Ripped (26 page)

Chapter Thirty

Pasties and Perch say the Bells of Fenchurch

O
u
tside the pawnshop
Collin blinked rapidly and straightened up almost as if he were recovering from a punch in the face. His hands were shaking; his voice, unsteady.

“Major Brown killed that girl!” Collin sputtered. “He was the last person to hold Beatrix's opera glasses. And he tried to blame me!”

“Don't jump to conclusions, Collin,” Katie shot back. “Reverend Pinker claims
he
had the opera glasses.”

“I tell you! I saw Major Brown tuck the opera glasses in his breast pocket. When Beatrix asked for them, he blamed me. Said I had them. I never even touched them, let alone pocketed them. This is proof
positive
that Major Brown is the murderer! He killed Mary Ann Nichols, and in his haste to get away, dropped the opera glasses. He's a blighter, I tell you. I've been saying it all along, but no one listens. They think I'm jealous of Brown. But blast it! I've known from the beginning he's a bad lot. Only the Duke believes me. By god, they'll all believe me now.” Collin's red eyebrows shot up and down in his scowling face.

Toby stared sharply at Collin, but said nothing. A clock in a distant tower began striking the hour.

Katie took a deep breath.
Collin might be right
, she thought
.
If Major Brown was in possession of Beatrix's opera glasses when he killed Mary Ann Nichols, he could easily have dropped them in the struggle.

A movement from the bakery shop across the way caught Katie's eye. She would not have noticed at all, thinking about Collin's accusation, had it not been for the impression that someone was watching them. A head jerked back out of sight. Which reminded Katie of something.

“Wait!” Katie snapped her fingers. “Reverend Pinker had specks of blood on his sleeve at the theater. I distinctly remember it!”

Smoky sunlight streamed across the door of the bakery across the street.

“Katie! Are you cracked?” Collin spoke sharply. “Stinker Pinker couldn't hurt a fly, let alone kill a girl. I've known him my whole life. He doesn't have it in him. He's incapable of deceit. Honest to the core.” Collin rapped his umbrella on the curb.

“There was blood on his cuffs at the theater, Collin. I definitely saw it.” Katie turned to Toby. “You're too quiet. What's going on? What are you thinking?”

But Toby's face was emotionless.

“You can't deny it, Toby!” Collin moved closer, whacking his umbrella high in the air and letting it land with a thump on Toby's shoulder. “The facts are the facts. I tell you, Major Brown was the last person to handle those opera glasses and he blamed their loss on me! And unless you bloody well think I did it, he's our man. He's a dark horse and always has been, but everyone thinks he's the bloody King of Spades. I know everyone laughs at me behind my back, Toby, don't deny it. I've made mistakes and am not always on the mark. But I'm right about this. No matter how often you champion the blighter, you'll eventually come to realize, Major Brown is our man.”

Toby was silent, but his eyes betrayed a dull anger. After a long pause he flicked the umbrella off his shoulder.

“We'll have to bow and arrow it. Pool our sticks and stones to get Beatrix's opera glasses out of hock.” Toby swooped off his cap and tossed it on a stoop. “Everything of value into the pot.” He nodded to the tweed cap.

For the next five minutes they pooled their possessions. Katie unclasped her pearls and placed them into the hat. Collin dipped his hands into his pockets and fished out some loose coins and his pen knife and placed them in the cap. Toby piled more coins and several banknotes he kept in the heel of his boots into the mix and then snatched up the cap. “T'won't be enough,” he said, jiggling the tweed cap as if weighing it on a scale. “Collin? What else have you got?”

Collin glared at Toby, then at Katie. “Katie, this is your fault. You had no business giving that witless Lizzy woman money for those damn miniatures. She'll only come back and hock the lot of it again next week. Drove her husband away is my guess. It was a waste of good money. We wouldn't be in this fix if you hadn't given it all away. And don't ask me to hock my underdrawers. I won't do it. The opera glasses can rot in hell for all I care. That was a foolish, foolish thing to do, giving a complete stranger your hard-earned coins.”

Toby gave a curt nod of agreement.

“Not you, too.” Katie shot Toby a disappointed glance, then turned back to Collin.

“I didn't earn those coins, Collin. The Duke gave them to me for pocket money. I know you're upset, or you wouldn't be saying such things.”

“Blasted right, I'm upset. In my book charity begins at home. You can't just throw good money at every Tom, Dick, and Horatio who goes begging. I'm not completely heartless, Katie. That woman's plight touched me as well, but where the lower classes are concerned it's just one big endless pit. Your coins are a tiny drop in an endless ocean of poverty.” Collin let his umbrella clatter to the pavement. He untied his cravat, shrugged out of his greatcoat, and handed over his gold watch with its gold fob chain to Toby, along with his pearl tie pin, cravat, and greatcoat. “There. Take it all. Take the blasted lot.”

•

T
h
e clock in the distant watchtower
was striking the half hour when Toby finally exited the pawnshop, clutching tight to the newly redeemed opera glasses, his face grim. With the collar of his coat turned up, he motioned to the others, and strode down the street in a westerly direction.

Behind him, Collin and Katie had to scramble to keep up. A block from the pawnshop, Katie glanced over her shoulder. The narrow, twisty lane looked vaguely sinister with its sagging iron grates, quivering shop awnings, and brick walkways choked with weeds.

They were moving fast, rounding corners now, passing shop after shop. Katie had to stop to catch her breath. Constricted by corsets, as well as the fake hump between her shoulders, Katie felt a trickle of perspiration run down her neck. Her hand closed on a spiky rail in front of a tea shop.

She took several deep breaths. The veil shrouding her face strained against her cheek bones, the black ribbon at her throat felt as constricting as a noose. She tugged at it, and then, in a moment of panic, clawed at the knot until it ripped and unraveled in her fingers like shredded cabbage.

