The Ripper Affair

The bent, blue-garbed Chinoise who had bobbed ahead of them into the room made a shush sound, but not very loudly. Clare could not quite decide what age the crooked stick of a woman had attained, for her thinning hair was still lacquer-black–as were the few teeth she still possessed–and the skin of her face had drawn tight. She scuffed along in embroidered slippers, threading through those on the floor gathered around the long poppy-pipes, beckoning them along and bowing repeatedly to Aberline, who appeared a giant in a toy shop next to her.

“Nodders all,” Philip Pico muttered behind Clare. “Ripe for rolling.”

“Not here,” Aberline whispered. “Do be a good sport, little lad.”

Of course, the prickly little russet took offence. “I’m no nodder. Not with the filthy Chin—”

“Silence is good for your health.” Aberline cut him off, and Clare observed him handing the Chinoise a handful of coins. He received a key and a packet in return, and she pointed them up a rickety staircase.

“Surely there are more wholesome dens than this.” Clare found himself walking stiffly, avoiding the chance of the surfaces of this place brushing against his clothes.

“But here, dear sir, I am certain we will not be overheard.”

Is that a danger? “Are we plotting, then?”

“We are engaging in a method, Clare. Have you ever ridden the dragon?”

Philip caught at Clare’s arm. “She won’t like this, sir.”

Was it Annoyance Clare felt? He shelved it, stepping to avoid a limp hand lain along the floor. “It is a good thing she is not about, then. And really, this is no place for a lady.”

A slight cough from Aberline, but thankfully, the man restrained himself. He murmured to the Chinoise crone in what seemed a dialect of their strange tonal language, and she retreated past them, her loose trousers under a long, high-collared shirt fluttering forlornly. She gave Clare a wide obsequious smile, blackened stumps on display, and was gone into the red-drenched gloom below.

The heavy iron key fit a door in a high narrow hallway, which led into an equally high but not very spacious room. Still, it was quiet, the soughing of Londinium outside merely a suggestion of pressure against the eardrums.

Two low sopha-like things heaped with tattered bolsters, rather more in the style of the Indus than the Chinois, a wretched oil lamp Aberline put a lucifer to and turned down as low as possible, and four poppy-pipes on a small round table of glowing mellow brass and mahogany.

Clare took in the dust upon the table, the marks about the rim of one pipe, the dents in the upholstery and pillows on the far side, set where the smoker could recline and watch the door.

“You come here often, Inspector.”

“As often as necessary.” Aberline indicated the other sopha, and Clare found himself sharing a look of silent accord with Philip. It was a moment’s work to move the other divan to a more salubrious position, which manoeuvre Aberline watched with a tolerant smile. “I am afraid, little man, that there is only enough here for two.”

Philip bristled. “I am no nodder. I’ll take my laudanum like a civilised gent, thank you.” He rattled the door. “This wouldn’t stand a good beating.”

“It doesn’t have to with you standing watch, now does it?” Aberline settled himself on the sad wreck of furniture that was, Clare saw, a broken-backed chesterfield that could not even be salvaged for Eastcheap’s sorry hawking. Its just-moved companion was sturdier, but much dirtier. “Do sit, Mr Clare. You are about to view a marvel.”

It was not at all like smoking tabac.

A small amount to start, Aberline had said. We are not here to enjoy but to learn. To plumb the depths.

Perhaps the man fancied himself a poet.

A blurring across the nerves. A deep hacking cough. What did it smell like? Acrid, certainly, resinous. A faint amount of spice. Was he already…

The couch was quite dirty, but it was also comfortable. Clare leaned back, and the problem burst in upon him in all its dizzying complexity.

Some manner of sorcery, making me proof against an explosion. Proof against knives, and Time. My faculties will stay sharp. Yet the poppy had a distinct effect upon him. What would coja do? He had lost the taste for it, but he could experiment.

Later.

The walls, their dingy paper peeling, suddenly took on new breath and interest. Each rip and fleck, each bit of plaster showing, gave rise to a host of deductions. They split and re-formed, the history of this sad little room unreeling in a gorgeous play of light and shadow, logic and meaning.

Why, this is marvellous! The urge to laugh rose from his navel, but he set it aside. Irrational, messy, uncertain Feeling had no place here…