Ripper

by Michael Slade

  Chandler, Melburn, and Devlin stood grouped in the corridor, three disheveled men contemplating a hissing door. Devlin gripped the handle to brace it shut, his sweaty skin goosebumped from the cold. Chandler and Melburn were caked with sand from God’s toilet, and soaked with snow and sweat from their roll around the punji stake pit. Time for a Turkish bath.

  “From fifteen to seven in half a day,” Zinc said. “At this rate we’ll all be dead before the sun goes down.”

  “Seven?” Devlin frowned.

  “The cliff got Quirk. The beach got Holyoak. The path through the woods damn near got me. If the snakes in there get loose, they’ll get the rest of us. The lock’s smashed. The jamb’s splintered. So rig something to secure the door. I need to speak to Katt. Then let’s have a steam.”

  “Bad idea,” Melburn said. “The perfect trap. Wedge the door, crank up the heat, and we’re dim sum. Ever hear crabs scream in boiling water?”

  “That’s their shells,” Devlin said. “Besides, I checked it out.”

  Melburn’s look said That’s what worries me.

  Flanked by Hunt and Franklen, Katt sat on Zinc’s bed facing Yates who straddled the chair used to bar the door. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she bit her trembling lower lip. When Zinc walked in, Katt removed the Tarot card from her hat and tore Death into pieces. “There,” she choked.

  Alex put her arm around the grieving teen. “I know how you feel, Katt. My dad died last week. Easy to say, hard to do, but you’ve got to be strong. We’re in this together. We can’t fall apart. It’s too dangerous to let down our guard.”

  “I’m t-t-terrified,” Katt stuttered. “I’m not b-b-brave like you. The whole p-punk thing. It’s just a front.”

  “We’re all afraid,” Wynn said. “We’re just afraid to show it. Let me tell you what happened to me a few years back. Venice is a city frozen in the fourteen hundreds. Built on a hundred islands and stilts sinking into a lagoon, there are no roads, no modern buildings, just bridges and canals. Piazza San Marco is the most beautiful square, where by the Palace of the Doges stands the Campanile. The Campanile’s a red brick tower three hundred-odd feet high, that looks like a spire separated from its church. The tower fell down around nineteen hundred and was rebuilt, at which time the only stairs were usurped for an elevator. I got trapped at the top when a major Italian earthquake hit.”

  Katt wiped her tears. “Bet that was scary?”

  “Crack, crack, crack,”—Wynn leaned left—“the tower lurched like a whip. Then crack, crack, crack,”—he leaned right—“came the backlash. Crack, crack, crack … Crack, crack, crack …” Wynn was a metronome. “The cracking was the sound of mortar breaking from the bricks, and I saw myself crushed under rubble if the Campanile tumbled down. I wanted to panic. I wanted to wail. I wanted to pull the hair I had then out by the roots. But I couldn’t.”

  Katt blinked, squeezing out the last of her tears. You sly dog, Zinc thought, as Wynn paused for effect. “Why?” Katt asked. Hook, line, and sinker.

  “I was the only American trapped at the top. The guy beside me was German, the guy beside him was Greek, then British, Spanish, Japanese, Israeli, and so on. If I broke and we all survived, they’d tell their countrymen the Yank broke first. Each of us was caught in the same bind. We wanted to piss our pants, but couldn’t let the flag down by pissing first.”

  Katt smiled. A moment free from sorrow.

  “The truth is I’m as scared as you,” Wynn said. “But if I break, when we survive—and we will survive, Katt—you’ll tell your friends the fossil broke first.”

  “You’re not a fossil,” she said, erasing the tracks of her tears.

  “And you’re not going to let anyone say the kid pissed first. You got no place to live, you can live with me.”

  “Katt,” Zinc said. “I need your help. I know who the killer is, but the puzzle’s missing a piece. This question was for your mom. Can you answer it? What’s the occult significance of gallows nails?”

  “They’re used in rituals to conjure demons,” she replied.

  LOCKED ROOM

  10:05 A.M.

  Chandler saw it like this.

