“Why do you think Mesmer singled out Charlotte for such treatment?” asked Maria.
“Perhaps he thought we were rich,” sighed Mrs. Elmwood. “The party we attended was one thrown for the daughter of one of Henry’s associates from that club. He had persuaded us to enroll Charlotte in the finishing school the girl attended, another expense. I knew no good would come of us reaching so far above our station.”
“So merely for a ransom, then?”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Elmwood. “But Mesmer did seem somewhat interested in Charlotte.… One of his attendants—a rough-looking chap, Spanish I think—had with him a notebook and drew Mesmer’s attention to something within it. I saw them both looking at whatever was within and then scrutinizing Charlotte across the room. It was almost as though they were looking for someone, and thought it might be her.”
“Mr. Mesmer approached us and asked us all kinds of questions about Charlotte,” said Mrs. Elmwood. “I fancy he was trying to be casual, but his approach was so stiff, so … Germanic … well. It felt more like an interrogation.”
“What kind of questions?” asked Maria.
Mrs. Elmwood shrugged. “When she was born, what she had been like as a child, which schools she had attended. It almost felt as though he could catch us out, as though we were somehow lying about Charlotte being our daughter.” She laughed mirthlessly. “It was very strange.”
They sat in silence for a moment. There was a small cloth doll with buttons for eyes and a gingham dress lying on the sofa. It had pigtails of red wool. Mrs. Elmwood fixed her eyes on Maria’s. “I made that for Charlotte when she was four years old. Even before she disappeared, she loved it and carried it everywhere in the house.”
Maria looked at it, suddenly feeling very sad at the thought of the girl, out there, without her dear doll. “It’s beautiful.”
Mrs. Elmwood continued to stare at her. “You’re really Professor Einstein’s invention?”
“Automaton,” said Mr. Elmwood, snapping his fingers. “That’s the word old Einstein used.”
“Yes,” said Maria. “I am Professor Einstein’s automaton.”
“Sitting here, talking … I confess that my husband is right. You are an exceptional thing. I almost forgot you weren’t a real young woman.”
“Are you sure you’re not Charlotte, hypnotized afresh to think you’re this automaton?” asked Mr. Elmwood, screwing up his eyes.
Maria smiled. “I can take off my dress and open up my chest, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Mrs. Elmwood briskly. “I thank you for coming to update us on Mr. Smith’s progress.” She stood, and Maria did the same. Mrs. Elmwood said, “I would prefer it if you did not come again. It is too distressing, while Charlotte remains missing.”
Maria bowed her head. “I understand.”
As they walked to the door, Mrs. Elmwood said, “It is like a story I read as a child. The fairies whisked away a human child, and left in its place a changeling.”
“Martha,” said Mr. Elmwood, placing a hand on her arm.
She shrugged him off and glared at Maria. “You will never replace Charlotte, do you understand? It is not a fair exchange, a beautiful young woman for an unholy thing of brass cogs and copper pipes. It should be you who is gone, gone to the scrapyard, not a living young woman like my daughter.”
Maria stepped backward against the door, surprised by the sudden ferocity of Mrs. Elmwood’s words, at the angry tears flowing down the woman’s cheeks.
“It should be you,” said Mrs. Elmwood again, but more weakly. “Who would miss you? I just want my daughter back. I want my little girl.”
Mr. Elmwood began to steer his wife toward the stairs, looking over his shoulder. “I am sorry. Come on Martha, let me take you upstairs for a lie down. You can let yourself out … uh…?”
“Maria.”
“Maria. Thank you.” He turned to help his sobbing wife up the stairs. “Come on, darling, it’s all right. The Hero of the Empire is on the case. Mr. Gideon Smith will not let us down.”
Maria quickly let herself into the cold snow flurries. A little way up the street she could make out the dark shape of her steam-cab.
It should be you who is gone.
Who would miss you?
Mr. Gideon Smith will not let us down.
The metal and glass in her chest weighing her down more heavily than any human heart could, Maria stifled a sob of her own and ran toward the waiting vehicle, the rag doll still unwittingly clutched in her hand.
