European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  “And you must be Beatrice,” she said, “I’m Irene Norton, and I need your help. Mary, Justine, and Diana have disappeared. They left Vienna a week ago, and nothing has been heard of them since. They seem to have vanished into thin air. I was hoping you could help me find them.”

  MRS. POOLE: How did Mrs. Norton know to find you at the theater?

  CATHERINE: She didn’t know—she guessed. She saw an advertisement for La Belle Toxique in her morning paper. Remember that Holmes had described us all in his letter. She figured a poisonous girl in the circus might be Beatrice, and when she saw there was a panther woman, she bought herself a ticket to our show. Good thing she did, too, or we would not have been on that train!

  Catherine and Beatrice both stared at her. Beatrice was the first to recover from her surprise. “Yes, I am Beatrice Rappaccini. Mrs. Norton? We were going to find you tomorrow at your apartment. But . . . you say Mary and the others have disappeared? How . . . What is . . .”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spring it on you like this.” Irene looked at them with a rueful expression. “The problem is, we don’t have much time. Van Helsing is leaving for Budapest tonight on the Orient Express. He’s been here in Vienna, searching for his daughter. My associates and I have led him on a fine goose chase, I assure you! I thought we had him fooled, but now I suspect he may be the one who’s fooled us. Did he order for Mary and the others to be kidnapped? Is he holding them somewhere—perhaps in Budapest? Someone needs to follow him. I’m hoping he can lead us to them.”

  Catherine frowned. “You think he realized they were trying to rescue Lucinda Van Helsing, and absconded with them in some way?”

  “But they did rescue Lucinda!” said Irene. “Didn’t you get my telegram? I sent it on Friday to Mrs. Poole—the same day I sent one to Mina Murray, telling her that Mary and the others were on their way to Budapest. They left that night, or rather early the next morning, by coach with Lucinda. I told Miss Murray to telegram when they arrived, but I haven’t heard anything—in a week! They should have arrived days ago. I was so worried that I sent my footman, Georg, along that road on the fastest horse I could hire. About a day out from Vienna, their trail disappeared—somewhere after the city of Ödenburg, which the Hungarians call Sopron, the coach simply vanished. The innkeeper and his staff in Ödenburg could tell Georg nothing—one man and three women, with their coachman and footman, had stayed a night and left the next morning, that was all. That would have been Justine dressed in men’s clothes, Mary, Diana, and Lucinda. One of the ostlers did say he thought the coach was heading, not toward Budapest, but in the opposite direction, toward Gratz. Georg searched along that road, but could find no evidence they had passed that way either. I’m worried sick. . . .”

  “Excuse me,” said Miss Petunia. “If you don’t mind?” She pointed at the doorway.

  “Of course,” said Irene, and moved so Miss Petunia could pass by her.

  The Jellicoes, Catherine noticed, were now packing up their costumes and cosmetics. “Friday was the day we left with the circus,” she said to Irene. “We would have been gone by the time Mrs. Poole got the telegram. Have you heard back from her?”

  “No, only from Watson. He’s found your traitor—look.” Irene opened her purse, with was intricately beaded, with a silver clasp, then handed a neatly folded telegram to Catherine. On it was written,

  REGRET TO INFORM YOU THERE IS A TRAITOR IN OUR MIDST. YOUNG JIMMY BUCKET CAUGHT PASSING INFORMATION TO A MYSTERIOUS LADY CROWE POSSIBLE MEMBER OF S.A. OR SO SAYS CHARLIE AND HE SHOULD KNOW. HAVE BEEN TOLD HE WILL BE COURT MARTIALED BY THE BAKER STREET BOYS. HE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN THE LEAKY FAUCET BUT YOU SHOULD REMAIN ON GUARD. HOLMES STILL MISSING CAN YOUR LONDON CONTACTS HELP? TERRIBLY WORRIED. WATSON

  “Poor Jimmy!” said Beatrice. “His sister is sick with tuberculosis, and his mother is a washerwoman—Mrs. Poole has employed her from time to time. She is a widow, and very poor.”

  Catherine took the telegram and read it again, frowning. “That doesn’t excuse selling us out to the S.A., if that’s what happened. And I don’t feel one ounce of sympathy for Sasha, either. He’s my second oldest friend here, after Clarence. At least, I thought he was my friend. I’d like to tear his throat out!”

  “Sasha—is that the Dog Boy of the Russian Steppes?” asked Irene.

