The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  As one might say of Diana herself! “That scarcely sounds reliable,” said Mary, frowning. “Who was this boy? Can he be trusted to tell the truth? Although if he says he spoke with Alice…”

  “It’s the first lead we’ve had,” said Watson. “We have to follow up.”

  “Of course we shall follow up,” said Justine. “Mary, should we—”

  “Go to the headquarters of the English branch of the Société des Alchimistes in Soho? Of course,” said Mary. “We have to find out if this story is true. I guess we’ll have to put off our trip to see Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard.” About which she was not entirely sorry. “Justine, if you and I went to reconnoiter—”

  “I’m coming too,” said Diana.

  “And I,” said Watson.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dr. Watson,” said Mary. “If Professor Moriarty or Colonel Moran are involved, would they not recognize you from the last time Mr. Holmes went up against them? If Justine and I—all right, and Diana, stop kicking at my ankle, you can’t reach it anyway through my petticoats—go, we will be able to reconnoiter without being recognized.”

  “What shall I do?” asked Watson. “Should I go see Lestrade and ask for the assistance of the Metropolitan Police? But Lestrade would never believe me on the say-so of a random street urchin. We would need solid evidence that Holmes is being held captive in the Alchemical Society headquarters.”

  “Then we shall get that evidence,” said Mary, with grim determination.

  “In the meantime, you could come with me, gov’nor.” Charlie was poking his head—he still had a cap on, and smears of jam around his mouth—through the parlor door. “Wiggins is organizing a rescue. He’s sent out a signal—all the boys should be at HQ by this afternoon.”

  Mary looked at the both of them with alarm. “Charlie, you are not to launch any sort of rescue attempt before Justine and I—and yes, Diana, I see you glowering at me—can return with enough evidence to convince Lestrade and enlist his help. Dr. Watson, please go with Charlie and try to prevent the Baker Street boys from doing anything foolish! We don’t know enough yet about how Alice and Mr. Holmes are being held or by whom. We need more information before we can take any action. Diana knows the way to the headquarters of the Baker Street boys, which I understand is in Soho? She, Justine, and I will meet you there at—” She looked at her watch. “Oh goodness, it’s almost lunchtime. I think we’d better get something to eat, or we’ll all fall over with hunger. Maybe Mrs. Poole can make some sandwiches, so we can take them with us? I don’t want to lose any time. One for you too, Charlie.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll eat with the boys,” said Charlie. “They’ll have fish and chips ordered, with so many showing up. Not that I don’t like Mrs. Poole’s cooking—she gave me one of her jam tarts for elevenses—but it ain’t fish and chips. Come on, Dr. Watson. You can eat with us. Wiggins has already started planning for the raid, but you were a soldier—I bet you could teach us a thing or two!”

  “Well, a doctor in the army, but yes, I was sometimes in the thick of the fight,” said Watson. “If you need my assistance, it is yours for the asking.”

  “No raid!” said Mary. “Dr. Watson, I’m counting on you to be the figure of authority here. Wait for us to return with more information. Then we can decide on a course of action and contact Scotland Yard.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Watson. “Moriarty is a dangerous man, Charlie. You are all brave, resourceful boys, and you have helped Holmes in many ways in the past. But this is a different situation. I would not want any of the Baker Street boys to get hurt.”

  MARY: Of course it was Dr. Watson who got hurt, in the end.

  CATHERINE: He always does get hurt, doesn’t he? Whether it’s shot, or stabbed, or bitten. Someone needs to teach him to run away from bullets and Beast Men, not toward them!

  BEATRICE: You are not being fair to Dr. Watson. He is good, kind, and always loyal.

  MARY: Oh, I know. I’m questioning his judgment, not his character. If he had listened to me, he would not have ended up in the infirmary!

  DIANA: Because you always know what’s best.

  MARY: Not always. Just most of the time.

  It was early afternoon before Mary, Justine, and Diana reached Potter’s Lane in Soho and surveyed number 7, which seemed completely deserted.

  “I don’t know,” said Mary. “It doesn’t seem as though anyone lives there at all. I mean, look at the condition it’s in.” The paint on the front door was peeling, and the bricks of the building were covered with soot. The door number had long ago fallen off—they could tell it was number 7 only because the buildings on either side were 5 and 9.

