Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper

by David Barnett

  Salty Sylvia’s was all shuttered up, in at least some mockery of deference to Lizzie Strutter’s strike. But if Lizzie said the old girl was breaking the embargo, then who was Henry Savage to argue. He hammered on the door with his meaty fist.

  It was flung open by Salty Sylvia herself, a rotund woman with heaving, liver-spotted breasts that a whalebone corset that had seen better days—better decades, probably—barely held in check. She frowned at him. “Henry Savage?”

  “Can we come in, Sylvia?”

  She looked up and down the snow-covered street. “There’s a strike on, you know.”

  He roughly pushed inside, his men following him. “Not what I heard,” he said. The last one in glanced around the street then quietly shut the door.

  The parlor of the old house had been knocked through to what had once been the dining room to make one big room, lined with battered couches and chairs on which Sylvia’s girls lounged, looking up with frightened eyes at the party that trooped in. Sylvia regarded Henry with eyes heavy with kohl. “You after doing business, Henry?”

  “I’m here to talk business, Sylvia,” he said. Salty Sylvia had once worked in Portsmouth before relocating to the capital. There was an old joke that the Royal Navy had named a ship after her, but it had gone down full of seamen. Henry Savage didn’t rightly get it. He didn’t do jokes. But he did violence very well. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his cleaver.

  “Lizzie says you’re to shut down. No more shagging until the strike’s over.”

  Sylvia crossed her pockmarked arms over her vast bosom. “I think Gruff Billy might have something to say about that.”

  “Gruff Billy’s not here,” said Henry.

  There was a noise behind him, a shuffle of feet, and the quiet click of a knife being opened.

  “Oh yes he is, boyo.”

  Henry turned to look at Gruff Billy. The Welshman was as wide as a brick outhouse, and his hands were like shovels. His hair was black as the coal he’d once dug in the South Wales Valleys. He held the knife out at Henry. “Take your boys and get out of here. Salty Sylvia’s is under my protection.”

  Henry sighed. There was always the expectation of some measure of theater about these things. He could never be bothered. Quick as a dog after a rabbit, he brought his right arm up and across, the cleaver glinting in the low candlelight, a thick gout of blood leaping from Gruff Billy’s throat. There was a collective gasp from the girls as the Welshman looked at Henry with what seemed to be mild annoyance, before the light dimmed in his eyes and he slumped to the bare floorboards.

  Sylvia looked dispassionately down at her former bodyguard. “Well,” she said finally. “You weren’t here to mess about, were you, Henry?”

  He leaned forward and wiped the cleaver on Gruff Billy’s shirt. “There’s a lot riding on this, Sylvia. Now, let’s talk about the strike again.”

  “No business here,” she sighed. “Tell Lizzie we’re in.”

  He replaced his cleaver in his coat. “Good. Although…” He looked around. “I brought my boys all the way over here for nothing. They’re all pumped up, and I went and spoiled their fun.”

  Sylvia sighed. “One on the house for everybody, Henry.”

  Henry’s boys scrambled to get the girl of their choice, and there was a swift exodus to the stairs, some of the men already unbuttoning their breeches and hefting out their tackle before they’d even left the room.

  “It’s been a while for them.” Henry smiled.

  Sylvia moved in close, tugging down the front of her corset to show off her nipples, big as saucers. “What about you, Henry? I’m going to need a bit of protection now that Gruffy Billy’s gone.”

  He pushed her away. “You’ll get looked after, Sylvia, don’t worry. But I’ll say no, if you don’t mind.” She glared at him, pulling up her top. Henry smiled. “Nothing personal. I’m saving myself.”

  * * *

  Bent had begged a lift in the constabulary steam-cab back to the Commercial Road station, Lestrade glaring at him all the way as Constable Ayres negotiated the blizzard that made the going slow in the darkness. “We’ll all be traveling underground like moles if Parliament has its way.” Bent chuckled. “Won’t catch me going on a steam-train in a tunnel beneath the streets. I won’t even get on the stilt-trains if I don’t have to. My center of gravity’s very low, you know. Need to be at ground level at all times.”