  The Deadman’s Island killer had to be one of the sleuths. Hanging Leuthard in the stairwell proved that. Within seconds of the blackout, he was noosed. Even with high-tech equipment—someone wearing night-vision goggles perhaps—there wasn’t time for an interloper to run up or down the stairs to infiltrate the group. His death could be suicide, but why go to the trouble of building the gallows and inviting the guests, if all he planned to do was top himself in the dark? And there were the subsequent murders.

  If the killer was on the stairs, that eliminated Yates and Quirk. They were in the Banquet Room when Leuthard was hanged.

  Was it possible the killer was a dead sleuth? If so, it had to be someone who died after Quirk, for the witnesses to the fight on the bluff were adamant he was pushed. Assuming suicide claimed the killer, leaving an island of unsprung traps to finish off the survivors posthumously, Death was Holyoak, Bolt, or Darke. Holyoak was in the Banquet Room with Yates, Franklen, Katt, and Melburn when Quirk was pushed. Bolt and Darke had sent Katt downstairs. While it was possible one of them slipped out to shove Quirk with the other’s blessing, would you kill yourself in flagrante delicto with poisonous snakes!

  Forget it being one of the dead.

  As he descended the stairs to the Billiards Room for a Turkish bath, Zinc brought Franklen’s guestlist up to date:

  Lou Bolt

  Zinc Chandler

  Sol Cohen

  Luna Darke Katt Darke

  Glen Devlin

  Elvira Franklen

  Stanley Holyoak

  Alexis Hunt

  Al Leech

  Pete Leuthard

  Barney Melburn

  Adrian Quirk

  Colby Smith

  Wynn Yates

  If this were a sleight-of-hand mystery instead of real life, a fair but dirty trick would be to make the killer Zinc. Shot in the head and left to cope with a brain injury, our hero splits into Jekyll & Hyde with neither personality aware the other exists. Zinc the Killer, off the Force with nothing to do, creates a mystery puzzle so Zinc the Cop can shine.

  But this was reality.

  And Zinc believed in himself.

  Which left Yates, Melburn, Franklen, Hunt, Katt, and Devlin as suspects.

  Eliminate Yates, Melburn, Franklen, and Katt. They were together in the Banquet Room when Quirk was attacked. Melburn and Katt met Alex in the Hall as they rushed outside, eliminating her, for the killer had insufficient time to return to the house. That left Devlin as the only viable suspect.

  What was the case against him?

  According to Elvira’s thumbnail sketch in the cab, Devlin had sold a not-yet-published high-tech thriller. A wannabe Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy had the mind for mechanical mayhem. Devlin and Melburn had carried the missing trunk up from the cove. If it hid something important, the killer would guard it. Devlin was muscular and quick, helpful traits for cocking the crossbow and setting that trap. He was on the stairs when Leuthard was hanged. He saw the eye in the peephole which lured Smith to his scythe-through-the-skull death. Did he respond with a near scythe miss to avert suspicion?

  But most damning was Quirk.

  The disabled man had seen Devlin collecting nails from the stairwell gallows in the middle of the night. Katt said gallows nails were used to conjure demons, and here they were trapped in the madhouse of a bygone Satanist, with a demonic idol in the Ballroom below. Zinc recalled Luna’s comments on the trek up from the cove:

  “Angus Craig II inherited it all. He spent time with Aleister Crowley in Sicily, then gathered his own disciples: the Demoniacs. They gathered on Deadman’s Island each year to celebrate Samhain, the most important night in the Witches’ Calendar, the night when the veil between the spirit and physical worlds is lifted, the night when the dead return to consort with the living …

  “Crai
g II had one son, Philip Craig. When Philip inherited the estate on his father’s death, the will stipulated he couldn’t sell or alter Castle Crag. Philip converted to fundamental Calvinism that year, and never again set foot on blasphemous Deadman’s Island …”

  “Who inherited the estate from Philip Craig?”

  “Philip’s kid. If he had one, I guess …”

  Was that Glen Devlin?

  He’d be the right age.

  An heir with time and ownership to set this hell-house up, and money enough to outbid all rivals for the Mystery Weekend, using Elvira as a front to lure his victims here.

  For what?

  To sacrifice them to Granddad’s occult gods?

