Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper

by David Barnett

  He shrugged. “Where would I go?”

  “Where indeed?” said Fereng. “But you could have fled; you had opportunity. And you did not. So I surmise that you are with me.”

  Smith stared at the bowl of food. “Perhaps. You make a convincing argument against the British Empire. Your desire for vengeance seems … justified.”

  Fereng laughed. “And you do not yet know the half of it.” He looked up and over Smith’s shoulder. “Deeptendu. Kill him.”

  Instinctively, Smith began to climb from his cross-legged position, but the Thuggee was quicker, and he suddenly felt a constricting pressure around his throat. He tried to get a hand between the leather thong and his flesh, at the same time throwing his head backward until it connected with—he thought, given the grunt of pain that accompanied his action—Deeptendu’s nose. Smith rammed an elbow back into the other man’s ribs and finally dragged the leather thong away from his neck, rolling forward and twisting around. Deeptendu was on his knees, winded and holding his bleeding nose, but scar-faced Kalanath and young Naakesh were advancing on him with knives held aloft, and on the edge of his vision he saw Phoolendu, a garroting cord in his hands, sidling around the dancing shadows at the perimeter of the brick room. He risked a glance at Fereng, who was watching the proceedings with interest.

  “What is the meaning of this betrayal?”

  Fereng shrugged, just as Kalanath lunged forward with his knife. Smith—a tiny part of him marveling at his own instinctive, smooth moves—fell forward as though to perform a handstand, at the last moment swinging his legs out and around, the momentum carrying his boots into the chest of the Thuggee. He pushed himself up to his feet and ducked under a swipe from Naakesh, grabbing the wrist of the other man’s knife hand until he dropped the weapon and, with his other fist, punching him hard, once, in the jaw. As the young man staggered back Smith snatched up the knife, but Deeptendu was rising to his feet, his face bloodied, his eyes narrowed.

  “Insurmountable odds,” said Fereng. “Four trained killers. What will you do, Smith?”

  Smith gritted his teeth and lunged for Deeptendu but at the last second feinted away, tumbling forward and over and grabbing the front of Fereng’s shirt. He pulled the old man toward him and twisted around, his arm across Fereng’s throat and the knife pointed at his temple.

  “Even those odds, somewhat,” Smith said. He glared at each of the Thuggees in turn, indicating with a jerk of his head that Phoolendu, working his way around the shadows, should rejoin his brothers.

  Then, Fereng began to clap.

  “Excellent,” he said, his applause ringing around the cavernous room. “Truly excellent.”

  Deeptendu dropped his garroting thong and smiled. “I think you might have broken my nose,” he said. “Well done.”

  Smith looked, puzzled, from one man to another. Phoolendu joined in the applause. “Chai, I think, to celebrate!”

  Even Kalanath gave Smith a curt, approving nod. Slowly, he released the pressure of the knife on Fereng’s temple. He said, “This was … another test?”

  Fereng gently removed Smith’s arm from around his neck and turned to face him. “It was. To see how well you fight. And whether you have it in you.”

  “Have what in me?”

  “Murder,” said Fereng.

  “No,” said Smith. “I told you before. I shall be party to no killing.” But even as he said the words, he could feel that they carried less conviction than they had the last time he had spoken them. He tried to imagine the millions starving in India while food was ferried to rich English tables. Tried to put himself on the remote, nameless island to which Fereng had been lost and abandoned. Thought of the small boy at the union hall, his belly rumbling from hunger, stealing magazines instead of an apple or bread, something approaching an education he and his family would never be able to afford. Smith met Fereng’s eyes, and he felt something unspoken pass between them, but a message, a secret, an intention nevertheless.

  Fereng snapped his fingers, and Naakesh handed him the newspaper they had bought that morning. There was a grainy printed photograph of a crowd of people milling outside the Old Bailey. The photograph accompanied a report of the case that had sent memories bouncing around his head the day before, a murder trial …

  “Ignore the words,” said Fereng. “Though I do admit the case in question is something of a coincidence. Look at this man.”

