Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper

by David Barnett

  “Probably the defendant is only now realizing the full impact of her crime,” said Scullimore, shrugging.

  Siddell leaped to his feet. “Objection!”

  Stanger nodded. “Sustained. Careful, Mr. Scullimore.”

  Scullimore nodded. “Poor Mrs. Gaunt. Died from a broken heart, no doubt.”

  Siddell shrieked, “Objection!”

  Stanger smiled. “Sustained again, Mr. Siddell. Mr. Scullimore, such fripperies have no place in a court of law. Do we know of what Mrs. Gaunt actually did die?”

  “I’m afraid not, Your Honor. Presumably related to her long-running illness—”

  “Actually,” said Lestrade, “I took the liberty of organizing a postmortem examination, and I had the results handed to me just before I came into court.”

  Scullimore frowned; evidently he had not been aware of this, thought Bent. The judge asked, “And those results, Inspector?”

  “According to the coroner’s report, Your Honor, it was mercury poisoning.”

  “I knew it!” shouted Rowena from the dock. “He did it! Gaunt killed her!”

  “Objection!” shouted Scullimore. “The deceased is not on trial here!”

  “Sustained,” said Stanger. “Strike that from the record. Miss Fanshawe, you will be given ample opportunity to speak for yourself when your counsel examines you properly. Please refrain from such outbursts, or I’ll hold you in contempt.”

  “It hardly matters,” said Rowena quietly, and for a moment Bent saw the flare of the old fire in her eyes. “I’m on a murder charge, remember?”

  Stanger stared down at her coldly. “How could I forget? Mr. Scullimore?”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Stanger gestured at Lestrade. “Your witness, Mr. Siddell.”

  Before he could stand, Bent hauled on the back of Siddell’s gown. Mercury poisoning! Mercury effing poisoning! Of course! He whispered urgently in Siddell’s ear.

  “Inspector Lestrade,” said Siddell when Bent finally let go of him, “can you tell us what you found at the home of Edward Gaunt?”

  Lestrade shrugged, though he kept his eyes on Bent. “You wish a full inventory of the house, sir?”

  The gallery laughed, and Bent took the opportunity to whisper again in the ear of Siddell, who said, “No, Inspector. I am particularly thinking of the cellar of the property.”

  Was there a half-smile on Lestrade’s face, directed at Bent? He couldn’t be sure, but he sent up a silent prayer. This wasn’t much, in the scheme of things, but it might buy them some time and a little sympathy from the jury, at least.

  “The cellar,” said Lestrade. “Yes, the cellar was full of a rather large quantity of smashed barometers.”

  Scullimore riffled through his notes, and Siddell said, “And what is the principal ingredient of a barometer, Inspector?”

  “Objection,” said Scullimore. “My witness is a police officer, not a meteorologist.”

  “Overruled,” said Stanger. “You may answer, Inspector.”

  Lestrade looked to the jury. “Mercury, of course.”

  There was a loud gasp as the gallery and the jury finally caught up. Siddell said, “A huge number of broken barometers, Inspector Lestrade? Enough to obtain a considerable amount of mercury?”

  Lestrade nodded. “I should say so.”

  Siddell smiled. “Enough to poison a person with?”

  Lestrade said, “Yes.”

  Scullimore was on his feet again. “Objection, Your Honor! Once again, the deceased is not on trial here!”

  “But he might have killed his wife,” mused Stanger, steepling his fingers at his chin. “That could be pertinent, Mr. Scullimore. Continue, Mr. Siddell.”

  Siddell smiled broadly. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  * * *

  There followed another two police officers who had been first on the scene when Gaunt’s body had been discovered, and a cab driver who had picked up Rowena Fanshawe a mile from Gaunt’s house and taken her back to Highgate Aerodrome, on the night of the murder. Then Scullimore said, “I call Maud Richards.”

  Bent leaned forward as a young girl, dressed in her Sunday best, took the witness stand, barely peering over the wooden lip of the box with wide, terrified eyes. Stanger leaned forward and smiled with a kindness Bent would not have believed him capable of.

  “Maud, is it? Hello, Maud.”

  “Hello, Mr. Judge,” she said in a tiny voice. The gallery roared with laughter, quieted only by Stanger’s baleful glare.

