Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  God alone knew, they needed a piece of luck, just now.

  More carriages rattled past in the darkness, carrying merry parties of well-to-do middle class theater goers to the Drury’s bright-lit entrance. Voices and laughter reached across the busy thoroughfare as London prepared for yet another evening of sparkling gaiety. The straining shepherd, however, ignored Catherine Street altogether and guided the way down Russell Street along the huge theater’s left-hand side, where a portico of Ionic columns loomed like a forest of stone trees in the darkness. Malcolm felt his hopes rise at the dog’s sharp eagerness and ability to discern Catlin’s trail. Good idea, Margo, he approved silently, grateful to her for thinking of a bloodhound when the rest of them had been struck stupid with shock.

  Their footsteps echoed eerily off tall buildings when the dog led them straight down Drury Lane. The fact that Benny Catlin had come this way suggested to Malcolm he had been forced away by someone with a weapon. The Royal Opera House, Drury Lane Theater, and the Covent Garden district stood squarely in a well-to-do, middle-class neighborhood, eclipsed in finery only by the wealthiest of the upper-class districts to the west. But once into Drury Lane itself, wealth and even comfort dropped away entirely. As the eager shepherd drew them down the length of that famous street, poverty’s raw bones began to show. These were the houses and shops of London’s hard-working poor, where some managed to eke out moderate comfort while others descended steeply into want and hunger.

  Piles of wooden crates stood on the pavements outside lower-class shops, where wagons had made daytime deliveries. The deeper they pressed into the recesses of Drury Lane, which dwindled gradually in width as well as respectability, the meaner and shabbier grew the houses and the residents walking the pavements. Pubs spilled piano music and alcoholic fumes into the streets, where roughly clad working men and women gathered in knots to talk and laugh harshly and stare with bristling suspicion at the well-dressed ladies and frock-coated gentleman passing in the company of a liveried servant, with an older man and younger woman of their own class controlling a leashed dog.

  Malcolm made mental note of where the pubs lay, to locate potential witnesses for later questioning, and pressed his arm surreptitiously against the lump of his concealed pistol, making certain of it. Margo, he knew, also carried a pistol in her pocket, as did Philip Stoddard. He wished he’d thought to ask Shahdi Feroz whether or not she was armed, but this was neither the time nor the place to remedy that lack. Preternaturally aware of the shabby men and women watching them from shadows and from the lighted doorways of mean houses and rough pubs, Malcolm followed the eager dog and his mistress, listening to the click of their footfalls on the pavement and the scrape and scratch of the dog’s claws.

  Whatever Benny Catlin’s motive, whether flight from trouble or the threat of deadly force taking him deeper into danger, it had carried him the length of Drury Lane. The dog paused briefly and sniffed again at a dark spot on the pavement. This time, Mr. Shannon was not able to explain away the spots of blood so glibly. Margo clutched at Malcolm, weeping and gulping back evident terror. Malcolm watched Shannon wipe blood from his hand again, knowing, this time, it must be Benny Catlin’s blood, and was able to console himself only with the fact that not enough had been spilled here to prove immediately fatal. But untended, with wounds of unknown severity . . . and perhaps in the grip of footpads who would kill him when they had obtained what they’d forced him here for . . .

  Grimly, Malcolm signalled to continue the hunt. Even Shahdi Feroz’s eyes had taken on a strained, hopeless look. The Ripper scholar clearly knew Catlin’s odds as well as Malcom did.

  They reached the final, narrow stretches of Drury Lane where Wych Street snaked off to the left, along a route that would eventually be demolished to create Aldwych. That upscale urban renewal was destined to gobble up an entire twenty-eight acres of this mean district. They kept to the right, avoiding the narrow trap of Wych Street, but even this route was a dangerous one. The buildings closed in, ill-lit along this echoing, drizzle-shrouded stretch, and still the Alsatian shepherd strained eagerly forward, nose to the pavement. When they emerged at last into the famous Strand, another juxtaposition of wealth in the midst of slums, their first sight was St. Mary le Strand church, which stood as an island in the middle of the broad street.

  Philip Stoddard muttered, “What the devil was after him, to send him walking down this way in the middle of the night?”

  Malcolm glanced sharply at the stable master and nodded warningly toward the Shannons, then said, “I fear Miss Smith is greatly distressed.”

