Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  Of the three men Malcolm would be guiding this evening, Guy Pendergast would be the least restrained by circumstances. And he remained the most ebulliently convinced of his own immortality, as well, constantly suggesting mad “research” schemes which Malcolm and Douglas and Margo had to veto, sometimes forcefully. Undaunted, Pendergast chatted amiably the whole ride, trying to draw out the Ripper scholars on the subject of the evening’s search and chuckling at their close-mouthed irritation.

  They finally reached Robert Smirke’s famous clubhouse of 1836, which was fated for destruction by Nazi bombs in 1940, and Malcolm told the carriage driver to wait for an hour, then entered the ornately popular Carlton Club, which lay situated beautifully between ultra-fashionable St. James’s Square—with its statue of William III and the minaret-steepled church of St. James’s Piccadilly visible above the tall, stately buildings—and Carlton House Terrace on the opposite side. The lovely Carlton Gardens ran along Carlton Club’s open, easterly facing side, completing the stately club’s picturesque, fashionable setting.

  Malcolm was known here, as he was in all of the gentlemen’s clubs of Pall Mall and Waterloo Place, having procured memberships in each for business purposes as a temporal guide. He greeted the doorman with a nod and introduced his guests, anglicizing Dr. Kostenka’s name, then ushered them into the familiar, tobacco-scented halls of the gentleman’s private domain. Massive mahogany furniture and dark, rich colors dominated. There was no trace of feminine frills, of the crowding of bric-a-brac, or the typical housewifely clutter which dominated most gentlemen’s private homes. Malcolm and his guests checked their tall evening hats, canes, and gloves, but Malcolm declined to check his valise, which held his log and ATLS, pleading business matters.

  “I would suggest, gentlemen,” he told his charges, “that we begin in one of the gaming rooms where card tables have been set up.”

  Conversation flowed thick as the brandy and the heavy port wines in evidence at every elbow. Voices raised in laughter swirled around others engaged in conversation which was not deemed socially proper for mixed company, accompanied by blue-grey clouds of tobacco smoke. Copies of infamous publications such as The Pearl, a short-lived but popular pornographic magazine, could be seen in a few hands where gentlemen lounged beneath gas lights, reading and trading jokes.

  “—meeting of the Theosophists, this evening?” a passing gentleman asked his companion.

  “Where, here? No, I hadn’t realized. What an intriguing set of gentlemen, although I daresay they would do well to be rid of that horrid Madame Blavatsky!”

  Both gentlemen laughed and climbed an ornate staircase for the second floor of the club. Malcolm paused, wondering if he ought not follow his instincts.

  “What is it?” Pendergast asked.

  “Those gentlemen just spoke of a Theosophical meeting here this evening.”

  Pendergast frowned. “A what meeting?”

  “Theosophical Society. One of London’s foremost occult research organizations.”

  Pendergast chuckled. “Bunch of lunatics, no doubt. Too bad Dr. Feroz couldn’t accompany us, eh?”

  Conroy Melvyn, keeping his voice carefully low, said, “You thinkin’ what I am, Moore? Our man might be a member, eh? Respected doctor, what? Any number of medical men were attracted to such groups.”

  “Precisely. I believe it might be worth our while to attend this evening’s meeting.”

  They fell in behind a group of gentlemen heading for the same staircase, following a snatch of conversation which marked them as probable Theosophists.

  “—spoke to an American fellow once, from some cotton-mill town in South Carolina. Claimed he’d spoken to an elderly gentlemen who raised the dead.”

  “Oh, come now, what guff! It’s one thing to debate the existence of an ability to converse with the departed. I’ve seen what a spiritualist medium can do, in seances and with automatic writing and what have you, but raise the dead? Stuff and falderol! I suppose next you’ll be claiming this Yank thought himself Christ Jesus?”

  Malcolm moved his hand unobtrusively, very carefully switching on the scout’s log concealed in the valise he carried, with its tiny digital camera disguised as the stickpin in his cravat. He followed the gentlemen, listening curiously as they crossed a grand lounge and neared the staircase.