  “You can call me Mr. Stanger, Maud. Now, Mr. Scullimore over there is going to ask you a few questions, and Mr. Siddell, who is sitting by the fat man”—the crowd guffawed again, and Bent snorted—“he might want to ask you some questions, too. Ignore everything else, Maud. But the most important thing is, you tell the truth. Do you understand that? You must tell the truth, whatever happens. Because you are in a court of law, before the eyes of God.”

  Maud nodded slowly, and haltingly repeated the oath the usher murmured to her, her hand on the Bible. Then Scullimore stood. “Maud,” he asked, “how old are you?”

  “Eleven, sir,” she said.

  “And you are a good girl, Maud? You do what your mother and father tell you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “And you always tell the truth?”

  Maud bit her lip, scratching her head under the bonnet that was a shade too big on her. “Most of the time. Last year I knocked one of Mother’s vases from the table in the parlor with my whip and top.” She looked guiltily at a couple whom Bent surmised were her parents. “I wasn’t supposed to play with my whip and top in the parlor. I told my mother that the dog knocked it off.” She began to cry. “I’m sorry. Will I go to jail?”

  The gallery laughed again, half of them making “Ah!” noises. Scullimore said, “No, no, Maud, I don’t think you will go to jail for that, though your mother might have stern words with you afterward. However, I am not concerned with the vase. But I do need you to promise to tell the truth now.”

  She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. Scullimore pointed at Rowena and said, “Do you remember ever seeing that lady before?”

  Maud said, “Yes, sir. On Saturday night.”

  “And what was she doing, Maud?”

  Maud looked at Rowena properly for the first time. “I don’t want to get her into bother. She’s in a lot of trouble, isn’t she? I want to be Rowena Fanshawe when I grow up.”

  Scullimore scoffed. “There are better role models, child.”

  Rowena cleared her throat. “Maud,” she said.

  “Objection!” called Scullimore.

  “Quiet,” instructed Stanger. “Miss Fanshawe, you have something to say to the girl?”

  “If you want to be like me, Maud, you must tell the truth,” Rowena said, her eyes locked with the girl. “It’s all right. Tell the truth.”

  Maud nodded. “I was getting ready to go home, because it was dark and cold, then I saw her on our street. I couldn’t believe it. I read the penny dreadful, you see. World Marvels & Wonders. With the adventures of Mr. Gideon Smith. But I like Miss Fanshawe best. She’s my favorite.”

  “On your street, Maud? Whereabouts exactly?”

  Maud began to cry quietly. “Outside the house of that man who died, Mr. Gaunt. She had her hand on the latch, like she was about to go in.”

  “And did she go in?”

  “I didn’t see, sir. She said I should go home because it was late. She was still there when I left.”

  “What was she doing?”

  Maud shrugged. “I turned around before I went into my house. She was just standing there with her hand on the gate, staring at the house.”

  Scullimore smiled and sat down. “No further questions.”

  * * *

  As Maud Richards was the last of the prosecution witnesses, save for Miescher, Stanger decided that was a good point at which to halt proceedings for the day so they could approach all the
new scientific evidence in the morning with sharp brains. As the reporters dashed off to file their copy, and Rowena was taken down to the holding cells, Bent said to Siddell, “Get down there before they cart her back off to Holloway for the night. Find out what Gaunt’s wife meant to her. She was obviously effing distraught at the news the woman was dead.”

  “Is there any word of Gideon Smith?” asked Siddell, gathering his papers. “After this Miescher fellow has finished his evidence tomorrow, it will be our turn. And so far, all we’ve got is you.”

  “I’m working on it,” muttered Bent. “But at the moment, no.”

  Siddell opened his mouth to speak, but Bent cut him off. “I know, I know. Shine an effing light, and all that.”

  * * *

  This trial was costing him a small fortune in cab fares, thought Bent as he let himself into the warmth of 23 Grosvenor Square. But he couldn’t face freezing his effing nuts off in a hansom, and he certainly wasn’t hoofing it between the house and the Old Bailey. As soon as he was in the vestibule, Mrs. Cadwallader and Maria rushed at him, brandishing the late edition of the Illustrated London Argus.

