The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  “Jam roly-poly!” said Diana. “My favorite. Well, except for all those cakes in Budapest. You made it especially for me, didn’t you? Admit it.”

  “What nonsense,” said Mrs. Poole. “They’re Archibald’s favorite too, you know. And I wonder those European cakes didn’t make you sick, as rich as they are!”

  “Mrs. Poole, have you heard anything more of Alice?” asked Justine, drawing off her gloves. Mary could hear the concern in her voice.

  “Or Mr. Holmes?” added Mary. “And Dr. Watson, of course.” She could not help sounding worried herself. She unbuckled her waist bag and placed it on the hall table. She must remember to take out her revolver and store it properly in the morning room desk. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any further news.”

  “Not a peep,” said Mrs. Poole, shaking her head mournfully. “Almost a week Alice has been gone now, and Dr. Watson, too. He vanished the same day, Mrs. Hudson tells me, without leaving her a note or anything. The gentlemen have gone off sleuthing before—but they’ve never been gone as long as Mr. Holmes. Why, it’s almost a month now! Terrible worried she is, as am I—little Alice, what I’ve trained since she was a child! You’ll find her, miss, now that you’re home, won’t you?”

  “Of course we’ll find her,” said Mary with what she hoped sounded like confidence. They would, wouldn’t they? After all, they had found Lucinda Van Helsing. Even in a city like London, with its six million inhabitants, Alice, Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson could not have vanished without leaving a trace!

  “Do you like playing cards?” said Diana to the Orangutan Man. “I could teach you Écarté or Vingt-et-un. Those are French words. Do you speak any French?”

  Justine squeezed Mary’s hand, a little too hard—it was always difficult for Justine to gauge her own strength. “We’ll find them, you’ll see,” she said. “We are the Athena Club, remember?”

  Mary smiled and nodded, but in her heart she felt a cold foreboding. The Alchemical Society was not responsible for Alice’s disappearance—Ayesha had made that clear in Budapest. “The S.A. lost track of Helen Raymond before I became president,” she had told Mary the day they received Mrs. Poole’s telegram. “When Frau Gottleib located Lydia Raymond, whom you know as Alice, your kitchen maid, we placed her in your household so we could keep an eye on you both. We worried that she might have inherited her mother’s ability to harness the energic powers of the Earth—what you call mesmerism. From what you tell me, it seems she has grown into those powers. There are many reasons unscrupulous men—or women, like Helen herself—might want a child who is able to create illusions at will. I trust that you will do your best to find her, and apprise me when she has been found.”

  Apprise Ayesha! There were several things Mary would have liked to do to Ayesha that did not involve apprising. But one had to tread carefully around a two-thousand-year-old Egyptian queen who could electrocute you with her touch.

  Could Alice’s mother have found and abducted her for unscrupulous purposes, as Ayesha had implied? If indeed Alice had been abducted. “Mrs. Poole, you didn’t give us any details. How do you know it was a kidnapping? How do you know she didn’t simply leave with someone?”

  “Follow me, miss,” said Mrs. Poole grimly. “I’ll show you.”

  Where was the housekeeper going? Toward the narrow back stairs that led down to the kitchen and coal cellar. Mary wondered what Mrs. Poole was about to show them. She followed Mrs. Poole down the dark staircase with a growing sense of apprehension that sent chills down her spine. Justine’s and Diana’s boots clattered on the stairs behind her.

  MARY: I did feel a growing sense of apprehension, but I certainly didn’t have chills down my spine. What would those feel like, anyway? You’re making this sound like some sort of gothic thriller, Cat. Really, sometimes I agree with Diana’s assessment of your writing.

  CATHERINE: Some of my readers have wondered why I, as the author of this narrative, allow such interruptions. They tell me they find such a habit as annoying as I find Mary’s, Justine’s, Beatrice’s, and Diana’s continual intrusions into my space and time, particularly now that Lucinda is living with us and I must do my writing in the study. No, Diana, you may not play with Omega in here! Go bother Justine up in the studio.