  He tapped his gnarled finger on a man to the left of the photograph, half-turning as though in the act of trying to avoid the flashpan of the photographer. He was tall and thin, with a black top hat and a cane in his gloved hand, a pale gray mustache beneath a hawkish nose.

  “This is the man we are going to kill. His name is Walsingham.”

  * * *

  They had taken it in turns to pore over the issue of World Marvels & Wonders that the boy, Tom, had given Bent outside the newspaper and magazine offices on Fleet Street. Bent had dashed into 23 Grosvenor Square, waving the periodical around like a flag and bellowing that Gideon was alive while Maria leaped up and down in excitement and Mrs. Cadwallader fanned her rapidly reddening face with a dish towel. Then they had repaired to the study, surrounded by glass cases containing the trophies and trinkets from Captain Trigger and John Reed’s various adventures, and gathered around the coffee table while first Bent, then Maria, and finally the housekeeper examined each page of the penny dreadful for some mark or code, some hidden message or half-visible communication.

  There was nothing, so they all surmised that Gideon must have meant for them to read something into the Captain Trigger adventure contained in the pages, “The Golden Apple of Shangri-La.” Bent gave them a précis of the story—Dr. Reed (for it was he who carried out Mr. Walsingham’s orders on behalf of Queen Victoria and the British Government, though the world was fooled into believing the hero was Captain Trigger, to allow Dr. Reed to remain in the shadows) had been taken by Rowena Fanshawe in the airship Skylady to the roof of the world, the distant Himalayas, where Reed had heard that his archenemy Von Karloff had been seen, with a colleague, Professor Reginald Halifax, in tow. Correctly thinking the Prussian adventurer with whom he had crossed swords many times was up to no good, Reed employed a local Tibetan mystic, Jamyang, to show him and Rowena the secret path to the hidden valley of Shangri-La, where it was summer all the time and the beautiful women who resided there did so eternally in the flower of youth.

  It was only in Shangri-La, as Rowena had explained to them all one evening over dinner, that a truth most unpalatable to Dr. Reed had emerged, and one that contributed directly to Reed’s later lapse of reason and decency that led him to attempt to firebomb Buckingham Palace. To wit, Von Karloff was in the employ of Walsingham also, and had been tasked with obtaining the legendary Golden Apple of Shangri-La, which kept the valley in eternal summer and removed the barriers of language between men.

  Bent rose and stared beyond his own reflection in the glass of the trophy case to the golden apple, sitting on its velvet cushion after the adventures that almost saw it lost in America. “What’s the boy trying to tell us?” he asked. “What’s the relevance of the apple story?”

  Mrs. Cadwallader was staring at the cover of the magazine, her hands framing the encouragement to turn inside to read the Captain Trigger adventure, above it the headline related to the main cover illustration in a somber, funereal font that read: LOST FOR FIFTEEN YEARS. She said, “Perhaps, if the boy you spoke to told the truth, it was merely happenstance that it was this particular magazine. Maybe Mr. Smith, his mind fogged by that dastardly Mesmer, simply wanted to send some message we would recognize as coming from him.”

  Bent shook his head. “Nah, the kid was certain that Gideon had said this particular issue was to come here.” He glanced at the clock. “Look at the time. It’s the last day of Rowena’s trial in the morning, and we have a certain Jack the Ripper to catch tomorrow evening. It’s going to be a long day. Bed, everyone!”

  * * *

  The
first thing Bent did when he arrived at court was to find George Lestrade. He was under no illusions that the Grosvenor Square gang was going to apprehend Sergio de la Garcia themselves and rescue the Elmwood girl—there were limits to all this heroism business after all, especially with Gideon out of the picture. Bent elbowed his way into the foyer, already packed with people and the marble floor slick with snow and ice sloughed off their galoshes and umbrellas. As Bent skated awkwardly across the floor, grasping for his balance, he thought not for the first time in the last week that he couldn’t wait for spring, was desperate for a bit of blue sky and warmth. Of course, he considered, Rowena might be watching spring from the inside of a cell at Holloway—if she was incredibly lucky and hadn’t been hanged—and Gideon might be staring at the sun like an idiot from whichever gutter he’d fallen into, but … well, at least Aloysius Bent would have nabbed Jack the Ripper.