  “No, no,” the first gentleman was protesting, “not literally raise the dead, raise the spirit of the dead, to converse with it, you know. Without a medium or a mysteriously thumping table tapping out inscrutable messages. To accomplish the feat, one had to procure the rope used to hang a man, stake it out around the grave of the chap you wished to raise and repeat some gibberish in Latin, I don’t recall what, now, then the poor sod’s spirit would appear inside the rope and voila! You’re able to converse at your leisure until cock crow. Of course, the spirit couldn’t leave the confines of the roped-off ground . . .”

  “And you didn’t tumble to the fact that this Yank was having you on?”

  A low rumbling chuckle reached through the pall of smoke. “No, I assure you, he was not. Senile as they come, I daresay, the chap was ninety if he was a day, but perfectly sincere in his beliefs.”

  Malcolm was about to take his first step toward the second floor when a voice hailed him by name. “I say, it’s Moore, isn’t it!”

  The unexpected voice startled him into swinging around. Malcolm found himself looking into the bemused and vivid blue eyes of a gentleman he vaguely thought he was supposed to know. He was a young man, barely past his early twenties, handsome in a Beau Brummel sort of fashion, with wavy dark hair, the brilliant blue eyes and fair skin of an Irishman, and the same elegant, almost effete fastidiousness of the trend setter whose name had been synonymous with fashion during the Regency period some sixty-eight years previously.

  “It is Malcolm Moore, isn’t it?” the young man added with a wry smile. A trace of Dubliner Irish in the man’s voice echoed in familiar ways, telling Malcolm he was, indeed, supposed to know this friendly faced young man.

  “Yes, I am, but I fear you’ve the advantage of me, sir.”

  “O’Downett’s the name, Bevin O’Downett. We met, let me see, it would have been nearly a year ago, I believe, at last summer’s Ascot Races.” Eyes twinkling merrily, Mr. O’Downett chuckled, a good-natured sound. “I recall it quite distinctly, you see. We bet on the same rotten nag, came in dead last.”

  The face and name clicked in Malcolm’s memory. “Of course! Mr. O’Downett, how good to see you again!” They shook hands cordially as Malcolm grimaced in rueful remembrance. He, too, had excellent cause to recall that race. He’d placed that losing bet on behalf of a client who’d hired him as guide, a millionaire who considered himself an expert on sport, particularly on the subject of horse racing. Malcolm had warned the fool not to bet on that particular horse, aware as he was of its record in past races, but the client is, as they say, always right . . . Both Malcolm and this young Irishman, Mr. O’Downett, here, had lost spectacularly.

  Malcolm introduced his unexpected acquaintance to his guests. “Mr. O’Downett, may I present Mr. Conroy Melvyn and Mr. Guy Pendergast, of London, and Dr. Kosten, of America.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” O’Downett smiled, shaking hands all around. “I say,” he added, “where’ve you been keeping yourself, Moore? Oh, wait, I recall now, you’re from the West Indies, knock about the world a good bit. Envy you that, you know.”

  Malcolm was trying for the life of him to recall anything about Mr. O’Downett, other than one ill-placed bet. “And you?” he asked a bit lamely.

  “Ah, well, fortune smiles and then she frowns, as they say. But I did manage to publish a volume of poetry. A slim one, true, but published, nonetheless.” His eyes twinkled again, laughing at himself, this time. “Druidic rubbish, nothing like the serious verse I prefer, but it sells, God knows, it does sell. This Celtic renaissance will make gentlemen of us Dubliners, yet.” He winked solemnly.

  Malcolm smiled. “It does
seem to be rather popular. Have you been to the Eisteddfod, then, since Druidic verse appeals to the book-buying masses?”

  “Hmm, that Welsh bardic thing they put together over in Llangollen? No, I haven’t, although I suppose if I’m to represent the Celtic pen, I had probably ought to go, eh? Have you attended one?”

  “As a matter of fact, no, although I intend to do so when they hold another.” Malcolm laughed easily. “Moore’s a French name, you know, originally, anyway. It’s whispered that the back of our family closet might have contained a Gaulish Celt or two rattling round as skeletons.”

  O’Downett clapped him heartily on the shoulder. “Well said, Moore! Well said! It is, indeed, the day of the Celtic Fringe, is it not? I’ve spoken to gentlemen whose grandsires were Prussian generals who were ‘Celts’ and pure London Saxons who were ‘Celts’ and, God forbid, a half-caste Indian fellow in service as a footman who was a ‘Celt’ at least on his father’s side!”

