The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  “Do not—what is the word—shortchange Karl,” said Bertha, smiling. “He is a brains as well. He is not very good with money, but he is wonderful with automobiles. What a pity that Carmilla is not here! I wanted to show her the newest Phaeton—I have made such improvements. And also, I hoped she would accompany me. I intend to show some timid gentlemen who do not wish to invest in our company that the automobile is the vehicle of the future. But to do so, I must drive a long distance—in fact, I am going all the way to England! Carmilla would have made the perfect travel companion—she is such a good mechanic. And you are welcome as well, Laura, although I know your distaste for this mode of travel.”

  “To England!” said Laura. “How in the world? I mean, there happens to be some water in the way.…”

  “Yes, that is what will make it so spectacular. Imagine the headlines—Benz automobile crosses the English Channel! I have arranged to drive straight onto a boat at Calais. After all, if boats can transport race horses from England to France, and French carriages to the English nobility, why not Brunhilde here?” She put her hand on the carriage of the motorcar.

  “I take it Brunhilde is the name of this contraption?” said Laura. She walked around to the other side of the motorcar, then to the back, looking it over.

  “Yes, the Benz Phaeton III, built to my own specifications,” said Bertha. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

  By this time, Laura had circled all the way around the motorcar. “Lucinda,” she said, “how would you like to go to England? I’ve always wanted to go. Not this way of course—I imagined a comfortable train trip from Vienna to Calais, and then the channel crossing by ferry! But when will I have the opportunity again? And it will serve Carmilla right for leaving so abruptly! She’ll come back, and we’ll be gone.…” She turned to Bertha. “I know that I’m not Carmilla—I’m certainly not as good a mechanic. But would you consider taking me even if Carmilla can’t come? And if Lucinda wants to come as well—”

  “Of course,” said Bertha. “I would welcome the company. Can you leave in—oh, an hour or so? That will give me time to drink a cup of Mrs. Madár’s excellent coffee.”

  Lucinda stared at both of them wide-eyed. “You mean we are leaving for England—today? In one hour?”

  “Yes, today! Carmilla is always doing things like this—going off impulsively. Why shouldn’t I do it for once? That is, if you wish to come. You can stay here quite comfortably, you know. Magda can take care of you without me. Thank goodness she didn’t go with Carmilla.” She turned to Bertha Benz, who was taking off her leather cap. Under it, her brown hair was coiled up around her head in a tight braid. “Come on, there’s coffee in the morning room, and breakfast as well, if you want some. I’m just going to throw some clothes in a suitcase. How much room is there?”

  Plenty, as Bertha demonstrated. Behind the closed carriage was a boot where they could tie suitcases or a small trunk.

  As Lucinda followed Bertha back into the schloss, Laura took her by the arm. “My dear, forgive me for springing all this on you so suddenly. You don’t have to come, you know. You don’t have to deal with the fatigue and uncertainty of travel. I only offered it because I did not want you to feel as though you were being left behind. You would be quite right to tell me that I am being an idiot, and that I should stay home quietly working at my embroidery and waiting for Carmilla to come back. After all, she’s much better at such adventures than I am—which is perhaps why I would like to go on my own adventure for once! Say the word, and I will not mention it to you again but leave the schloss in Mrs. Madár’s excellent care, with particularly directions that Magda should take care of you.”

  Did Lucinda want to stay here, where it was safe? She had gone through so many changes recently. She had lost her mother, and in a sense her father, and in an entirely different sense her very self. Who was she now? Who was this girl dressed in white who still played the piano, but also drank blood, and could climb up walls, and hear the heart of a hare beating in its chest? She had no idea. She did know one thing—she did not want to be left behind. “I would like to go,” she told Laura. As soon as she had said the words, she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.

  Three hours later, for packing had taken longer than expected, as it always does, Lucinda was sitting in the back seat of Brunhilde, driving through the Styrian countryside in a cloud of dust and gasoline fumes, wondering what in the world she had gotten herself into.