  “No,” said Justine. “There is someone living there. Look, the windows have been washed. It appears dilapidated on the outside, but someone has been caring for the interior.”

  “Oh, you’re right,” said Mary. “I wonder why I didn’t notice that?”

  “Remember that I was once a maid,” said Justine. “It is not the sort of thing the lady of the house would notice. If you’ll forgive my saying so, Mary—you have never cleaned windows.”

  “No, she’s better at bossing people around,” said Diana. “Aren’t we going to do anything?”

  Mary sighed. If only they could have left Diana at home! She put her hand on her waist bag. It has served her well in Europe, and would be more convenient, she had decided, than carrying a purse. She could feel the shape of her revolver. It was reassuring.

  “I suggest we examine the exterior of the house,” said Justine. “Perhaps we can find some indication of where Alice and Mr. Holmes are being kept. I assume they are both prisoners of Professor Moriarty? Perhaps they are in a cellar of some sort. Catherine mentioned a coal cellar where Archibald had been imprisoned.”

  Once, Justine would not have made such a suggestion—she had been more timid, more retiring, when she had first joined the Athena Club. Being Justin Frank seemed to have made her bolder. Mary liked this new Justine. Had she, too, changed as much in their European travels? She did not feel quite like the old Mary anymore. Should she draw her revolver? No, not yet—not until they saw some sign of danger. Until then, they were just a man, a woman, and a boy wandering down the alley that led to the back of the house.

  At the back was a patch of overgrown grass and weeds. The brick wall rose as it had in front. At ground level were several demilune windows, and then two stories of windows above. “I don’t see anything unusual,” said Justine. “Unless—what is that?”

  Hanging down from one of the windows on the second floor was a handkerchief. It must have caught in the sash at one point.

  “What? Oh, it’s just a piece of cloth,” said Diana. “It could have been there forever.”

  “No, it’s still white,” said Mary. “If it had been hanging there for more than a few days, it would be covered with soot. Justine may know windows, but I know handkerchiefs. It’s exactly the sort of thing someone might leave as a signal, hoping anyone not looking for a signal would assume it had gotten there accidentally. Diana, can you climb up to that window?”

  “Oh, now you need me!” Diana looked up at the wall. “I can’t climb straight up the bricks. I’m not Carmilla, you know. But there’s a drainpipe over there, and a smaller window above it. I bet that’s a bathroom. I could climb up that pipe, go through the window, and get into the other room that way.”

  “Are you sure you can open the small window?” asked Mary. “It may be latched.”

  Diana gave her a pitying look. Then she walked over to the drainpipe, which came right down to the patchy grass and then disappeared back into the bricks again, took off her shoes, and began to climb.

  “Honestly, you’d think her toes were fingers!” said Mary. Diana really was Hyde’s daughter. But then, Mary was Jekyll’s daughter, and was that any better? She remembered the moment, in the castle in Styria, when her father had revealed that she was as much the result of an experiment as Diana. Re
solutely, she pushed the thought away. This was not the time to think about such things.

  “Diana has climbed inside,” said Justine.

  Yes, Diana’s feet were just disappearing through the window. Would she be able to locate Alice and Mr. Holmes? Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen.

  “I’m worried,” said Mary, looking at her wristwatch. “If she doesn’t give us a sign of some sort in the next five minutes, I think we need to go in ourselves.”

  Suddenly, a face appeared at the window with the handkerchief. It was Diana.

  “Thank goodness,” said Mary breathing a sigh of relief.

  And then another face appeared at the window, above hers. Although she was one floor up, Mary could tell immediately who it was—that grim face was unmistakable. Holding Diana by the arm was Mrs. Raymond, just as Mary remembered her from the Society of St. Mary Magdalen.

  “Oh no!” she cried. She was about to draw her pistol—although what good was that going to do?—when behind her, she heard an all-too-familiar click. She turned. There stood a large man with a revolver, a much larger revolver than Mary’s, in his hand. With him were two underlings—one could tell at once that they were underlings and he was the one in charge. Both of them had pistols pointed at Justine.