  George Lestrade was looking insufferably pleased with himself, which gave Bent pause. The ferret-eyed policeman looked at Bent with something approaching glee. “Ah, Mr. Bent. I wondered when word would filter down to your social strata.”

  “Word, Lestrade? I’ve got three words for you—well, four really. Jack. The. Effing. Ripper.”

  “Precisely, Bent,” said Lestrade with a thin smile. “Jack the Ripper. Walked into the Commercial Road police station not two hours ago and gave himself up.”

  Bent’s mouth worked wordlessly, then he swallowed and said, “The Spaniard?”

  Lestrade squinted at him. “Spaniard? What are you prattling on about, Bent?” The detective glanced from side to side. “Strictly speaking, this is all hush-hush at the moment, but while it’s you … well, greengrocer from Balham. Confessed to the whole lot.”

  “You’ve got the wrong man,” said Bent.

  “He was wearing a leather apron,” said Lestrade, as though explaining something terribly grown-up to a small child. “Covered in bloodstains.” The policeman nodded toward the courtroom. “Speaking of which, there goes the Swiss fellow, Miescher. I think the final act is about to begin.”

  * * *

  Judge Stanger gave a rare and indulgent smile as Dr. Miescher completed the setting up of his equipment in the space cleared for him in the courtroom. He glanced at the public gallery and asked, “Are we about to have a scientific demonstration, or is this some music hall conjuring act?”

  Miescher, sweating in his high collar despite the cold, stood by a large wheeled apparatus, in the back of which a small furnace burned. Bursts of steam rose from the exhaust pipes at the side of the wood and brass box, and Miescher began to frantically wind a large crank handle set into the front of the device with a loud ratcheting sound.

  Angus Scullimore leaned on the bench and said, “I appreciate the indulgence of the court in this matter. As the gentlemen of the press will no doubt be aware, this is a momentous scientific moment in the history of the English judicial process.”

  The juddering apparatus having settled into a rhythmic rumbling, Dr. Miescher turned his attention to a rack of glass vials each containing a straw-colored liquid. Behind the shaking box was a felt-covered wooden board with a small shelf at the base, on which he placed the wooden rack. The Swiss scientist nodded curtly at Scullimore.

  The prosecuting counsel cleared his throat and addressed the judge. “Your Honor, I would like to call my final witness, Dr. Friedrich Miescher.”

  “I think that would be an eminently appropriate course of action,” said Stanger with another smile.

  Bent leaned over to Siddell and whispered in his ear, “The judge is in a tricky mood today. I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing.”

  Dr. Miescher left his steaming machine and took to the witness box, allowing the clerk to swear him in. Scullimore said, “Dr. Miescher. In a moment I am going to ask you to use your techniques to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the defendant, Rowena Fanshawe, is guilty of the charge of murder most foul. But first, Doctor, could you tell us a little of what you are doing in London?”

  The bearded Swiss nodded. “I have developed certain processes that aid greatly in the positive identification of individuals. My work came to the notice of the British Government, and Sir Edward Bradford, the Commissioner of your Metropolitan Police, gave me permission to visit crime scenes across the capital.”

  “And what were you looking for at these crime scenes, Doctor?”

  Miescher nodded. “Blood, sir. It is my discovery that each of our blood contains a … a signature, if you will. If I mix blood with sodium sulfate, I am able to isolate a compound I call nuclein, and my device there is able to analyze the nuclein and measure the frequency and allocation of the nucleic acids present in the nuclein, with a different color each for cytosine, adenine, thymine, and guanine.…”

  A hush had fallen over the courtroom, and Scullimore coughed. “I fear you have lost us, somewhat, Dr. Miescher. Perhaps a demonstration might aid our understanding.…”

  Miescher left the witness box and stood behind the humming wheeled apparatus. He selected the first glass vial and held it up to the judge and jury. “This is the key to the whole mystery. I obtained samples of blood and skin from beneath the fingernails of Mr. Edward Gaunt, the deceased. I cross-matched the nuclein results with other samples from crime scenes across London. There was an exact match between the sample from Mr. Gaunt’s fingernails and a patch of blood in the laboratory of Professor Stanford Rubicon.”

