“Benny Catlin?” Paula echoed, staring. “You mean that nice young kid is missing?”
Kit jerked his gaze up. “You know Benny Catlin?”
Paula blinked, started by the sudden intensity of the stares levelled at her. “Well, yes. I mean, it isn’t every day I give a whisker-job to a girl.”
Kit’s lower jaw came adrift.
Sid Kaederman actually grasped her arm. “What?”
“Take your hand off me!” Paula snapped, yanking herself loose.
Kaederman flushed and apologized. She shrugged her shoulder, rubbing her bicep, then asked Kit, “I take it you didn’t you know Benny Catlin was a girl? She told me she wanted to disguise her gender, which was a big disadvantage in London. It’s not that unusual, actually, I’ve just never done a whisker job on a girl that pretty.”
“My God!” Skeeter matched the face in the senator’s photo to one in his memory and came up with an unpleasant, inescapable conclusion. “Benny Catlin is Jenna!”
Sid Kaederman swore in tones that caused several horses to lay back their ears. “God damn it! Armstrong duped us again! That stinking little bastard ordered his men to take her to London . . .”
“Yeah,” Skeeter agreed, “but how did they get tickets? The Britannia’s been sold out for nearly a year!”
“Jenna and her roommate must’ve bought Britannia tickets from that up-time scalper,” Kit said slowly. “A year ago, when they first planned to go down time. There would’ve been plenty of Ripper Tour tickets floating around the black market, a year ago.”
Skeeter groaned, “The senator said she wanted to film history. She must’ve planned to videotape the Ripper terror.”