European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  “Some of us are going to Paris. We have a show there, for three nights. And then he’s thinking farther—maybe Berlin! Imagine that. Me, Sasha, Clarence. The acrobats and contortionists. Madam Zora the snake charmer—she’s new. Lorenzo says there’s a fashion for such things now on the continent, anything unusual, macabre. I wish you were coming with us—we could use a Cat Woman or Giantess! By the way, Sasha says hello, and Clarence told me to give you a hug.”

  “I think you already did,” said Catherine, smiling. “I wish I could, you know. I miss being part of the circus, and I’ve never been to Paris. But I have so much to take care of here.”

  “I can see that,” said Atlas. “You look good, Cat. Like you’ve found a home. I’m happy for you—and Justine, of course.”

  Had she found a home? Catherine was still not sure. But she took his hands and squeezed them. “Matthew, the thing about Justine is—she’s been through a lot. I’ll let you know when she comes back, and then maybe you can visit. Bring flowers—you know she likes flowers. Don’t give up. She had her heart broken a long time ago, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take to mend. But you can help. . . .” That wasn’t quite right, it didn’t describe what Justine had endured, but she wanted to put it in a way he would understand. Anyway, it was up to Justine to tell the whole story—how she had died and been resurrected—if she wanted to. And the story of Adam—well, that was certainly not Catherine’s to tell.

  “Bless you,” said Atlas, squeezing her hands back a little too hard. He had such a nice smile, although at the moment it looked as uncertain as it was hopeful. Would Justine ever get over what had happened with Adam enough to trust another man? Catherine did not know.

  “Well, when you see her, tell her I said hello, and that I look forward to seeing her again. Flowers, hunh? I’ll remember that. I’m not good at those sorts of things, never have been.” He rose.

  “It just takes practice,” said Catherine. She stood up on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek—he had to lean down before she could.

  And then, like a mouse, there was Alice in the doorway again. She appeared and disappeared so quietly! “Shall I let you out, sir?” She was holding a battered tweed cap.

  “Thank you, missy,” he said, nodding and taking the cap from her. “And do come visit us if you have time, Cat. It’s Mrs. Protheroe’s boardinghouse—I don’t remember the address, but anyone in that area can direct you. We’ll be there until the end of the week.”

  A minute later, Catherine heard the front door open and close. Ah, it had been good to see him! That had been a fine life, at the circus. Not easy, but interesting, and safe for a while. This new life—it was better in some ways, but less safe, she thought, for all that she was living in a posh house by Regent’s Park. It had other kinds of danger, like the ones she would encounter in Soho.

  “Miss?” It was Alice, at the door again.

  “Yes, Alice? And for goodness’ sake, could you just call me Catherine? Or Cat, if you prefer. Or Hey, you.”

  “Yes, miss. I was taking her luncheon to Miss Beatrice”—Green sludge, thought Catherine—“and she said she wasn’t going with you this afternoon.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous.” Catherine drew the map to herself again. “I’ll need to find a place to hide, probably someplace small. If Beatrice and I were hiding together, she might poison me. She wouldn’t mean to, but she wouldn’t be able to help it.”

  “Oh, I remember!” said Alice, with feeling. Of course, she had almost been poisoned by Beatrice in the warehouse by the docks, as described in The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, at all the finest booksellers, only two shillings.

  MARY: Don’t you think you’ve done that enough?

  CATHERINE: When I’ve done it enough, I’ll stop.

  “I do wish the others were here,” said Catherine. “Justine might be too tall, and Diana too wild, but Mary would come in handy, if only as a lookout.”

  MARY: Well, thank you for that, I’m sure! I’m much more than a lookout.

  Of course, she could have asked Charlie, but—this was about Prendick. Somehow, she did not want Holmes or his Baker Street Irregulars involved. Whatever they knew, he would know, and this felt like her personal business. She would take care of it herself.

  “What about me?” asked Alice. “I don’t know that I’m much use, but I can look out as well as anyone one.”

  Catherine was astonished. “But Alice, you’ve told us over and over again that you just want to be a kitchen maid. No adventures for you, remember? You were most insistent.”