  “Inside,” the large man said, in a harsh voice. “Front door, and step to it, missy!”

  Mary had no choice but to walk back down the alley to the front door, cursing under her breath, with Justine following behind her.

  DIANA: Were you really cursing?

  MARY: I hate to admit it, but yes, I was!

  DIANA: Sometimes you aren’t completely hopeless.

  “Well, that didn’t go as planned,” said Mary an hour later. She looked down at her wrists, which were tied together in front of her. She was sitting on a mattress on the floor of what appeared to be a windowless coal cellar. The only light came from a lantern hanging on a hook, high on the wall. Her waist bag was, of course, gone—they had taken it from her, first thing. Not that a pistol would have helped in her current circumstances.

  “I was as quiet as a mouse,” said Diana defensively. “I don’t know how that—that—” She appeared to be searching for an epithet scathing enough for Mrs. Raymond. “How she knew I was there. All the sudden, I turned and there she was. I bit her hard before she caught me too! If I could have reached my knife—”

  “It’s no use discussing what-ifs,” said Mary. “We have to decide what to do now. I hope Justine is all right.”

  Diana’s wrists were also tied together. She was sitting at the other end of the mattress. Justine was lying beside it on the floor, unconscious. If only they had not drugged Justine! The large man, whom the others called Colonel Moran, had held a piece of cloth over her mouth until she passed out. It had taken a full fifteen minutes, with his lackeys holding their pistols to Mary’s and Diana’s heads the entire time. Mrs. Raymond had stood by the door, overseeing the proceedings.

  “Tie her hands as well, and put that shackle around her ankle,” Mrs. Raymond had said. “She is the female creation of Victor Frankenstein. If you were not threatening her friends, she would tear you apart, limb from limb.” As a result, in addition to tying her wrists, as they had done to Mary and Diana, Moran’s men had also placed the shackle connected to a staple in the stone wall around Justine’s right ankle. It was the same shackle, Mary deduced, as the one Dr. Seward had used to imprison Archibald.

  JUSTINE: I would not have torn anyone limb from limb. I have never killed anyone unless absolutely necessary, and never in such a savage fashion. I am not an animal.

  DIANA: Well, you should have. They deserved it!

  “Miss Jekyll,” Mrs. Raymond had said after Justine was lying unconscious on the floor. “What a pleasant surprise to receive another visit from you. I still remember our previous encounter at the Society of St. Mary Magdalen. If I had known that my daughter Lydia was working as a scullion in your household, I would have removed her at once. She is with me now, and no longer subject to your mistreatment.”

  “Mistreatment?” said Mary. “When have I ever mistreated Lydia—I mean Alice? And what have you done with her?”

  “Yeah, I bet you have her locked up too!” said Diana. “If you hurt our Alice, you old sow, I will bite you so hard—”

  “Harder than this?” Mrs. Raymond held up one arm. On the wrist were two semicircular marks that looked like Diana’s teeth. Mary had seen such marks before—all the members of the Athena Club had, although they were usually not as deep as those on Mrs. Raymond’s wrist! Without meaning to harm them exactly, Diana had inflicted such wounds on each of them at one time or another—except for Beatrice. Not even Diana would bite the Poisonous Girl, who was usually called upon to doctor the wounds. In Mrs. Raymond’s hand was Diana’s lockpick kit. “I’m sorry to tell you that you will not get that opportunity. Did you really think you could come into this house without my knowing you were here? I could sense your presence—your energic signature—as soon as you climbed through that window. I would know it anywhere, my girl. Each time you climbed out the window at the Magdalen Society, I hoped some mischief would happen to you, so I could tell Hyde you had come to an unfortunate end. Evidently, living with Miss Jekyll has failed to teach you manners. If Sister Margaret were here, I would direct her to fetch the switch, forthwith!”

  “What do you intend to do with us?” asked Mary, before Diana could open her mouth again. Insulting Mrs. Raymond was not going to help them, or Alice, or Mr. Holmes.