  “I know all about it. I was there, remember?” he said, looking at the latest report on Rowena’s trial. They’d done well to get the latest happenings into the final edition, he had to concede. The headline read, DID MURDERED GAUNT KILL HIS WIFE WITH MERCURY, COURT ASKED. He smiled; that might take the heat off old Rowena for a bit. Though the deck beneath it read: Belle of the Airways, upon being told the deceased had been hanged, retorts: “Good.”

  “Not that,” said Maria breathlessly—making Bent pause to wonder how a mechanical girl could quite rightly do anything breathlessly—and snatched the paper back from him. “Here, on page four.”

  She jabbed at an ad in the classified columns. Aha. It was in Spanish.

  Señor Cerebro! Tengo la niña mecánica en mi poder! Finalmente mi exilio ha terminado! Por favor, asesorar en cuanto a cómo proceder. Atentamente, El Hombre de Negro

  “From the Man In Black to Mr. Brain,” said Bent. “That much I can read. What’s the rest of it say?”

  Mrs. Cadwallader removed a notepad from her apron pocket. “Very roughly, Mr. Bent, it says: ‘I have the mechanical girl in my possession! Finally my exile is at an end! Please advise as to how to proceed.’”

  Bent frowned. “He has the mechanical girl? But obviously he doesn’t have—” He slapped his head. “Oh, effing hell, no.”

  Maria nodded excitedly. “He must have Charlotte Elmwood! He must have followed me to the bawdy house from Soho, and when I effected Miss Elmwood’s escape he must have captured her, thinking she was me.”

  Bent rubbed his chin. “Then she must still be alive, thank God, or he’d know he didn’t have Maria if he’d already tried to slice her head off.”

  “But what shall we do?”

  Bent shucked off his overcoat and patted his pockets for his tobacco. “Mesmer will have seen this and will be putting his response in tomorrow’s edition, no doubt, telling Garcia where to take the girl.” He snapped his fingers. “We need to intercept that advertisement.”

  “And put in our own in its place!” said Maria. “Diverting El Chupacabras and Charlotte to where we want them!”

  “Brilliant!” roared Bent, dancing in the puddle of melted snow he was making. “Absolutely effing brilliant! But where can we tell him to go? Mesmer and his gang will merely beat us to him. We need to … to put it in code! A place that means something to only Garcia and ourselves, freezing Mesmer out in the effing cold. But what? Where?”

  Mrs. Cadwallader smiled, crossing her arms in front of her ample bosom. “We’ve already thought of that.”

  Maria said, “What about something pertaining to Inez Batiste Paloma, who took the mantle of La Chupacabras after Garcia disappeared.”

  Bent snapped his fingers. “And she is Garcia’s daughter. But he doesn’t know that.…”

  “Perhaps not,” continued Maria. “But her mere existence, even as the daughter of his successor, a girl he watched grow up, is information we share with him, but a reference which Markus Mesmer is unlikely to understand.”

  “I like it, I like it,” said Bent, finally finding his tobacco and papers and setting about rolling a cigarette. “But where would we find an ‘Inez’ in London which could be a meeting place? Or a ‘Batiste’?”

  They led Bent into the parlor where there was a welcome fire blazing in the hearth. On the table was a street map of London unfurled. Mrs. Cadwallader said, “We have spent the afternoon pondering the same question. Then I remembered what the girl’s surname, Palomo, means in English.”

  Bent poured himself a gin from the decanter. “And?”

  She took up a pen, dipped it in ink, and scrawled a big circle around a portion of the Thames near Hammersmith.

  “It means ‘dove,’ Aloysius,” said Maria. “We scoured the map, and—”

  “And you found the tavern the Dove, one of the oldest pubs in London,” said Bent, breaking into a wide grin. “Now you’re really talking my language. I could kiss you both. In fact, I think I effing will!”

  For what seemed like the first time in days, shrieks of laughter rang out in the house on Grosvenor Square as Aloysius Bent enclosed the two women in his pungent embrace.

  * * *

  The reception desk of the London Newspaper and Magazine Publishing Company, publisher of Bent’s current employer, World Marvels & Wonders, and his erstwhile one, the Illustrated London Argus, was just about to close when the steam-cab dropped Bent off at its grand marble facade that fronted onto Fleet Street. There was some snot-nosed child shivering in the snow; when he saw Bent, he said, “Excuse me, sir!”