  Alice stared down at her feet and twisted her hands in her apron. “Yes, miss—Catherine. But it feels cowardly of me to let you go alone, when I could help. I feel that Miss Mary would expect it of me.”

  Catherine frowned. “Are you absolutely sure? We may be going back into danger, you know.”

  Alice looked up again and nodded. “Yes, Catherine. Absolutely.”

  Catherine waited a moment, and then another moment, in case Alice changed her mind. “All right, then. Come on over here. I want us both to memorize the streets in this section of Soho. And remember that it’s going to look different once we’re among the buildings.”

  MARY: You know you didn’t have to go. You didn’t have to prove anything—not to me, not to anyone.

  ALICE: I know, but I’m glad I did, despite everything that happened after. We don’t become who we are without taking risks, do we?

  MARY: No, I suppose not. I just wish I could have spared you a lot of pain.

  ALICE: If I had to do it over again, I would do the same, you know.

  BEATRICE: Brava, Alice. You are an example to us all.

  It was around three in the afternoon when they left 11 Park Terrace. As they walked toward Marylebone Road, Catherine looked up and down the street—was anyone watching? A beggar, a cat’s meat or rag-and-bone man, anyone who looked like an agent of the S.A.? But she saw no one except for Jimmy, one of the Baker Street boys, outfitted as a bootblack with a box and brushes. One or another of Holmes’s Irregulars was always around, keeping a lookout. Otherwise, Park Terrace was entirely deserted. She gave Jimmy a small wave as she and Alice walked by, and he nodded an acknowledgment. On Marylebone Road, they caught an omnibus to Piccadilly Circus. Then they walked through a tangle of streets and lanes, going farther and farther into the labyrinth that is London.

  Before they left, Mrs. Poole had told them both not to take any unnecessary risks.

  “I agree,” Beatrice had said, standing in the hallway as they were pulling on their gloves and donning the hats that would transform them into London clerks on their way home to lodgings. “How I wish I could come with you! Am I always to be left behind, more harmful than helpful to those I care about?”

  “Well, as soon as I need anyone poisoned, I’ll let you know,” Catherine replied. Actually, it might be rather a good idea to poison Prendick. Surely he deserved it? She pushed the angry, resentful thought into a corner of her mind, where it could stay until she had time to examine it at leisure. Now was not the time for such thinking—now she needed to think clearly, logically. Ugh, she was starting to sound like Mary!

  “I really don’t know why Alice needs to go,” Mrs. Poole said, looking worried. “I was hoping she could help me with the mending this afternoon. Is it really necessary to put her in danger as well?”

  “Mrs. Poole, this is a little more important than mending!” said Catherine. “Anyway, at the moment she happens to be Alfred.”

  Alice was wearing a pair of Diana’s trousers and a jacket that hung on her thin frame, although it was the smallest Catherine could find. Catherine was similarly outfitted in masculine clothes, although hers fit considerably better. “Come on, Alfred,” said Charles, which was the name she had chosen for herself. She clapped her hand on Alice’s shoulder in the most masculine way she knew how, and then before Mrs. Poole could raise any further objections, they were out the door and down Park Terrace, heading toward Maryl
ebone Road.

  The day was hot, the city close and airless, as though a glass dome had been placed over it. London smelled of sewage. There had been no room on top of the omnibus, and they had been forced to ride inside, on separate benches. At least they had more air, walking through the alleys and mews of Soho.

  Following a map Catherine had drawn for herself, they came to Potter’s Court, a semicircle of sad, drab houses around a thin sliver of park, like a half-moon. “But where in the world is Potter’s Lane?” asked Catherine. Three lanes radiated from the court, but none of them were marked with signs. They walked down the first, then the second, then the third. The three lanes were indistinguishable, except that each was dingier and more depressing than the last.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said Alfred to a woman who was sitting on a stoop, smoking a particularly odiferous pipe. She looked a century old, but was probably much younger—there is nothing like poverty to wrinkle the brows and pucker the mouth, to bend the young, healthy body. “I’m looking for me brother, Joe we calls him although his name’s Joseph, lives at Number 5 Potter’s Lane. Bright red hair, you can’t miss him. Can you tell me if this is the right street? Me mum’s terrible worried about him.”