  LUCINDA: It was a silly, impulsive thing to do. I should probably have stayed in Styria with Magda and Mrs. Madár.…

  CATHERINE: If you had, I’m not sure any of us would be here today, and I would not be writing this book.

  LUCINDA: Thank you, Cat, but I did very little—it was Laura whose actions were most important, at the end.

  DIANA: And mine! Don’t forget what I did.

  CATHERINE: As though you would let us…

  The next morning, Catherine and Beatrice boarded the Orient Express. Catherine had almost blanched at the price of the tickets—she and Beatrice needed to travel in separate cabins, because she could not spend the night breathing La Belle Toxique’s poisonous fumes. Why in the world would anyone pay so much, simply to get from one place to another? Luckily, they had all their earnings from Lorenzo’s Circus of Marvels and Delights, and before they left, Count Dracula had handed them a purse. “I think Mina would have wanted you to be fully supplied with funds,” he said. “Travel safely, and know that you are always welcome in my house.” Then he had bowed to them with the courtesy of a four-hundred-year-old Hungarian nobleman, his hair flopping attractively over his face. Catherine had once again wondered whether he did anything to it, or it just naturally fell that way.

  Clarence had come to the Nyugati railway station to see them off, and waited on the platform until the last moment. Beatrice was standing out in the corridor, with the window pulled all the way down, talking to him when the whistle sounded, indicating that they were about to depart. Catherine heard him say, “If Ayesha and Mr. Vincey can make it work, we can make it work, I know we can.” She could not hear Beatrice’s reply, because just then the train started moving. They were on their way back to London, to rejoin Mary, Justine, and Diana—and hopefully Alice. Had the others found her yet? Of course, it had only been a few days. Even Mary and Justine, as resourceful as they were, could scarcely have solved the mystery of her disappearance that quickly! But if they had not found her by the time Catherine arrived, she would search all of London for her. And when she found out who had kidnapped Alice, she would tear out his throat.

  As the Orient Express pulled out of the station, a Benz Phaeton III, the only one of its kind in the world, roared through the Austrian countryside, upsetting chickens on the road and farmwives who thought that perhaps the Beast of the Apocalypse had arrived to signal the end of the world. They crossed themselves as it passed and muttered prayers to the Blessed Virgin. Inside the motorcar, Lucinda, who was starting to feel sick from the constant motion, wondered once again what in the world she had gotten herself into, and what would be waiting for her in England—at the Athena Club.

  CHAPTER IX

  A Visit to the Diogenes Club

  Mr. Holmes has not been here for several weeks,” said the porter of the Diogenes Club. He was a venerable-looking man, with a full head of white hair and side-whiskers. If you had seen him walking down the street, you might have assumed he was a duke.

  “Thank you, my good man,” said Watson. He turned away, looking downcast. “I suppose Mycroft is off doing something terribly important and hush-hush,” he said to Mary and Justine. “What next? Shall we try Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard?”

  “If you would like me to flag down a cab…,” said Justine. She was the best of them at getting the attention of cabbies, probably because of her height.

  “If you would,” said Watson.

  Mary frowned, not at him but to herself. Mr. Holmes—Mr. Sherlock Holmes, that is—had told her that instinct was unre
liable, that it must always be checked and corrected by the application of rational thought. But she had an instinct that something was not right.

  She reached into her purse, then turned back to the porter. “If you would just check,” she said, holding out her hand. When he placed his hand beneath it, she dropped a guinea into his palm. There, that was unobtrusive, wasn’t it? Just as though she had been bribing porters her whole life! “And if you discover that he is there after all, could you tell him that Mary Jekyll wishes to see him?”

  A guinea was a lot of money, and she might be wasting it on the porter after all, but this was the sort of thing Irene Norton would have done. She wanted to be just a little more like Irene—smarter, bolder, more courageous.

  “Very good, miss,” said the porter, with the perfectly impassive face of a discreet servant. “I will certainly check to see if I have somehow overlooked him, although he is not an easy gentleman to miss.”