13
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
He stared at the monster, which paced up and down in the short space that its chain tether allowed and beheld him with furious yellow eyes, saliva dripping from its teeth, until the man standing by the brazier finally spoke, wrenching his attention from the beast.
“It appears you will not have to go out into the snow after all, Deeptendu. Providence has brought us meat for our pet.”
The monkey leaped onto a simple wooden stool and then to the shoulder of the man, who fed it a nut from a paper bag in his hand. He had a lined, weathered face and dark, long hair pulled into a plaited ponytail that hung over his collarbone. He was perhaps fifty years of age, lithe and athletic of build beneath a rough cotton shirt and worn leather trousers, a crudely stitched collarless jacket of tanned hide over his simple outfit. His right leg ended at the knee; beneath was a thick rod of wood, capped with tin or some other malleable metal at the foot.
“You mean to feed me to your tyrannosaur?” Smith said, glancing around the dimly lit cellar at the one the man had addressed as Deeptendu, one of four who had hauled him into the room. He was swarthy, too, but more obviously Indian than the one-legged man. He was tall and wore a length of black cloth wound into a turban on his head, and he regarded Smith with dark eyes that sat closely together above a hooked nose. There were three other men in turbans, one fatter than his fellows, one with a cruel-looking scar that ran from above his right eye to the left corner of his mouth, giving him a sneering expression. All four wore loose cotton trousers and long-sleeved linen shirts, their feet shod in leather sandals.
The one called Deeptendu flexed his fists in front of him, and Smith saw a thin leather thong snap tight between them. “Do not fear,” said Deeptendu. “We will kill you first.”
The man with the ponytail held up his hand, one eyebrow raised in his deeply tanned face. “Wait, friend.” He scrutinized Smith. “Tyrannosaur, you say? You know this beast?”
Smith turned back to look at the monster, which had settled down expectantly to wait for its meal. Memories bobbed maddeningly around the periphery of his understanding. He said, “I met one, once. A little bigger, though.” He smiled, despite himself. “Its mother, perhaps.”
The man fed the monkey another nut and murmured to it, “Well, what a surprising thing you’ve led to us, Jip.”
“Who are you?” asked Smith. “What are you up to, skulking in the shadows like this, with a monster chained up in the sewers?”
Before he could even register that the man had moved, the one with the scar had crossed the space between them and slapped him sharply across the face. “Do not disrespect Fereng in this way!”
Smith felt himself drop to a defensive crouch, but the turbaned man had stepped back. He put a hand to his lip and glanced at the blood coloring his fingertips. “Fereng?” he said, looking to the one-legged man. “You?”
“A name.” He shrugged. “One of many I have used.” He raised his head in a sharp upward nod at the scar-faced man. “Kalanath. That is no way to treat our guest.”
Kalanath’s face contorted unpleasantly. “Guest, Fereng? I thought he was the monster’s dinner.”
Smith’s stomach rumbled, and he realized it was a long time since he himself had eaten. Fereng heard it, too, and said, “You are hungry? Come, sit with us. We have a little dhal simmering. Then you can tell me what you’re doing down here and how you know so much about our little pet.”
The tyrannosaur howled in apparent indignation at losing out on its meal. The youngest of the turbaned men, who looked no older than Smith, sighed. “Does this mean we have to go and find the monster food, Fereng?”
“I’m afraid so, Naakesh.”
“After we ourselves have eaten, though?” asked the fatter one. “I am famished, and it does not do to hunt on an empty stomach.” He bellowed a laugh. “You always come back with more than you need.”
Fereng laughed, too, and sat down cross-legged by the brazier, which Smith saw had a round metal pot suspended above the licking flames. “Quite true, Phoolendu. Let us sample this dhal you have cooked up, friend. The beast can wait a little while longer.”