  Malcolm shared the chuckle, finding it doubly humorous, since there was a wealth of evidence—linguistic, literary, musical, legal, and archaeological—to suggest that the Celtic laws, languages, customs and arts of Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, and Gaulish France bore direct and striking ties to Vedic India.

  “And speaking of grand and glorious Celts,” Mr. O’Downett said, eyes twinkling wickedly, “here comes the grandest of all us Celtic poets. I say, Willie, have you come for our little meeting this evening? I’d thought you would be haunting Madame Blavatsky’s parlour tonight.”

  Malcolm Moore turned . . . and had to catch his breath to keep from exclaiming out loud. His chance acquaintance had just greeted the most profoundly gifted poet ever born in Ireland, the soon-to-be world-famous William Butler Yeats.

  “Willie” Yeats smiled at O’Downett, his own eyes glowing with a fire-eaten look that spoke of a massively restless intellect. “No, not tonight, Bevin. The good lady had other plans. Occasionally, even our peripatetic madame pursues other interests.” Yeats was clearly laughing at himself. The Dubliner Irish was far more pronounced in the newcomer’s voice. Yeats was still in his twenties, having arrived with his parents from Dublin only the previous year, 1887.

  Bevin O’Downett smiled and made introductions. “Willie, I say, have you met Mr. Malcolm Moore? West Indian gentleman, travels about a good bit, met him at Ascot last year. Mr. Moore, my dear friend, Mr. William Butler Yeats.”

  Malcolm found himself shaking the hand of one of the greatest poets ever to set pen to paper in the English language. “I’m honored, sir.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Moore,” Yeats smiled easily.

  Malcolm felt almost like the air was fizzing. Yeats was already considered an occult authority, despite his relative youth. Malcolm thanked that unknown American ghost-summoner for inducing him to turn on the scout’s log in his valise. He managed to retain enough presence of mind to introduce his own companions, who shook Yeats’ hand in turn. Guy Pendergast didn’t appear to have the faintest notion who Yeats was—or would be—but Conroy Melvyn’s face had taken on a thunderstruck look and even Pavel Kostenka was staring, round-eyed, at the young poet who would legitimize Irish folk lore as a serious art form and subject of scholarly interest, as no other Irishman had managed in the stormy history of Irish-Anglo relations, and would be branded the most gifted mystic writer since William Blake.

  Bevin O’Downett winked at his fellow Irishman. “Mr. Moore, here, was just sharing a piece of his family history,” he chuckled. “A Gaulic Celt or two, he says, rattled about in earlier branches of the family’s gnarled old tree.”

  Yeats broke out into an enthusiastic smile. “Are you a Celtic scholar, then, Mr. Moore?” he asked, eyes alight with interest.

  “No, not really.” Malcolm smiled, although he probably knew more about Celtic and Druidic history than any expert alive in Great Britain tonight. “My real interest is antiquity of another sort. Roman, mostly.”

  O’Downett grinned, bending a fond look on his friend. “Willie is quite the antiquarian, himself.”

  Yeats flushed, acutely embarrassed. “Hardly, old bean, hardly. I dabble in Celtic studies, really, is all.”

  “Stuff and nonsense, Willie here is a most serious scholar. Helped co-found the Dublin Hermetic Society, didn’t you? And Madame Blavatsky finds your scholarship most serious, indeed.”

  Malcolm, anxious to put the young poet at ease, gave Yeats a warm, encouraging smile. “You’re interested in Theosophy, then, Mr. Yeats?” He knew, of course, that Yeats pursued a profound interest in Theosophy and any other studies which touched on the occult. The new and wildly popular organization established by Madame Blavatsky devoted itself to psychical and occult studies along the lines of the “Esoteric Buddhism” which she and so many other practitioners were popularizing.

  Clearly uncertain where Malcolm stood on the issue, the young Irish poet cleared his throat nervously. “Well, sir, yes, I am, sir. Most interested in Theosophy and, ah, many such studies.”

  Malcolm nodded, endeavoring to keep his expression friendly, rather than awestruck. “You’ve read Wise’s new History of Paganism in Caledonia? Intriguing ideas on the development of religion and philosophy.”

  The young poet brightened. “Yes, sir, I have, indeed, read it! Borrowed a copy as soon as I arrived in London last year, as it had just been published. And I’ve read Edward Davies, of course, and D.W. Nash on Taliesin.”

