§ § § -- November 29, 1980
As it turned out, Leslie slept through the rest of the afternoon and right through the evening meal as well. Roarke looked in on her one more time before leaving Tattoo in charge for an hour or so and embarking on another set of rounds that took him to the lounge he had earlier mentioned to Stanley Hocker. Pausing in the lobby to check on the guest roster, he heard a voice call his name and looked up to see the selfsame Hocker sprinting in his direction, followed closely by a waiter who kept repeating in consternation, "Sir…sir…"
"Mr. Roarke, am I glad to see you," Hocker said with clear relief, grinning hopefully at him. "There's been a…a slight misunderstanding about the check…"
Roarke glanced at the waiter in surprise and then back at Hocker. "The check?"
"Yes. I—I—I thought the ladies were…well, you know. I mean, after all, they were…swarming like bees around a hive." Hocker chuckled with self-pride, then peered at Roarke and added, "Well, I am a gigolo."
Roarke smiled. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hocker, but it's your responsibility to make arrangements with your lady friends in advance, if you expect them to pay your expenses." He glanced at the waiting steward, then drew his guest aside and explained, "I have provided you with the attractiveness and the charm which you requested, have I not?" Hocker made a motion of concession, and Roarke nodded and said, "Well, underwriting your expenditures is definitely not part of your fantasy."
Hocker looked stricken. "And here I was just getting to the fantastic part."
Just then another voice called, "Stanley." Both Hocker and Roarke looked around to see a tall, graying, good-looking man wearing black slacks, a pink shirt and a shiny dark-blue jacket approaching them, a suave little smile on his face. "Please, allow me." He took the check from the waiter and counted out the total amount for the bill, which had come out to a whopping $738. "There you go."
"Thank you, sir," the waiter said, with one slightly raised brow, but pushed the issue no further and left with the money.
Hocker, deeply relieved, burst into self-conscious chuckles and exclaimed, "Thanks…I mean, thank you!" His unexpected benefactor shrugged and smiled self-deprecatingly. "Well. All's well that ends well, right, Mr. Roarke?"
Roarke, who had been silently watching the whole encounter, tossed Hocker an unreadable glance and responded, "I sincerely hope so, Mr. Hocker. Will you excuse me?" He made his exit, heading for the back of the lounge to confer with the manager.
Meanwhile, Tattoo was alone in the study with Leslie still awake upstairs, reading by the gentle light of a flashlight in order to keep from irritating her light-sensitive eyes. She was beginning to doze off from time to time, with the house so quiet, and kept catching herself falling asleep. Her brain shifted into a higher gear and she woke fully when she heard the phone ring downstairs; a moment later Tattoo's voice answered, "Hello?…No, the boss is not here." He waited a moment, and then Leslie heard him ask, "You want me to approve the menu? Sure, no problem. Yeah, I'll be there right away. Okay, goodbye."
Leslie heard him leave the house without calling out to her; she didn't blame him, since he undoubtedly thought she was asleep. She knew she should have been, but after all the quiet, her afternoon-long nap, and now this interruption, she was irretrievably awake. She shifted into a more comfortable position and was settling back down to read some more when the phone rang again, making her sit up slightly. Should she answer it?
The phone rang a second time—then a third ring was cut off in the middle, followed almost immediately by a click indicating the receiver had been dropped back onto the hook. Leslie froze, her blood turning into ice water, and shut off the flashlight, sliding back into bed and holding herself as still as possible. Someone's in the house! she thought frantically. Oh, why did it have to be now, with Mr. Roarke out and Tattoo just now gone?
Heart thumping away in her ears at fantastic rates, her breathing shallow and fear turning her stomach inside-out, she listened, straining her ears for any other sounds. Please, please, whatever you do, please, don't come upstairs, she begged silently. Or else I'll give you a good solid dose of my measles…
Outside she heard the soft drone of one of the candy-striped rovers approaching the house, and a moment later, its departure. This was followed by a soft snick that she recognized as someone rapidly closing shutter slats. Moments slipped by; a footstep hit the floor, so softly that it would have been lost had there been any other sound in the house. And then there came the barest murmur of a voice: "What is this place?…"
Terrified, Leslie held her breath, afraid that even this would be audible to the unknown intruder. Go away, she cried silently. Get out of here already!
After several long, interminable minutes, she heard one footstep, then another, then another, slowly crossing the floor. She was convinced they were getting louder, approaching the staircase, and she whimpered with pure fright before she could stop herself. Her fear exploded to new heights and she buried her face in her pillow to stop any more telltale sounds. Utter silence held sway downstairs.
Just when she was positive she was going to expire of terror, the footsteps began to cross the floor again, this time with somewhat more purpose. Finally, she heard the inner-foyer door open, then close, and released an explosive breath. She had to tell Roarke!