  Margo was emitting little sounds of horror as she took in their surroundings. She had transferred her act to the Ripper scholar and clung to Shahdi Feroz’ arm as though to a lifeline, tottering at the end of her strength and wits. “Where can he be?” Margo was murmuring over and over. “Oh, God, what’s happened to him? This is a terrible place, dreadful . . .”

  Auley Shannon glanced over his shoulder. “Could be another answer, guv, if ‘e never got clean away from th’ blokes wot attacked ‘im outside the opera. Alfie’s ‘eadin’ straight for ‘olywell Street. Might’ve been brought down ‘ere for reasons I’d as soon not say in front o’ the ladies.”

  A chill touched Malcolm’s spine. Dear God, not that. . . . The dog was dragging them past Newcastle Street directly toward the cramped, dark little lane known as Holywell, which ran to the left of the narrow St. Mary le Strand church on a course parallel to the Strand. On the Strand itself, Malcolm could just see the glass awning of the Opera Comique, a theater sandwiched between Wych and Holywell Streets, reachable only through a tunnel that opened out beneath that glass canopy on the Strand. The neighborhood was cramped and seemingly picturesque, with exceedingly aged houses dating to the Tudor and Stuart periods crowding the appallingly narrow way.

  But darkened shop windows advertising book sellers’ establishments the length of Holywell were infamous throughout London. In the shops of “Booksellers’ Row” as Holywell was sometimes known, a man could obtain lewd prints, obscene books, and a pornographic education for a mere handful of shillings. And for a few shillings more, a man could obtain a young girl—or a young boy, come to that, despite harsh laws against it. The girls and young men who worked in the back rooms and attics of these nasty, crumbling old shops had often as not been drugged into captivity and put to work as whores, photographed nude and raped by customers and jailors alike. If some wealthy gentleman, with or without a title, had requested a proprietor on Holywell Street to procure a young man of a specific build and coloring, Benny Catlin might well have been plunged into a Victorian hell somewhere nearby.

  Although the shops were closed for the night and certainly would have been closed when Benny Catlin had passed this way earlier in the evening, women in dark skirts were busy carrying out hasty negotiations with men in rough workingmen’s garments. Several of the women cast appraising glances at Malcolm, who looked—to them—like a potential wealthy customer passing by in the close darkness, despite the presence of ladies with him.

  “What does Mr. Shannon mean?” Margo whispered sotto voce. “What is it about Holywell Street that’s so awful he won’t say?”

  Malcolm cleared his throat. “Ah . . . perhaps some other time might be better for explanations, Miss Smith? I rather doubt that what Mr. Shannon referred to is what has actually happened.” Malcolm wished he could be as certain as he sounded, but he had no intention of requiring Margo to play out her role by displaying complete hysterics over the notion of her fiancé having been sold to someone to be photographed and raped by a dealer in pornographic literature.

  The rough-clad women watching them so narrowly were clearly trying to judge whether or not to risk openly approaching him with their business propositions. Had Malcolm been quite alone, he suspected he would have been propositioned no fewer than a dozen times within fifty paces. And had he been quite alone, Malcolm’s hand would never have left the pocket concealing his pistol. A man dress
ed as Malcolm was, venturing unaccompanied into the deep, semi-criminal poverty of Holywell, would be considered fair game by any footpad who saw him. There was more safety in numbers, but even so, Malcolm’s hand never strayed far from the entrance to his pocket.

  When Malcolm spotted a woman lounging by herself against a bookshop wall, standing directly beneath a large, projecting clock that stuck out perpendicularly from the building, Malcolm paused, carefully gesturing the ladies on ahead with Mr. Stoddard. A gas street lamp nearby shed enough light to see her worn dress, work-roughened hands, and tired face beneath a bedraggled bonnet.

  “Good evening, ma’am.”

  She stood up straighter, calculation jumping into her eyes. “Evenin’, luv. Whatcher’ wantin’, then?”

  “I was wondering if you might have seen someone pass this way earlier this evening? A gentleman dressed much the same way I am? My cousin’s gone missing, you see,” he added at the sharp look of distrust in her face. “I’m quite concerned over my cousin’s safety and his fiancée, there, is in deep distress over it.” He gestured toward Margo, who was clinging to Shahdi Feroz and biting her lip, eyes red and swollen. He must remember to ask her how she managed to conjure tears on command.