  “Are you going to share your insight with us, Mr. Bent?” said Lestrade testily.

  Bent shook his head. “Not yet, George. It’s only an idea. I need to do a bit of effing research first.”

  Lestrade harrumphed. “Withholding information from the police is a crime, Bent.”

  “It’s not information at the moment, George. Just a hunch. Soon as I can stand it up, you’ll be the first to know.” He bit his lip. “There’s something you can do for me, though.”

  Lestrade sighed. “What is it?”

  “Gideon Smith. He went out on Saturday night, and as far as I know he hasn’t come back yet.”

  “And you are worried about him?”

  Bent shrugged in the tight cabin of the vehicle. “I don’t know, George. He can look after himself, obviously. But it’s not like him to go off like this without a word.”

  Constable Ayres let out a sigh of relief as he negotiated the cab into Commercial Road and brought it to a skidding stop outside the police station. There was another constable there, hopping about in the snow.

  “So you want to file a missing persons report?” asked Lestrade, peering through the fogged-up side window at the policeman.

  “Hmm, I don’t think that would go down too well if my erstwhile colleagues in Fleet Street got hold of it. They’d have a bloody field day with that. The Hero of the Empire needs his arse wiped for him? No, I think I’d just appreciate it if your boys kept an eye out for him. He was last seen going to the Britannia on Hoxton Road, to see a show by Markus Mesmer, the hypnotist.”

  “Yes, I’ll put the word out,” said Lestrade. “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Smith—does he look like the illustrations in the penny bloods?”

  “Pretty much,” said Bent. “Dark curly hair, fit as a butcher’s dog. Too handsome by half. He don’t talk proper like me, though—he’s a Yorkshireman.” Bent paused. “Speaking of your boys, that lad out there seems keen to get your attention.”

  Constable Ayres eased himself out of the driver’s seat into the snow and opened the door for Lestrade. The other constable, snow clinging to his helmet and making him look comically like a snowman, thought Bent, bobbed his head in.

  “Been some trouble in Houndsditch, Inspector. Gruff Billy’s turned up with his throat slashed. Found dumped in an alleyway. Word on the street is that Henry Savage’s gang might be responsible.”

  “Uh oh,” said Bent.

  Lestrade looked at him. “What?”

  “Henry Savage is the enforcer for Lizzie effing Strutter, ain’t he? And Gruff Billy was known to frequent Salty Sylvia’s. Last I heard, Salty Sylvia was refusing to take part in Lizzie Strutter’s little strike. Sounds like things are turning nasty out there, and I don’t mean the effing weather.”

  * * *

  Bent let himself into 23 Grosvenor Square with a booming “Hello!” that fell on deaf ears. There was a fire in the parlor hearth, but the house was empty. He shucked off his overcoat and ventured into the kitchen, following the smells of cooking, but Mrs. Cadwallader was absent. She had left a note on the table, though.

  Mr. Bent,

  No sign of Master Gideon, I am afraid. Miss Maria went out on an errand of her own this afternoon, and I have not heard from her. It is my night off tonight, and I am on a social engagement. There is a lamb stew in the oven. Please remember to turn the gas off when you have removed the dish. I shall be back by ten.

  Mrs. Cadwallader

  A social engagement? Where had Mrs. Cadwallader gone off to? And where the eff was Maria? He remembered then that he’d promised to
go to the Britannia Theater with her, to see if Gideon had indeed been to watch Markus Mesmer on Saturday night. Bent squinted at his pocket watch. It was after seven already. He cursed and dithered near the stove, breathing in the wonderful smell of the lamb stew.

  “Oh, eff it all!” he said, heading back into the hall and grabbing his coat. If Maria had gone to tackle Mesmer herself, who knew what trouble she could be getting into? Pausing only to dash into the parlor and take a swig of brandy straight from the decanter, he headed out once more into the snow, hollering for a steam-cab to take him to Hoxton Road.