She lay awake for more than two hours anticipating his return, but neither he nor Tattoo came back, and she ended up falling asleep in spite of herself. But her dreams were riddled with fiery nightmares all night long.
§ § § -- November 30, 1980
She awoke the following morning feeling unaccountably nervous; her stomach would have rejected anything she tried to put into it, she was that queasy from last night's events and her leftover fright. Fortunately, she could hear her guardian and his assistant moving around in the study downstairs, and such relief swamped her that she forced her protesting muscles into action and got out of bed, getting into a robe and slippers and making her way slowly down the stairs.
As she hit the second step, she heard Tattoo's voice ask, "What's that on your chair over there?" She pushed herself a little more, taking each step carefully, now able to see Roarke and Tattoo move over to the desk and lift what appeared to be a voluminous sheet of black fabric off the chair and examine it.
"It's a cape," Roarke said after a moment.
"But boss, who would wear a cape like this on Fantasy Island?" Tattoo asked.
Roarke glanced at him, then spotted his ward standing on the stairs. "Leslie, what are you doing out of bed?"
"Hey, go back up right now," Tattoo scolded avuncularly.
"I would, but…I had to tell you something." Leslie hugged herself. "That cape must belong to that guy I heard moving around down here last night."
Roarke's gaze sharpened. "What 'guy'?"
She explained rapidly what she had heard the previous night, and Roarke and Tattoo looked at each other; but neither had time to comment before the door to the time-travel room burst open and they all three looked around to see who it was. Lorraine Peters, dressed in a green-striped, low-cut gown trimmed with a black feather boa, let herself in, her face wreathed in smiles. "Miss Peters! We were worried about you," Tattoo said.
She grinned sheepishly and went to the desk. "Would you believe I spent the whole night in a police station?"
"Police station?" Tattoo echoed, voicing Roarke's look of mild, quizzical surprise.
"Yes," Lorraine said, digging into a clutch and extracting a sheaf of small pages. "But I got everything I need. It's all here—letters, documents, family papers, diaries…" She handed Roarke one of the items, while Tattoo watched and Leslie leaned over the banister, partly for support and partly to see what he was looking at. "Look, here's a letter. It shows that Albert Fell was abandoned by his mother when he was just a little boy." Roarke lifted the letter and scanned it as she spoke. "She became a prostitute, and she was blackmailing his father for years just to keep the secret."
"A terrible tragedy for a child," murmured Roarke.
"Yes. The final blow came on the day of Albert Fell's graduation from medical school, when his father could no longer bear the shame." Lorraine gave Roarke another document. "He committed suicide. But he wrote that letter of explanation for his son. It's all there…the whole sordid story."
"You do seem to have established a motive," Roarke said, voice low and expressionless, going over the pages she had handed him.
"But there's more," Lorraine said, now presenting him with a small book. "This diary, describing his hatred of his mother and of all women." She watched Roarke look through a couple of entries before taking it back. "And the last entry in the diary: 'For every year of my father's shame, and of my degradation, another harlot shall die. Tonight will be the fifth.' "
Roarke took the book back, read over the words written there, then frowned and admitted, "It appears you have proven your case beyond any doubt, Miss Peters."
Lorraine sounded a little haunted when she spoke again. "The frightening thing is that I saw that fifth victim. I even spoke with her." She seemed to shake off a shudder and went on, "I might even have seen him…but I was so shocked…" Roarke and Tattoo looked at each other; Leslie gripped the banister railing, sharply watching and listening to everything. Lorraine half shrugged. "Well, a man brushed by me. I hardly noticed him…but he was carrying a doctor's bag."
Roarke glanced once more at Tattoo and then at Leslie, before appearing to make a split-second decision and turning to lift a black top hat out of the chair where he had hidden it when Lorraine first walked in. "Did he wear a hat, and a cape, like this?" He displayed the latter item at Lorraine, whose face slowly filled with shock and alarm. And then Roarke showed her an item even Leslie hadn't seen: a pair of white gloves, one of which bore a fairly fresh bloodstain. Leslie's eyes went huge and fixed on them.
"I am very much afraid that Jack the Ripper found your gateway back here and is, at this very moment, loose on Fantasy Island," Roarke said, tone quiet and ominous.
Lorraine's horror gleamed out of her blue eyes. "Mr. Roarke…he might kill someone," she breathed, her voice trembling slightly. "And it would be my fault…"
No one spoke, and the criminologist closed her eyes and turned away, making a beeline for the door. She slammed it on the way out; still no one said anything. Roarke and Tattoo looked at each other.