  Mrs. Raymond smiled. It was a cruel smile. “Do you truly expect me to tell you that? As far as I’m concerned, the best place for you is where you are—right here, where you cannot interfere. Come, Colonel. We have more important things to do than converse with our guests. I hope you’re comfortable, Miss Jekyll. You will be here for quite some time.”

  As she turned and opened the door, Diana shouted, “Go to hell, you bloody bitch!”

  Suddenly, the floor of the coal cellar was alive with snakes. Mary screamed and scrambled back, while Diana kicked at them, trying to stamp first one, then another.

  “What the hell?” she said. Her boot stamped on the floor of the coal cellar. There was no squish of snake flesh beneath it.

  “They’re an illusion,” said Mary, her heart still racing. “Just an illusion—just mesmerism. They’re not real.”

  “They bloody well looked real,” said Diana. Once again, the floor was bare, the door was shut, and they were alone. “That bitch. That bloody bitch. I’d like to see her frightened for once. Not that I’m frightened, you understand. Not of a bunch of snakes! What happens now?”

  Diana might say she was not frightened, but Mary had never seen her so discomposed before. She reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand. For a moment, Diana squeezed back, before slapping her hand away. Mary looked around at the bare, soot-stained walls of the cellar, and then at Justine, still unconscious. “I have no idea.”

  DIANA: I’m never frightened. I wanted to kill her, and if I’d had my little knife in my hand instead of my tool kit, I would have. I bit her so hard before she hit me! I wish I’d bitten her even harder.

  ALICE: Remember that you are talking about my mother.

  DIANA: Well, excuse me! You all say nasty things about my dad all the time, and do I make a fuss about it?

  MARY: Usually, yes.

  For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. The light from the lantern flickered around the room. Mary sat on the mattress, her back against the wall, feeling a greater sense of despair than she had felt since they had been held captive in Styria by Mr. Hyde. At least they had not been in a coal cellar, and they had not been tied up! Yes, there was help close at hand—somewhere in Soho, Watson was with the Baker Street boys, waiting for her to contact them. When she did not, hopefully he would go to Lestrade and ask for help. And hopefully, Lestrade would believe his story. She knew that he did not like her or Diana any more than he liked Holmes, but surely he would not le
t three young women disappear without investigating? She comforted herself with a vision of the Metropolitan Police breaking into the coal cellar and leading them all to safety.

  Meanwhile, with the part of her mind she was not using to worry about their situation, she was playing a game that Diana had decided to call “Guess What I’m Thinking.”

  “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” Diana asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it a person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh God, why are you so predictable? You owe me another shilling. That’s thirteen shillings in my favor. My turn.”

  “All right. Is it an elephant?”

  “No. That’s a stupid way to begin. I’ll give you a hint. It’s larger than an elephant.”

  “Is it the Alps? I mean, is it smaller than the Alps?”

  “Yes, it’s smaller than the Alps.”

  “Is it alive?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “You can’t answer yes and no. It has to be yes or no.”

  “But I can’t answer that if it’s not accurate.”

  “I wish someone would rescue us so I wouldn’t have to play this stupid game!”

  It took Mary another thirty-seven questions to answer “Orient Express.”

  “See?” said Diana. “It’s not alive because it’s a train, and it is alive because it has people in it, and they’re alive. I think you should lose that one—you took so bloody long to guess!”

  “But I didn’t give up,” said Mary. “I thought you only lost if you gave up?”

  Finally, thank goodness, Diana fell asleep. Mary did not want to fall asleep—someone should stay awake, in case anything happened. In case Mrs. Raymond came back again, or the Metropolitan Police came to rescue them… She was so tired! And getting hungry. No one had come to give them food or water. She would stay awake, she was determined. She would not allow Mr. Hyde to keep them here, captive in Styria. Lucinda was dying—they must get her to Budapest. Where were Justine and Diana? Mary could not find them. She walked and walked through the long stone passages of Castle Karnstein, lit only by streetlamps. It was so dark here among the streets of Soho—it must be past midnight. Mr. Holmes was late. She looked down at her wristwatch and paced back and forth impatiently. What was that? Gunshots, off in the distance. She began walking toward them, but did not seem to get any closer. Oh, she thought. I’m in Looking-Glass Country. She sighed with relief that finally everything was making sense.