  If you ask such a question, dear reader, it’s because you have never lived in a house with six other women—seven if you count Mrs. Poole, although I’m not talking about you, Mrs. Poole. You can interrupt anytime, and also can I have some of the cold ham from yesterday? With a glass of milk, please? And there’s no need to bring a fork.

  I assure you, reader, that Mary and the others are just as annoying in daily life as they are on the page. If my method of writing displeases you, I assure you that such interruptions are as irritating to me, but what can I do when they insist on having their say? It sometimes makes me long for the silent peaks of the Andes, where I roamed as a puma before Moreau turned me into a woman. But then, I would not be your author, and there would be no story.

  DIANA: Which might be a good thing, considering the rot you write about us.

  Just beyond the kitchen were the housekeeper’s suite and the small room where Alice slept—all the other servants’ quarters, up on the third floor, had been converted into a studio for Justine. Mrs. Poole took a key out of her apron pocket and unlocked Alice’s door. She stepped into the room and, looking around, said, “I didn’t let anyone in here after I found it like this, knowing how important Mr. Holmes thinks it is to preserve the evidence, as he always says. You see? Although it’s getting dark—should I bring a lamp?”

  But Mary could see well enough. The narrow bed had been pulled out from the wall, the chair beside it was overturned, and Alice’s clothes were scattered here and there. The basin and pitcher were lying in pieces on the floor, beside a tangle of bedclothes.

  “Let me fetch a lamp from the kitchen,” said Mrs. Poole. “There’s something else I want to show you, but it’s too dark.… I won’t be half a moment.”

  While Mary could hear Mrs. Poole clattering about in the kitchen, Justine stepped into the room beside her and Diana pushed in between them, saying, “Let me see too. You never let me see. Well, at least she put up a struggle. Good on Alice.”

  Justine looked around the room as carefully as Mr. Holmes himself would have, but Mary had to stop Diana from kicking the clothes on the floor to see what was under them. If only the girl could restrain herself or behave with forethought just once!

  MARY: Well, that has never yet happened.

  DIANA: This morning I only had two eggs for breakfast.

  MARY: How is that a sign of restraint?

  DIANA: I could have had three, because Justine didn’t want hers, but I gave one to Omega because he’s been looking scrawny. I thought it would fatten him up.

  MRS. POOLE: So that’s what that dratted cat threw up on the kitchen floor! I wondered what he could have eaten that was yellow. Child, you will be the death of me.

  DIANA: Then who would make pudding? Mary is a rotten cook.

  When Mrs. Poole returned, she leaned over and held the lamp down, close to the floor near the doorway. “You see?” she said. “I wager Mr. Holmes could make something of that.”

  “Half a boot print,” said Mary. “A man’s, I think, by the size and shape of the toe. Are there any more?”

  “Just the one, and it’s faint enough. I’m afraid I swept the kitchen and corridor first thing. I always do so now those dratted cats are bringing in who knows what! Last week I stepped on a mouse, and it wasn’t dead yet. It’s likely I swept away any others before I noticed Alice was gone. But there’s something else,” said Mrs. Poole, straightening up again with one hand on her back. “You know how prompt Alice always is. When she didn’t appear for breakfast, I knocked on the door, and when she didn’t answer, I entered this room. I found it as you see, with Archibald sound asleep on the floor. Archibald, show them your arm.”

  The Orangutan Man, who must have followed them down t
he stairs and crept in behind them, rolled up his sleeve. On it was a mark Mary had seen before. It looked like an electrical burn, pink and blistered. Around it, his ginger hair was singed. She stepped back, startled.

  “That is the sort of mark we saw on the vampires Ayesha dispatched with her energic power,” said Justine. She knelt and gently touched Archibald’s arm. “This must have hurt, little one.”

  “Much pain,” he said. “Pretty Alice all gone.”

  “At least they didn’t take him too,” said Mrs. Poole. “I’m grateful for that. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose poor Archibald as well. He’s such a gentle soul.”

  “But Ayesha’s touch kills on contact,” said Mary. “This—well, it certainly looks painful, but Archibald is very much alive.” She turned to the Orangutan Man. “Did you see who took her?” Had he actually witnessed the kidnapping? He must have, if he had been injured by Alice’s kidnappers.