* * *
Smith wiped clean the small, cracked bowl with the last of the thin bread; he’d finished three servings of the deliciously spicy vegetable dhal, and gratefully accepted a canteen of water from Fereng to slake his thirst and ease the pleasant burning in his mouth. Sitting cross-legged on a simple mat, facing the warmth of the burning brazier, he felt as though he were thawing out for the first time since the incident that had robbed him of his memories and knowledge of himself. Despite the looming presence of the tyrannosaur—which had curled up like a dog, its reptilian tail counting out beats on the stone floor, as though it were sulking at being robbed of its dinner—and the fact that a scant hour before he had been about to be garroted, Smith felt strangely safe for the first time in days. He felt suddenly sleepy, and he stifled a yawn. “Why have you not killed me?” he asked.
Fereng, rubbing his thigh above where it was strapped into a leather cup from which the wooden extension protruded, shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t yet decided that I won’t.”
Smith tensed, but he felt that the man was joking. He asked, “Who are you?”
“You first,” said Fereng.
Smith shrugged. “I cannot remember. Something has robbed me of any memories save for the last few days … what day is it, anyway?”
Fereng said, “Naakesh? Do you still have the newspaper you procured this morning?”
The young man reached behind him. “Most of it. I used the insides to light the fire.”
He passed it over to Smith. It was the Illustrated London Argus, and the dateline read Monday, December 15, 1890. “Monday,” he said. “I think … Saturday is the first I can remember.” A headline caught his eye among the dense forest of type: BELLE OF THE AIRWAYS ARRESTED ON CHARGE OF MURDER MOST FOUL, but before he could read on or work out why it gave him a sudden shudder, Fereng was speaking again.
“You remember nothing? Not even your name?”
“Smith seems to ring bells, but nothing more.”
Fereng rubbed the salt-and-pepper whiskers on his chin. “Smith. Suitably anonymous. And what have you been doing since Saturday, Smith?”
He thought of the mob who had tried to string him up from the lamppost, of the shrill whistles of the policemen who had chased him into the sewers, of the bloodthirsty cries of the crowd who had believed him to be Jack the Ripper, of the gruesome toshers Tait and Lyall and the dismal end they had planned for him.
“Running away, mostly,” he said.
Fereng leaned forward; the monkey, Jip, scaled his outstretched arm and settled happily on his shoulder, combing through his hair. “Running from who?”
Smith shrugged. “Everyone, it seems. The police. Criminals. Those men in the sewers … they were going to cook me. Even you had designs on throttling me, and I’m not yet convinced you won’t.”
Fereng smiled. “Don’t worry, Smith. I think you are far too intriguing to feed to my pet.” He reached out and squeezed Smith’s bicep. “Strong, too. Evidently a gentleman of some stripe, by the quality of your dress and grooming. And something of a fugitive. I have a feeling you could be very useful to me, Smith.”
Smith met his gaze. “But who are you?” He waved his arm around. “What does all this mean?”
Fereng leaned forward, his eyes shining in the light from the brazier. “It means revenge, Smith. They say it is a dish best served cold, and my fury has been chilling for twenty years. Now, as London shivers and stokes its fires in the worst winter most can remember, ice clogs the Thames and water freezes in the standpipes.” He raised his arms. “Hell has finally frozen over, Smith, which means it is time for London to finally reap the bitter seeds of wrath it sowed within me so long ago.”
* * *
“Does such venomous melodrama make you want to flee, Smith?” asked Fereng. “Would you rather take your chances with cannibalistic troglodytes or pitchfork-waving mobs?”
Smith glanced at the dark tunnel that led back to the sewer system, at the dinosaur glowering at him from its corner, at the dark gazes of the four turbaned men. “I don’t have much choice, do I? You aren’t going to let me leave, are you?” he asked quietly. “Not now that I know about all this.”
“You do present something of a problem,” agreed Fereng. “You do, as they say, know too much. Which is somewhat funny for a man who knows so little. And it leaves me with a choice: either I feed you to my pet, as originally planned…”
“Or?”
Fereng smiled. “Or I ask you to join us.”
“Join you?” said Smith, miserably staring into the brazier. “I still don’t know what you are up to.”
“Up to, Smith? I have already told you. I am up to vengeance.” He braced his hand on the shoulder of the youngest of his men, Naakesh, and hauled himself up to stand on his good leg and his wooden stump. “But perhaps you wish to know why?”
