Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper

by David Barnett

  For a moment Mesmer stared at her, uncomprehending, then his eyes widened. “Of course,” he whispered. “Einstein’s automaton.”

  “You have been looking for me,” she said, the Elmwoods’ words suddenly making sense. “You thought Charlotte Elmwood was me. That was why you were so angry when you discovered she was not, that was why you did what you did to her, in a fit of pique.” She redoubled her grip. “Why have you been looking for me? Where is Professor Einstein? Who do you serve?”

  “Einstein is safe,” gasped Mesmer. “Please … I cannot breathe.…”

  Maria loosened her hand only slightly. Mesmer said, “Professor Einstein has been … persuaded to work for us. We have learned from him of the wonder that you carry in your head. For many years we have been looking for you.”

  Maria raised an eyebrow. “Many years? But the Professor only went missing a year ago.”

  Mesmer nodded. “We have known about the artifact for longer … three years now. Word reached us of Professor Einstein’s experimentations … stories of an automaton, running amok in London.…”

  Maria reeled slightly. Mrs. Elmwood’s words came back to her. They found you three hours later, on Cleveland Street, I believe. You had been terrorizing the locals.

  “Our intelligence was that the artifact was transplanted into the head of a prostitute. We dispatched an agent to find her. He has not had much success, though he has looked inside many heads,” said Mesmer, his eyes narrowing. “He is a mewling, desperate, whining failure. I cannot wait to tell him that you have simply walked in here and presented yourself to us.”

  “But where is Professor Einstein?” asked Maria.

  “I can take you to him, if you like,” said Mesmer. Too late, Maria saw his hand emerge from his trouser pocket and lunge forward, piercing her side with a sharp blade. She looked down at it and blinked. It had done her no harm. But while she was distracted, she had failed to notice two of Mesmer’s thugs circling behind her, cutting off her escape to the door. Suddenly the hypnotist wriggled free of her grasp and stepped back, producing a revolver from his jacket.

  “Can guns hurt you? I’ll bet they can slow you down, if nothing else.”

  She had lost the advantage, and before she had gleaned enough information from Mesmer. Or perhaps not … what had he said earlier? About seeing the Austrian lakes? And French Louisiana? Maria made a grab for Mesmer, allowing him to jerk out of her reach but instead grabbing the Hypno-Array he still clutched.

  “I’ll take that,” she said. “Perhaps it will help me return Gideon and Charlotte to their normal selves.”

  “Unfortunately, you will be a long way from here by morning,” said Mesmer with a smirk. “They will just have to fend for themselves.” He nodded to the man behind her. “Tie her up.”

  She turned to the door, where the two men trained the guns they had retrieved on her. The other two thugs stood behind Mesmer. She could not be killed in the ordinary sense, but their weapons could still do damage. Maria thought about hollering for Gloria, but that would more than likely just get her new friend killed. She considered—briefly—allowing Mesmer to take her to Professor Einstein. But there was Gideon to consider. At least she knew what had happened to him. Now she just had to find him.

  Finally deciding, Maria made a feint for the door, then changed direction, throwing herself across the room and toward the window. She cursed the skirts that slowed her down, almost tripping her as she dashed headlong toward the glass. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to dress in such unwieldy clothing? Finally, Mesmer realized what she was up to.

  “Stop her!” he cried. “Shoot her! Bring her down! But not the head!”

  Still clutching the Hypno-Array, Maria covered her face with her arm as she smashed through the window into the flurrying snow and a hail of bullets slammed into her back.

  * * *

  Maria hit a row of metal bins fortunately overflowing with rubbish that cushioned her landing, spilling her into the snow in a narrow alleyway empty of people—though as she rolled to a seated position she could see, far at the end, the main road in front of the Britannia, well lit and thronged with theatergoers. High above her, Mesmer leaned out of the window, shouting curses and drawing a bead on her with his revolver. She rolled into the deep shadows and stood.