  As Zinc walked down the corridor to the Billiards Room, he worked the final piece of the puzzle into place. Alex was in his room when he left the house with Quirk. Bolt and Darke were on the four-poster. Yates, Melburn, Franklen, Katt, and Holyoak were in the Banquet Room. Devlin slipped out of the house with a portable transmitter, branching off the path to the cove to run through the precipice woods. Broadcasting screams from the speaker to divert Zinc, he crossed the punji stake pit to prime that trap, ascending the crest up the far side to give Quirk a push. The disabled man went over the cliff and Devlin descended the switchback to the beach, a Pied Piper leading those behind toward God’s toilet.

  But Devlin wasn’t on the beach when they got down.

  Which meant there had to be another route up to the house.

  A route by which he returned to the castle before they did.

  Zinc entered the Billiards Room.

  The showdown by the Turkish bath was politically incorrect. Though not swilling brandy and smoking cigars, those present for this bare-balls walkdown were just the men. Wyatt Chandler at this end, Glen Clanton at that end of the OK Corral. The women, though not in the Drawing Room (Withdrawing Room actually), were upstairs comforting Katt in her grief.

  “You’re the only one without an alibi for Quirk, Devlin. Where were you when he was pushed off the cliff?”

  “The cellar,” Devlin said.

  “Doing what?”

  “Stoking the boiler for a steam.”

  “No one saw you.”

  “I was the first one up. Downstairs was deserted when I had breakfast and went to shovel coal. Coming up, I passed the door to the Banquet Room where Wynn and Elvira were staring out the window. He had his arm around her so I didn’t intrude. I was in the bath when the screaming began. Running to help, I met you in the Hall. Satisfied?”

  Still in their clothes, Melburn and Yates flanked the steam bath door. Devlin shed the new towel around his waist. Chandler shucked his uniform, then his underwear. “You’re lying,” he said.

  “Prove it,” Devlin challenged.

  “You stoked the boiler, then came upstairs. That’s when you saw me wheel Quirk outside, and play into your hands by ascending the bluff. You snuck out, diverted me, and pushed him over the cliff. Hiding somewhere on the beach, you saw Holyoak die, before taking an alternate route back to the house. You primed the trap—a timing device?—that killed Darke and Bolt, then waited in the bath to see who returned from the beach. You knew the survivors, grubby from trying to save Holyoak, would gladly join you for your interrupted steam to clean up. My hunch is you planned the Turkish bath as your alibi so you could lure someone into the next booby trap.”

  Devlin laughed. “How would that work?” He walked around the bath, followed by Zinc. “No way in or out except the wooden door. The structure’s self-contained in the middle of the room. Anyone outside can see the space between its top and the ceiling. You steamed yesterday. See a trapdoor in the floor? If we had a tape measure, bet we’d find the walls no more than eight inches thick. The bath’s a sealed box with a door, a steampipe, and a drain. How the luck you think I’d use it as a trap?”

  “Break the steam valve, seal the door, and anyone caught inside scalds to death.”

  Head cocked and mouth curled in an arrogant smirk, Devlin stopped the walkdown by going for his gun. “I wasn’t through sweating when the screams brought me out. Melburn and Yates can guard the door to save you if there’s trouble. Unless you’re afraid, join me for a steam.”

  Devlin pulled the door open and disappeared inside.

  The door swung closed as Zinc turned to the guards. “I know this guy’s the killer,” he whispered, “so let’s smoke him out. Listen for anything strange and ask me a question now and—”

  A strangled gargle came from the bath.

  The sort of sound you make when you’re throwing up.

  The sort produced by a throat suddenly filled with bile.

  The bath belched red steam as Zinc yanked open the door.

  A mist of blood.

  Stepping across the threshold, the Mountie waved his arms, trying to clear the vapor so he could see. Through rents in the steam cloud, he caught glimpses of Devlin thrashing about on the floor, one hand clutching his neck which geysered spurts of blood. “Check the room!” Zinc shouted. “His throat’s been cut!”

  Circling the bath, Melburn jumped twice to scan its roof. Yates blocked the Billiards Room door and checked the hall outside. Zinc twisted the floor-level tap to shut off the steam, his other hand compressing Devlin’s neck to stem the arterial spurts. As mist curled out the open door without being replaced, the crimson cloud clogging the bath began to dissipate. The blood across the floor was marked by no tracks but his own, and Chandler found himself alone with the dying man. Devlin’s eyes fluttered, beseeching him, as the bloody hand that had gripped his throat flopped to the tiles. His index finger extended like a piece of red chalk, moving across the floor to smear a shaky line. Then it lifted and moved again, until gripped by a shudder of primal fright, Chandler’s only suspect died. His last will and testament was:

  POSSESSED

  10:16 A.M.

