Ripped, a Jack the Ripper Time-Travel Thriller

by Shelly Dickson Carr

  “Miss?” Agnes gave a bobbing curtsy. “Lady Beatrix says you must be feeling poorly on account of you haven’t come down for breakfast.” Agnes bustled over to the mahogany chest, fiddled around with the contents of a silver tray, and handed Katie a steaming cup of hot chocolate on a delicate china plate.

  “Been here thrice to check on you, miss. You’ve been fast o’ sleep like a stone at the bottom of a dark well.”

  Katie brought the cup of hot cocoa to her lips, grateful for the semi-bitter taste, which had taken her several mornings to get used to. Cocoa was considered a restorative here, and since Katie had trouble waking up most mornings, unsweetened cocoa was Agnes’s answer. That, or a cup of beef tea.

  Agnes was a cheerful, plump girl in her midtwenties with a face like a scone—or, at least, that’s how Collin referred to her. “Old Scone Face.” Agnes had been in service at Twyford Manor since she was eleven. At first Katie had felt guilty that so many people in this century were servants, but Agnes seemed overjoyed with her newly exalted status of ladies’ maid. She was over the moon with her new uniform and with the fact that Lady Beatrix had taken it upon herself to train her properly. Agnes was illiterate and had been abandoned at the age of seven. She might have ended up far worse off, Katie reasoned.

  Katie tugged her mind away from such thoughts. She wasn’t here to change the class system. I’m here to save Lady Beatrix from being murdered. I couldn’t save Dark Annie, but maybe I can save Lady Beatrix.

  She took another sip of the bitter cocoa, frothy on top with thick cream, and once again tried to tug her thoughts away from murder. She didn’t want to think about Jack the Ripper. There was plenty of time for that later. Right now Katie just wanted to sip the hot chocolate and forget about death and dying.

  She leaned back against the silken sheets. The coverlet, fluffy as air, felt like satin against her skin. And though she hated being waited on by servants, the best thing about living here was that she never had to do the dishes or any other chores. Twyford Manor was chock-full of scullery maids, upstairs maids, downstairs maids, tweenie maids, ladies’ maids, footmen. The list went on and on. Katie had only to sneeze, and a bevy of servants scurried around her like flies to honey bringing her foot-warming pans, stoking the fire, drawing her bath, helping her get dressed, bringing her hot chocolate in bed!

  Katie doubted the Ritz-Carlton in London would be this service-oriented, though the Ritz hadn’t been built yet. She didn’t even have to put toothpaste on her toothbrush. It was all done for her.

  Toothpaste.

  Katie inwardly groaned. “Paste” was the operative word. Brushing her teeth in this century was an ordeal. The “paste” was actually finely ground powder. Agnes would open a tin of cream of tartar tooth powder, tap a portion into an earthenware bowl, sprinkle in water, salt, and chalk, and stir it into a gritty paste. She’d spackle it onto a toothbrush made of swine bristles with a cow-bone handle, and stand there while Katie brushed and spit into a porcelain urn. Next, Agnes would hand Katie a glass of water mixed with baking soda and parsley to rinse with. The bristle-brush toothbrush was stiff enough to take the enamel off her teeth, and the paste gunk tasted like modeling clay before it hardens—and was more abrasive. Katie yearned for the creamy smooth texture of Crest Gel with its minty-cinnamon taste. And her favorite soft toothbrush angled to fit comfortably into her mouth.

  She brought the hot cocoa to her lips and made a vow that she would never again complain about using dental floss. Yesterday Agnes had caught Katie using sewing thread to floss her teeth after she’d eaten roast duck. Agnes had looked aghast and proceeded to wrench the thread from Katie’s clenched fingers, whispering that proper young ladies did not put sewing implements into their mouths. “Only heathens would stoop so low, miss!” Agnes had gently scolded.

  Having finished the hot chocolate, Katie threw off the covers and squared her shoulders in anticipation of the next ordeal.

  Getting dressed.

  Half an hour later she was properly corseted, hooked, squeezed, and fastened into an elaborate morning gown with lace appliqués and puffy, leg-of-mutton sleeves. She made her way downstairs to breakfast feeling as if she were carrying lead weights on her hips, thighs, and petticoated legs. If she fell into a river, she would drown from the weight of the excess fabric, most of which covered the skirt’s bustle. To Katie, it defied logic to wear a coiled contraption, called a bustle, over her butt—the result of which was a hump projecting from her posterior that continued in a fanlike sweep to the floor.