  He shook his head and then wrapped his arms around it, as though protecting himself from harm.

  “Perhaps he is too traumatized to tell us what he saw,” said Justine.

  “He’s telling us they covered his head,” said Diana. “But you could hear them, couldn’t you? And smell them? I bet monkeys have a pretty good sense of smell.”

  “I believe orangutans are apes,” said Justine. “Look, the pillowcase is shredded. Perhaps that is what they put over his head.” She held it up—Mary was shocked to see that one end was torn into long, ragged strips.

  “Who the hell cares whether orangutans are monkeys or apes?” said Diana. “How many kidnappers were there? That’s the important question.”

  Archibald held up two fingers. “Man and woman. Woman wear trousers, like me. She smell pretty, like flowers. Like Beatrice. Other smell like medicine. He put medicine in my nose.”

  “They must have drugged him,” said Mary. “A man and a woman—who could they possibly be? Mrs. Raymond and an accomplice? Someone else entirely?” Who would want to kidnap Alice, and why? Her mesmerical powers, presumably—but how had they learned about those powers? Only Catherine’s friend Martin, the mesmerist of the Circus of Marvels and Delights, had known about them. Well, at least they were developing a list of suspects! “Mrs. Poole, did you think of notifying the police?”

  “The police!” said Mrs. Poole. “In a gentleman’s household? That I did not, miss. Nor would I without your permission. Of course if you had telegraphed back with instructions, I would have gone straight away. If you wish me to do so—”

  Should they consult the police? But that would mean Scotland Yard and quite possibly Inspector Lestrade. Mary remembered how rude he had been to her when they were investigating the Whitechapel Murders. She had no wish to see Inspector Lestrade or any of his ilk again.

  “No, I think you did right. After all, we are the Athena Club. I think we can handle this matter ourselves.” She looked once again around the room. Had she missed anything Mr. Holmes would see? “Mrs. Poole, if you could finish warming up dinner, I’d like to look around here one more time. Would you mind leaving the lamp?”

  Once Mrs. Poole had left, followed by Archibald and Diana, who said she wanted to check on the jam roly-poly to make sure it was good and jammy, Mary turned to Justine. “Let’s start at the door and go around the room systematically. That’s the way Mr. Holmes would do it. Look for—well, I don’t know what. Anything out of the ordinary, I guess. Then during dinner we can make plans. I have some ideas about where to get started.”

  Justine nodded and began examining the floor and walls to the right of the door. If there was one thing Mary had learned about Justine in her travels, it was that she could always be relied on. What a relief that was! And Diana, of course, could never be relied on. Thank goodness she was preoccupied with Mrs. Poole’s pudding at the moment!

  DIANA: I can too be relied on! Who found out what that list of addresses in Watson’s room meant? It was me, that’s who. If it wasn’t for me—

  MARY: If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have been captured in Soho!

  CATHERINE: How many times do I have to warn you not to anticipate the action for our readers?

  There were no marks on the walls or the small window looking into the courtyard that separated the house from what had once been Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory. There were no marks on the floor of the room or the passageway outside except the single boot print. If only they could have found a cigarette butt! That was the sort of thing Mr. Holmes always seemed to find, and it always led him to the culprit, as though each criminal in London had his own individual way of smoking. Finally, Mary searched through the clothes on the floor, examining each garment, then folding it neatly on the bed. “Alice’s uniforms,” she said.

  “What about Alice’s Sunday dress?” asked Justine from under the bed. She looked like a quarter of a spider, with her long legs sticking out. Suddenly, Mary felt like laughing, which would have been most inappropriate under the circumstances.

  “It’s still in the chest of drawers. I can’t find her nightclothes, but I suppose she would have been abducted in those. They didn’t take anything except what she was wearing at the time.”

  Justine crawled back out from under the bed. “Look,” she said. “This was tangled in the sheets.”

  It was a pocket handkerchief of white linen, clearly a man’s. As soon as Justine held it out to her, Mary could smell the distinctive odor of chloroform. It was monogrammed in black thread with an M.

