Ripped, a Jack the Ripper Time-Travel Thriller

by Shelly Dickson Carr

  Katie glanced around the shadowy hallway decorated with frowning ancestors. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that a stage door would pop open any minute revealing the film crew of some clever reality TV show. But instead of So You Want to Be a Millionaire? this one was So You Think You Can Go Back in Time?

  “I want to vote myself off this island,” Katie whispered.

  “Island? What island? Katie, luv. Go back to your room. I’ll handle this,” he gave her a gentle shove back down the hall.

  “My name is Katie Lennox. I was born in Boston, Massachusetts. I’m in the nineteenth century.” She closed her eyes and clicked her heels as if, like Dorothy, she could magically wish herself home to Kansas. But when Katie opened her eyes, her own yellow brick road took the form of a gloomy, dark hallway stretching out in front of her.

  The low-flame gas jets in the wall sconces flickered on and off like lightning bugs. Katie blinked around. I can’t go home yet. Not yet.

  Toby took her wrist. “I’ll take you back to your bedchamber and ring for Lady Beatrix’s maid. She’ll fix you a tonic to help you sleep.”

  “No.” Katie’s voice sounded determined and slightly breathless. She tried to make her racing heart calm down. “I’m fine, Toby. I was just . . . thinking . . . maybe hoping . . . this was all an illusion. All these deaths. This house. Even you, Toby. Maybe you’re not real. Maybe I have a concussion and am dreaming. . . or maybe I have amnesia.”

  “Am what?”

  Katie blinked at him. Who had coined the term amnesia? Sigmund Freud?

  Against the gas-glimmer in the hallway, Katie could see Toby’s worried face. “I’m okay, Toby. Come on. We have to talk to the Duke. We have to convince him to help us.”

  “You risked too much coming here . . . across time. Leave the rest to me. I’ll save those girls . . . and Lady Beatrix, too. This is a job for a man, not a wee lass.”

  “I didn’t risk anything coming here, Toby. I didn’t come voluntarily. But I’m staying of my own free will. I can return home any time I want, through the London Stone. But I’m staying. And as for a job for a man! Of all the sexist, pig-headed, macho, bull—”

  She was about to say “bullshit” but changed it to “bull-ony. Total baloney.”

  Toby stared at her. Katie’s face was pale; her body, rigid with fright or indignation, he wasn’t sure. He knew he oughtn’t to have let her bamboozle him into coming with him to speak to the Duke, but something about this girl compelled him to do things against his better judgment. When he was eleven, right after his mother died, Toby had been given a gift of a theft-key from his Uncle Kittrick. It was an instrument used to rifle locked rooms at hotels and gentleman’s clubs. The tool could unlock a door from the outside, then lock it back again, making it appear as if the room had never been burgled. Toby had never used the pin-wheel contraption, hooked like a darning needle, but the very idea that he owned such an object had given him great satisfaction. And Katie, he believed, was like that theft-key. She held the power to unlock these deaths and lock their secrets back up. She was an unwitting instrument, a tool of some sort, to be used . . . but by whom and for what purpose, Toby wasn’t sure.

  Toby took Katie’s wrist and began tugging her back to the main part of the house, but she resisted. Straining to wrench free, she began to tug in the opposite direction. A brief contest of wills carried them halfway down the hall until they were standing squarely in front of the servants’ staircase. Katie seized the banister rail and held tight.

  Toby gripped her wrist more firmly.

  “Leave off, Katie. I’ll not argue with you. You’re to stay away from whatever madness has descended on the Twyford household. I’ll not allow you to bedevil my wits again. It was foolish of me—”

  “Oh, cut it out, Toby. Give me a break! I’m not some simpering nineteenth-century girl who faints dead away in a crisis. I’m here — I’m not sure why—but I am here to see this thing through to the end. I’m going to solve these murders with or without your help. Put that in your damn pipe and smoke it!”

  Startled, Toby loosened his grip, but not entirely. The girl could blaspheme the very act of smoking!

  “Release me, right now,” Katie demanded, squirming and tugging.

  Toby clamped on harder. The little vixen was not going to have her way this time. Not if he had anything to do with it.