  “Check the room …”

  “… the room …”

  “… the room …”

  “His throat’s been cut …”

  “… been cut …”

  “… been cut …”

  “Devlin’s dead …”

  “… ‘s dead …”

  “… ‘s dead …”

  His ear to the other door of the dumbwaiter, the door to the Billiards Room, not the Scullery hall, the killer listened to the commotion around the Turkish bath. Zinc’s voice echoed from the room-within-a-room, around the perimeter of the outer chamber, then into the lift hidden behind the false wall. “Devlin’s dead” made the killer quiver with expectation. “Possess me,” he murmured as the dumbwaiter rose.

  Power surged through him like lightning zapping his spine, a jolt of Black Magick from his occult mind. The foreign Doppelganger filled him to the brim, and suddenly his penis was stiffer than it had ever been before.

  The lift stopped.

  He listened.

  Then he raised the door.

  Stepping out, contraption in hand, Skull tiptoed down the hall.

  Danger from being in the open added to the thrill, as did the voices of the women in the Mountie’s room. Easing open the door to the room across the hall, he entered, closed it, then slid back the secret panel to the Hogger Gallery. He stored the contraption in the long recess, shut the panel, and returned to the hall. Tiptoeing across to eavesdrop at Chandler’s door, Skull mouthed the words of the Ripper Incantation:

  “Hellish, Earthly, Heavenly … Tautriadelta … God of the Crossroads and the Closed Path … King of Night, Guiding Sight, Enemy of the Sun … You who rejoice to sec blood flow … You who wander the streets at dark … Thirsty for the terror in harlots’ souls … Lord of the hellhounds’ bark … Helon Taul Varf Pan Pentagrammaton … Bring me Jack the Ripper … He Who Knows The Way…”

  His mind’s eye gazed upon the squalor of another era, when gaslight and yellow fog chilled the bowels of London, when Nichols (Helon), Chapman (Taul), Stride (Varf), and Eddowes (Pan) fell to the Ripper’s knife, harlots’ blood to sign the Te
trad Cross of the Hanged Man. Then he stood in Number 13, Miller’s Court, hunched over Mary Kelly (Pentagrammaton), carving the Seal of Solomon into her flesh, signing the Triad of the Hanged Man with her blood. Cut, slash, rip, tear, opening the Closed Path. Cut, slash, rip, tear, forming the Three Triangles in this Magick Place. Cut, slash, rip, tear, launching his Doppelganger into the Astral Plane, there to work his will on the Occult Realm, conjuring Satan’s Legions in the here-and-now, summoning them through Rituals in De Occultus Tarotorum.

  I botched the Cross, a voice within his head confessed. I didn’t hang the harlots to form the Tetrad, and thereby failed to manifest a perfect 4, which multiplied by the Triad 3 produced an imperfect 12. Denied a complete cycle of zodiac manifestation, Hell’s Legions couldn’t break out of my occult mind.

  Study the Hanged Man.

  Read the Tarot grimoire.

  Learn from The Patristic Gospels.

  And you will be The Beast …

  Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.

  His ear to the door of the room upstairs in Castle Crag, Skull chose the Pentagrammaton for his Miller’s Court.

  … & LOEB

  Vancouver

  10:18 A.M.

  The Headmaster stood in the main hall, surrounded by Taiwanese parents listening intently as their interpreter translated his words extolling the virtues of Havelock Ellis School, when DeClercq and Craven marched in the front door. He said nothing as they approached, but Shitty ass bum fuck was written all over his worried face.

  “Who’s he?” DeClercq asked, holding out the grad photo while pointing at the student next to Coy.

  “Chief Superintendent, now is not the time. These good people have braved this storm in hope their sons will benefit from the Havelock Ellis tradition. You may wait in my office while—”

  Craven verbally kicked his erudite balls up to his chin. “Headmaster, you’re under investigation for obstructing a peace officer in the lawful execution of his duty. You have the right to retain and instruct counsel—”