  The dining room at Twyford Manor, though accessed through the same oak door as the one in Grandma Cleaves’s condo, was larger and far grander. It was typical of a Victorian dining room, or at least what Katie imagined a Victorian dining room would be. Down the center of a Turkish rug stretched a long, heavy mahogany dining table, with a massive, matching sideboard polished to a purplish shine. Baronial dining chairs skirted the long table. On the walls hung dozens of hunting-with-the-hounds oil paintings. Most of them showed dead rabbits hanging from the mouths of spotted retrievers.

  Entering fully into the dining room, Katie was surprised to see Major Brown and Reverend Pinker at the sideboard scooping up heaping portions of poached eggs, roasted tomatoes, kippers, bacon, and sausage onto their plates. Katie wasn’t surprised by the amount of food piled pyramid-style on the mahogany sideboard. Breakfasts at Twyford Manor were as elaborate as the all-you-can-eat buffets at fancy restaurants. More elaborate, if you counted the intricate flower arrangements spilling down the center of the table, the ornate silver cutlery, the heavy serving pieces and lacy linens.

  No, it wasn’t the sumptuous food that surprised her. It was seeing Major Brown and Reverend Pinker loading up their plates as if they hadn’t a care in the world. As if last night had never happened!

  Katie stared hard at Major Brown as he moved along the sideboard inspecting the over-laden food platters. If there was anything weighing heavily upon his mind—such as murder—Katie couldn’t detect it. He was groomed to a spit and polish in his horse guard’s uniform. From his shiny boots to his clipped, waxed moustache, he appeared to be the picture of a dashing man paying court to his fiancée. There was even a twinkle in his heavy-lidded eyes, a swagger as he moved to take a seat at the table. Noticing Katie, he called out a cheerful greeting.

  “Miss Lennox!” He bowed slightly. “You’re looking exceedingly pretty this morning. I trust you slept well?”

  “Yes, indeedy,” Reverend Pinker chimed in. “You look radiant, my dear Katherine. Fit as a fiddle, as we say at the parish church.” Pinker looked longingly at Katie and licked his lips.

  Katie wanted to barf.

  He’s so creepy, she thought. What kind of minister looks at a teenage girl with . . . well, lust in his eyes? Katie didn’t know which man was more repulsive to her, Major Brown with his slick, smug demeanor, or Reverend H. P. Pinker, with his smarmy fawning.

  Moving to the sideboard, Katie reached for a slice of toast from the silver toast rack and spooned gooseberry jam and a dollop of bright yellow, wobbly butter, resembling an egg yolk, onto her plate. Then she took a seat next to Lady Beatrix at the dining table. At the other end, Reverend Pinker plucked a rose from the centerpiece and handed it gallantly down the table to her.

  “A rose for a rose,” he said with a heavy nasal intonation as three pairs of eyes turned to her. Everyone laughed except for Katie.

  Ignoring Pinker’s ardent ogling, Katie nibbled at her toast triangle smeared with egg-yolk butter and gooseberry jam, but stopped when she heard a loud voice calling out from the doorway:

  “Greetings! There you are, Lady Bug!” The accent was distinctly American.

  “Haven’t forgotten our sitting today, have you, Lady B?” demanded a chin-bearded man in an overly hearty voice. And as he strolled forward into the dining room, the French beret angled on his head flapped up and down like a giant pancake. Covering him to the knees was a blousy, paint-speckled artist’s smock, and tied round
the smock’s ruffled collar was what looked like an op-art cravat. But psychedelic scarves wouldn’t be in vogue for another century.

  “James!” Lady Beatrix laughed, hailing him with her raised hand. “Of course, I haven’t forgotten! The easel is all set up in the morning room. Now remember . . . mum’s the word if my grandfather puts in an appearance.” She pressed her fingers against her lips and smiled warmly at him.

  “Come,” she continued, beckoning. “Join us. The blood pudding is divine! Now, let’s see . . . you know Major Brown and the Reverend Pinker, of course. But have you met our American houseguest, Miss Katherine Lennox? Katie, this is Mr. James Whistler.”