Leslie heard a high-pitched whimper, but didn't realize she had emitted it till Roarke and Tattoo shifted their attention simultaneously to her. "What's wrong?" Roarke asked.
"Th-that means Jack the Ripper was down here last night," she bleated. "And all the time I was lying in my bed upstairs. I was scared to death he would come up…"
"Did he?" Tattoo demanded, horrified.
"No," Leslie said, shaking her head so hard it looked more like a shudder. "But I was lying there all that time listening to him moving around down here. If he'd come up…" She couldn't finish the sentence, but squeezed her eyes shut and clung to the banister, her knees beginning to go out from under her.
"He could have killed Leslie!" Tattoo burst out. "Do you think he would have, boss?"
"It's a distinct possibility," Roarke admitted heavily, dropping the gloves onto the desk and going to the staircase. "We are all very fortunate that he decided not to bother investigating the second floor." He climbed the steps and gathered Leslie into his embrace, where she lost the last remnants of her shattered composure and began to cry. "It's all right, child, you're safe now. You did exactly the right thing—extinguished all light and remained as quiet as you possibly could. It's all right now."
"I kept waiting for you and Tattoo to come back," she sobbed. "I thought you were never coming home. I fell asleep waiting. I was afraid he'd come back before you did…"
Roarke closed his eyes for a moment, then cast Tattoo a glance. "Please, my friend, would you do me a great favor and stay with Leslie this morning? Knowing what we know now, I don't dare leave her alone, even here in the house, hidden away in her own bedroom. Jack the Ripper's hatred for females may well have been such that he would not discriminate even on the basis of age. Leslie is only fifteen, but very much old enough to run the risk of becoming one of his victims. I won't have that. I made her mother a promise, and I fully intend to keep it. No matter what else, she is to remain safe."
"Of course, boss, I'll be glad to stay with her," Tattoo said immediately. "There's a phone in your room, isn't there? If we hear him come back, I can go in and call the police."
Roarke nodded. "Good, my friend, thank you. All right, Leslie, come back up now, I think you'd better get back into bed. You're still sick, after all."
Back in bed, propped up against her pillows, Leslie brushed aside the last of her tears and peered up at her guardian. "You are coming back here, Mr. Roarke, aren't you?"
He smiled at her. "Of course, Leslie. I do have some essential rounds to make this morning, but I'll be back in time for lunch, and then I'll remain here during the afternoon to do some paperwork. Tattoo can handle whatever needs to be done then."
"Got it, boss," Tattoo agreed readily, making himself comfortable in the rocking chair in the corner of Leslie's room. "But you be careful too."
Roarke smiled. "I always am, my friend. I'll see you both later."
When he had left, Leslie looked at Tattoo. "When did you find the hat and cape and those gloves?"
"Just before you came down the stairs," Tattoo said. "You probably slept through breakfast. I met the boss here for that, and we came back inside to start the day's business and then saw the stuff. Why?"
"Weird that he would've left them here," Leslie mused.
"Mmm," Tattoo murmured agreement. "If he knew he was going to be detected at some point, he should have known better than to leave clues like that. Wonder why?"
She considered it. "They dressed really conservatively in the 1880s, didn't they? Full formal suits under capes, and the hats and gloves and things like that? It's a lot warmer here than in London. He probably took off the cape and stuff because he was getting too hot wearing all those layers, and forgot he left them here."
"Good detective work," Tattoo said with a grin. "Yeah, I think you're right. Well, look, there's no point worrying about it now."
"But why not? Jack the Ripper could be stalking a woman someplace around here as we speak," Leslie protested.
Tattoo shook his head. "I don't know. I mean, something tells me he's disoriented from being in a strange place—almost a hundred years in his future too, don't forget, so he's even more confused. Not that we shouldn't be careful, but I think he's going to try to get a bead on his surroundings before he does anything. He wants to be familiar enough with the area to find some good hiding places where he can disappear in a hurry after he commits a crime. Now, I don't know how long that would take, but we have at least a little time on account of that. So that'll give us time to put out a general warning that women on the island should try to be on the lookout for a man dressed in old-fashioned clothes, carrying a doctor's bag, and stay out of his way. And to never be alone, no matter what."
Leslie sighed. "I wish I could let you do whatever you have to and call my friends up, and have them come over and keep me company. We might all be girls, but you just said there's safety in numbers, so we'd probably be fine if they were all here."
Tattoo grinned and observed, "You probably would, but I think the boss has in mind that promise he made your mother. He probably thinks that if a bunch of girls are good protection, a man would be even better."
"Maybe," Leslie said and smiled. "Oh well…so what's been going on with Stanley Hocker's fantasy, anyway?"