  In ten minutes, he returned. “I must apologize, Miss Jekyll. Mr. Holmes is indeed in the club—I cannot think how I missed him. He will meet you in the Strangers’ Room, where conversation is permitted. If you will follow me?” He looked at her so directly, with such steady blue eyes, that she could almost believe he had truly not known Mycroft Holmes was in the club.

  She followed him through the front entrance and into the precincts of the Diogenes Club, the most secretive gentleman’s club in London. Once she, Justine, and Watson were standing in the entrance hall, with the large wooden doors shut behind them, it was so quiet that they could not even hear London traffic. The porter led them past a large, luxuriously furnished room in which a number of gentlemen were sitting in armchairs upholstered with crimson plush, which had high sides so they could not see their neighbors reading Punch or the novels of Anthony Trollope. At least, Mary could not see what they were reading, but those were the sorts of things gentlemen read in red plush armchairs. None of the chairs was turned toward any other, and there was no conversation.

  The porter stopped at a door on the right. He opened it, stepped inside, and held the door open for them. “Miss Jekyll, sir,” he said to the man who was waiting within, seated in a particularly large, comfortable armchair. It had to be large, for he was a large man. Only by the height of his forehead and the sharpness of his nose could Mary have guessed that this was Sherlock’s brother.

  “Miss Jekyll,” he said. “Come in, and your companions as well. Ah, Watson. How are you?” He seemed to feel no shame for having asked the porter to lie about his whereabouts. “And you must be Miss Frankenstein,” he said to Justine. “You see, my brother has told me about you and the Athena Club, as well as the Société des Alchimistes. When Jackson mentioned that you were asking to see me, I was curious enough that I instructed him to admit you.”

  “And yet you would not see me before,” said Watson bitterly. “I’m dreadfully worried about your brother. What sort of errand have you sent him on? We have learned that Professor Moriarty is still alive. If so, he will no doubt make an attempt on Sherlock’s life. If you have any information—”

  “If I did, I would not divulge it,” said Mycroft with a bland stare. “You do not understand the gravity of the situation. It is a matter of state that must be kept entirely secret from the public. If the large, ignorant, easily panicked body politic had any idea that its titular head was in danger, its limbs would begin to writhe—”

  “By titular head, do you mean the titular head of state? Do you mean the Queen?” asked Justine.

  “Her Majesty in danger!” said Mary. “How is that possible?”

  “There, you see, I have already said too much. Her Majesty is being protected as well as she can be, I assure you. Nevertheless, the danger is real. There are forces out there, in the great, dirty thoroughfare of humanity that is London, seeking to destabilize the government. We are keeping track of them as best we can. We do not yet have enough information to apprehend Moriarty, and arresting his underlings would merely alert him to our presence. He himself is too powerful to arrest on incomplete evidence. We believe he is receiving financial backing from a member of the House of Lords.”

  “What lord of the realm would betray the Queen?” asked Watson, looking shocked.

  “Your faith in humanity is as refreshing as it is ridiculous,” said Mycroft. “Miss Jekyll, you look like a sensible young woman. Where Sherlock has gone, I cannot—and will not—rescue him. That would betray my hand prematurely in this affair. My position is both my power and my weakness. I can get in where other men cannot, and cannot get in where other men—or perhaps young ladies—can. I did not give much credence to Sherlock’s description of your abilities—he is obviously biased by his affection for you. But Irene Norton thinks very highly of you, so I am going to tell you this: Find my brother. Sherlock and I are not alike—he is far too emotional, has always been since he was a child. Our father was a philosopher of sorts, a purely theoretical scholar who spent his days in his private library. I take after him. Our mother was, as women are, a creature of fire and feeling. Beautiful, intelligent, but driven by instinct and emotion. Sherlock adored her and was devastated when she died. He was only fourteen at the time, and impressionable as all boys are. I believe that is why he has never married, and why he pursues this hobby of being a private detective. He wishes to impose order on the chaos of the world, and so he approaches life as a series of clues, a puzzle to be solved. He aspires to a rationality that is not natural for him. He is, after all, our mother’s son. Well, I hope you find him and get him out of this situation—alive. I am not an emotional man myself, but Sherlock is the only family I have left. Now, I have considerable work to do. Run along, rescue Sherlock if you can, and do not visit me again. I shall not be in.”

