Ripping Time by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

The Ripper scholars were visibly furious at having their evening’s mission cut short, particularly with the meeting getting underway upstairs, but even they realized the crisis another missing up-timer represented. The Scotland Yard inspector at least had the good grace to be embarassed that he’d allowed the reporter to give them the slip so easily. The driver of the Time Tours carriage which had brought them to the Carlton Club hadn’t noticed Pendergast leave, either, and berated himself all the way back to Spaldergate House for his careless inattention. “Might’ve followed the bloody fool,” the driver muttered under his breath every few moments. “Dammit, why’d the idiot go and hire a hansom cab? I’d have taken him anywhere he wanted to go!”

Malcolm had his own ideas about that, which were confirmed less than half an hour later, when they re-entered Time Tours’ London gatehouse. Guy Pendergast had returned to Spaldergate, very briefly. Then he and Dominica Nosette had left again, taking with them all their luggage and one of Spaldergate’s carriages—without obtaining the Gilberts’ permission first.

Fresh disaster was literally staring them square in the face.

Not only had they lost the tourist Benny Catlin, they had now lost two members of the Ripper Watch team, who clearly had defected to pursue the case on their own. Malcolm, operating on less than three hours’ sleep a night for several weeks straight, tried to think what Guy Pendergast might possibly have seen or heard tonight to send him haring off on his own, defying all rules set for members of the Ripper Watch tour. Malcolm had been so focused on Yeats, he hadn’t been doing his job. And that was inexcusable. Only once before had Malcolm lost a tourist: Margo, that ghastly day in Rome, in the middle of the Hilaria celebrations. It did not improve his temper to recall that both times, he’d been focused on his own desires, rather than the job at hand.