Skeeter fiddled with controls, then closed up the log and slid it into the trademark satchel Kit had been the first to design. “I’ll check in with Malcolm right away. Thanks, boss.”
Kit held out a hand and Skeeter shook it solemnly.
“Good luck, Skeeter,” Kit said quietly. “Try not to get yourself—or anyone else—killed on this mission.”
Skeeter held his gaze solemnly. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will. Scoot, then. Send word periodically with the returning guides, so we’ll know what’s happening.”
“Right.” Skeeter gulped the rest of his lukewarm coffee, then hurried for the stairs, giving Paula a high-sign. Kaederman was still sipping coffee. Caddrick’s pet snoop finally began the long climb as Skeeter rounded the first landing and started up the second flight. Baggage handlers were already fiendishly at work on the high platform. In a dizzying moment of déjà vu, Skeeter halfway expected to see Benny Catlin barrelling through the piles of steamer trunks and portmanteaus. Then the gate rumbled open with a skull-splitting backlash of subharmonics and the returning tour staggered through, jabbering animatedly.
“—that poor woman, decapitated, they found nothing but her torso!”
“—left the body in the cellar tunnels beneath the new Scotland Yard building—”
“The Ripper Watch team said Jack the Ripper left the body there, himself! Poor Miss Nosette, if only she’d stayed with the Ripper Watch Team instead of striking out on her own, like that—”
Skeeter edged closer to the front of the platform, aware of his conspicuous place at the head of the departing tour. The press corps had trained cameras on him from five stories down. The gate was nearly clear, tourists down to a trickle and baggage handlers staggering through under heavy loads, when a wild-eyed man Skeeter vaguely recognized plunged through the gate. Whoever he was, the guy let out a bloodcurdling yell and went rigid, staring down into Commons. Then Skeeter noticed what was clutched in his hand and stiffened in shock. A decapitated head! A woman’s head, severed with what must’ve been an axe. The grisly thing swung by the hair from the man’s white-knuckled grip. Screams erupted from the women near Skeeter just as he recognized the dead woman: Dominica Nosette, the Ripper Watch photographer. Then two men Skeeter didn’t know rushed through the open gate, with Dr. Feroz on their heels. The Ripperologist was shouting, “There he is! It’s Dr. Lachley! Stop him!”