Ripping Time

The whole bed came adrift under Je

"I know." Quiet, that voice, filled with regret and hushed pain. "Believe me, we wanted there to be some other way. There wasn't." The detective kept talking, voice low, giving Je

The shock, the misery of what Je

The knowledge that none of them were safe, yet, after everything they'd already been through, was a pain too deep to express. So Je

Their safe haven was at least well hidden by grinding poverty. It was probably the last place on earth her father's hired killers would think to look for them. London's violent and poverty-stricken East End during the middle of the Ripper horror...

When Dr. Mindel finally arrived, he praised Noah's "nursing" and sutured up Je

Then she drifted into pain-free oblivion and knew no more.

Malcolm tilted his pocketwatch toward the light of a gas lamp on the street corner, putting the time at half-past eight when he alighted from his hansom cab at the corner of Bow and Hart Streets. Clouds, shot through with lightning, swirled in thick drifts and eddies above the rooftops, muting the sounds of a boisterous Thursday evening with the imminent threat of more rain. Although they were past the official end of the a

As a result, cultured male voices the length of Bow Street could be heard discussing theater and di

Also drifting through the damp night came the light laughter of women Malcolm could not actually see, whose carriages rattled invisibly past in the murk that was not quite rain but not quite fog, either. The jingle of harness and the sharp clopping of horse's hooves struck the lime-rock gravel bed of the street with a thick, thumping sound, carrying the hidden ladies off to bright di

It being a Thursday evening, many such di

Above the jingle of harness as carriages rattled past, filtering through the sounds of gay laughter and merrymaking, came other, more plaintive cries, the calls of flower girls and eel-pie vendors hawking their wares to the genteel folk who frequented this fashionable district on such evenings. Malcolm could just make out one such girl, stationed beneath the nearest street lamp where she would be most visible in the drizzle and murk. She held a heavy tray of carnations and pinks suspended from cords around her neck. Her dress, damp in patches from the raw night, was made of cheap, dark cotton, much mended and several years out of fashion. The toes of the shoes peeping out from beneath her skirts had been cut open to accommodate the growth of her feet.

As Malcolm watched, three gentlemen emerged from the darkness and paused briefly to purchase bouto

Then he was alone again on the pavement, turning over in his mind everything the Spaldergate staff had learned about Mr. Be

The Time Tours driver injured at the Piccadilly Hotel had, thank God, arrived at the gatehouse unconscious but still alive, driven by one of the gatehouse's footmen dispatched to fetch him back. Catlin's luggage had been impounded, but the footman had managed to secure Catlin's bloodstained gloves from the room before police could arrive, giving the Spaldergate staff at least some chance of tracing Catlin with bloodhounds. Weak from shock and blood loss, the wounded driver had barely been alive by the time he'd been rushed downstairs to surgery.