  Seeing his mouth set in a firm line, Katie had a jolt of inspiration. “If you don’t release me this instant, I’ll—”

  Toby braced for Katie to yank more forcefully, but instead, she stopped struggling, rose on tiptoe, and planted a warm, moist kiss on his lips. And it was not a chaste kiss, or a sisterly peck, nor even a cousinly hit-or-miss pucker. It was a deep, resolute, single-minded, intense, lip-locking kiss. Toby opened his mouth, and his tongue found hers. A Cockney expression, “When tongues mate, the devil takes your fate,” rang through his mind. For a moment he struggled hard with his intense desire to demonstrate a respectful show of propriety, but he rapidly descended past any concern for her honor, her reputation, or even her station in life. The girl had bewitched him, and now she should give a care for her own safety because he had lost all ability to do so.

  A door down the hall banged open.

  “God’s elbow!” bellowed a voice from the end of the dimly lit passage. “What in blazes do you two think you’re doing? Bloody hell!” roared the Duke, looming large in a dark-green robe and velvet nightcap.

  Toby instantly loosened his grip on Katie and just as quickly tightened his grip on the banister. It took every ounce of concentration to turn and face Sir Godfrey without exhibiting any outward signs of physical ardor. He thought about Dark Annie, and the vision of the dead woman cooled his emotional temperature.

  “Tobias!” the Duke hollered. “You scoundrel! Of all the lowdown, treacherous, deceitful, unreliable —” He took a deep breath and swiveled his angry gaze toward Katie. “Miss Katherine!”

  “Sir Godfrey?” Katie returned without a tremor. In fact, just the opposite, a bit of humor, or so it seemed to Toby. “Just the person we came to talk to!” Katie said and strode down the hall toward the Duke, chin held high. “We need to discuss something urgent with you, sir.”

  Toby blinked at Katie’s retreating figure. The lass has guts. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders for the harsh reprisal that would inevitably ensue, and followed in the girl’s shadowy wake.

  “A matter of life and death, you say?” the Duke responded to Katie’s assertion when they entered his sitting room. “Your life . . . and this young fathead’s death? Is that it? Shall I skin him alive? Maybe disembowel the blighter? Just say the word, m’girl. He’s a bloody anvil round my neck as it is. I was about to have my manservant fetch the blundering numbskull and demand an accounting of my grandson’s whereabouts. But you’ve saved me the trouble.”

  Katie blinked at the Duke. Death by disembowelment was an unfortunate choice of words. She glanced over her shoulder at Toby standing in the doorway, and saw it in his face, too. He had paled considerably. They were in the Duke’s chambers, in his sitting room.

  Sir Godrey tugged off his nightcap and clamped murderous eyes on Toby. “So! Tell me, you insolent little pup, you fatheaded numbskull”—the Duke snorted like an elephant about to charge— “why it is that you arrived home without my grandson? Jeffries informed me, over an hour ago, that Collin did not return home, but that you had . . . alone! Your one and only job is to stay with my grandson and keep the blistering idiot out of mischief. Bah! And now I find you manhandling this little-bitty slip of a girl, my goddaughter! What in blazes is going on in that fatheaded brain of yours? You dimwitted Casanova! No! Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question, you bloody fool. But this one isn’t. Where’s that nincompoop grandson of mine? What mischief is Collin up to now, eh? I’ll skin you both alive, that’s what I’ll do! Boil you in oil. God’s eyeballs, I’ll rid the world of fatheads if it’s the last thing I do!”

  The stained-gl
ass lampshade on the only burning lamp in the Duke’s chamber was throwing a kaleidoscope of colors onto the wall. Its jeweled glow, mingling with the firelight, made the room appear deceptively inviting. Even the crown of leaves perched atop the marble head of Caesar Augustus above the mantel appeared to blaze in an explosive palette of neon.

  “Miss Katherine,” Sir Godfrey growled, snatching up his cane. “Will you be kind enough to wait here whilst I have a little chat in the next room with this odious scalawag? What I have to say to him will have nothing to do with a razor strop or the back of my hand—though God’s teeth, I’ve a mind to use both. But I assure you, m’girl, you needn’t concern your pretty little head with the likes of him again! You have my assurance you’ll have no further cause for alarm. I shall banish young Romeo here, from—”

  “Oh, he did nothing wrong, sir. I encouraged him to kiss me. In fact, I insisted. I was trying to comfort him. You see, he’s had quite a shock tonight. A double shock to be exact. Which is why we’re here. Toby witnessed two mur—”

  “Your lordship.” Toby stepped forward, cutting Katie off. “Let me make this clear, sir. Miss Katherine is blameless. It is I who—”

  “Of course the girl is blameless, you fatheaded Lothario!” the Duke roared.