  “Dinner is ready!” Mrs. Poole called from the doorway. “I want you both to stop crawling about on the floor and get something to eat. After all that gallivanting around Europe, you must be famished for a good English dinner.”

  Mary was feeling rather hollow inside. When had she last eaten or gotten a good night’s sleep? Even in the luxury of the Orient Express, with Diana snoring on the bunk above her, she had lain awake, worrying about Alice, Mr. Holmes, and Dr. Watson. Then, she had felt helpless—now, thank goodness, she could actually do something. The only antidote to worry was action. She would solve this mystery, just as Mr. Holmes himself would have.

  “Could M be Marvelous Martin?” she asked Justine several minutes later when they were sitting in the dining room eating a very English dinner indeed. “Cat said he was teaching Alice to use her powers and his name starts with an M. I can’t think of anyone else in her life with an M—except me.” Justine was eating a roasted potato, which Mrs. Poole had made particularly for her.

  “You can’t live on vegetables alone, miss,” she had said to the Giantess. “You’ve gotten thinner since you left, the both of you. It’s that European cuisine, as they call it. Good English food will fatten you right up again!” Diana had chosen to take her dinner in the kitchen with Archibald so she could play with Alpha and Omega, who had grown in the last few weeks. When Mary had left, they were still kittens—compact balls of fluff already deadly to mice, with large green eyes. Now they were starting to look like gangly adolescents.

  “Surely not Martin,” said Justine, taking a second helping of Brussels sprouts. She must be feeling that hollow sensation as well—Justine never took seconds. “Martin is such a gentle man. I knew him for many years in the circus. He could not harm a fly, and anyway, from what Catherine told us, Alice knew and trusted him. He would have no need to come into her bedroom in the middle of the night to kidnap her. He could simply tell her to accompany him somewhere. We can ask him—Catherine gave me the address of the boardinghouse where the circus performers who didn’t go on the European tour are staying—but I cannot believe that he would be involved.”

  “Then I suggest the following plan,” said Mary. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll go to Baker Street and see if Mrs. Hudson has heard anything from Mr. Holmes or Dr. Watson. And we should search their flat—perhaps they left clues of some sort as to their whereabouts? Then, and I hesitate to suggest this but I think it must be done, we should go to the Society of St. Mary Magdalen and ask for an interview with Mrs. Raymond. If she is indeed the woma
n Frau Gottleib mentioned—created by Dr. Raymond in his quest to harness the energic powers of the Earth—then she has a motive to kidnap her own daughter. Perhaps she and Martin—yes, I know you don’t believe it’s Martin—are working together for some purpose? But why such a woman would become director of a society for the salvation of prostitutes, I cannot imagine. Perhaps she isn’t the same Mrs. Raymond at all—it’s not an uncommon name. I wish I had asked Frau Gottleib more about Dr. Raymond and his experiments before we left, but there wasn’t time.” She should have made the time—mentally, Mary berated herself. She had been so worried about Alice and the whole situation at home that she had not gathered as much information as she should have. Mr. Holmes would not have made that mistake.

  “And then perhaps after that we can see Martin?” said Justine. “I do not want him to be unjustly suspected. I’m certain he will be as shocked by Alice’s disappearance as we are. He cannot possibly have anything to do with this situation.”

  CATHERINE: I still can’t believe you suspected Martin! He’s the gentlest creature imaginable, and the last person who would chloroform anyone. Anyway, he treats Alice as though she were his own daughter, I suppose, because she’s the only one he’s met whose powers are even stronger than his.

  ALICE: Martin has been very good to me always. But he was a bit to blame, in his own way.

  As Mary was heading down the hall to bed, after having tucked Diana in, she met Mrs. Poole coming out of her room.

  “I’ve turned down the bed, miss,” said Mrs. Poole. “And there’s a hot water bottle at the foot. I’m sorry to raise this subject when you’re so tired, but I suppose I’d better. There’s very little money left of what you and Catherine gave me before you departed for Europe. I’ve been buying groceries on credit, and the rates are coming due. I hate to bother you—”