  INTERMEDIO: WEAVE, WARP, WEFT

  Things were never what they seemed. Few knew that better than he. But perhaps … perhaps there was a pattern to the killings. Perhaps he was too close to the pattern to see it properly, but he knew it was there. As surely as the warp and weft came together to make the weave, the pattern was there.

  It had been cast off in the darkness, when a woman had been killed and her brain stolen. This much he knew. It wasn’t until later that he had truly become part of the weave, that he had set to work to add his own design to the greater pattern. But he was a part of it, that much was sure.

  And just as the pattern had a beginning, so it must have an end. And that end was close. He could almost sense it, like an ancient shaman divining the future from still-warm entrails.

  The woman outside the theater troubled him. The way she had looked at him … she could not know, of course. That was impossible. But there had been something in her eyes, a brief flash of connection. Less than a conscious recognition of his physical appearance, more an acknowledgment of kinship.

  He resolved to go back to the theater and its masses, with half a mind to seek her out. Not for murder, no, because he felt deep inside him there was something special about her, something powerful even, perhaps even too powerful for him.

  It was more that he needed some kind of … validation, that it was all real. Because when he was in the intermedio, he gave up his knowledge of what was right and what was wrong, what was solid and what was make-believe. He was like a quiet berserker, such as the Norsemen used to have, a hashishin treading on shadows. He didn’t know what was flesh and what was phantom.

  Until he saw the blood.

  But as each design came to an end, as each loose thread was tied off … what then? What came next? The pattern was near to its close.

  What would become of him then?

  For now his black soul had tasted blood, it hungered ever more. Even when this was finished, his soul would still cry out for that which fed it.

  He would go to the theater again, because the intermedio seemed to connect him to the design, insert him into the weave. He was the warp and the weft, and connected as he was he felt … no, he knew that the design would begin to end there.

  Perhaps the woman with shining black skin and bright eyes would be able to tell him what to do, or perhaps an answer would be forthcoming from elsewhere.

  All he knew was that it would surely soon be time for a new pattern, a new design. A new weave, dyed with blood.

  16

  GLORIA MONDAY

  Maria sat in the steam-cab for a long time, staring at the rag doll she still clutched in her hands. She should return it, but she couldn’t face the Elmwoods again. Not when they’d confronted her with her own … not mortality, but lack of it. The driver waited a respectful few moments, then said softly, “Back home is it, miss? To Grosvenor Square?”

  “No,” she said, using the crook of her forefinger to wipe away the liquid leaking from her eyes. Damn Professor Einstein and his tinkering! Why did he have to make her so she could cry? She was a toy for the amusement of London’s chattering classes, a machine that could do remarkable things.

  Machines should not be able to cry.

  “No,” she said again, stuffing the doll into her skirt pockets. She would have it returned to the Elmwoods tomorrow. “Take me to the Britannia Theater on Hoxton Road.”

  “Very good, miss,” said the driver, and with a hiss and a cloud of steam, the cab lurched forward, the steel wheel rims scrabbling for purchase in the slush, and they left not-quite-Winchmore Hill behind them.

  It was fully dark when the cabbie let Maria out into the shelter of the canopy over the frontage of the Britannia, where the snow had redoubled its efforts, but it was still too early for Markus Mesmer’s evening performance. There were lights on in the foyer of the theater but no crowds, save for a knot of figures some way down Hoxton Road, laughing and shouting.

  Maria was considering whether she should inquire of the ushers whether Mesmer was inside, or perhaps buy a ticket and watch his performance, when louder shouts drew her attention back to what now appeared a ruckus of some description. Through the swirling eddies of snow she could make out five, perhaps six men, gathered around a woman, her back to the shuttered window of a shop. Maria frowned as the wind snatched the voices and brought them closer.

  “Come on, Gloria love, show us what’s under your skirts.”

  Moving closer along the deserted road, Maria saw one of the men try to grab a handful of the woman’s dress. She slapped his hand away, and they all laughed. Before she knew what she was doing, Maria began to stalk toward them, shouting, “What’s going on! Leave her alone!”