  The man with the goatee and floppy beret strode closer, hand outstretched, beaming at Katie. “A compatriot? By golly, you don’t say! Where do you hail from, Miss Lennox? Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” He squinted his eyes at her, nodded, and declared with confidence: “You’re from New York or Philadelphia, am I right? No?” He raised an eyebrow and stroked his pointy chin beard. “Surely not Hartford—no one of note, save my good friend Samuel Clemens, hails from Hartford—hmmm . . . Boston, then! That’s the ticket. Has to be. A beauty such as you can only have been whelped in New England. Charmed. Delighted. Enchanté!” He snatched up Katie’s hand, which still held the half-eaten toast, raised it to his lips, smooched loudly, and sank into the chair to her right.

  “Darned if I don’t insist—insist—on painting you next,” Whistler pronounced flamboyantly. He leaned in close to her ear and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t tell a soul, but I’m from Massachusetts myself. I’ll heartily deny it if you breathe a word. Puritanical hypocrites and philistines all—present company excluded, of course.”

  Katie felt her eyes grow wide. So this was Whistler? The James Abbott McNeill Whistler!

  “It’s a p-pleasure to meet you, sir,” Katie stammered, blinking at him. Had he painted his famous mother yet? And why hadn’t she known he was an American? From Massachusetts. Somehow Katie had thought that James Whistler was British.

  “Confound it!” Whistler roared in an accent that sounded as if he’d stepped off a southern plantation, and not from New England. “Confound it, I say! Have you read the newspapers? Lookie here—” He scratched his pointed little beard, tugged on the mop of brown curls spilling out from under his beret, and unfurled the newspaper curled under his arm.

  Major Brown coughed loudly and said to Lady Beatrix in a stage whisper so all could hear, “My dear, I took the liberty of having the morning papers put aside, out of view. Distressing business. Nothing you need concern yourself with.” He snapped his fingers at one of the footmen standing at attention on either side of the sideboard and pointed at his empty mug of tea.

  “Really, Gideon! You surprise me,” Beatrix said with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Pray tell me you are not going to be one of those dreadful, antiquated husbands who forbid their wives to read the newspapers?”

  “Confound it!” bristled Whistler. “Never took you for a man who believes woman shouldn’t bother their pretty little heads with politics and the like.”

  “Of course not! I merely think that some of the more crude elements of—”

  “Of what? Gideon, you frighten me! You sound precisely like the Duke! I assure you my pretty little head is filled with far more weighty issues than fashion and the latest society soirées!” She winked at Whistler. “Though I confess to occasionally reading the Daily Mirror for its marvelous gossip!” Her eye held a teasing twinkle. She turned back to Major Brown.

  “Now, darling. Don’t be a beast,” she laughed. “I have a passion for the daily papers, as you well know. How dreary life would be without them! I’m not a bluestocking intellectual, and I certainly don’t believe women should vote, but I won’t abide a husband who believes his wife takes second place. Or that men are the more important members of society! Here now, let me see what all the fuss is about—”

  Lady Beatrix reached across to James Whistler on the other side of Katie, but Major Brown said curtly and firmly, “I’ll take that.” He stood up, rounded the table, and was about to snatch the newspaper from Whistler’s grasp, when Katie seized it. She fanned it open and stared at the headline:

  MAD SLASHER STRIKES AGAIN!

  PHANTOM KILLER VANISHES WITHOUT A TRACE!

  In as clear and loud a voice as Katie could muster she began to read:

  “London, September 8. Not since the days of Bloody Mary has our fair city been so terrorized! A mysterious, diabolical killer is prowling the streets of London, slashing the throats of innocent young women, disemboweling them, and then vanishing into the night without a trace. The Metropolitan Police are at a loss to find this fiend whom they have dubbed ‘The Slasher Swine.’

  “ ‘This is the work of an unbalanced mind,’ states Major Gideon Brown, assistant chief inspector of the CID, who exhorts the denizens of Whitechapel to remain calm but alert to further outrages. Readers of the London Herald are advised to take the utmost precautions until this menacing killer is apprehended.”

  Katie went on to read the victims’ names: Miss Mary Ann Nichols, murdered on the thirty-first of August in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel, and Mrs. Annabel Chapman, murdered in Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, on the night of September the eighth.

  Katie held up the newspaper so all could see the pen and ink drawing depicting a younger looking Annie Chapman with ear-length ringlets curling around a demure face beneath a straw hat clustered with ribbons and bows.

  “Gracious!” cried Reverend Pinker. “Those poor women! Miss Nichols was known to me from my work at the Parish House, and this other lady, Mrs. Chapman, the poor, poor soul, I made her acquaintance only yesterday! I shall pray for her.” Pinker had the decency to look grave-faced and solemn even though his face twitched with fear.

  Fear of what? Katie wondered. Did Reverend Pinker know something? Was he involved in the murders? By the furtive look in his eye, and the gulping of his throat, he looked as if he’d just been caught stealing from the church offering.

  Katie paused. There was more to read, but Major Brown had clamped his large hands around hers and was prying the newspaper from her clenched fingers. Further reading was out of the question. A faint flush of triumph—or was that hostility?—sprang into Major Brown’s face as he glanced around the table at the others.

  “Undoubtedly you can understand why I took the liberty of hiding the newspapers this morning.” He shot Katie a reproving look, then slid the paper under his vest.

  A stomping noise.

  The dining room door banged open, and Collin, dressed in last night’s clothes, loomed large in the doorframe.

  “By Jove, Collin!” shouted Whistler, heartily. “Confound it! Where have you been of late? Haven’t seen you in a donkey’s age! Blast it, boy! I’ve missed our painting lessons. Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind about becoming a caricature artist?”

  “Whistler, old bean!” Collin cried out in return, but his voice was flat and his eyes were clamped on Major Brown.

  Lady Beatrix rose from her seat. “Collin! Where have you been? Grandfather is sick with worry. Toby’s gone out looking for you.”

  “Yes! Yes!” chimed in Reverend Pinker. “I had an audience with the Duke this morning. He said to send ‘those two young cubs’ in to see him immediately. He meant you and Toby. Best go see him this instant.”

  “I’ve just been with the Duke. Heard all he had to say. Actually, quite an earful.” Collin glanced from Lady Beatrix to Reverend Pinker to Katie. Standing haughtily in the doorway, a dark cape thrown over his shoulders, Collin looked . . . not bored, exactly, but restive and impatient, with an intense frown scoring the area between his brows. He took a step into the room, his tall boots crusted with mud.

  “Good morning, Collin.” Major Brown nodded curtly.

  “Is it? A good morning?” Collin asked. His right hand slipped inside his cape and pulled out a riding crop with a long, sharp whip end. He strode across the room and, stopping
in front of Major Brown, said, “You’re as cold as a snake! I’m done with your playing us for fools. You won’t get away with this. And what’s more, you shan’t marry my sister, not while there’s an ounce of breath left in my body!” He raised the riding crop and slashed it viciously across the left side of Major Brown’s face.

  The crop struck with such force that Katie, standing next to Major Brown, heard the singing whoosh of it slicing through the air just before it hit its mark.

  The stunned, incredulous silence that followed seemed to stretch out forever.

  Not a muscle moved in Major Brown’s face, though his left cheekbone showed a fierce welt, rising red and swollen like a burn from a fire poker. He hadn’t even flinched when the whip hit him.

  Reverend Pinker was the first to move. Leaping out of his chair, he flew to the bell-cord across the room and tugged violently, as if summoning the butler would be of any use.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Shepherd’s Staff and Poles say the Bells of All Souls

  In all the confusion of Collin’s horse-whipping Major Brown, Toby slipped into the dining room unnoticed and hastened to Collin’s side, at the exact moment that Katie strode forward, planting herself protectively on Collin’s right.

  Toby gave Katie a slight nod and she deftly tugged the crop from Collin’s grasp and held it firmly in her own. She glanced at Toby. There was a challenge in his expression as he stood there glaring at Major Brown, almost as if Toby were daring the man to make the next move. But Major Brown did nothing. He stood stock still, the welt on his cheek appearing like a crimson hieroglyph on a stone tablet. He won’t retaliate, Katie thought. Not in front of Lady Beatrix.

  “Gideon!” Lady Beatrix cried, clutching Major Brown’s sleeve as if she might swoon. “My darling, are you hurt? Collin didn’t mean it! He couldn’t mean it—”