  Toby strode forward, his shadow rising over his head as he moved in front of the firelight, passing the Duke, and momentarily blotting out his scowling face. Stepping over the threshold into the connecting bedchamber, Toby turned and shot Katie a warning glance. I’ll handle this. Don’t interfere!

  Katie gave a slight nod and watched as the Duke snatched up his cane and clumped across the floor, following Toby into the next room. When he banged the door shut, the bolt hit with such force, it swung back open several inches with a shuddering thud.

  “Bah!” the Duke exploded, swiping at the door with his cane, but missing the mark by inches.

  With the door slightly ajar, Toby stood in front of the fireplace while the Duke shouted every expletive known to mankind and several known only to the devil himself—or so it seemed to Toby. The ribbon of light shining from the half-closed door had a flicker of a shadow to it. Toby felt sure Katie was eavesdropping. The lass didn’t have it in her to follow instructions.

  “So, m’boy?” the Duke roared, finally ending his tirade. “What in blazes do you have to say for yourself, eh? Where’s my grandson, and what’s the girl babbling on about a matter of life and death? Speak up, you infernal, ungrateful fathead —”

  “Sir,” said Toby. “Let me explain.” Knowing the value of not saying too much, Toby was brief and to the point, laying out the facts of the evening, including the two murders, from beginning to end. He gave an account of finding Dark Annie’s eviscerated body, without being overly graphic; he explained about taking the pillow with the teeth marks that had smothered Georgie Cross; and he calmly put forth his theory about Major Brown.

  Toby had expected the Duke to look as startled as if the bust of Caesar Augustus on the mantel had burst out singing. But when the Duke finally looked at Toby, his pallid face showed no surprise. He merely steepled his fingers with a look of deep concentration and began chewing on his moustache whiskers.

  Katie, unable to bear the silence another moment, had managed to further nudge open the door and was peeking into the room. The Duke’s bedchamber was very dim, awash in the yellow-blue light of gas lamps. The sputtering light fluttered and shrank and sparked off the ornate mirror behind the bust of Caesar above the stone fireplace; it threw long shadows across the four-poster bed in the corner. A smell of old books, old leather, old paint, and stale cigar smoke hung in the yellow-blue gloom.

  So engrossed was Katie in looking about the room—her grandmother’s bedroom in the twenty-first century—that when the Duke swiveled his head around, she let out a sharp cry of surprise. She could have sworn the Duke was grinning at her. But a second later, Katie thought she could see it for the angry grimace that it was.

  “Come in! Come in!” he said testily, waving her into the room. “Why not invite the entire Queen’s cavalry while we’re at it? Take a seat. Take a seat.” His tone was gruff, but Katie detected the slightest softening in his coal-grey eyes as he motioned for them to pull up chairs, then settled himself into a thronelike wing chair by the fire. Adjusting his eyeglasses, he peered first at Katie, then turned his attention to Toby.

  “You’ve got it wrong, son. Stay still and listen!” he barked out. “We’ve got to work fast. I’d bet my bottom dollar that everything you say about Major Brown is true, but he won’t try to pin this on Pinker. Burn me if I’m wrong. It will be Collin!”

  “Collin?” Katie gasped. She looked at the Duke closely and caught the strange expression on his face. Not contemptuous, not bitter, not worried, but a mixture of all three. With his back ramrod straight, arms out, and fingers grasping the ends of the chair arms, Sir Godfrey had the imperious look of a king about to hold court.

  “Sir?” Toby leaned forward. “Major Brown wouldn’t dare risk implicating Collin, not if he has any true feelings for Lady Beatrix. He—”

  “Don’t say a word, lad. Not one word. Just listen! I’ve been expecting something like this. But the magnitude, the depth, the cunning . . . damn his eyes,” the Duke said almost admiringly. “Major Brown is clever. He’ll go after Collin like a pitbull after a rat. Has to, don’t you see? It’s the fastest way for the blighter to achieve his purpose—getting me to consent to his marrying Beatrix. And when he points his finger at Collin with all the might of Scotland Yard behind him . . . what am I to do, eh? It’s the perfect blackmailer’s ploy. And believe me, Major Brown has used blackmail tactics for me in the past.”

