Lost and Gone Forever (25 page)

H
atty was halfway down the stairs when a long shadow stretched across the floor below her. A man turned the corner and looked up at her, and in the split second it took her to recognize him, Hatty panicked and stumbled.

Hammersmith bounded up the stairs and caught her as she fell. The impact caused him to take a backward step down, but he held on to her. When she looked up, he was frowning at her.

“Hatty? What are you doing here? It’s not safe.”

“I know it’s not safe. Let go of me.” She pushed him away and they stood awkwardly mashed together in the narrow stairwell. She felt embarrassed for having tripped and ashamed for snapping at him when he had helped her. She wished he hadn’t seen her lose her balance. She was certain he thought she was nothing more than a silly little girl.

“Hatty, there’s a dangerous man somewhere around here. You can’t be—”

“He’s upstairs,” she said. She could already hear the crackle of flames behind her. Soon, the fire would be visible and the stairs would become unpassable. “You’re talking about Mr Oberon, right?
I don’t think that’s his real name. He’s killed Mr Hargreave, so we’re not going to be paid for that case, I don’t think.”

“I don’t care about that. I need you to get far away from here. But where is he up there?”

“There’s a room at the end of the passage on the next floor up. He’s injured, and I don’t think he can move.” She grabbed Hammersmith’s arm as he stepped around her. “Mr Hammersmith, I set it on fire. He’s going to burn up there. Leave him.”

“You have no idea what this man is capable of.”

“How do you know him? He mentioned you to me.”

“We have a history. I’ll tell you about it if we survive until tomorrow.”

As they spoke, the landing above them had grown gradually darker and smokier. The wallpaper at the corner of the stairwell began to peel away, curling toward them in long strips.

“Go!” Hammersmith pointed the way down and out, then turned away from Hatty and ran up the stairs, two at a time. He disappeared in a billow of dark smoke.

Hatty looked down, then up, then shrugged her shoulders and followed Hammersmith back up toward the room where she knew Mr Oberon was waiting.

•   •   •

S
IR
E
DWARD
B
RADFORD GRABBED
his hat and stopped at the door, looking back at his office and trying to think of anything he might need. He had learned long ago never to rush into anything without first considering what might happen. The price of that lesson had been his left arm, and he had determined that the loss would only strengthen him. He went back to the desk and took his Webley from the top drawer, stuffed it into his belt.

He rushed down the stairs with Fawkes at his heels and he pointed at Inspector Tiffany, who stood at his desk with a sheaf of papers in his hands. Tiffany was in his shirtsleeves and had the rumpled look of someone who had not slept.

“Inspector Tiffany, you’re with me,” Sir Edward said. “And I want Inspector Blacker, too. Sergeant Kett, you can come. Fawkes, you’ll coordinate from here. Kett will relay anything needs doing.”

“What’s happening, sir?”

“That damn telephone again. And every time it rings, it’s always something about Inspector Day.”

“What,” Tiffany said, “he’s been found yet again?”

“Indeed. We’re off to that new department store. Plume’s.”

“Plumm’s, you mean,” Kett said. “But, sir, there’s nothing there. The place is a ruin and everyone’s been cleared out. If Mr Day was there, he ain’t anymore.”

“I have just received word from Dr Kingsley that our man Day is indeed at that store. And I’ll be damned if I let him slip away from us again. I’m going out there myself this time, and I’ll grab him by the scruff of his neck and drag him back to the land of the living if I have to.”

“As you say, sir.”

Tiffany dropped the papers on his desk and grabbed his jacket. Blacker saluted and grinned, and they both hurried after Sir Edward, practically running in order to keep up with the determined commissioner.

•   •   •

“I
T’S EERIE
,” C
LAIRE SAID.

“It is very quiet,” Fiona said. “Where are all the shoppers?”

People were, in fact, passing by them on the cross streets, but the
space in front of the store was being avoided. “It amazes me how something can go from overcrowded to abandoned in the blink of an eye,” Claire said. “Do they all think the building will fall on them?”

A man passed by them, watching them from the corner of his eye, but he said nothing. Claire and Fiona stood on the street and watched him until he had crossed over and walked away round the corner. A carriage drew up to the curb opposite them and stayed there, the driver up top making a point of not looking their way.