  “Yer cousin, eh? Well, that’s diff’rent, innit?” She shrugged. “Right about when might ‘e ‘ave gone by, luv?”

  “Half-eight or shortly thereafter.”

  “I weren’t ‘ere at ‘alf-eight, tonight nor any other. I got a job at the Black Eagle Brewery, I ‘ave, what I gets up at six o’clock of a morning for, t’ earn shilling an’ sixpence a week, an’ I don’t leave brewery ‘ouse til nigh on ‘alf-nine of a night. Weren’t ‘ere at ‘alf-eight, luv.”

  A shilling and sixpence. Eighteen cents a week, for a job that started at six A.M. and ran fifteen hours or more a shift. It was little wonder she was out here on the street after dark, trying to earn a few extra pence however she could. He sighed, then met her narrow-eyed gaze. “I see, madame. Well, thank you, anyway.” He held up a shining silver florin. “If you could think of anyone who might have been hereabouts at that hour?”

  She snatched the coin—nearly two weeks’ wages—from his fingers. “G’wan down to Davy’s, ask round there. Pub’s open til all hours, anybody could’ve seen ‘im. Ain’t like we see gents every night o’ th’ week, these parts.”

  “Indeed? Thank you, ma’am, and good evening.”

  He was aware of her stare as he rejoined the ladies and followed the straining Alfie at the end of his leash. By dawn, the story of the missing gent and his grieving fiancée would be news from one end of the district to the other. With any luck, word of Benny Catlin might yet shake loose—particularly in the hopes of a cash “donation” for information given. Meanwhile, Alfie was whining and straining in the direction of Davy’s Pub at the end of Holywell Street where it rejoined the Strand once more. Music and laughter reached up the narrow lane as they approached the busy public house, brightly lit by a multitude of gas lamps. Its windows and placard-plastered walls advertised Scotch and Irish Whiskeys . . . Wainey, Comb, and Reid fine ales . . . favorite brands of stout . . . and, of course, Walker’s.

  Malcolm wasn’t dressed for mingling in such a crowd, but Auley Shannon was. He nodded slightly at Malcolm, then disappeared into the packed pub. Malcolm waited patiently with Margo and Shahdi Feroz and the others, noting the location of another pub, The Rising Sun, across the road where Wych Street emerged just the other side of Davy’s. Beyond, in the wide avenue that lay beyond the conjunction of the two narrow, old streets, lay the ancient facade of St. Clement Danes Church, another island church built in the center of the Strand. Its high steeple was topped with what appeared to be a miniature, columned Greek temple, barely visible now between drizzle-laden clouds and streaks of jagged lightning.

  And in another of London’s abrupt transitions, where glittering wealth shared a line of fenceposts with criminal poverty, where the narrow Wych and Holywell Streets intersected the Strand, a sharp line of demarcation divided the dark poverty-stricken regions behind them, separating it from the expensive, well-to-do houses and shops right in front of Malcolm, shops and houses that stood in a stately double row to either side of the street, lining the Strand, itself. Such abrupt changes from deepest poverty to startling wealth, within half-a-block of one another, placed destitute men and women with no hope at all side-by-side with socially ambitious businessmen and their ladies, ensconced in fine houses, with servants and carriages and luxuries their neighbors could never aspire to owning through any means except thievery.

  And thievery was exactly how many a denizen of SoHo obtained such items.

  Studying the intersection and judging the lay of the land and the inhabitants of the various buildings within view, Malcolm realized they’d need to field a good-sized search party through this area just to question all the potential witnesses. Five minutes later, Shannon emerged from Davy’s, looking hopeful. “Blokes are suspicious o’ strangers,” he said quietly, “an’ rightly so, what wiv coppers lookin’ t’nick ‘alf the blokes in there, I’d reckon, but I pointed out Miss Smith, ‘ere, give ‘em the bare bones of what’s ‘appened. Got a few of ‘em t’thaw a bit, seein’ the lady cryin’ and all. Must be ‘alf a dozen blokes said they saw a bloke wot might’ve been ‘im.” He paused, with a glance toward Margo, then cleared his throat. “Wot they saw was a woman walk past, Mr. Moore, carryin’ a wounded gentleman. Walkin’ quick-like, as if to find a surgeon. Blokes remembered, on account of that poor streetwalker, Martha Tabram, ‘oo got ‘erself stabbed to death August Bank ‘oliday, an’ on account of it were so queer, seein’ a woman in a patched dress and ragged bonnet, carryin’ a gentleman in a fine suit wiv a shabby old coat wrapped round ‘is head.”

