The Case of the Girl in Grey

by Jordan Stratford

  “Alice?” Mary tried again, this time daring a match. The match hissed and spat against the wind, but Mary sheltered the dancing flame with her palm and held it between the iron bars to light the tomb. Now there were two lights: the match, and its twin reflected in the tarnished silver mirror set in the ceiling. There on the cold stone floor sat a girl tucked into a ball, crying. Mary was horrified to discover that the girl was wearing only a nightdress in the bitter cold.

  “Good heavens,” said Mary, quickly opening the latch, swinging up the wrought-iron bar, pushing in the grillework door, and finding a lantern tucked into the corner. She gave more light to the small stone room and saw a basket, a pitcher, and a chamber pot recently left in this makeshift prison. “Oh, Alice, let’s get you out of here.”

  It was indeed Alice, Mary’s ghost girl from Regent’s Park, who was not all right, not all right at all.

  Mary whipped off her cloak and wrapped it around the shivering girl as Ada rushed in to help.

  “Who has done this to you?” Ada asked.

  “It was Caleb,” said Alice, burying her face into Mary’s shoulder. “My…husband.”

  “Come now—we’ll get you sorted. I must say you sound less…distracted.”

  “It was the medicine. Caleb had the doctors lock me away and give me that vile stuff. But they were careless, and I managed to escape.”

  “Into Regent’s Park,” said Mary. “My ghost girl.”

  “Oh, am I interrupting?” came a menacing voice. Sir Caleb loomed in the crypt’s entrance, a horribly smug look on his face. “I saw the light and wondered if we had unwelcome visitors.”

  “Scoundrel!” spat Mary, livid at what this cruel man had done to poor Alice.

  “Scoundrel?” countered Sir Caleb. “I am merely attending to my bride-to-be, in conditions to which she has become accustomed.”

  “This is how you treat your wife, sir?” said Mary, furious.

  “My wife? No, no, Miss Godwin. This is Lizzie, my fiancée. We are to be married at first light, and off to Jamaica with the tide. Then she shall indeed be my wife, and the Earnshaw fortune shall be mine!”

  “You cannot switch people!” Ada scoffed.

  “But I have, you see! What was Alice is Lizzie, and Lizzie is Alice. The medicine tends to confuse them.”

  Sir Caleb seemed to have found a coward’s bravery now that he had three girls trapped before him. The gloating man continued. “Your father may have tried to thwart me, but with him, as you see beneath you, deceased, he can no longer interfere. I am free to marry Lizzie here.”

  “You cannot be married to two people at the same time,” said Mary. “That is against the law!”

  “But this girl and I are already married. So what is the harm? All that stands between me and the Earnshaw fortune is a mere name. Lizzie, Alice, Alice, Lizzie…I shall marry and I shall be on my way to Jamaica before anyone is the wiser.”

  “I will be wiser,” came a voice from the darkness outside. A cloaked figure approached. A girl’s voice, strong with fury.

  Jane.

  “How dare you exploit this family so! How dare you disgrace the grave of their father with your foul deeds.”

  Sir Caleb jumped backward into the tomb, knocking the oil lantern over in the process, smashing it to pieces. A jet of flame the height of a man shot up to roar in the darkness—trapping the villain and the girls in the crypt.

  “You scoundrel,” continued Jane from beyond the flame, a fever spirit incarnate. “You monstrosity. You horrid, horrid man!”

  Sir Caleb was still in shock and had not realized that it was Jane beneath the cowl. All he could see were flames, and all he could hear were the words of accusation from which there was no escape, issued from this dark, hooded specter. His judgment at last.

  Mary took Alice by the shoulders, so they were face to face. “Alice! Ever jump through a bonfire?”

  “At Mayday.” Alice nodded.

  “Right, then,” said Mary. “Ada? Quick as snapdragons. One, two…three!” And the three girls darted through the flames, as quick as Mr. Hazzlit’s fingers through the dinner-table candle, as quick as plucking plums from brandy fire, emerging quite unharmed on the other side. Alice turned, wheeling Mary’s woolen cloak from her shoulders and dropping its weight on the flames, putting them out in a swallow of darkness. There was a screech as she slammed the iron grille into place and snapped it tight with both bar and latch that had moments before imprisoned her.

