But there was still the guessing beforehand. Would this toy be young or old, wild or tame, male or female? She’d had all kinds, and every possible combination. Sometimes she kept them alive for days before tiring of them—or before the subtleties of which she was capable caused them to expire. At other times she wanted it to happen quickly; tonight, for example, she knew she could be soothed only by the most primitive and direct action.
Once Juliette realized this, she stopped playing with her mirror panels and went directly to the big bed. She pulled back the coverlet, groped under the pillow until she felt it. Yes, it was still there—the big knife with the long, cruel blade. She knew what she would do now: take the toy to bed with her and then, at precisely the proper moment, combine her pleasures. If she could time her knife thrust—
She shivered with anticipation, then with impatience. What kind of toy would it be? She remembered the suave, cool one—Benjamin Bathurst was his name, an English diplomat from the time of what Grandfather called the Napoleonic Wars. Oh, he’d been suave and cool enough, until she beguiled him with her body, into the bed. And there’d been that American aviatrix from slightly later on in the Past, and once, as a very special treat, the entire crew of a sailing vessel called the Marie Celeste. They had lasted for weeks!
Strangely enough, she’d even read about some of her toys afterwards. Because when Grandfather approached them with his stunner and brought them here, they disappeared forever from the Past, and if they were in any way known or important in their time, such disappearances were noted. And some of Grandfather’s books had accounts of the “mysterious vanishing” which took place and was, of course, never explained. How delicious it all was!
Juliette patted the pillow back into place and slid the knife under it. She couldn’t wait, now; what was delaying things?
She forced herself to move to a vent and depress the sprayer, shedding her robe as the perfumed mist bathed her body. It was the final allurement—but why didn’t her toy arrive?
Suddenly Grandfather’s voice came over the auditor. “I’m sending you a little surprise, dearest.”
That’s what he always said; it was part of the game.
Juliette depressed the communicator-toggle. “Don’t tease,” she begged. “Tell me what it’s like.”
“An Englishman. Late Victorian Era. Very prim and proper, by the looks of him.”
“Young? Handsome?”
“Passable.” Grandfather chuckled. “Your appetites betray you, dearest.”
“Who is it—someone from the books?”
“I wouldn’t know the name. We found no identification during the decontamination. But from his dress and manner, and the little black bag he carried when I discovered him so early in the morning, I’d judge him to be a physician returning from an emergency call.”
Juliette knew about “physicians” from her reading of course; just as she knew what “Victorian” meant. Somehow the combination seemed exactly right.
“Prim and proper?” She giggled. “Then I’m afraid it’s due for a shock.”
Grandfather laughed. “You have something in mind, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“Can I watch?”
“Please—not this time.”
“Very well.”
“Don’t be mad, darling. I love you.”
Juliette switched off. Just in time, too, because the door was opening and the toy came in.
She stared at it, realizing that Grandfather had told the truth. The toy was a male of thirty-odd years, attractive but by no means handsome. It couldn’t be, in that dark garb and those ridiculous side whiskers. There was something almost depressingly refined and mannered about it, an air of embarrassed repression.
And of course, when it caught sight of Juliette in her revealing robe, and the bed surrounded by mirrors, it actually began to blush.
That reaction won Juliette completely. A blushing Victorian, with the build of a bull—and unaware that this was the slaughterhouse!
It was so amusing she couldn’t restrain herself; she moved forward at once and put her arms around it.
“Who—who are you? Where am I?”
The usual questions, voiced in the usual way. Ordinarily, Juliette would have amused herself by parrying with answers designed to tantalize and titillate her victim. But tonight she felt an urgency which only increased as she embraced the toy and pressed it back toward the waiting bed.
The toy began to breathe heavily, responding. But it was still bewildered. “Tell me—I don’t understand. Am I alive? Or is this heaven?”
Juliette’s robe fell open as she lay back. “You’re alive, darling,” She murmured. “Wonderfully alive.” She laughed as she began to prove the statement. “But closer to heaven than you think.”
And to prove that statement, her free hand slid under the pillow and groped for the waiting knife.
But the knife wasn’t there any more. Somehow it had already found its way into the toy’s hand. And the toy wasn’t prim and proper any longer, its face was something glimpsed in nightmare. Just a glimpse, before the blinding blur of the knife blade, as it came down, again and again and again.
The room, of course, was soundproof, and there was plenty of time. They didn’t discover what was left of Juliette’s body for several days.
Back in London, after the final mysterious murder in the early morning hours, they never did find Jack the Ripper…