  “Not now, kid,” said Bent, pushing past him. “Evening, Jug Ears.” He nodded to the liveried doorman scowling at him in recognition before bursting through the glass doors and huffing over to the wide reception desk.

  “Doris,” he gasped, fighting for breath. “Thank eff I got here in time.”

  “Mr. Bent,” said the receptionist, looking over her spectacles at him. “Why, we don’t see much of you here since you transferred to the magazine. How is life treating you?”

  “Tolerable. Listen, Doris, I’m in a rush. Have you had anybody bring in a notice for the Argus written in Spanish, by any chance?”

  Doris blinked at him. “Why, yes, as it happens. I have it here. Swarthy fellow brought it in. I thought it odd, because I could have sworn he was French, while the notice is, as you say, certainly Spanish.”

  Bent reached into his overcoat pocket for the advertisement Mrs. Cadwallader had drafted, purporting to be from Mesmer but in fact instructing Garcia to take Charlotte Elmwood to the Dove in Hammersmith tomorrow evening. “Hand it over, love, and put this one in instead, right?”

  “I’m not sure I can—”

  “Doris? Is there some problem here?”

  Bent turned to see the frowning face of Bingley, his former news editor at the Argus, who said, “Aloysius Bent, as I live and breathe. What is all this commotion about?”

  “Mr. Bent wants me to substitute his notice for a previously paid-for advertisement, Mr. Bingley,” said Doris in a tone that indicated she disapproved most highly of even considering such a thing.

  Bingley smirked. “And why would we do that, Mr. Bent?”

  Bent smiled back. “Because it’s going to catch Jack the effing Ripper, Bingley.”

  Bingley opened his mouth to speak then narrowed his eyes. “Some trick of yours, no doubt.”

  Bent shrugged. “Can you afford to take the risk, Bingley old chap? Imagine what your bosses would say if you ruined the one chance we have to nail London’s biggest mass murderer.”

  The news editor chewed his lip for a moment, then said, “Do as he says. But the Argus gets the story first, Bent, not your lurid little penny dreadful.”

  When he’d placed the advertisement, Bent stepped outside for a celebratory cigarette and contemplated a gin at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese to
go with it. The little brat was waiting for him outside.

  “Mr. Aloysius Bent?”

  Bent squinted at him in the flurrying snow. “You ain’t one of the Fleet Street Irregulars. Who sent you?” His face fell. “This ain’t about that effing bar tab at the Fleece, is it?”

  The boy shook his head and handed over a rolled-up magazine. It was an old copy of World Marvels & Wonders. Bent chuckled. “Is it an autograph you’re after, lad? Afraid this one’s before my time. I only document the adventures of Gideon Smith.”

  The boy nodded enthusiastically. “That’s who told me to bring it. He said, give it to the fat man at World Marvels & Wonders. I worked out after he must mean Mr. Aloysius Bent.”

  Bent dropped to his knees in front of the boy. “What? Gideon gave you this? Where? When?”

  “This morning, sir. At Wapping Dock. He didn’t seem right, sir, like he didn’t really know who he was. Kept remembering things then forgetting them again. He was with two Indians in turbans. I think they’d been stealing sides of pork. But I knew it was him. I just knew it.”

  Bent stared at the periodical in his hand, rubbing his mouth. He said, “Pork?”

  The boy said, “Are you well, Mr. Bent? Did I do right?”

  Bent stood up. “Right? You did effing brilliantly, son.” He dug into his pockets and drew out three shillings. He pushed them into the boy’s hand and his grimy face lit up, but Bent barely noticed it.

  All he could think was, Gideon Smith is alive!

  24

  THICKER THAN WATER

  Smith pushed the vegetable dhal around the cracked bowl, but his appetite seemed to have deserted him, a combination of watching the beast tearing into the slabs of pig meat and, earlier, seeing Phoolendu gathering up the dinosaur’s dung and slapping it into fat pancakes that he dried on the edges of the always-burning fire.

  “Makes wonderful fire starters!” The plump Thuggee beamed. “Burns with practically no smoke at all! Wonderful for living underground.”

  Fereng, his clockwork monkey sitting on his shoulder, watched Smith intently. Smith held his gaze until the older man said, “You have passed the first test, then. You didn’t run.”