  In the chill dark night, the four girls embraced. Ada swooned, now completely spent.

  “Oh, Ada, let’s get you inside,” Jane said with concern. Indeed, Ada’s face had taken a greenish light, and shadows formed under her eyes.

  “There’s still Brocklehurst to contend with,” said Alice.

  “One thing at a time,” said Mary. The girls made their way toward the house.

  The hurried hoofbeats of horses startled them, as did the rattle from a hurtling carriage.

  “Miss Byron? Miss Godwin?” came a woman’s voice as the carriage door popped open hurriedly.

  “Mrs. Somerville!” cried Mary.

  “Thank heavens you’re all right,” said Mrs. Somerville, who looked at Lizzie twice before realizing she wasn’t Lizzie at all.

  “Mrs. Somerville, this is Lizzie’s twin, Alice, your cousin and our ghost. Explanations aplenty, I promise you, but after we get everyone inside!”

  “Mary? Ada!” said Peebs, exiting the carriage. Behind him clambered out two short men in the dress of the city constabulary. Peebs pointed to the door of the main house and nodded. The constables brandished their gleaming black clubs and ran toward it—just as Mr. Brocklehurst opened the front door to see what the commotion was all about. He tried to shut the door quickly, but the constables were upon him.

  “How?” was all Mary could think to ask.

  Peebs removed his own cloak and made something of a tent for Mary and Alice as they walked to the door. He gathered Ada in his arms, and she smiled up at him. Jane struggled to keep up with Mrs. Somerville, who strode with purpose to the front door.

  “Because I know you, Mary. I knew that when you learned I had failed in getting a message to Lizzie that nothing would stay you from slipping out and coming to her aid yourself. But I knew too that Mrs. Somerville would have authority in these matters, and so I had my attorneys—with the help of our good Master Dickens, I might add—track down the fellows who manage Mrs. Somerville’s affairs and who might know of her location. She was returning from what appears to have been a wild goose chase in Scotland—a ruse, as it turns out—and I intercepted her that I might accompany her here, with the constabulary.”

  “But how did you know to bring the constables?”

  “Because I had every confidence that you and Ada would have the case wrapped up by the time we arrived.”

  “Well done, Peebs,” said Ada groggily. Which meant more to him than she could ever know.

  The storm had blown itself out, and the morning was bright and clear, if chilly. Mary woke to an unusual sound, that of a fire being laid for her, and she thanked the maid profusely. The maid, unaccustomed to being gushed over so, nodded uncomfortably and directed Mary to some clothes of Lizzie’s that might fit her, then asked if she’d like to dress and join the others for breakfast or if she’d prefer a tray brought up.

  Mary said she’d go down and quickly donned quite the prettiest dress she’d ever worn. In the dining room, Mrs. Somerville, Jane, and Peebs were at breakfast, speaking in hushed tones. They stopped when they saw her, and smiled, and rose. Mary felt a flood of relief, as she’d felt somehow that she would be in trouble, and almost burst into tears.

  “There, there, Miss Godwin. All’s right with the world, although the newspapers say that there’s another missing patient from the hospital,” Mrs. Somerville said with a wink. “Never mind, we’ll get it all sorted. I will take control of the entire affair. Clearly my faith in the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency was well founded.”
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br />   “Clearly,” said a voice from the hall. “It’s as well you didn’t leave things to me, cousin.” Mary turned to see a wan-looking Lizzie being led by the elbow by a grinning Allegra.

  “Lizzie!” Mary cried, and rushed to help her to a seat.

  “I daresay that dress suits you better than it does me.”

  Mary brushed her borrowed gown. “I hope you don’t mind—the maid said it was—”

  “Not at all! You must keep it,” said Lizzie. “Allegra told me you would all be here. She told me so many things I could scarcely fathom…I thought it best to come home.”

  “Longest carriage ride ever, again,” Allegra chimed in. “I thought we’d be in Wales by now, and my bum’s gone numb.”

  Jane gasped, Peebs coughed politely, and Mrs. Somerville clucked a bemused never-mind.

