Ripped (16 page)

“What's it to be, Miss Lennox?” Toby demanded.

“No jellied eel. I won't tell you a thing unless you promise it stays between us.”

Toby grabbed her wrist, yanked her up the stairs, and tugged her skidding and squirming back into Collin's room. “Tell me now, or I'm dragging you out of this house and taking you directly to Major Brown's lodgings, dressed in your chemise and night-pinnings if need be.”

“Surely not, Toby! You can't take Katherine to that bruiser's house in a state of undress! She'll be the laughing stock of . . . of her entire country! A state of undress, indeed. What will the Duke say when he hears about this?”

Toby strode to the window, Katie in tow. With his free hand he snapped open the window, and the curtains billowed in the blustering wind.

“See here, Toby!” Collin squawked. “You can't do this! She'll catch her death of cold. It's not decent! She'll break her neck on the rooftop, she'll—”

“He's bluffing,” Katie said between gritted teeth, hoping it was true.

Maintaining a firm grip on Katie's wrist, Toby slouched out of his Grim Reaper cape and threw it around her shoulders. Then he hoisted her in a fireman's carry over his shoulder and pitched himself halfway out the window. Katie could feel the sting of cold air.

“Okay. Okay!” she cried. “You win. I'll tell you.”

Toby slogged back into the room and dropped her unceremoniously into the armchair by the fire. Behind them, Collin scrambled to fasten the window as another gust of air made the logs in the fireplace sputter and sizzle.

An uneasy expression pinched around Toby's mouth as he gripped both of the chair's arms and leaned forward with his face menacingly close to Katie's. “I'm listening.”

Staring up into his dark eyes, Katie could feel her heart beating heavily. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know about Mary Ann Nichols . . . because . . . I'm clairvoyant. Psychic. Telepathic. I can see into the future. Sometimes. Not always. There. Are you satisfied?”

Toby regarded her with skepticism, then his strong jaw relaxed, and the squint lines around his eyes deepened into amusement. “It doesn't take a bleedin' Oxford scholar to figure out that you're either an incredibly good actress or completely deranged.”

“None of the above,” Katie muttered, folding her arms firmly across her chest.

“Above what?” yelped Collin, clearly puzzled.

Katie stared at him. “None of the above” was probably an expression used to fill out computer forms. “None of those choices,” she quickly amended.

“Prove it,” Toby said. The hostile gleam in his dark eyes had returned. “Lock the grady moore, Collin,” he instructed without taking his eyes off Katie.

Collin scrambled across the floor and shot the bolt in the door.

“This is the last jellied eel you're likely to get from me, Miss Katherine. Prove that you are indeed a hocus-pocus mind reader, or I'm going to take you over my knee and wallop the living pony and trap out of you.”

“Okay. That's it, buster!” Katie sprang to her feet. “Have you ever heard of women's liberation? You lay a hand on me and I'll karate chop you in the solar plexus so hard you won't sit down for a week! Take
that
jellied eel and shove it up your—”

“April in Paris?” Toby raised an amused eyebrow.

“If that means—”

“Arse!” Collin squealed.

“Then yes, Toby,” Katie said, breathing hard. “You can shove it up your April in Paris!”

Toby leaned closer. His lips brushed across her cheek making her shiver as he whispered softly in her ear, “I'm assuming that women's liberation has something to do with John Stuart Mill and the suffragette movement. But it's of no consequence. If you prove that you're clairvoyant, you can wallop me in the solar plexus as hard as you want. Otherwise, make no mistake, I'm marching your April in Paris to Major Brown's lodgings, and he can handle this as he sees fit. That's a right fair jellied eel, Miss Katherine, now isn't it?”

Chapter Seventeen

Pray When Will That Be? say the Bells of Stepney

“
O
kay, Toby. Close your eyes
and conjure up a picture of the dead girl,” Katie instructed.

Toby stared at her, his gaze never wavering from her face, but Collin squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

Katie closed her own eyes and pretended deep concentration. “I see . . . a girl . . . whose throat has . . . been slit . . . but there's more. She's been eviscerated. Disemboweled.” Katie opened her eyes. “Am I correct?”