  The Duke hoisted his feet onto a leather footstool. “Right now, Toby, I want you to find Collin. Oh, I know his penchant for tavern wenches. Just find him. Do not let him out of your sight for a minute. He spits, you spit. He sleeps, you sleep. You’ll be my eyes and ears. Any funds you need, lad—the carriage, a stable boy or two to back you up—it’s yours. I’ll give you further instructions in the morning. I’m forming a bit of a wild plan, don’t you see?” He stared thoughtfully into the fire. “This could be a fiasco . . . or we can turn it to our advantage. Major Brown will rue the day he thought to outfox me!”

  Katie felt something hot rise in her throat. The hands of the wall clock pointed to half-past four, but instead of ticking, Katie heard only the thumping of her heart.

  “Now, then, leave me to my thoughts,” grunted the Duke, clasping his fingers around the middle of his cane and raising it as if aiming down the muzzle of a long-barreled musket, one eye winking open, while the other remained shut. “There’s more to this rat’s tail than meets the eye.” He made as if to shoot the bust of Caesar off the mantel. “But apart from all else”—he aimed the cane at the ceiling as if to pick off a pheasant—“I need to keep my grandson safe. My bloodline has lasted six hundred years.” Thwack . . . thwack . . . thwack. He pretended to hit imaginary targets. “I have a duty to insure future generations make it into the next century. So implicating Collin in a scandal of this magnitude”—he jabbed his cane toward his feet, propped up on the footstool—“is out of the question. And Major Brown knows it.”

  Katie wanted to shout: There will be generations of redheaded Twyfords running around. Her mind flashed on an image of Aunt Pru with her photo albums full of baby Collin, toddler Collin, schoolboy Collin, teenage Collin. Then she thought about the present Collin dying in a peat bog a year from now after he and Prudence got married and had a baby. She opened her mouth to say something, but Toby shot her a warning look.

  “Off with you, then,” the Duke dismissed them, entwining his fingers around the head of the cane. “I have some ruminating to do. This doddering old warhorse still has some fight left in him.”

  As they were leaving, Katie glanced over her shoulder. A murky, predawn light had seeped into the room, mingling with the sputtering gas light slanting across the Duke’s face, which held not a tortured expressi
on, but a menacing, almost gleeful one.

  From far away came the muffled crow of a rooster. Closing the door behind them, Toby and Katie heard the Duke’s cane tap-tapping loudly against the leather footstool. Then they heard what sounded like laughter.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Tighten Your Corset say the Bells of West Dorset

  Annie Chapman was murdered by Jack the Ripper on the evening of September 8, 1888.

  The next morning, September 9, the weather outside Katie’s bedroom window was crisp and clear with a tingling freshness in the air, compared to the rain and gloom of the night before.

  Agnes, the ladies’ maid, wearing a starched black dress and white apron, marched across the squeaky floorboards of Katie’s room, flung open the curtains, and heaved up the window. Leaning over the sill, she drew in a long breath. The air smelled of newly washed laundry.

  “Fine morning, miss,” Agnes said cheerfully, swiveling round and peering down at Katie lying in the four-poster bed, the covers pulled up to her chin. “Feeling poorly are we, miss?”

  Blinking sleep from her eyes, Katie tried to rise up on her elbows. Was she feeling poorly? She couldn’t tell. Mornings were not Katie’s best time of day. Back home she needed a Starbucks Frappuccino to wake up. Then she remembered Annie Chapman and sat bolt upright.

  She blinked at Agnes, then glanced around the room trying to forget that she hadn’t been able to save Dark Annie. She tried to focus on the small details of the room in order not to think about it. This bedroom was hers for the duration of her visit with the Duke, Beatrix had told her when she first arrived. It was called the “Floral Room.” There was a dressing table painted in tulips in the corner, and between the windows stood a wardrobe with a long, beveled, floral mirror. Against the right-hand wall was a massive mahogany chest of drawers, carved with large clusters of flowers, and a marble-topped washstand. The room’s festive wallpaper was embossed with giant scarlet poppies, bordered with even larger purple lupines and blood-red delphiniums. Even the bedspread had a floral theme, matching the curtains at the windows, embroidered with crimson roses the size of cabbages. The whole garden-on-steroids effect was garish and a little creepy, Katie thought, like some genetically engineered fluke.