  “Mr. Brocklehurst is in custody, so you can rest easy here,” Peebs assured Lizzie.

  “What of Sir Caleb?” asked Mary.

  “I imagine he’s had a rather uncomfortable night. He and Brocklehurst were at each other’s throats, and the constables thought it safer not to transport them together, so they left him where he was—locked up in the crypt. They should be back for him soon.”

  Mary sat down to her bacon and toast at last and found she was ravenous.

  They spoke further, and after a second pot of tea, they were alerted by a squeaky stair to the arrival of a shaky but determined Ada, who it turned out was quite as ravenous as Mary, which quieted the worst of Mary’s fears for her health.

  And then, in the doorway, appeared a much-restored Alice, looking not ghostlike but perhaps a bit tentative.

  Lizzie turned and the two girls stared in wonder, each feeling as if she were seeing her own reflection. Lizzie was too wobbly from her long journey to stand, but she reached out her hand and said simply, “Sister,” and Alice ran into her arms.

  “Welcome home, dear sister,” said Lizzie. “At long last.”

  All together at last, each girl shared her piece of the story, filling in the gaps of information that remained.

  “And what of you, Cousin Alice?” asked Mrs. Somerville. “It is you we know least of. However did you fare, once lost to the family?”

  “I did not know I was lost, madam,” replied Alice. “I was raised in a loving home, not so very far from here. My parents—my adoptive parents, as I know now—are both in service in Varens Manor, and it was there I met the estate manager of this house, who was conferring with the Varenses’ manager.”

  “Bottlethirst,” said Ada contemptuously.

  “Mr. Brocklehurst, yes. He looked at me ever so strangely the first time we met. But then we chanced to meet in town one day, and he was quite the gentleman. He introduced me to his friend Sir Caleb, and all has been a whirl since. A baronet! And he wanted to marry me!” Alice shook her head.

  But Mrs. Somerville nodded, understanding.

  “And no sooner are we married than they introduced me to Papa. My real father, they say, and it gladdened my heart to know him. But he was suspicious of Sir Caleb, and when I questioned Caleb about it, he shut me up in the hospital.”

  “Ghastly,” said Jane, who could not help herself. This time, no one stopped her.

  “But I had overheard them talking,” continued Alice. “I heard I had a sister, and that Caleb and Mr. Brocklehurst were going to try again. I could not stand the thought of them doing to another what they had done to me.”

  Alice paused from her tale. “I must thank you. Each of you. You have saved me from much wickedness, and I can never repay your kindness.”

  Mary took both of her hands. “Kindness is repaid by friendship, Alice.”

  “And I thank you as well,” interrupted Lizzie, “for rescuing me from that awful hospital. After I took a chill in the rain like Ada, Mr. Brocklehurst presented me, in my delirium, as their missing patient. And there I would have remained save for the courage of all of you.”

  There was a knock on the door, and the butler came to alert Mrs. Somerville—who had taken command of the house at large—that the constabulary had arrived to relieve them of the prisoner. The entire household accompanied the constables along the crunching gravel path to the crypt, where a chilled and miserable Sir Caleb huddled in fear. He gave little resistance as the constables led him to believe that tea or at least a blanket would be waiting in his cell.

  The constables tipped hats and muttered formalities to Peebs and Mrs. Somerville, ignoring the girls altogether, and left the lot of them on the scorched stair, which was still draped with Mary’s now-ruined wool cloak.

  “I can show you now. Look,” Ada directed Mrs. Somerville. “It’s not a tomb, it’s a book. This book tells a story—a love story. A steganograph hidden in the Roman numerals. Some have these little holes, here, see, and these here, and here, aren’t Roman at all, they’re Greek,” said Ada. “I knew that it must be some sort of code.”

  “It is,” said Mary, feeling clever that she’d grasped Ada’s solution. “And it’s a testament too, Alice, of how much your parents loved and missed you. Look up.”

  There in the flecked silver ceiling, the Greek letters and larger Roman numerals upside down, spelled the name: A L I C E.

  “Marvelous,” said Mrs. Somerville. “Steganography.” The girls held hands tightly.