  And fell again. There was something wrong with her left leg. She tried to stand and stagger toward the street, but her leg would not cooperate, and she slumped against the brick wall. Mesmer was peering into the shadows but could not see her. Perhaps his cronies were already on their way. Maria put a hand to her back where the gang’s bullets had hit her, and it came away slicked with thick, clear fluid. The guns had evidently done her some harm; one of the hydraulic pipes or tubes that helped operate her leg must have been severed. She cursed quietly; she needed to make repairs. If she could get to the main street … but as she looked along the alley she saw the bulky silhouettes of Mesmer’s men gathered by the opening. She would have to go the other way. Her leg dragging behind her, Maria loped with as much stealth as she could into the darkness.

  Another alleyway crossed hers, the high walls of shops and tenements sandwiching her in darkness. She struck out to the left, hoping to swing around to the main road, or at least shake off her pursuers. Then she pivoted on her good leg and stumbled against a gate; she needed to effect repairs, and quickly.

  In America, Maria had been hit by a hail of bullets from a mechanical giant the Japanese on the West Coast had constructed to defend against possible incursions of the prehistoric beasts held on an island deep in the Pacific. Gideon and Maria had been tricked by the Governor of New York into believing this metal giant was a tool of war, not of defense, and they had attacked it with the brass dragon Apep. But Maria had suffered terrible injuries, and it was only due to the skill of the Japanese engineer Haruki Serizawa that she had survived.

  After that, Maria had made a point of learning as much engineering theory as she could. When she should have been reading books on etiquette and how to comport herself in polite society, she had been studying manuals of clockwork techniques and diagrams of hydraulic systems. It looked like she was going to need them.

  Maria took a left turn into another alley. She was lost in a warren now, but hopefully that meant Mesmer’s men were off her scent. There was another main road at the end of the passage, though this one seemed quieter and darker. Still, she would not want anyone to see what she was about to do. Waiting a moment in the shadows, until she was sure Mesmer’s men had not followed, she staggered ahead to look at the main street. It was Hoxton Road, still; she could see the Britannia farther along. But the crowds that milled around the theater would not come here. She paused, leaning on a gas lamppost. Her head felt light all of a sudden. Perhaps the bullets had caused damage to the copper pipes that were connected to the Atlantic Artifact in her head, keeping her stolen brain alive. Maria ducked back into the alley and pulled herself along the wall until she was shrouded in darkness. Then she unbuttoned her serge shawl, unhooked her stiff white shirt, and, with some difficulty, unlaced her corset, exposing her naked torso.

  Which she then opened.

  Maria remembered the first time Gideon had seen her do that, back in Professor Einstein’s house in the summer. It seemed so long ago. She had to remind herself that though he had been agog at the sight, he had seen her for what she really was … and it didn’t seem to disturb him overly, nor dampen his shy, awkward, occasional proclamations of love.

  Perhaps, like Gloria Monday’s sweetheart, Gideon Smith really did love her for what she was.

  Her chest opened like a set of double doors, revealing the tangle of pipework and tubes, the gears and pistons, the flywheels and pinions. She peered down, feeling at her bare back. She counted four bullet holes in her kid-leather skin—she would have to ask Mrs. Cadwallader to bring her invisible mending skills to bear on those. There was indeed a severed copper pipe in there, leaking fluid.

  In the cotton bag she car
ried was a small set of tools she had asked Gideon to acquire for her. She stuffed the Hypno-Array she still carried into the bag and pulled out the tools in their linen pouch. The pipe would need welding, but she thought she could temporarily reconnect it with the pliers and the tube of plumber’s adhesive, liberally applied and given time to harden. She worked the putty around the severed pipe with her fingers until the leaking fluid slowed and halted; within minutes she felt her leg twitch as the hydraulics reconnected and fed her joints.

  She sighed and closed her chest, the two halves sealing themselves invisibly, and began to hook up her shirt. The corset could wait until she got home, she thought.

  Then she saw him, looking at her.

  He was standing a little way down the alley. How long he had been there, she had no idea. He was clothed in black from head to toe, scuffed boots to his knees, black, tight trousers, a dark woolen jacket over a black shirt. His eyes shone from the holes of a mask that fitted over his head, tied in a trailing knot at the back that fell over his shoulder and across his chest. Only his nose was visible, and his mouth, a thin mustache between them.

