So Skeeter had abandoned his search of the station, donned a shapeless working man’s shirt and the creaseless trousers of the Victorian era—the costume worn by all Time Tours baggage handlers working the Britannia—and reported for work, as planned. As Ianira had planned . . . He couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t dwell on the fear and the dull, aching anger, not if he hoped to catch what might be a very fleeting, subtle clue betraying a smuggler.
How someone might successfully sneak someone through a gate occupied Skeeter’s thoughts as hotel bellhops arrived in steady streams from hotels up and down Commons, bringing cartloads of luggage tagged for London. Tourists generally carried no more on their person than an average passenger was permitted to carry aboard a jetliner, which meant—and Skeeter stared in dismay at the flood of baggage carts on direct approach to the Britannia’s lounge—that bellhops and baggage handlers had to transport every last trunk, carpet bag, portmanteau, and ladies’ toiletry case from hotel room door to down-time destination, through a gate which opened only so wide and stayed open only so long.
Sloppy handling, broken contents, and lost luggage had resulted in the firing of many a baggage handler, not to mention four baggage managers in just the past few months. And Celosia Enyo, the latest in that dismal line of unhappy managers, was not the kind of woman to tolerate mistakes by anyone, not on this gate’s cycle, anyway. After all, this wasn’t just any gate opening. This was a Shangri-La Event: Ripper Season’s official kickoff. And true to ‘eighty-sixer predictions, the social gala on the other side of the departures-lounge barricades had roared to boisterous, ghoulish life.