"We'll salvage everything, Skeeter," Kit assured him. "There's an emergency shower in that last stall, back there. Sluice off and get dressed. This is going to get mighty ugly, mighty fast. I don't want you anyplace where that asshole out there," he nodded toward the riot still underway outside the Neo Edo, "can lay hands on you. Not without witnesses."
That sounded even more ominous than the riot.
"Uh, Kit?" he asked uncertainly.
The retired time scout glanced around. "Yes?"
Skeeter swallowed nervously. "Just who was that guy, anyway? He looked sorta familiar..."
Kit's eyes widened. "You didn't recognize him? Good God. And here I thought you had a set the size of Everest. That was Senator John Caddrick."
Skeeter's knees jellied.
Kit gripped his shoulder. "Buck up, man. I don't think you'll be going to jail anytime in next ten minutes, anyway, so shower that stuff off. We'll convene a council of war, after, shall we?"
There being nothing of intelligence Skeeter could say in response to that, he simply padded off barefooted across the marble floor of the Neo Edo's luxurious bathroom, wondering how in hell Kit Carson proposed to get Skeeter out of this one. He groaned. Oh, God, this was all they needed, with Ianira Cassondra's suspicious disappearance, fatal shootings on station during two major station riots, not counting today's multiple disasters...
Why Senator Caddrick, of all people? And why now? If Caddrick was here, did that mean his missing, kidnapped kid had been brought here, too? By the Ansar Majlis? Skeeter held back a groan. He had an awful feeling Shangri-La Station was in fatal trouble.
Where that left Skeeter's adopted, down-timer family...
Skeeter ground his molars and turned on the emergency shower. Shangri-La Station wasn't going down without a fight! If Senator Caddrick meant to shut them down, he was in for the biggest battle of his life. Skeeter Jackson was fighting for the very survival of his adopted clan, for everything he held sacred and decent in the world.
Yakka Mongols, even adopted ones, were notoriously dirty fighters.
And they did not like to lose.
Chief Inspector Conroy Melvyn, as head of the Ripper Watch Team, had the right to tell Malcolm what he wanted to try when it came to searching for the Ripper's identity, and what Conroy Melvyn wanted was to know who this mysterious doctor was, assisting James Maybrick. Malcolm, exhausted by days of searching for Benny Catlin, didn't think Melvyn's latest scheme was going to work. But he was, as they said in the States, the boss, and what the boss wanted...
Nor could Margo tackle this particular guiding job. Not even Douglas Tanglewood was properly qualified. But Malcolm was. So Malcolm Moore dressed to the nines and ordered the best carriage Time Tours' Gatehouse maintained, and set his teeth against weariness as they jolted through the evening toward Pall Mall and the gentlemen's clubs for some trace of a doctor answering their mystery Ripper's description.
Conroy Melvyn, Guy Pendergast, and Pavel Kostenka rode with him, the latter agreeing to remain silent throughout the evening, since men of foreign birth were not welcomed in such clubs unless they were widely known as prominent international celebrities, which Pavel Kostenka was not—at least, not in 1888. And he was still very much shaken by the riot which had endangered his life in Whitechapel earlier in the week. Conroy Melvyn would also have to remain close-mouthed in these elite environs, given his working-class accent; if pressed, Malcolm would explain that he was with the police, investigating a case, but hoped to avoid any such scene, which would irretrievably damage his own reputation. No gentleman would be forgiven for bringing a low and vulgar creature like a policeman into an establishment such as the Carlton Club, their first destination for the evening.
Of the three men Malcolm would be guiding this evening, Guy Pendergast would be the least restrained by circumstances. And he remained the most ebulliently convinced of his own immortality, as well, constantly suggesting mad "research" schemes which Malcolm and Douglas and Margo had to veto, sometimes forcefully. Undaunted, Pendergast chatted amiably the whole ride, trying to draw out the Ripper scholars on the subject of the evening's search and chuckling at their close-mouthed irritation.
They finally reached Robert Smirke's famous clubhouse of 1836, which was fated for destruction by Nazi bombs in 1940, and Malcolm told the carriage driver to wait for an hour, then entered the ornately popular Carlton Club, which lay situated beautifully between ultra-fashionable St. James's Square—with its statue of William III and the minaret-steepled church of St. James's Piccadilly visible above the tall, stately buildings—and Carlton House Terrace on the opposite side. The lovely Carlton Gardens ran along Carlton Club's open, easterly facing side, completing the stately club's picturesque, fashionable setting.
Malcolm was known here, as he was in all of the gentlemen's clubs of Pall Mall and Waterloo Place, having procured memberships in each for business purposes as a temporal guide. He greeted the doorman with a nod and introduced his guests, anglicizing Dr. Kostenka's name, then ushered them into the familiar, tobacco-scented halls of the gentleman's private domain. Massive mahogany furniture and dark, rich colors dominated. There was no trace of feminine frills, of the crowding of bric-a-brac, or the typical housewifely clutter which dominated most gentlemen's private homes. Malcolm and his guests checked their tall evening hats, canes, and gloves, but Malcolm declined to check his valise, which held his log and ATLS, pleading business matters.
"I would suggest, gentlemen," he told his charges, "that we begin in one of the gaming rooms where card tables have been set up."
Conversation flowed thick as the brandy and the heavy port wines in evidence at every elbow. Voices raised in laughter swirled around others engaged in conversation which was not deemed socially proper for mixed company, accompanied by blue-grey clouds of tobacco smoke. Copies of infamous publications such as The Pearl, a short-lived but popular pornographic magazine, could be seen in a few hands where gentlemen lounged beneath gas lights, reading and trading jokes.
"—meeting of the Theosophists, this evening?" a passing gentleman asked his companion.
"Where, here? No, I hadn't realized. What an intriguing set of gentlemen, although I daresay they would do well to be rid of that horrid Madame Blavatsky!"
Both gentlemen laughed and climbed an ornate staircase for the second floor of the club. Malcolm paused, wondering if he ought not follow his instincts.
"What is it?" Pendergast asked.
"Those gentlemen just spoke of a Theosophical meeting here this evening."
Pendergast frowned. "A what meeting?"
"Theosophical Society. One of London's foremost occult research organizations."
Pendergast chuckled. "Bunch of lunatics, no doubt. Too bad Dr. Feroz couldn't accompany us, eh?"
Conroy Melvyn, keeping his voice carefully low, said, "You thinkin' what I am, Moore? Our man might be a member, eh? Respected doctor, what? Any number of medical men were attracted to such groups."
"Precisely. I believe it might be worth our while to attend this evening's meeting."
They fell in behind a group of gentlemen heading for the same staircase, following a snatch of conversation which marked them as probable Theosophists.
"—spoke to an American fellow once, from some cotton-mill town in South Carolina. Claimed he'd spoken to an elderly gentlemen who raised the dead."
"Oh, come now, what guff! It's one thing to debate the existence of an ability to converse with the departed. I've seen what a spiritualist medium can do, in seances and with automatic writing and what have you, but raise the dead? Stuff and falderol! I suppose next you'll be claiming this Yank thought himself Christ Jesus?"