“Should we tell him the place is shut down at the moment?”

“I think that’s obvious.”

“Well, what’s he waiting for?”

The four-wheeler sat there unmoving, but a curtain was pulled aside at the edge of one window and then closed again.

“Go over there,” Claire said. “Ask him if he’s waiting for someone.”

“I’m not going over there. You go over there.”

Claire had just made up her mind to cross and rap on the carriage door when it opened and her father stepped out into the street.

“Claire,” he said, “how lovely to run into you here. What a coincidence.”

“Father, are you following me?”

“Not at all. I was . . . Your mother sent me to Plumm’s. She wants something for the house.”

“What does she want?”

“I’ve got a list here.” Carlyle made a show of patting his jacket pockets and even grabbed the brim of his hat as if the list might be tucked in his hatband. “I seem to have misplaced it.”

“As you can plainly see, the store isn’t open for business today, Father. It’s been wrecked.”

Carlyle looked up for the first time at the broken windows, the litter in the street, the lack of pedestrian traffic. “What’s happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but Walter was involved somehow.”

“Walter did this?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s even possible, but he was here. He may be here again. Fiona and I are looking for him.”

Fiona raised her hand in an awkward greeting.

Carlyle shook his head as if clearing it and swiped his hand through the air in front of him, dispelling the lies between them. “Look, Claire, I want you to come with me. Your friend, too. There’s great danger. I can’t explain, but—”

“What are you talking about?”

“I said I can’t explain. But there are people about who might wish to harm you. Or harm Walter. I’m not sure anymore what they intend, but we should leave here, get out of the city, maybe back to Devon, and wait until we hear from your husband.”

“Why would I leave with you if my husband’s in as much danger as you say?”

“Because, for once in your life, you could simply choose to obey your father. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

“I’m here to find Walter. Fiona and I both are. Help us and I’ll go with you afterward. Then you can explain yourself. Right at this moment, nothing matters to me except that after a year, I’m finally close to being with my husband again. Nothing, nothing else matters.”

“Walter.” Carlyle’s eyes were wide, and he spoke in a whisper.

“Yes, Walter,” Claire said.

“No, I mean, look. It’s Walter.”

Claire turned and saw her husband climbing out through the smashed front window of Plumm’s. Walter was gaunt and had the beginnings of a dark beard. His eyes were shadowed, and he was dressed like a pauper, in a torn and tattered suit with no hat. But it
was undeniably him, and he was alive and he was only a few feet away from her, clambering over the remains of a window display.

For a moment, Claire couldn’t breathe and the world seemed to hold still, but for the struggling form of her husband. She thought she could hear Fiona saying something, perhaps her father continued to speak, but everything receded and became unimportant.

Then she caught her breath. “Walter!”

She ran toward him, her arms out, her skirts dragging behind her on the ground, as he looked up. But she stopped when she saw his eyes. There was no recognition there. He wasn’t even looking at her. He stared past her and his eyes flashed with hatred and anger. She heard a click as the handle of his walking stick disengaged. He drew the blade from his cane and pushed past her. She stumbled and gasped and fell to the ground, looking up just in time to see her husband lunge at Leland Carlyle and impale him on his sword.

•   •   •

M
R AND
M
RS
P
ARKER
stood in the shadows of an apothecary down the street from Plumm’s. Mr Parker’s mind had begun to wander when Mrs Parker grabbed his arm and pointed. They watched a man run out of the abandoned store and stab the high judge of the Karstphanomen.

“That’s him,” Mrs Parker said. “That’s our quarry. Jack the Ripper’s finally made his move.”

“But we’re too late. He’s killed our client.”

“Can’t blame him for that. We considered the same thing ourselves. Anyway, Carlyle’s not dead yet.” With that, Mrs Parker leapt forward and raced down the street with Mr Parker fast at her heels. They separated in front of the store. Mrs Parker chased the attacker, who had dropped his sword, while Mr Parker stopped to check on
Leland Carlyle, who was breathing but was quickly losing blood. Already a crowd had begun to form, as if from nowhere. The street had been virtually empty, and now people sprang up in twos and threes, gathering around the man on the ground.