  In his leather-gloved hand he held a long, thin sword.

  Maria almost staggered with the familiarity of him.

  He took a hesitant step toward her, his eyes wide beneath the mask. Maria quietly and slowly finished dressing. She tensed her leg; it still felt sluggish, not yet up to full power. And her head still swam, though whether from the attack by Mesmer’s men or the fact that this grotesquely disguised man stood in front of her, she could not tell. Nor did she know if she had the strength to resist him. Could she have come so close to escaping Mesmer, to finding Gideon, for it all to end now?

  He took another step in the crunching snow. Maria saw wetness glisten on his cheeks.

  He was weeping.

  At least I’ll know, she thought. At least I’ll know that Gideon wasn’t staying away from me through his own will.

  The masked man was just feet away. She met his eyes. Just a few more moments, and she would have felt strong enough to tackle him. But she could still barely stand on her own, still needed the support of the wall behind her.

  Then he spoke.

  “Por fin,” he whispered, raising the sword. “Por fin te he encontrado.”

  18

  UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES

  There was a cry of consternation from the crowd outside the Britannia as the man in the livery of the theater’s ushers presided over a workman in paint-spattered overalls who proceeded to paste rolls of paper bearing the legend CANCELED across the playbills for Markus Mesmer.

  “Canceled?” called one man swaddled in a huge overcoat. “But I bought four bloody tickets for the show this afternoon.”

  “Refunds are available from the box office,” said the usher. “The management of the Britannia is very sorry, but the run has been cut short at the request of the artiste. We hope you understand it is due to unforeseen circumstances beyond the theater’s control.”

  Well, that’s the end of that, thought Rachel. She jingled the coins Lizzie Strutter had given her and glanced at the other girls. They should go straight back to Walden Street, she supposed, but it was a shame to have come all this way for nothing.

  “There’s a gin shop down the street,” she said. “I don’t think Mum’d mind if we had a little warming beverage before we headed back.”

  As the grumbling crowd began to disperse from the front of the theater, a figure farther along Hoxton Road caught Rachel’s eye, hobbling out of an alley, looking around somewhat furtively, then staggering rather unsteadily back into the shadows.

  Rachel swore lightly. One of the other girls glanced at her. “What’s up?”

  She pressed half of the coins into the girl’s hand. “You go and get a drink. I’ll be down in a minute. And no flirting!”

  Rachel headed down Hoxton Road in the direction of the alley, sloshing through the wet snow. Her stockings had more holes in them than a colander, and her boots were letting the wet in like the devil. She’d be lucky if she didn’t have frostbite by the time she got home. But that would be nothing compared to what Mum would do if Rachel had seen who she thought she’d seen.

  She paused at the dark alley, hearing the murmur of voices within. She peered into the shadows, making out two figures, one against the wall, one little more than a smudge in the blackness. Her eyes widened as she realized she’d been right.

  * * *

  “Lottie! What the blazes are you doing? Mum’ll have your guts for garters!”

  Maria and the man looked up together. There was a woman framed in the diffuse lamplight and flurrying snow at the end of the alley—well, little more than a girl, really, shabbily dressed but pretty, aside from a cruel scar that ran the length of her face. There was the slightest movement on the periphery of Maria’s vision, and when she looked back to her attacker, he had gone, melted into the shadows, the scuffing of his footprints in the snow the only evidence that he had been there at all.

  “Lottie?” said the young woman again, stepping uncertainly into the shadows. “Who you with?”

  “No one,” said Maria shakily, and it was true. The man—whoever he truly was beneath that mask—had disappeared. “Who are you?”

  The girl approached, looking around. “It’s me, Rachel, you silly mare. I could have sworn you were down here with a feller. You know what Mum said.…”

  Maria was about to thank the girl for coming to her aid but tell her that she had—fortuitously, of course—mixed her up with someone else, when something occurred to her. “What did you call me?” she asked.

