“Who are you?” Lachley demanded.
“Your Sons, Lord Jack. We have long awaited your coming. Command us. We are your chosen.”
He narrowed his eyes as he considered the implications of that patently absurd answer. Were all the inhabitants of this world completely insane? No, not all, he frowned, thinking back to those guards at the gate. Lachley wondered what to ask first and finally decided on the simplest question in his mind. “What year is it?”
None of the madmen seemed at all surprised by such a question. The one who’d given him the whiskey said, “By station time, Lord, it is 1910. Beyond Primary . . .”
“Station time?” he echoed, startled.
“Yes, Lord. The station exists well over a century in our past and some thirty years in your future.”
Lachley’s mind reeled. Sanity slipped and lurched beneath his feet. He groped for it, finding, instead, the bed, which he sank onto simply to prevent a nasty fall. “Do you know the bitch who followed me through the gate?” he asked harshly. “The one I lost in the crowd?”
“Yes, Lord. She’s a Ripperologist, one of the Ripper Watch Team, Dr. Shahdi Feroz. She went to study your great works in London.”
Ripperologist? Lachley narrowed his eyes. She’d come to London to study him? The journalist had said as much, but he hadn’t believed her. The unlamented Miss Nosette would have said anything to persuade Lachley to release her unharmed. Lachley shut his eyes for long moments, trying to place where he’d seen that Feroz woman’s face before. The familiar features finally clicked in his mind. The lecture. She’d attended the lecture at the Egyptian Hall. Had spoken with him briefly, afterwards. Lachley frowned. Had she known all along, then? Known that he was responsible for the deaths of the whores in the East End? She must have. Hadn’t she cried out that he was Jack the Ripper, back in the garden behind Spaldergate? Lachley narrowed his eyes coldly. That woman’s testimony could see him hanged.