Smith nodded. “You are English, despite your appearance. How did you come to be in the company of four Indians?”
Fereng laughed, his eyes shining. “Not mere Indians, Smith. Thuggee. Do you know what that means?”
He searched the black ocean of his memory. “Assassins,” he said. “Murderers.”
The four men laughed. Fereng nodded. “So the stories would have it. Roaming gangs of criminals who travel the highways of the subcontinent, falling in with travelers and insinuating themselves in their confidence until—”
There was a sudden, sharp twang that made Smith blink and jump. Deeptendu was grinning at him, the thin leather thong he had displayed earlier held taut between his fists, still resonating.
“We would strangle them!” said the fat one, Phoolendu, cheerfully licking his bowl. “Sometimes we would do it so hard that their heads would fall clean off!”
Smith looked at each of the men. “Why?”
Kalanath leaned forward, the scar tissue on his face seeming to glint in the firelight. “For money. Food. Gold. And sometimes just because we didn’t like the look of them.”
Smith tore his gaze from the man’s scar and met his eyes. “And, presumably, you don’t like me.”
“Not especially.”
He looked back to Fereng. “You have fallen in with murderers, then, and assassins. As I said.”
“Kalanath is fooling with you, or at least not telling you the whole story. Deeptendu. Tell Smith why you kill.”
Deeptendu closed his close-set eyes and placed a hand on his breast. “For every life a Thuggee takes, the return of Kali is delayed by one thousand years.”
“Kali?”
“The mother goddess of time and change,” said Fereng. “The consort of Shiva. The black one who is beyond time, who will dance in the ruins. Every life a Thuggee takes flows through the cosmic river of the shakti like wine through water, and appeases Kali for the blink of her eye. Which, fortunately, is a hundred lifetimes or more here on Earth.”
There was a moment’s silence in the dim room, save for the grunting of the tyrannosaur. Smith looked over his shoulder at it. “So how did four Thuggee assassins come to be lurking in the sewers of London? And what of that thing? Did you bring that from India?”
Phoolendu laughed. “Nothing like that in India. Elephants and tigers, yes. And snakes. Plenty of snakes.”
As though knowing it was being talked a
bout, the beast began to push itself up on its tiny forearms, sniffing in their direction, a rumble in its throat.
“I think we have decided that we are not going to feed you to it,” said Fereng, his monkey Jip chattering on his shoulder. “Which means, I am afraid, that we are going to have to secure some meat for it. Kalanath, Naakesh, see what you can find near the markets. Be silent and invisible, like the wind. Deeptendu, you should go and search the sewers, see if there is any sign of these men who would have had Smith for lunch. I would not want them venturing too close to us.”
Deeptendu looked down his hooked nose at Smith. “What of him? He may try to run, or attack you.”
“Phoolendu will be here,” said Fereng.
The fat Thuggee slapped his belly and pointed a warning finger at Smith. “Don’t think I won’t snap your neck and garrote you, Smith, because I will.”
“I do not doubt it,” said Smith, rising stiffly to stand beside Fereng.
“Besides,” said Fereng, “where would he run to? I think Smith and I have come to an understanding, or are about to. He will be staying, and will mean us no harm. Indeed, I feel he will be a boon to us.”
As the three Thuggees began to edge around the beast toward the tunnel that led to the sewers, Phoolendu called, “Oh! See if you can find some of those small round savory bread cakes, the ones with holes in the top. Oh, what are they called?”
“Crumpets?” offered Smith.
Phoolendu rose and slapped him on the shoulder. “Indeed! Crumpets!”
Kalanath sneered and said testily, “And anything else, while we are out?”
“Butter would be good,” said Phoolendu. “For the crumpets. And milk, for the chai.”
Kalanath glared at him and indicated with a sharp movement of his head that the others should follow him into the tunnel. When they had gone, Phoolendu gathered the dishes and took them over to a bowl in the corner, which he filled with water from a pitcher, and began to scrub them with a piece of cloth.
Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper Page 15