  “Wait,” said Ada. Something itched in her brain. “This can’t be all of it. It’s too easy. I mean, it’s lovely that they lie there, looking up at the name of their lost daughter, but…” She crept farther in the tomb, respectfully avoiding stepping on the graves, and knelt down to each letter in the cipher—first Greek, then Roman, and finally Greek again, her fingers running the channels of the inscription to the finger-poke-sized holes below. Slowly, gently, she found what she was looking for.

  Pressing each of the holes rewarded her with a tiny click. When the last Greek sigma had been pressed, a rolling, clicking, sliding, stone-on-stone sound reverberated, and in the far wall, a grey panel slid away to reveal a long, narrow, silver box.

  Ada smiled as the others gaped in amazement—at the cleverness of the design and the cleverness of Ada herself. She ventured to the far wall, removed the box, and opened it to reveal a large sheet of parchment, folded upon itself multiple times and sealed with a blob of crimson wax.

  The will.

  As the Londoners prepared for the journey back to town, Mary and Jane met in an upstairs hallway and noticed the half-open door to the library, just as Ada had done on their first visit. Jane pushed gently on the door and took a silent step inward, though Mary waited in the hall.

  “Whatever could you possibly want of me?” said the dusty uncle, annoyed words in an unannoyed tone.

  “Mr. Thorpe, I presume.”

  “Don’t shout so, child,” he said, although Jane was not shouting.

  “You knew. You must have known,” Jane stated quietly.

  “If I knew, I don’t now, whatever you’re prattling on about,” he said.

  “A library’s a good place for stories,” said Jane pointedly. “How about this one? Although I’m sure you’ve heard it.” She stilled the anger in her voice, although it held an edge as she sat down opposite the dilapidated Thorpe.

  “Once there was a young couple who fell in love. Only, she was an heiress, and he a young man who had yet to make his fortune. And so her family did not approve the match.”

  “Nor should they have.” Thorpe nodded.

  “But they were married anyway, quietly, and had twin daughters.”

  “Enough,” coughed Thorpe. “You know nothing of such things.”

  “But I do know, Mr. Thorpe. As do you. Church records. Orphanages. Shall I continue? It’s such a sad story, it needs telling. Impoverished, they were forced to give up the girls for adoption, while our groom goes to find his fortune. Which he does, to the satisfaction of his bride’s family at last. And so there is a proper Society wedding, this time. They search for their girls but find only one, leaving a hole in both their hea
rts.”

  “A scandal, best forgotten.”

  “A girl, sir. A person. And because her origins were secret, she became prey for two unscrupulous men.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, girl? I know nothing of these matters.”

  “But you do—these unscrupulous men were here in your house. You approved the match of Sir Caleb and your niece.”

  “A baronet, yes,” Thorpe said. “A good match.”

  “Not so good, no. A horrible man. A fortune hunter. Have you no care for your niece at all, sir?”

  “Care? Don’t confound me with cares, child,” he rebuked. “Brocklehurst came to me with the match, and I approved. That is the entirety of my contribution.”

  “And on what, dare I ask, did you base such approval?”

  “He was in a book. Quite reputable.”

  “Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And on that alone you placed the fortune and future happiness of your niece?” Jane’s voice wavered between contempt and disbelief. Eavesdropping from the doorway, Mary silently cheered her sister on.

  “I’ll not tolerate your wearisome tone, girl. What do you know of such complexities? We have standards to maintain, and you young moderns will see them overthrown, I have no doubt.” He sighed heavily.

  “I hope we will set better standards, sir. I hope we will see things more clearly.”

  The old man merely waved his hand, as if shooing a bothersome fly. And so Jane too sighed heavily and took her leave.

  He was silent for a moment before conceding. “Still, it is a new century.”

  “It is, sir,” said Jane. “It has been for the last twenty-six years.”

  That afternoon, back at the Byron house, Ada sat propped up in bed, having been ushered there by Mrs. Woolcott, Mrs. Somerville, Anna, and Mary, with instructions to stay put.

  Beside her lay a box of pencils, a compass, and a ruler. There were even a few scraps of paper, two books, and a discarded shawl on the floor.