  Malcolm paled, even as Margo blanched and clutched at Shahdi Feroz. “Odd,” Malcolm muttered, “How deuced odd.”

  “You’ve the right o’ that, sir.”

  “It’s unlikely a woman would have attacked Mr. Catlin. Perhaps she found him lying on the street, injured, and was, indeed, carrying him to safety with a surgeon. Mr. Catlin was a slightly built young man, after all, and wouldn’t have proved difficult to lift and carry, for a stout woman.” Margo nodded, wiping tears from her face with the back of one gloved hand. “Mr. Shannon, Miss Shannon, lead on, please. Let’s see how much farther this trail will take us.”

  As it happened, that was not much farther at all. Alfie crossed the Strand right along the front of the old Danish church, where the street curved around to the south. Tailors’ establishments and boot sellers’ shops advertised their wares to wealthy families able to afford their trade. But where Millford Lane cut off to the south near the rear corner of St. Clement Danes, the skies cut loose with a stinging downpour of rain and Alfie lost the trail. The dog hesitated, cast about the wet pavement in confusion and ever-widening circles, and finally sat back on its haunches, whining unhappily while runoff poured, ankle deep, past their feet in the gutters. Maeve pulled her coat collar up around her neck, then bent and patted the dog’s shoulder and ruffled its wet, clamped back ears, speaking gently to it.

  Malcolm noted the presence of a few hansom cabs along the Strand, waiting hopefully for customers from amongst the wealthier gentlemen Malcolm could see here and there along the street, some of them escorting well-dressed ladies out to carriages under cover of taut umbrellas, and said, “Well, perhaps Mr. Catlin’s benefactress hired a cab?”

  It was, at least, worth the asking, although he doubted a woman as shabbily clad as the one the men in Davey’s pub had described would’ve been able to afford the cost of a hansom cab fare.

  Miss Shannon patted her dog’s wet side and glanced around. “Pr’aps, sir. I’m that sorry, I am, ‘bout the rain. ‘E’s a good tracker, Alfie is, but no dog born wot’ll trace a man through a downpour like this.”

  “I fear not. Very well,” Malcolm said briskly, “we shall simply have to proceed along different lines. Mr. Shannon, I believe the terms of our agre
ement include pressing inquiries amongst potential witnesses at whatever point your fine Alsatian lost the trail? If you and your granddaughter would be so good as to assist us, I feel we might yet make good progress this evening. Try the cabbies, there, if you please. Stoddard, if you’ll broach the denizens of the Rising Sun Pub, I’ll endeavor to strike up a conversation with some of the gentlemen out for the evening’s merriment and dinner parties. Ladies, if you would be so good as to secure a hansom cab? I hope we may need one shortly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Of course, Mr. Moore.”

  “Right, sir. Let’s give ‘er a go, then, Maeve.”

  Over the course of the next half-hour, Malcolm spoke with dozens of gentlemen and their stout, respectable wives, the latter dressed in satins and bonnets with drooping feathers under widespread umbrellas, inquiring politely about an ill-dressed woman assisting a wounded gentleman of their class. The answers he received were civil, concerned, and entirely negative, which left Malcolm increasingly frustrated as well as thoroughly soaked. Lightning flared overhead, sizzled down to strike chimney pots and church steeples with crashes of thunder that sent the well-dressed citizenry scrambling for doorways and covered carriages.

  They couldn’t stay out in this kind of weather any longer, searching.

  London was a vast maze of streets and lanes. The number of places an unwary time tourist could go fatally astray would have sobered the most optimistic of searchers. Malcolm hurried back down the Strand, calling for Stoddard and the Shannons. They rejoined Margo and Shahdi Feroz, who had secured the services of the nearest hansom cab and were huddled inside it, out of the downpour. None of the others had found so much as a trace, either.