“It's all right, Katie.” Coatless Collin, sleeves flapping like swan wings, was at her side in a flash. “You mustn't fret. We can turn Queen's evidence against Major Brown! They'll believe us. They'll have to. Just don't jabber on about any hocus-pocus portents, or we'll really be in the soup.

“
The soup
. I forgot about the Buckingshire soup spoons! I'll return at first light and redeem the lot. Sir Buckley deserves our charitable services as much as that wretched mother and her witless brats! Come on, now,” he coaxed. “Let's be off. Cook promised licorice twists and gingerbread for tea. Pinker is joining us. Mustn't tarry. Come along. There's our coach rounding the corner.”

Katie glanced up.

In a
whoosh
of dust and dirt, the Duke's carriage scraped in at the curb across the street.

“Mind the muck!” Collin directed, tugging at Katie's arm.

In several strides Toby was in front of the coach, unhooking the carriage steps, letting them clatter to the curbstone.

“Ho, there!” cried a portly man in a porkpie hat, exiting the Queen Anne Pub to their right. He hobbled over to Katie, belched, and the air smelled of whiskey. “I seen you coming down the street. That was a right fine thing you did at the Thrice Whistle, mum.” He took off his hat, shaped like a shovel, and bowed low in front of Katie.

“I knows Lizzy Stride since she was a little kipper.” The man motioned to the height of his calf. “Gots her faults, does Lizzie, but she be a good girl. Shame 'bout her boiler house, Alfred. Alfred's not one to do a bunk. Somefink bad must've happened. Alfred's a dockworker. Might've tumbled into the Thames. Can't swim, not Alfred. That's what might o' gone wrong. Poor sod.” The man belched and stumbled away.

“Wait!” Katie cried, running after him. “Was that woman in the pawn shop Elizabeth Stride?”

“Course it be. Little Lizzy. Busy Lizzy. Tha's her.”

Katie clasped her hands to her mouth. She felt queasy. Elizabeth Stride was one of the Ripper victims.
What
'
s going on?
Katie wondered.
Why am I meeting the victims?
Was it coincidence that Elizabeth Stride was in line next to them at the pawnshop? Katie had been warned that she couldn't change history. But she had to try to stop that poor woman from being slaughtered.

“I
can
change history,” Katie whispered, vehemently. “I have to!”

“What's that, Katie? What are you mumbling about?” Collin was again at her side. “You're shaking. Katie. It's all right. Not to fret. We'll return the opera glasses to Beatrix and confront Major Brown. We'll have him behind bars tonight or my name isn't Collin Chesterfield Twyford, the third.”

A prison wagon rumbled past.

“Look there, Katie! See that van filled with felons?
That
will be Major Gideon Brown heading off to gaol, or my name isn't—”

But Katie wasn't listening. She hurried over to Toby. “That woman. The mother, Lizzie, at the pawnshop. She . . . she . . .”

“Another Jack Sprat victim, eh?” Collin swooped up from behind, his shirtsleeves waving, his umbrella jabbing the air. “I say, Katie, old girl,” he continued in a disbelieving voice. “Is every woman you meet going to be sliced to ribbons? Surely no one is
that
clairvoyant. I mean . . . well, that is to say. If they all die . . . er . . . well, I mean, if your prophecies come true, mayhaps they die
because
you've met them, not vice versa.”

“Huh?” Katie shook her head. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe they die because you've foretold it,
not
the other way around.”

“But I've already told you the names of Jack the Ripper's victims. I knew Elizabeth Stride was going to be murdered before I ever met her. Not vice versa. If the girls I keep meeting die because of me, that would mean I had a hand in their deaths. I'd be responsible. That's just not the case here.”

Katie shuddered. She wrapped her arms around her waist.
Could it be possible? Could Collin actually be right? Do these women die because I
'
ve gone back in time? Or did I go back in time because they died?
Katie closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.
No. I
'
m not responsible for their deaths.

“Katie,” Toby said so softly that Katie flicked open her eyes to see if it was truly him speaking. She leaned toward him, swaying slightly.

He took her by the elbow. And when he whispered in her ear, his voice was so low, it sent goosebumps up her spine. “You never mentioned Lizzy Stride. She wasn't on your death list.”

“But of course she was!” Katie tugged her arm away.

“Toby's right, Katie,” Collin stepped in. “I'm good with names. You said that after Mary Ann Nichols's death, this Jack-of-All-Slashers would attack a woman named Dark Annie, then a double murder on the same night of Molly Potter who is with child and Catherine Eddowes. And then a stunningly beautiful girl, you said, named Mary Jane Kelly . . . and then Dora Fowler from the inquest . . . and finally, you told us there would be one last victim. The way you looked at me when you said ‘one last victim' sent shivers through me. I thought maybe you were implying that
Beatrix
was on that list. Stuff and nonsense, of course. Beatrix isn't some brash street girl to be slaughtered for her sins. But be that as it may, Katie, I do not recall any mention of an Elizabeth, or even a Lizzy, on your Jackknife list.”

Katie swallowed hard and turned to Toby. “Elizabeth Stride gets murdered on October Third. She's the victim after the double murder of Molly Potter and Catherine Eddowes. It's hard to keep them all straight. But I
know
I told you about her.”

Toby shook his head and with deceptive mildness, said, “No, Katie. You never breathed a word about Elizabeth Stride.” He tipped his cap and strode off in the opposite direction from the waiting carriage.

“Where are you going?” Katie shouted.

“Tower of London,” he called over his shoulder.

“Why?” Katie persisted, hurrying after him.

“Need a lump of ice.”

“A lump of—”

“Advice.”

“I'll come with you.”

“No. Just me, alone.”