  Where had Alice learned to speak in the accent of the London streets? How shocked Mrs. Poole would be to hear her! Usually, Alice was most particular about how she spoke. Even when her vocabulary was not quite equal to it, she adopted the superior accent of a maid in a gentleman’s household.

  ALICE: I’m a Londoner born and bred. I think people forget that, sometimes. When I first came to Mrs. Jekyll’s residence, I used to imitate Enid so as not to sound low. I didn’t want Mrs. Poole, or the other servants, to think I was nothing but a guttersnipe!

  “Ah, you’ve come to the right place,” said the woman. “Third house on the other side—you’ll see the number right enough, although it ain’t too clear from the road. What’s your brother done that your mum’s so worried about?”

  “Taken to drink, more’s the pity. And such a good boy once! But he fell in with a bad lot,” said Alfred, shaking his head.

  “Ain’t that always the way,” said the woman. “Well, I hope you find him, for your mum’s sake!” She took another drag of her pipe, and Catherine noticed that her teeth were stained brown from the smoke.

  “Thankee, ma’am,” said Alfred. Catherine, or Charles, nodded and slipped her a penny, which promptly disappeared into a ragged pocket.

  Sure enough, the third house down had a 5 painted on the door, although it was only half-visible because the paint on the door was peeling off in long strips. The next house had no marker at all, but logically, it must be Number 7. It was set a little back from the street, behind a small yard of dirt and dying grass. The front door was shadowed by the buildings around, the windows on the first floor boarded up. There was a second floor, with curtains over the windows, but no way to climb up to them.

  “Can that woman see us?” asked Catherine.

  “I don’t think so,” said Alice. “I can’t see her around the corner of the building, so I don’t think she can see me either. Why, what are you going to do?”

  “You stand guard, although really there’s not much you can do if anyone comes by. This will just take a minute.” It took considerably longer than that, and at one point Catherine was worried that the hairpin she had stuck into the lock would break in half. But finally she heard a click. After all that effort, she certainly hoped they were at the right address and that the house numbers on Potter’s Lane didn’t skip around in some mysterious way, the way they sometimes did in London! Or maybe, just maybe, she had memorized the address wrong? Why in the world would Seward want to meet Prendick here?

  As soon as she stepped through the doorway, she realized they were in the right place after all. She was so startled that she almost forgot to lock the door again behind her.

  “Blimey!” said Alice. “I mean, goodness gracious. This is not at all what I expected!”

  “Me neither,” said Catherine.

  Inside that dilapidated exterior, 7 Potter’s Lane looked like one of the gentleman’s clubs of Belgravia or Mayfair. Catherine was tempted to open the door again to see if they had suddenly been transported to another part of London. The walls were paneled in dark wood, and even in the dim light that came through the slats over the windows, she could see a mahogany hall table beneath a mirror with a gilt frame, beyond which stood an elaborate combination hat rack and umbrella stand. A wide staircase went up to the second floor. To their right was an archway into what looked like a particularly large club common room, with comfortable sofas and armchairs, a large fireplace suitable for sitting and reading by, and small tables arranged where ashtrays would be most welcome. There were paintings of distinguished-looking men on the walls, and heavy brocade curtains hung at the boarded-up windows.

  “What is this place?” she whispered. It was so quiet that she felt it would be almost a sacrilege to speak aloud.

  “Was,” said Alice. “Don’t you see, miss, there’s dust everywhere. This place ain’t . . . hasn’t been dusted for ever so long. And look, cobwebs in the corners. If I left a place looking like this, Mrs. Poole would sack me for sure.” Alice was right about the dust, although Catherine had not noticed until she had pointed it out. But then, it was Alice’s job to notice such things. Even the mirror was covered with a layer of dust. Looking into it was like looking into a murky pool.