They chatted the morning away, and Leslie felt well enough to have a little lunch; then Tattoo left, and Roarke remained in the study while Leslie read till she fell asleep. She slept through most of the remainder of the afternoon, which was fine with Roarke—until it turned out that he had to make a check on Stanley Hocker, and Tattoo was still out rounding up all the female resort employees for their own safety, on Roarke's order. He went out to the kitchen and asked one of Mana'olana's helpers, a woman in her early thirties named Mariki who cleaned the main house each week as well as working in the kitchen, to do some extra spot-cleaning in the study and upstairs, in order to give Leslie some protection in case Jack the Ripper should happen to return.
"Be happy to, Mr. Roarke," Mariki said. "And don't worry, I know a few moves that'll take that man down in a hurry if he tries anything on Miss Leslie." She marched off into the study with purpose, and Roarke grinned broadly after her before taking his leave and going directly to Stanley Hocker's bungalow.
As it happened, he met Tattoo on the way and got a report from him that the women in Roarke's employ were gathering at the hotel at speed; relieved, Roarke thanked him and then drove with him to the North Shore Bungalow, a two-story cottage with its living quarters on the top floor and the sleeping rooms below. Stanley Hocker was pacing the floor, and when he let Roarke and Tattoo in he lit up like a searchlight. "Oh, terrific…I'm glad you're here…I need some advice, and fast. Come in and sit down."
"Advice?" Roarke queried, making himself comfortable in an armchair. Tattoo stood nearby and watched Hocker resume his pacing.
"Yeah…it's about a lady, a beautiful, wonderful lady named Dina DeWinter. The, uh, the guy you saw me with last night? His name's Monty, and he's a real gigolo, a professional one. Well, he got me to agree to a scheme where he romances Dina while I take his place entertaining Dina's Aunt Jessie. I agreed to it at first, because I was hoping I could maybe get to know Dina better, you know? Except…Monty's coming across as a regular guy and passing me off as the cynical, money-grubbing gigolo, and Dina's fallen like a rock for every word he says. I think she's actually looking at him as potential marriage material." He took in his hosts' expressions. "You just gotta do something to help me."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Hocker, but I have no right to interfere with Miss DeWinter's choice of a husband," Roarke informed him, gently but firmly.
"Why don't you just tell her about him?" Tattoo offered.
Hocker threw his hands in the air. "She won't listen to me! And I can't blame her. I mean, look at me…Mr. Smooth and his magic bracelet."
"So you've discovered that a woman is not, after all, an object to be used, but is quite possibly a person, with her own unique qualities and sensibilities, huh?" Roarke remarked.
Hocker gave him a shamefaced look and bobbed his head in self-disgust. "I deserved that, Mr. Roarke. But it was just a fantasy with me. It-it's reality with Monty, and I'm not gonna let him hurt her!"
"If she won't talk to you, how're you gonna stop him?" Tattoo wanted to know.
Hocker got a determined look about him. "I'll think of a way." He stared at the painting in the corner, then remarked, "You're right, Mr. Roarke. We are, each of us, unique." He went over to stand next to the portrait. "We've just got to learn to make the most of what we've got. And I'm gonna start right now. From scratch."
Roarke watched him, a small, knowing smile on his face; then, as Hocker turned to regard the painting, Fantasy Island's enigmatic host narrowed his eyes and concentrated carefully on Don Juan's painted wrist. In just a few seconds, the bracelet that had been on Hocker's wrist reappeared on Don Juan's.
Hocker looked down at himself; he was dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing when he first arrived on the island, and his hair was a little mussed, though perhaps not as disheveled as he'd been on the plane dock. But Hocker seemed satisfied with his old look. Grinning, he said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a debt to settle." And he left.
Roarke and Tattoo watched him depart, smiled at each other with satisfaction, and got up to leave. As they pulled the bungalow door closed behind them, they both noticed that it was just past sunset now; Roarke took out his gold pocket watch and noted the time, then frowned. "We'd better get over to the hotel and make certain that everyone is there, as I requested. Then I believe it might be prudent to give the local constabulary some instructions in regard to locating Dr. Fell, so that he may be returned to his proper place in the timeline." Tattoo nodded.
"Boss, what about Leslie?" he wanted to know.
"I made certain that she has protection," Roarke assured him. "She'll be just fine. Come with me, please, and we'll count heads and make the necessary preparations."
By the time they had ascertained that all female employees were in the hotel dining room and had finished briefing Sheriff Tokita and several of his best officers, it was full dark and well past seven-thirty. "I believe that's all we can do," Roarke concluded, looking around the room. "It's best if you ladies remain here, where you form a group too large for Dr. Fell to overcome alone. Sheriff, officers, thank you for your time and assistance. I had better return to the main house…Leslie has come down with measles, and I don't think it wise that she remain in the house alone. Tattoo?"