  “Can you give me no information as to his whereabouts?” asked Mary. “How can we rescue him if we do not know where he is?”

  Mycroft Holmes looked at her impassively. “If you cannot figure that out for yourself, then you are not as competent as Mrs. Norton said you were, and you are of no use either to me or to Sherlock. The more I tell you of this matter, the more you can tell Moriarty and his men if you are captured. I have given you as much information as I care to, or as you require. You are reputed to be an intelligent young woman, Miss Jekyll. I look forward to seeing whether you succeed in your inquiries.”

  When they were once again standing out on the street, Mary said, “Well, that was—”

  “Interesting?” said Justine.

  “Infuriating,” said Watson. “How could he leave his brother in peril, when he was the one who put his brother in peril? Mycroft has no notion of human sympathy.”

  “I suspect that he can’t afford to,” said Mary. “I don’t know what sort of work he does for the government, but Irene Norton said he was her counterpart. She is a spy for the Americans.”

  “Is she indeed?” said Watson, looking astonished. “I wonder if Sherlock knows. He has always held her in such high regard. She was a lovely woman, with rich auburn tresses.…”

  MARY: Is there any woman Dr. Watson hasn’t fallen in love with at one time or another?

  JUSTINE: Mrs. Hudson, I imagine.

  MARY: Oh, you know what I mean. Any woman of the appropriate age. Irene, Beatrice…

  CATHERINE: You, although he was too loyal to Holmes to continue that particular infatuation.

  MARY: I think it was the appearance of Beatrice on the scene. As soon as Beatrice shows up, all male attention shifts to her. Which can be very useful, sometimes.

  BEATRICE: That is absolutely not true! And once they find out I am poisonous, they lose interest.

  CATHERINE: There is that. Only someone as foolhardy as Clarence would completely overlook the fact that you could kill him with your breath.

  BEATRICE: Alas…

  What had Mycroft Holmes meant by his brother’s affection for her? Mary took off her gloves again in the front hall of 11 Park Terrace. Watson and Justine were already in the parlor. Of course they had fewer
accoutrements to remove—their hats came off quickly, without having to pull out pins!

  “You were gone long enough.” Diana was standing at the top of the stairs, dressed in boys’ clothes. For goodness’ sake, why could the girl not comb her hair? It looked like a bright red bird’s nest. And why could she not dress properly, like the young lady she was—or should be?

  “I hope you didn’t get into any mischief with the Baker Street boys this morning,” said Mary.

  “Hello to you too, sister dear,” said Diana. “I haven’t been to headquarters yet. I was getting ready to leave when Charlie showed up with a message.

  “You didn’t say hello either.” Mary had not felt cross until right this moment, but Diana always had the power to put her back up.

  “I have important things to tell you,” said Diana. “Do you want to hear them, or not?”

  “Yes, all right, what is it? And come into the parlor, so Justine and Dr. Watson can hear them as well.” Mary assumed whatever Diana wanted to tell them had to do with either Alice or Mr. Holmes.

  Diana clambered down the steps, then jumped over the final few to make a resounding thud that annoyed Mary—her boots always seemed louder than anyone else’s somehow. Once they were in the parlor, with Watson looking at them quizzically and Justine saying, “Hello Diana, I hope you had a good morning,” Diana said, “Sherlock Holmes is being kept drugged in the house where those alchemical blokes used to meet. You know, in Soho. Alice is there—she sent a message through the Baker Street boys.”

  “Are you absolutely certain about this?” asked Mary.

  “Charlie told me Wiggins told him, and some boy I don’t know told Wiggins that Alice told him herself. She promised him that Watson would give him cigarettes. Charlie’s around here somewhere—I think Mrs. Poole is giving him something to eat. That boy has an insatiable appetite.”