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

thought, well, what with Christmas coming up, and things probably being a bit quiet on the old Hero of the Empire front, why not put my—that is, Gideon’s—talents to good use here in London, give the coppers a bit of a leg up with all this unpleasantness.”
    “And this would have nothing to do with the Jack the Ripper crimes being something of a hobbyhorse of yours, Mr. Bent? Need I remind you that you are no longer a reporter with the Illustrated London Argus ?”
    Bent didn’t need reminding at all. He had been more than happy on the Argus . A hack, but so what? What was it old Samuel Johnson had said? No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. He’d earned a living wage and enjoyed his work. Then after all the business last summer Walsingham had gone and had him moved to the penny dreadful, World Marvels & Wonders, all the better to officially chronicle the adventures of Gideon Smith, Hero of the Empire, for a sensation-hungry public.
    As if reading his mind, Walsingham looked around the study and asked, “Are you enjoying living here, Mr. Bent?”
    Bent narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Walsingham? Letting me know you can have me back on the Argus and living in the Fulwood Rents quicker than I can fart?”
    Walsingham shrugged then tapped his chin thoughtfully with one long forefinger. “However … there is perhaps some conjunction of the crimes of this Jack the Ripper and the raison d’être of Mr. Gideon Smith’s situation. And you are one of the foremost authorities in London on the Ripper murders.…”
    “ The foremost authority, I think you’ll find,” said Bent, jabbing a pudgy thumb into his chest. “You’re talking about Maria, ain’t you? And what’s in her head? And the fact that whoever Jack the Ripper is, he’s slicing off the tops of whores’ heads as though he’s looking for something where the brain should be .”
    “Succinctly put, Mr. Bent. The work of Professor Hermann Einstein with the item code named the Atlantic Artifact is, of course, entirely top secret.…”
    “Stow it, Walsingham, I read the diaries that Gideon filched from the old boy’s house. We all know now that you gave him this Atlantic Artifact, which you found in some sunken Viking longship, and that when he asked for a human brain to experiment on you handed him the gray matter of poor old Annie Crook, who you had done in just because she fell in love with the Duke of Clarence. And that’s the brain he put in the automaton we all now know and love as Maria.”
    Walsingham smiled thinly. “It must be a huge source of frustration to you, Mr. Bent, a journalist sitting on a story of such magnitude yet unable to publish it.”
    Bent sighed. “Who’d believe it anyway, Walsingham? You’ve got me over a barrel. Anyway, the point is that unless these murders really are the random work of some lunatic, someone seems to know what they’re looking for in the heads of East End whores, and that could well be the Atlantic Artifact. And if they know of its existence, they know what it can do. And if they know what it can do, then they must have been speaking to the only bloke in the world who has that information, and that’d be Hermann Einstein, missing now for, what, nearly a year? So the chances are…”
    Walsingham leaned on his cane and stood. “The chances are, if we unmask Jack the Ripper, we may well be able to find Hermann Einstein, who is so terribly important to the work of the Empire. I am delighted that we seem to understand each other, Mr. Bent. So carry on. I’m glad we had this little chat. I’ll see myself out.”
    Bent watched him go, not a little confounded by it all. He let rip with a long, thoughtful fart, then went off to find Mrs. Cadwallader and her cakes in the kitchen. He paused at the door, watching the housekeeper for a moment as she bent forward to pull a tray of steaming cakes from the oven.
    She was a damned handsome woman, was Sally Cadwallader. He was almost