the Ripper, let Albert Hawking disappear a misunderstood hero. But that was before. Now, well, as I said, I’ve something else to do. The game is over, Carver. Just let me go; I won’t come back. You have my word as your father.”

  “I can’t,” Carver said.

  Hawking rose. “Why not? It’s just one more step. I’m prepared to let you go.”

  “I’m not a killer.”

  “But you’d have to kill me to stop me.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  Schick! The baton expanded to its full size, the copper tip crackling.

  “That again? Very well.” The long butcher knife slipped from a fold in his cloak into his hand. “Go on, boy. Stop me.”

  Hoping to end things quickly, Carver snapped the baton up, pointing the tip toward his father’s face. He lunged, but Hawking ducked. He swatted the center of the baton with the flat of the blade so hard it nearly flew from Carver’s hand. Tightening his grip, Carver tried again.

  Swack! Ping! Clack!

  Both swung, dodged, parried. Hawking not only knew something about fencing, he was also faster and considerably stronger. Try as he might, Carver couldn’t get the copper tip near his father. But… he didn’t have to touch him, did he? Last time, Carver only had to touch the blade. The electric shock had carried through the metal, forcing him to drop it.

  Hoping to surprise his father again, Carver aimed for the knife. With blinding speed, the Ripper raised his blade and let the point of the baton slip by. At the last instant, he sliced downward.