  “Leave her alone, she says,” laughed the man who’d grabbed at the woman’s skirts. He wore a derby pushed forward over his eyes, his high shirt collar frayed and grubby. In his hand he held a short club.

  “This another Mary Ann?” said one of the other men. Maria counted six of them, young and cocky, their trousers tight and their jackets faded yet clinging to fashion.

  “Well, well, well,” said the ringleader, smacking the club in the palm of his hand as he turned to inspect Maria properly. “I think we’ve got a right proper little lady here.”

  Maria’s eyes flicked toward the woman, still with her back against the shutters. “You leave her alone, you rowdy boys,” she said, surprising Maria with the depth of her voice.

  “Shut it, Mary Ann,” said the man with the club. “Think we’ll have a bit of fun with a real woman.”

  The man lunged at Maria, laughing. She stood firm and her hand snapped out, clamping on the club and wresting it from his grasp. He blinked and glared at her as his compatriots laughed even louder.

  “Feisty one, eh?” he said, rubbing his hands together. Maria took his club in both hands and snapped it clean in half, throwing the pieces at his feet.

  “Fucking hell,” said one of the others.

  When the ringleader looked up from his broken club, Maria smiled at him, drew back her fist, and smacked him hard on the chin. He staggered backward, falling on his backside in the slush, shaking his head. One of the others moved in toward her, and Maria gave him a swipe with the back of her hand, knocking him clean off his feet.

  “Anyone else?” she said, looking at the others in turn.

  “Fucking freak!” shouted the ringleader, scrabbling to his feet. “You’re all fucking freaks.”

  Then he took off, his gang behind him, pelting through the snow until they were lost from sight. Maria turned to the woman, who was looking agog at her. She had on a fine dress with voluminous skirts, red curly hair flowing luxuriously over her shoulders. Maria said, “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  “Yes. Thank you. My God, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  Maria frowned at the unexpectedly deep voice again. Then she noticed the peppering of black whiskers forcing their way through the thick greasepaint on the woman’s face like spring buds. Now Maria realized why those boys had been calling her “Mary Ann”—she had heard Aloysius bandy the term about when talking about men who dressed as women to satisfy the urges of those who liked to pay for such a thing.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’re—”

  “Not what you think, dear,” said the other, pointing to a damp bill pasted to the wall. “Not what those lads were saying. I’m not a Mary Ann, not a chap who dresses u
p as a lady for attracting those men who like that. This is what I’m about.”

  Maria looked at the bill. TWO SHOWS A DAY! It proclaimed. THE SENSATION OF SOHO! GLORIA MONDAY, BORN ON A SUNDAY, SHE’S BONNY AND BLITHE AND GOOD N’GAY!

  “Gloria Monday?” said Maria.

  “Sic transit gloria mundi!” said Gloria, curtseying with a flourish. “Thus passes the glory of the world. Now, there’s a coffee shop around the corner, and I don’t have a performance for another two hours. What say I buy you a drink to thank you for that rather amazing display of physical prowess?”

  * * *

  Gloria led Maria through throngs of loudly chattering people, gaily attired, who leaned on the counters ranged along the walls of the gaslit, cigarette smoke–wreathed coffee shop, until they found a snug booth in the shadows at the back. Gloria instructed Maria to save the table at all costs and disappeared into the crowd, returning moments later with two steaming white mugs of dark coffee.

  “I got sugar,” said Gloria. “Just the thing for shocks.”

  Maria stared into the chocolaty depths of the drink. “It must have been awful for you, those boys saying those terrible things.”

  Gloria watched Maria levelly over the coffee cup rim. “Those idiots? I get that all the time, though I am grateful to you for coming to my assistance like that. No, I meant you. It’s always a shock for people when they first meet me.”

  Maria looked around the coffee shop. “They haven’t given you a second glance in here.”

  Gloria shrugged. “Theater people. They get all sorts in here.”

  Maria sipped her coffee. “And what sort are you, Gloria? A man who dresses as a woman?”