“Don’t hurt him,” Carlyle’s daughter said, but she wasn’t looking at Mr Parker or her father; she was addressing Mrs Parker, who had stopped to pick up the fleeing man’s sword and the barrel of his cane. Mrs Parker didn’t seem to hear the woman. She ran on, pushing her way through the onlookers and, now doubly armed, chased the man into an alleyway.

Mr Parker got the daughter’s attention. “You know him? The one who did this?”

“It’s my husband. I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s not himself. He’s a policeman. He must have meant well.”

Mr Parker shook his head, unable to believe their bad luck. Jack the Ripper was related to their client?
And
he was a policeman? Things were getting entirely too complicated. He put pressure on Carlyle’s wound and turned his gaze again to the young woman. “What’s his name?”

“Leland Carlyle.”

“Here, let me help. My father’s a doctor.” The other girl squatted next to Carlyle, and Mr Parker took the opportunity to back away, bumping into the people behind him.

He stood and fixed Carlyle’s daughter with his best glare. “I asked the name of the other one. Not this one. I know this one. What’s the name of the man who stabbed him?”

“Oh. That’s Walter Day.”

“Walter Day,” Mr Parker said. They had been specifically told not to kill Walter Day, but was it possible Carlyle didn’t know Day was the Ripper? There was something strange going on, but Mr
Parker couldn’t figure it out and he was suddenly afraid they had been played for fools. He needed to find his daughter, his partner, and take her away, leave this country. He turned and ran down the same alleyway he had seen Mrs Parker enter.

•   •   •

B
Y THE TIME
D
R
K
INGSLEY RETURNED,
there was a crowd gathered on the street in front of Plumm’s. He recognized Claire Day, who stood alone, leaning against the brick façade of the wrecked store, but few of the others. A man jumped up from the ground and ran down an alley beside the store. Others watched him go, but no one else moved.

Kingsley went to Claire and gently touched her hand. “Claire? Claire, can you hear me?”

She looked up at him, but she didn’t act like she knew him. He waved a hand in front of her, but her glazed eyes didn’t follow the motion. He checked her pulse and smoothed her hair out of her face. He took her arm and walked her back to the wide window ledge outside the store. He brushed the broken glass from it, then took off his jacket and laid it down so she could sit on it. He had smelling salts in his bag, but he wasn’t sure they were necessary.

Kingsley pushed his way through the rabble, rolling up his sleeves as he went, hoping he wouldn’t see Walter Day or Nevil Hammersmith dead on the ground. Instead he saw his daughter leaning over a stranger. Fiona was pressing a cloth against the man’s abdomen, but blood pulsed out through her fingers and soaked the street beneath them. Kingsley knelt beside his daughter and moved her hands out of the way so he could see what he had to deal with.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Can you help him?”

“You did the right thing, Fiona. If the wound had been just an
inch away from where it is, the pressure you put on it wouldn’t have been enough to save him.” He ripped open the man’s shirt and peeled the fabric away from the wound, then rooted through his black bag for bandages, alcohol, a needle, and thread.

“Then he won’t die?”

“I’m making no promises, but you’ve given him a chance.” Fiona shivered, and Kingsley wished he had his jacket back so he could drape it over her. “The police are on their way and they’ll be able to provide transport for him. Who is he?”

“It’s Claire’s father. Walter stabbed him. Mr Day tried to kill Mrs Day’s father right in front of her. Why?”

Kingsley blinked hard and rocked back on his heels. He shook his head. “He didn’t kill him. If we can keep this man alive, then Walter Day isn’t a murderer.” But he knew that time was of the essence and he hoped the wagon he’d ordered was on its way already. The bodies in the workshop could stay where they were an hour longer so the police could get Claire’s father to the hospital for proper care.

Kingsley shook his head again and sighed. He had left Walter Day to his own devices, knowing full well the man might be a danger. He hadn’t counted on the Ripper’s enemy being someone who had made himself Day’s enemy as well. He continued stitching, not looking up from his work as he talked. “Fiona, you must think very carefully. Did Mr Day say anything? Anything at all? Did he mention a crow or a white king when he did this?”