“Jumping Jehoshaphat!” Collin cried, striking his fists together. “Katherine, you're a mind reader! That's
exactly
what I was thinking! A naked girl all cut up to ribbons. Blood everywhere! Lots and lots of blood. Toby! Katherine is a blooming mind reader! God's truth! She read my mind. She did!”

Katie looked at Collin. “I didn't read
your
mind, Collin. You weren't
at
the morgue. I was picking up Toby's thoughts.”

“No. No. You were picking up mine! Lord love a duck! That's
exactly
what I was thinking! Exactly, Katherine!”

“Before we go any further,” Katie said, “may I ask a favor of both of you? At home everyone calls me Katie to avoid confusing me with my aunt Katherine, so I'm not used to being called Katherine. You are both welcome to call me Katie.”

Just then, one of the candles on the desk spluttered and puffed out.

Katie cast her mind back, trying to dredge up details about the first victim from the Madame Tussauds Jack the Ripper exhibit. “There wasn't a lot of blood was there, Toby? The police officer who found her, or maybe it was a doctor or coroner or undertaker — whoever it was, didn't pick up on the fact that Mary Ann Nichols was disemboweled because . . . because . . . I'm not sure exactly . . . Maybe her clothing was covering it up. Am I right?”

Collin gestured with his arms. “I tell you, in
my
mind I saw lots of blood! And I was thinking about that cat! Did you see a cat, Katherine?” And then as though defending a point, Collin said eagerly. “You did, didn't you? I knew it.”

Katie looked at Toby's scowling face. “Words can't describe the horror of it, or accurately convey what happened to that poor girl. And it's horrible talking about her like this. But am I right, Toby? Do we have a deal?”

Toby remained mute, but Katie charged on. “The reason you can't tell Major Brown or any other policeman is because the person who did this—
and who will kill more girls if we don
'
t stop him
—might be a police officer.”

“Major Brown!” Collin whooped. “It's him, isn't it? He's a bad lot. I've known it all along. I hate that blighter. I've always hated him. Now the Governor will
have
to put a stop to his involvement with Beatrix. I've been right about Major Bumble-Brain from the start. If only people would listen to me—”

“Major Brown is
not
the culprit.” Toby's eyes were cold, his voice hard as steel. “Major Gideon Brown would no more kill an innocent girl than you or I could fly to the moon or travel through time. He's an honorable, decent man. To accuse him is an unjust, wicked—”

“But it's true! It has to be. Katherine saw it in her visions. She's clairvoyant! A soothsayer!”

“No, Collin. That's not what I said and not what I saw.”

“But—”

“I
said
it's a possibility that the killer is a police officer. Whoever's doing this will continue, and it's going to get worse. The killer will be someone who can walk the streets of London undetected. Someone above suspicion . . . like a police officer, a minister, a doctor . . . someone you wouldn't expect. A woman for instance, or—”

“A woman!” Collin bristled, his eyes bulging out like the stuffed trout hanging over his desk. “
Never!
The gentler sex couldn't perpetrate such a dastardly—”

“Or a man dressed as a woman. Any number of people, Collin. The point is, the killer has to be caught before he murders more innocent girls,
especially his last victim
. We've got to stop him.
We have to find him.
”

“Just gaze into your crystal ball, Katherine. Dash it all,
you
'
re
the clairvoyant one.” Collin stumped over and flopped himself into the armchair by the fire. “You need to tell
us
who this blighter is.”

“It's not like that, Collin. I don't have a crystal ball. I only know that he'll strike again. And the papers will call him Jack the Ripper.”

“Surely you can conjure this killer up in your mind and” — Collin snapped his fingers.—“
Poof!
He'll come to you. Close your eyes and give it a try—”

“No, I can't.”

“But
mightn
'
t
this Jack-of-all-Trades killer just pop into your mind when you least expect it?”

“No. That's not how . . . er . . . my gift works.”

Collin scratched his chin. “If you can't predict who the killer is, how do you know there
will
be more murders? You have a gift, as you call it. I'll accept that. But if you can't tell us the identity of this Jack-of-Hearts killer, how can we trust that your visions are, er, trustworthy? You said you wanted to return home, Katherine. Are you afraid of this rum bloke, is that it? You're having nightmares about him, and that's why you crept into my room like a sleepwalker?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, no. I'm not having nightmares. Well, I am sort of . . . having nightmares,” she ended lamely.

“Toby, old boy? What are you thinking?” Collin asked from his slouched position in the chair. “You're awfully quiet. Not still contemplating hauling Katherine off to prison, are you?”

“I'm thinking that Miss Lennox might not be a mind reader after all. Perhaps she knows the killer. Perhaps the
killer
gave her all this information.”

“Killer? How? When? The only person she's been with is
me
. You don't think I'm the killer? Shall I confess, then?” Collin said almost eagerly. “There's a jellied eel for you. I confess. It was me. I killed that poor girl and . . . the cat, too. My blimey motive would be, er . . . er . . .” He stuck his neck in and out of his robe's collar like a turtle. “
Hmmm
, what motive? I hate women, that's it! All women. I'm a misogynist through and through so I went to the East End, found a lusty wench and—” he drew his finger across his throat.

“I'm not accusing you of anything, Collin,” Toby said quietly.

“Well,
that
'
s
a first.” Collin grinned, then turned to Katie and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “I'm always in the soup with Toby
or
my grandfather.”

“I don't believe in hocus-pocus,” Toby said, glancing from Katie to Collin and back again. He shook his head. Like most Cockneys, he had a superstitious bent, yet he scoffed at people who were ruled by portents and bad omens. And as for predicting the future, that would mean that man did not have free will. Toby definitely did not believe that one's life was set in stone and everything was preordained.

“So, Miss Katherine,” Toby pronounced his words slowly, his eyes never wavering from hers. “If you
can
foresee the future, and I say
if
because I don't believe such a thing is possible. But
if
it were possible, and we could catch this phantom killer and stop other girls from being butchered, does that mean the future—as you foresee it—is changeable and not set in stone?”

Set in stone.
At the mention of the familiar phrase, Katie thought about the London Stone.
Nothing is set in stone
, she thought.
Or maybe everything
is!
Maybe time is a continual loop with the past, present, and future on a circular continuum.

“I don't know, Toby,” Katie answered. “I just don't know. If you'd asked me that question several days ago I'd have said the future hasn't happened so it can't possibly unfold in any predictable fashion — every decision, every action a person makes, or a thousand people make, can trigger another action or reaction, and therefore the future hasn't happened and can't be predicted. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe the future, like the past, has already happened. Maybe we can travel back and forth through time—”

“And
maybe
man will fly to the moon,” Collin scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“And walk on it,” Katie said, holding back a smile.

“And I'm a monkey's uncle,” Collin mocked.

“Maybe you are . . . or descended from one.” Katie sighed. In the next century Collin and Toby would face a barrage of new inventions and modern technology. Telephones, airplanes, automobiles, electric lighting, phonographs, radios, refrigeration, flush toilets, vaccines. If they lived long enough, they would also see two world wars, rocket ships, computers, medical advances.

“So, what number am I thinking of?” Collin demanded, squeezing his eyes shut again. “It's between one and ten.”

The gas jets on either side of the mantel threw spangles of light across his scrunched-up face.

“I can't read minds, Collin. I can only see images . . . sometimes. Blurry images. Pictures in my head. That's all.”

Collin sprang from the chair and thrust out his open hand. A strange, almost wild expression had settled on his face. “Read my palm, then,” he insisted. “What's in my future? Am I to have a long, happy life like the old gypsy in Hyde Park tells me whenever I cross her palm with a heaping lot of chinking coins? Better yet, am I going to come face to face with this Ripper-Van-Winkle bloke?”

“Collin. I can't read palms. I'm not a fortune-teller.”

“Dashed useless then, aren't you?” Collin blinked myopically down at his open palm, but when he glanced up, he was grinning. “It's all right, Katherine. We're going to help you. We're going to track down this Jackass the Slasher.”

“Jack the Ripper.”

“Him, too. Isn't that right, Toby?”

Toby's eyes had never left Katie's. “I'm going to need something more tangible,” he answered in a heavy, unemotional voice.

“More tangible? More tangible than a dead girl?” sputtered Collin.