The House That Jack Built by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Lachley stood shaking. She was babbling, out of her head. Had to be . . .

“All those idiots,” she was murmuring, “thinking it was Prince Eddy or his tutor, or that barrister who drowned himself or Sir William Gull. They’ve been arguing over who it was for the last hundred-fifty years . . . even thought it might’ve been some time traveller using the Britannia Gate . . .”

John Lachley stared at the raving woman, seriously considering whether she had taken leave of her senses or if he had taken leave of his. Time traveller? A century and a half, arguing over his identity? She wasn’t a journalist, she was an escapee from a lunatic asylum somewhere on the fringes of London . . .

Then something she’d said hit home.

The gate! Ianira, the woman who had known so much about him, had babbled endlessly about a mysterious gate. Was she, too, some sort of traveller in time, who had come to hunt him? He reeled at the implications. His gaze rested on the heavy box he’d taken from her coat, with its trailing wires and tubes and cylinders hidden in her bonnet, and frowned. He picked it up, then shook the woman. “Look at this.” Her eyelids fluttered for a moment before opening. “Tell me what this is.”

“My camera. Digital videocamera, best in the business . . .”

Videocamera? Latin for I see?

“Show me how it operates!” He loosened the ropes on her wrists, braced her in a sitting position and leaned her against him. She fumbled the camera into her lap and fiddled with controls. “See? This is what I recorded tonight.” She tried to hold the camera up, but couldn’t lift her arms. He took it from her—and let out a yell. The strangely textured surface along one side was moving. Pictures flickered across it, in color, showing Maybrick bent over Catharine Eddowes, hacking her to pieces . . .