  “Ah, the British druid who was said to have met Pythagoras. Yes, I’ve read that, as well.”

  Malcolm did not share his opinion on Nash’s theories about the so-called British druid, whose existence had been fabricated whole cloth. Probably not by Nash, for the myth was widespread and persistent, but it was myth, nonetheless. “And have you read Charles Graves’ latest work?”

  “The Royal Commission’s study of ancient Irish Brehon laws? Absolutely, sir!”

  And the young poet’s smile was brilliant, filled with understandable pride in the accomplishments of his forebears, who had been recognized throughout the western world in past centuries as the finest physicians, poets, musicians, and religious scholars of medieval Europe. The Brehon legal system of medieval Ireland had included such “modern” concepts as universal health care and even workman’s compensation laws.

  “Excellent!” Malcolm enthused. “Marvellous scholarship in that work. Graves is expanding the knowledge of ancient Britain tremendously. And do you, Mr. Yeats, hold that the Druids built Stonehenge?”

  Yeats flushed again, although his eyes glowed with delighted interest. “Well, sir, I’m not an archaeologist, but it strikes me that the standing stones must be of considerable antiquity. At least centuries old, I should think?”

  Malcolm smiled again. “Indeed. Millennia, to be more precise. Definitely pre-Roman, most definitely. Even the greatest Egyptologist of our day, Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, agrees on that point. Keep up the scholarship, Mr. Yeats. We need good, strong research into our own islands’ histories, eh? By God, ancient Britain has a history to be proud of! This Celtic revival is a fine thing, a very fine thing, indeed!”

  Bevin O’Downett nodded vehement agreement. “Quite so, sir! I say, have you heard that fellow speak down at the Egyptian Hall? That Lithuanian-looking chap, although he’s as British as a gold sovereign, what’s he calling himself? I heard some reporter say he used to go by some Egyptian sounding moniker, back in his younger days over in SoHo, before he studied medicine and the occult and became a respectable mesmeric physician.”

  Malcolm hadn’t the faintest idea who O’Downett might mean, although he did notice Guy Pendergast lean forward, sudden interest sharp in his eyes. Once a reporter, always a reporter, although Malcolm couldn’t imagine why Guy Pendergast would be so acutely interested in a SoHo occultist.

  Yeats, however, nodded at once, clearly familiar with the fellow Bevin O’Downett had mentioned. “Yes, I have seen him speak. Intriguing fellow, although he hasn’t actually gone by the name of Johnny Anubis in sever
al years. Oh, I know it’s an absurd name,” Yeats said, noticing the amused tilt of Bevin O’Downett’s brows, “but a man must have some way to attract the attention of the public when he’s come up from that sort of background. And despite the theatrics of his early career, his scholarship really is sound, astonishing for a self-made man from Middlesex Street, Whitechapel.”

  Malcolm paused, caught as much by the edge of bitterness in the young poet’s voice as by the niggling suspicion that he was missing something important, here. He glanced into Yeats’ brilliant, fire-eaten eyes—and was struck motionless by the pain, the anger and pride that burned in this young Irishman’s soul. Forthright fury blazed in those eyes for every slight ever made by an Englishman against the Irish race, fury and pain that the achievements of the Celtic peoples were only now, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, being hailed as genius by overbearing English scholars—and then, only by some scholars, in a decade when Welshmen, descendants of the original Celtic settlers of Britain, were still belittled as savage subhumans and advised to give up their barbarous tongue if they would ever redeem themselves into the human race, while the Irishman was kicked and maltreated as the mangiest dog of Europe. Yet despite the kicks and slurs, there blazed in Yeats’ brilliant, volcanic eyes a fierce, soul-igniting pride, lightning through stormclouds, a shining pride for the history of a nation which for centuries had carried the torch of civilization in Europe.

  Malcolm stood transfixed, caught up in the power of the young poet’s presence, aware with a chill of awe that he was witnessing the birth of an extraordinary religious and literary blaze, one which would sweep into its path the ancient lore, the mysterious rite and religious philosophy of the entire world, a blaze which would burn that extraordinary learning in the crucible of the poet’s fiery and far-reaching intellect, until what burst forth was not so much resounding music as rolling, thunderous prophecy: