Shadows Fall Away

by Forbes, Kit

  “I miss you, and I worry about you terribly. It’s so unsafe here. Jack says you’ve been working so hard—”

  “Jack? Jack Palmer?”

  Phoebe sat back. “Yes. Father brought him and one of his top students to tea the other day and I haven’t been able to get what he said out of my mind.”

  I ground my back teeth together, clutched the handle of the umbrella tighter still until my knuckles ached. “What did he say?”

  The usual coldness in Phoebe’s eyes seemed to lessen. “He said what we’ve all been trying to tell you. Your heart is so full of caring but so many of the people here you try to help don’t appreciate it, especially those sort of women. You can put your knack for nursing to far better use by aiding a husband in private practice. Think of all the good you could do in society by raising funds and helping the unfortunates who deserve and appreciate it the way Mother does with her soldiers. But you can’t change those who don’t want to change. And you shouldn’t let them bring you down to their level of merely existing.”

  “Phoebe—”

  “Don’t say anything. Just think about it, really think about it, Eugenia.”

  She took hold of my hand again and squeezed and looked so much like the big sister who used to comfort me when I was frightened of the dark.

  “I know I won’t have a long life because of this blasted sickness and I don’t want to go to my grave knowing my only sister is unhappy and working herself to the bone.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears that trickled down my cheeks.

  “Let me take you home.”

  I shook my head, wiped the tear with my fingertips. “I can’t not show up. The ward is full. They need me tonight.”

  Phoebe nodded. “Harry will take you. He needs to retrieve Father from the hospital and take Mother to pay a midwife call on one of her soldiers’ granddaughters near Commercial Road or someplace.”

  Jack Palmer was signing in with the night attendant when I arrived at the Infirmary.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Not as such, but the pounding lessened and I am able to think straight for the time being.” He offered me his arm after I signed the admittance book. “Might I escort you to your ward, Miss Trambley?”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Mark

  I felt like total crap.

  It was already dark out so I knew I’d slept all day—guessed I’d slept all day. It had been pretty cloudy when I’d gotten in. But my stomach growled and hurt like it had been empty for days.

  I froze in the dark little room at Gurov’s. I couldn’t have been out of it long enough to miss the murders, could I? Nah. Gurov would have woken me up or tossed my lifeless body in the gutter if it had been more than a couple hours.

  I sat up, wincing and groaning against the stiffness in my muscles. Gotta love old school police interrogation tactics. The cold, dampness of the room sure wasn’t helping matters. I fumbled around to light the little lantern on the small table at the foot of the bed. I glanced to the door. Of course Gurov would slide his latest bit of epic reporting under the door for me to read. It was tomorrow’s edition. September thirtieth. Right. I was still on schedule. I went over to the high little window. There was a faint glow of a street lamp outside the back gate but it was too cloudy to see where the moon was.

  It was probably around eight or nine.

  Shuffling back to the lamp table, I picked up the pocket watch and flipped it open.

  After midnight! Shit! It was almost time for the first murder. Son of a—

  I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my jacket, and hauled ass out of there. No way in hell was I going to make it in time to catch the Ripper.

  Running on wet streets in high button shoes you hadn’t bothered to button wasn’t the brightest idea but I didn’t dare stop. What choice did I have, even though each step jarred an aching muscle I didn’t remember having?

  Even though it was a total crappy night and hardly anyone was around the constables were making their rounds and I had to slow to a walk and do a lot of ducking out of sight to get past them as I closed in on the area around Berner Street. At least walking fast wouldn’t draw too much attention on a rainy night like this.

  I ducked out of sight when I heard a clop of hooves behind me. It must be the guy, the one who found the first body. I wiped dripping water out of my face and tried to think. The body was still warm and bleeding when they found her, right? Didn’t people say they thought the Ripper was hiding in the darkness of the yard and slipped out when the cart guy went for help?

  The clopping got louder. I searched the street. Not the cart guy, a carriage and—holy crap, was that the slimy Jack guy who was hanging around with Genie? And was he wearing a Sherlock Holmes-looking hat?

  The carriage turned off Berner and I didn’t know what to do. It was him it had to be. He was ditching his getaway ride on a nearby street.

  Keeping to the shadows close to the building, I followed, giving one backward look to the entrance to that yard where the first body would be found. Shops and row houses crowded the street where the carriage stopped and when Jack got out I shifted ready to go knock the crap out of him but then I saw her, Genie. What? No! No way! Not her!

  They were arguing and I crept closer.

  “Then don’t be here, Jack. Go back to the infirmary. I’ll be quite all right. I can’t leave the girl if she’s in trouble and Mother left her.”

  Jack rubbed his temples and his stance said he was pissed and on edge. “I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

  I ducked back when Genie turned toward the sound of door squeaking open. An old guy limped out onto the sidewalk with a lantern and motioned Genie inside. “Thank ya, Miss. The Missus was helping me Meg but she went for a spot of air and ain’t come back an’ Meg is awake again and in frightful pain that don’t seem natural…”

  I leaned my head back against the cold brick wall and tried to make sense of it. So now I had at least three suspects on the loose and all in different directions? I swiped my wet hair out of my eyes. Think, think, think! Genie was the closest to where Liz Stride would be killed, but it couldn’t be here. It couldn’t. Jack the slime ball was close too and where the hell did Genie’s mother come into it? She was a bitchy old lady, but a murderer? Hell, it might as well be the sister wanting payback for her husband’s giving her a deadly STD or the father, just because.

  Jack Palmer. It was definitely Jack Palmer.

  He got out of the carriage and sent it on ahead back near Berner. I ducked into an alley when a cop turned the next corner and came my way. When I got back to Main Street, Palmer was just past the socialist club near the murder site. Could he have done it? Was it time? I dug in my pocket for the watch. Shit! I left it in my room. It had to be around twelve forty-five, the murder time. I followed him until he caught up to his hired carriage again. A guy with a cart came into the bit of light at the end of the next block.

  Shit! Palmer must have killed Liz Stride in that minute I’d ducked away from the cop. I hurried along in the dark, slipping on wet patches of pavements and bits of slippery somethings I didn’t want to think about. Damn, the unbuttoned shoe made me fall hard and I lost the carriage just at it picked up speed and headed west. My ankle hurt like a mother but I sucked it up and hurried to lace the boot as tight as I could to keep it from swelling.

  My crap luck staying true to form more wild hackneys appeared and I didn’t know which one Palmer was in. Of course I started following the wrong one who dropped a couple home not far away. I backtracked, had to stop and try to get my bearings then headed off in the direction of Mitre Square the next murder scene. I stopped again. Wait. They thought the Ripper stopped somewhere between the yard on Berner on his way to Mitre Square. There was a graffiti about “Juwes” scrawled over a door and a piece of the victim’s bloody apron. I looked around and headed to Goulston Street—at least to what I thought was the direction of Goulston Street. Or did it happen th
e other way around and he backtracked after the Mitre Square killing and then stopped at Goulston? Was it Liz Stride’s apron they’d found a piece of or Catherine Eddowes?

  Why couldn’t I freakin’ think?

  The wind blew around and through my wet clothes. I shivered hard. I stepped back wrenched the ankle I’d twisted earlier and fell to one knee. Why this, why now?

  I heard the echo of police whistles in the distance.

  Catching my breath and trying to will away the throbbing pain, I figured there was no sense going back; better to try to get to Miter Square before it was too late or at least hope I ran into Palmer going one way or the other. The world spun as I heaved myself back to my feet and I felt like I did after downing a half bottle of vodka. I had to reach out to steady myself. Great. Now I was going to be lightheaded from not eating.

  I took a long deep breath. I had to get a grip. This was it, my ticket home, and I had to catch Jack in the act or right after it. Gritting my teeth, I made the quickest limping jog I could.

  I thought I caught the echo of a man’s voice saying, “Come with me” as I closed in on the nearest entrance to Mitre Square. I should have swung around to the passage that had the hanging lantern.

  The lantern didn’t do much. I knew Jack had picked the darkest section of the place. But I couldn’t think. Which way should I turn from where I was? If I went toward the lamp it would be ahead to the right, so if I went in opposite I needed to hang left—

  Something slammed into me from behind, a bolt of pain shot through my shoulder, and head and it all went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Present Day

  Agatha

  I steeled my resolve, occupied by studying the artwork in the entrance hall of Percy’s town home before joining my niece and her husband in the parlor. Much to Percy’s consternation, Mark Sr. paced the length of the antique Persian carpet with enough force to wear the pattern into the fibers. Melissa sat on the divan across from Percy and politely sipped a cup of tea.

  I entered the room and lightly cleared my throat, determined to simply tell them my theory.

  Assuming, of course, Mark Sr. would let me. He gave me the kind of cold hard stare that could only belong to a seasoned police detective.

  “Look, Agatha, I’ll cut to the chase. If you know where Mark is, tell us. As much as I want to wring the little shit’s neck for making his mother worry like this I just want to know he’s okay and if he’s off on some bender of booze and dope, I want to get him home and into rehab, ASAP.”

  “Getting him home will be the sticky wicket, won’t it?” Percy muttered.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Melissa stood and grabbed her husband’s arm. “Mark, please.”

  He shook her off and strode over to the French doors to peer out at the garden. I took a seat on the chair opposite Percy. “Percy has a friend, a psychic, Madam Eltsina—” I stopped short at the sound of Mark Sr.’s contemptuous snort.

  “Mark, please, let’s hear Aunt Agatha out.”

  He turned and glared at me but went to sit next to Melissa who had retaken her seat on the divan.

  I cleared my throat. “Yes, well. As I was saying I’ve had a few visits with Madam Eltsina and we’ve come to the conclusion that young Mark is in London, but not the London we’re in now.”

  “I don’t understand.” Melissa looked even more worn and hurt.

  “That’s makes two of us,” Mark Sr. grumbled.

  I took the cup of tea Percy offered me and had a sip. “I realize how inconceivable it sounds and I was reluctant to even give it a second thought but, then I began postulating and couldn’t help but remember Mr. Conan-Doyle’s words.”

  True to an author of historical mysteries, Melissa finished my thought. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  “Indeed. And while I realize that quite a lot is possible given young Mark’s past escapades, I truly feel he was making progress in his attitude in the two months we spent traveling. He’s a bright boy, inquisitive, resourceful. Surely if he was as far gone into alcohol and drugs as you’ve feared then he would have bolted at the first opportunity long before we left America.”

  “She has a point, Mark.”

  He shook his head. “I dunno, Mel. The kid’s got the making of a Grade A Player. How often did he string you along with the sad puppy eyes and the good behavior only to throw it all to hell for a wild party?”

  Melissa sniffled as tears brimmed in her eyes.

  With a defeated sigh only a frustrated parent could emit, Mark rubbed her back and glanced at me. “So what is this improbable thing you think my son has gotten himself into?”

  “Perhaps you should both let Percy get you a brandy first.”

  “You think he’s traveled through time? Back to Jack the Ripper’s day? Are you both freakin’ insane?”

  I swore the decibels Mark emitted rattled the crystal prisms in Percy’s chandelier.

  “Yes I know it seems like the stuff of science fiction but—”

  “It’s the stuff of crazy is what it is, lady.”

  “Mark!” Melissa closed her eyes a moment. “Aunt Agatha, you have to admit that time travel is beyond the realm of probability.”

  “Not necessarily,” Percy offered. He got up and took a folder of various articles and clippings from the drawer of a corner table. “I’ve taken the liberty of collecting firsthand accounts form reliable sources of instances of “time-slips” and while I would have agreed it could never happen, after reading these and speaking with Madam Eltsina my mind is certainly more open to the possibility.”

  “And there are the physics probabilities.” I took a folded paper from my sweater pocket and offered it to my niece. “I’ve taken the liberty of contacting some colleagues well versed in quantum physics. They concur that while it isn’t something we can yet direct and use as a mode of transportation that, it is on some levels, theoretically possible.”

  “Jesus, Melissa, don’t tell me you’re buying into this crap?”

  “I don’t think he’s off on a binge. Not this time. Something happened to him. There’s no way he could’ve gotten hit by lightning and simply vanished in the minute it took for Aunt Agatha to get help. And there was no forensic evidence that the strike was strong enough to vaporize him or anything. You saw it. Evidence that he should have been there on the ground hurt, not up and gone in less than three minutes.”

  Mark rubbed his temples. “All right then. I don’t believe this craziness, but just say for a minute that I did. How do you propose we get him back?”

  “I haven’t quite worked that out but I believe it may have something to do with my ancestor Cedric Hawkesmythe’s work. He was a self-taught scientist you see, and I have a colleague, one of the physicists I mentioned, looking over some journals of his that I’ve found and he should be here in a few days’ time.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  1888

  Genie

  I pulled my cloak tighter around myself as I waited for the tram to reach the stop nearest the tea shop. With all the talk of murder rampant in the streets the very last thing I needed was for anyone to see the blood that soaked through my apron during the delivery of Sergeant Bristol’s grandchild. Or rather, attempted delivery. I’d lost both of them, though not for lack of trying. I simply hadn’t encountered a series of complications like that before. And it all happened so quickly. The doctor who lived nearby had already been called away.

  Mother would have done better, but of course she’d left after learning the girl was unmarried and not a widow as she’d assumed. And Jack, he’d returned eventually but after it was far too late and there was no stopping the mother’s bleeding.

  I exited the tram to be greeted by anxious newsboys hawking their special edition on the night’s two gruesome deaths. There’d been four and two of them were on my hands.

/>   “You look quite the fright, dear,” Mrs. O’Connell said as I approached the passage leading to the side entrance and to my flat. “Don’t you worry. It looks bad now but he’s a strong lad, you’ll see.”

  The composure I struggled to hold onto dissolved like a sodden dam. “He would have been a strong lad if I hadn’t botched his birth! Now he’s dead!” I collapsed back against the damp brick wall, the sobs wracking my body as frustration and fatigue. The feelings of utter uselessness poured out.

  Mrs. O’Connell put her arm around my shoulders. She escorted me into the tea shop though the rear door, took my coat, and sat me down near the warm stove. Poor Mrs. O’Connell having to be the de facto confessor to hear my litany of sins and shortcomings. No wonder Inspector Fraser treated me as little more than a fly-like pest, no wonder my own family thought I was some inane crusader blinded by the shining beacon of altruism. No wonder Mark Stewart acted as though I was a simple girl who didn’t really understand the workings of “the real world.”

  Mrs. O’Connell’s earlier words seeped through my torrent of self-pity. I set my steaming mug on a metal bin beside my chair. “What did you mean before? You said something about ‘him being a strong lad and things looking bad now.’”

  The warm tea churned in my stomach at her expression. “It’s young Mark, dear. He was injured last night. They’re not sure how or by who but one of the PCs who was called out because of the killings found him lying in a puddle behind an empty warehouse around dawn. He had a nasty gash on his head, I think a broken leg and someone tried to stab him. Inspector Fraser said he was running a fever.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At your father’s ‘ospital, dear.”

  I stood, swallowing back the dread and nausea that made the kitchen close in around me. “I’ve got to change, I’ve got to go.”