Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper by David Barnett Read Free Book Online

faithful pith helmet, the one he’d bought in the souk in Alexandria. Only one previous owner, with the bullet hole to prove it. He’d be dead without it, after that pyramid collapsed right on his head, instead of just being unable to say his favorite word. He tried every day, of course, as though they were exercises and physical jerks to be done every morning, in the hope he might regain the power. But no. “Eff. Eff. Effffff.” Not a fuck to be had. He grinned to himself. Bit like the streets of Whitechapel.
    Mrs. Cadwallader put a finger to her lips. “Not so loud and brash, Mr. Bent. Miss Maria is not yet back from whatever they have her doing with that infernal dragon, and Mr. Smith is in the parlor with guests. The Elmwoods. They have come seeking his assistance and seem most distressed.”
    “Oh, yes, the ones with the missing daughter. I told him not to bother with it. Job for the police. I’ll take myself off to the study, I think. Is there a fire lit?”
    “There is, Mr. Bent. And you have a visitor of your own in there.”
    Bent’s eyes narrowed. “Not Big Henry, is it? I told him we was square. You know what these crooks are like, though, Sally. You think you’ve paid ’em off…”
    “It’s Mr. Walsingham,” she whispered, as though saying his name too loud would attract his unwelcome attention from within the closed door of the study.
    Bent blew a raspberry. “Oh, eff. What does he want? Did you tell him Gideon’s otherwise engaged?”
    She nodded. “I did. But he wants to see you .”
    “Double eff,” said Bent. He dug in his pocket for his flask and took a slug of rum. “Better get this over with, then.”
    *   *   *
    There was indeed a fire crackling merrily in the hearth of the study, but any joy it might have offered seemed to be sucked out of the room by the brooding presence of Mr. Walsingham. He was sitting upright like a black crow in one of the easy chairs, his back to the glass cabinets bearing the trophies from John Reed and Lucian Trigger’s adventures: the claw of the Exeter Werewolf, Lord Dexter’s Top Hat, the Golden Apple of Shangri-La. They were supplemented by trophies Gideon had assembled to carry on the tradition: poor old Louis Cockayne’s pearl-handled revolvers, a piece of steel from the giant steam-powered mechanical man they had fought in Nyu Edo, a lump of clay from the Golem of Manchester, the hair of a mermaid from St. Ives. Walsingham looked up sharply as Bent entered, fixing him with his piercing eyes, the neat white mustache beneath his hawklike nose twitching as though with mild distaste. Few people in the country knew Walsingham’s name, but the power he wielded was almost without boundary. Bent sometimes doubted that even Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the Prime Minister, knew of Walsingham and just how far his tendrils reached. Walsingham had both leather-gloved hands resting on the silver head of his cane, his black suit immaculate and cut to perfection.
    “What brings you out on such a foul day?” asked Bent, closing the door behind him. “The smell of Mrs. Cadwallader’s baking?”
    “Nothing so pleasant,” said Walsingham, indicating with a curt nod that Bent should sit in the armchair opposite.
    Bent flopped down and sighed. “Been on me bloody feet all effing day.”
    “So I believe,” said Walsingham mildly. “Whitechapel, I understand.”
    “Had your spies out this morning?” asked Bent. “What else did they tell you?”
    “They tell me that you presented yourself at the office of Inspector George Lestrade at the Commercial Road police station and informed him that Mr. Gideon Smith and yourself had been assigned to solve the murders that your erstwhile colleagues in the gutter press have attributed to one Jack the Ripper.”
    “Ah,” said Bent.
    “Ah indeed, Mr. Bent,” said Walsingham, raising one eyebrow. “An assignment I certainly do not recall authorizing.”
    Bent leaned forward. “Thing is, Walsingham old chap, I