  The girl, Rachel, laughed. “Lottie, of course.”

  Lottie. Charlotte. Just as Mesmer had thought she was Charlotte Elmwood, so did this girl.

  Which meant she knew where Charlotte Elmwood really was.

  The girl cocked her head, the dim light shining off her scar. Her hair was ratty, and her dress was patched up and creased. She said, “I don’t know why I’m being so nice to you.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” asked Maria.

  The girl snorted. “Coming into our place with your soft skin and your white teeth, all lah-di-dah but talking like you’s one of us. I don’t know what you’re up to, Lottie, I don’t know what you’re up to at all.” Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Hey, you changed your clothes. Where did you get them?”

  “I … brought them with me,” said Maria. She could feel the strength coming back to her limbs, the fog lifting from her brain. She glanced around. But where was the man in black? Gone, or merely watching from the shadows?

  “You looking for your feller? You know what Mum told us, we’re not to do any business while the strike’s on.”

  “He was … no one,” said Maria. She looked at the girl. Business? Strike? She had read in the newspaper … then this girl was a prostitute. Charlotte had been taken into a bawdy house. But … “Mum?” she said.

  “Has she not told you to call her Mum yet? Mrs. Strutter?”

  “Oh, yes.” Maria nodded. “Mum.” Lizzie Strutter was the woman named in the newspaper, the one who had organized the prostitutes’ strike. Jack the Ripper might have gone, and Gideon still eluded her, but if she could find out where Charlotte Elmwood was, then the evening had not been a total loss. If she could get the address from this girl, she could return with Bent and the police. She asked Rachel, “But why are you being nice to me? If you dislike me so much?”

  Rachel shrugged. “Feel sorry for you, don’t I?”

  “Sorry for me?”

  Rachel looked at her, something like pity in her eyes. “Did Mum not tell you what was going to happen tonight? I heard her talking to Henry Savage. She’s giving you to him, as a favor.” She shuddered. “Better you than me. None of the girls like Henry. He’s rough and likes to hurt.”

  Distantly, a bell sounded seven times. Rachel’s eyes widened. “Oh, lord. Seven o’clock already. If Henry turns up for his piece of tail and you’re not there … Oh, bloody hell
, I’d better get you back home straightaway. What the devil are you doing out here, anyway?” She put a hand on Maria’s arm. “Did you see me and the girls heading out, and want to come with us?”

  Maria nodded.

  “Aw, that’s sweet. Well, after tonight, you’ll be one of the gang, eh? I’m sure Mum’ll let you come out with us next time.”

  Maria bit her lip. She should go and find Aloysius, get the police … but it appeared that Charlotte Elmwood was in desperate peril. Who knew how long it would take to round up the constabulary and get them out to … She realized she didn’t even know where the bawdy house was. There was nothing for it. She would rescue Charlotte Elmwood herself.

  “How are we going to get there?” asked Maria. “Shall we find a steam-cab, or a horse-drawn…?”

  Rachel shrieked with laughter and linked arms with Maria. “What are you, made of money?” She leaned back and gave her a disapproving look. “You haven’t been selling it, have you? Come on, lucky for you my show was canceled. Let’s get you home. And we’re walking.”

  * * *

  Lottie sat in the darkness, the wind rattling the padlocked shutters, the other beds in the room cold and empty. She’d drawn her legs up to her chest, shivering from what she couldn’t decide was cold or fear. Mum had sent her to the outhouse with a bar of carbolic soap and an old rag and told her to wash everywhere and do her hair as nice as she could. Then she’d told her to go to the dormitory and wait. She stared into the reflection of the pale flame from the lone candle on the bare floorboards.

  Mum. There’d been another woman, one who wept a lot, who’d insisted Lottie call her “Mother.” Those people who kept her locked up … she’d been desperate to escape them, but she’d just exchanged one prison for another, it seemed. And at least those other people were good to her. She pinched her nose between trembling fingers. Memories, or thoughts, or stories … she couldn’t decide what they were, but they fluttered behind her eyes as insubstantial as gossamer threads, or the ghosts of butterflies.