  Catherine checked her pocket watch. “They’re supposed to be here in an hour. We need to find a place to hide, but I want to reconnoiter a bit. I assumed 7 Potter’s Lane would be a lodging house, or a neighborhood pub of some sort. I didn’t think it would be—someplace like this. What is it? And why is it in the middle of Soho? I really wish I’d come earlier, to check it out.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, miss,” said Alice. “You’ve scarcely had time, with all the preparations for Miss Jekyll and Miss Frankenstein.”

  “And I had to write that wretched article—on hats! The things we do for money. Well, it’s no use lamenting now. Let’s see what we can discover in the next half hour.”

  The first order of business was to find a hiding place, so they could come back to it quickly. On the ground floor was the large common room they had noticed, as well as several smaller rooms for private meetings. One of them, right at the back of the house, was outfitted as an office, with a large desk and bookshelves.

  “I bet they’ll be meeting in here,” said Catherine. “Seward is used to sitting behind a desk. He’s used to being director, the one in charge. I bet this is the room he comes to automatically. But how can we be sure? And anyway, if he does come in here, where in the world can we hide?”

  There were no hiding places. The room held the desk, a chair behind it, two chairs in front of it, and nothing else. The bookshelves were empty.

  “They must have held books once,” said Alice.

  “And the desk drawers must have held papers, writing implements—but look, completely empty. You know, the other rooms were empty as well—no ashtrays on the tables. And yet look at this place!” The rugs were thick, the furniture upholstered in velvet, the picture frames of heavy gilded wood. “Come on, let’s look upstairs.”

  But upstairs there were only bedrooms, and a bath with the water turned off. Here the wardrobes were empty, except for a few hangers. There was nothing in the bureau drawers. The beds had no bedclothes on them, only bare mattresses, some of which had obviously become the home of mice.

  “What in the world was this place, when it was a place?” asked Catherine. Well, there was no time to speculate now. “We need to hide. Maybe in that hall closet downstairs?”

  “I don’t think we could hear much from there,” said Alice. “There’s something I noticed. If you don’t mind following me, miss . . . Catherine.”

  Down the stairs they went again, Catherine wondering what Alice had in mind. But Alice had proven quite sensible so far, so she followed the kitchen maid back
into the office. “There, you see,” said Alice. “This room has a dumbwaiter. So does the large room up front. If you open it just a little, like this . . .” She lifted a small latch that Catherine had not even seen and opened what looked like a cabinet in the wall, halfway up, right next to the fireplace. Why hadn’t Catherine noticed it? Perhaps because it was only a foot high, and its door was the same color as the paneling—indeed, made to look like a part of the paneling. It was certainly not large enough for either of them to hide in. Still, she should have been more observant! What was the point of being a puma if she didn’t notice things?

  “You see, if the door is open, anything said in this room will echo down the shaft of the dumbwaiter. Joseph, our footman that was, told me about a butler who blackmailed his master based on the things he’d heard through the dumbwaiter. Now we just need to see where it comes up from, which will be down below, I’m thinking.”

  Catherine stared at Alice’s retreating back with respect. She had wondered if it would be a good idea to bring the kitchen maid with her. Well, here was her answer! She followed Alice, both amused and frustrated. Why, Alice was turning out to be as useful as Charlie!

  On their way, Alice opened the dumbwaiter in the common room as well. Unless you were standing right next to it, you would never have noticed that it was open just a crack.

  Then they descended into the basement, down the narrow set of back stairs so common in London houses. The first room they came to was a kitchen, with two windows at ground level, rounded like half-moons, that looked out into what an optimist might have called the garden. These were boarded up as well, but the boards had deteriorated enough that they could see each other, and the dusty stove, and the empty kitchen shelves, in the dim light. There, set into the dingy, soot-covered walls, they found the bottoms of the dumbwaiter shafts. “If we take out the frames, we’ll be able to hear better,” said Alice, beginning to take one out herself. Catherine helped her. At least she was still stronger than Alice! Together, they lifted out the large wooden frames that normally ran up and down the shafts, delivering food and wine from the kitchen, and put them on the stone floor.