  Scullimore nodded. “So whoever killed Mr. Gaunt was the same person responsible for the burglary at Professor Rubicon’s premises?”

  Miescher said, “Yes, without a doubt. Allow me to demonstrate.” From beneath the box he took two wooden tubes and extracted from them rolls of white paper, which he pinned side by side on the green felt board. The rolls of paper were inked with four-color rainbows, the sequence of blue, green, yellow, and red stripes identical on each. Dr. Miescher stepped back to admire them. “The different colors each represent one of the nucleic acids I mentioned earlier, and their sequence exactly as they appear in samples of nuclein extracted from blood. As you can see, the samples taken from Mr. Gaunt’s attacker and Professor Rubicon’s laboratory are undoubtedly the same.”

  Judge Stanger leaned forward to scrutinize the rolls of colored paper. “We need some kind of comparison for context, Doctor. And I still fail to see how this links the defendant to either crime scene.”

  Dr. Miescher took a further glass vial and held it up. “This is a sample taken from Miss Rowena Fanshawe upon her arrest. I am going to use it to demonstrate the nuclein machine in action. I have already run the blood samples I took from the members of the jury through it, but I have brought their nuclein extracts to court should you wish to verify any of my words.”

  Stanger invited him to continue and said, “That won’t be necessary, Dr. Miescher. You are under oath and a man of science. Proceed.”

  Miescher took the glass vial and opened a hatch on the top of his apparatus, pouring the small measure of straw-colored liquid into it. Stanger coughed and said, “Shouldn’t that be red, if it is blood, Dr. Miescher?”

  Miescher nodded and said, “This is the plasma, which constitutes a little over half of the content of our blood. It is the hemoglobin which gives blood its red color. It is the binding of iron and oxygen that—”

  Stanger waved and said, “I think that is all, Dr. Miescher. Pray, continue with your work.”

  Miescher nodded then unraveled a dozen more rolls of paper and pinned them up side by side against the control sample of the suspected killer’s nuclein signature. Bent leaned forward to study each in turn. He had to admit the spread of colored lines was markedly different in each, and none was remotely similar to the murderer’s nuclein.

  Dr. Miescher took up a cane and indicated the first roll. “Here you see a large grouping of blue lines, which represent thymine. Then there are noticeable repeating sequences of cytosine, in purple. None of these patterns is evident in the samples taken from the jury.”
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br />   At that moment the shuddering machine began to spit out a roll of paper from a slot in the front. “Ah,” said Miescher. “The nuclein signature of the blood sample taken from Miss Fanshawe.” He went to the front of the device and waited until the paper had finished unspooling, then he tore it off and took it to the felt board. He pinned the top of the roll next to the murder sample and allowed it to unfurl.

  “Bollocks,” said Bent.

  * * *

  “These aren’t quite identical, you know,” said Bent, staring at the striped rolls of paper. The court had broken for lunch, and for the jury and judge to consider the new evidence. After the break it was the defense’s turn to examine witnesses. The only problem was, they didn’t have any. Bent kept looking to the door, praying that at any moment Gideon would come bursting into the court to save the day.

  Dr. Miescher joined him at the felt board in the otherwise empty courtroom. He pointed to the clusters of colors and the recurring sequences. “There are at least fifty percent of matching sequences in the same places. Here, here, here … The other samples have between zero and two percent matches.”

  “You never get a complete match?”

  Miescher nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, sometimes. But my research has shown that a fifty percent match or above generally proves conclusive. The technology is still in its infancy.…”

  Bent continued to stare at the colored lines. “So every single one of us has a different one of these nuclein signatures? Mine’s different from yours and from hers and from the judge’s? From Scullimore’s and … and my father’s and—”

  Miescher held up his hand. “Ah. There it becomes complicated. We are, you see, the product of our parents. Were you to sample my nuclein it would share half of the characteristics of my father’s sample and half of my mother’s signature.”

  It was Bent’s turn to call a halt. “Hang on. Half? Fifty percent?” He pointed to the first roll on the board. “So the fifty percent match that occurs between this sample from the murderer and Rowena’s signature … that could be explained by a family connection?”