  “Yes, Catherine suspects he may be an agent of the Société des Alchimistes. You see, she could not find the telegram you had sent—”

  “Bea, I don’t think we have time to explain everything,” said Catherine. “Now that we know there’s an agent of the S.A. in the circus, we can’t stay here, and anyway, we need to find Mary and Justine. And Diana, I suppose. But we have five more shows in Vienna! Friday evening, then Saturday and Sunday including the matinees. We can’t just leave Lorenzo in the lurch.”

  “Is that Lorenzo the Magnificent, as it says on the poster?” asked Irene. Catherine nodded. “All right, tell me where to find him. I’ll get this squared away. You just get ready to go. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “He has an office right next to the men’s dressing room,” said Catherine. “Around the corner and to the left.”

  “Right,” said Irene, nodding. And then she was gone, although her perfume lingered on the air behind her. Catherine was not a fan of perfume generally, but Irene’s was a deep musk that was somehow pleasant even to her nose.

  She turned to Beatrice. “All right, let’s get everything back in the trunk. I still can’t believe that Sasha . . . I mean, he was my friend.”

  “You do not know his motive,” said Beatrice. “Perhaps, like Jimmy, there is more to his story than you think.”

  “Whose motive?” Clarence was standing in the doorway. “I was wondering if you ladies would like to get some dinner.”

  “Oh, hello, Clarence,” said Doris Jellicoe. “Excuse us, we want to get our dinners as well.”

  Catherine turned to see Edith Jellicoe nodding in agreement. “Yes, excuse us,” said Edith, giving her a nasty look. What in the world was up with that? But before Catherine could ask, both of the Jellicoes slipped past her. She could hear their rubber-soled shoes squeaking down the hallway.

  “It wasn’t Zora, it was Sasha,” said Catherine, turning back to Clarence. “Someone returned the telegram to my trunk—someone who smells like those vile cigarettes he insists on smoking.”

  “You’re going to need more evidence than that,” said Clarence. “You can’t just keep going around accusing another one of us—the Zora incident was a fiasco. She’s told Lorenzo that she doesn’t want to work with you anymore, and I can’t blame her. The Jellicoes are mad at you, that’s for sure!” He leaned forward and sniffed at the telegram. “Anyway, I can’t smell anything.”

  Well, maybe that’s because you’re not a puma, Catherine wanted to tell him.

  “You’re American!” Irene was standing in the doorway. “Hello.” She must have come back from talking with Lorenzo. Well, that was quick! Catherine wondered what they had discussed, exactly. Irene held out her hand. “Irene Norton, née Adler, of New Jersey.”

  Clarence took her hand in both of his and shook it. “Clarence Jefferson, originally from Virginia. I’d bow and kiss your hand, Mrs. Norton, but I figure you might prefer an American greeting. None of that aristocratic stuff!”

  Irene laughed. “From a fellow countryman? Yes, please!” Then, she turned to Catherine and Beatrice. “I’ve made it all right with Lorenzo. You’re going to leave the show tonight and rejoin it again in Budapest. He’ll tell everyone the Toxic Beauty and the Panther Woman are sick. I’ve promised him another act to replace the ones he’s missing—Hannah and Greta, the famous sharpshooters! Anyway, you seem to have caused a bit of a ruckus. I got the feeling that he would be grateful for a break.”

  “And in the meantime, we shall try to find the others?” said Beatrice. “We could travel the route they took.”

  “I think there’s a quicker way,” said Irene. “I take it that Mr. Jeffer
son here is in the know?”

  “Yes, you can say anything in front of him,” said Catherine.

  “All right, then. Van Helsing’s been in Vienna for the past five days. He arrived late Saturday night with two colleagues, both English scientists—I assume they’re also members of the Société des Alchimistes. He may have found out that we rescued Lucinda and then gone after Mary and the others, somehow. I don’t know how exactly. Alternatively, they could have been kidnapped by the Société des Alchimistes, in which case they’re most likely in Budapest. Honestly, I assumed the S.A. was an amateur operation—until I read Watson’s telegram. Getting one of the Baker Street boys to turn traitor isn’t easy—they’re very loyal to Sherlock. If Van Helsing turns out to be a dead end, go directly to Mina Murray—she should be able to give you more information on what the S.A. is doing. Instead of trying to follow the route Mary and the others took, which is what Georg tried to do, I suggest you follow Van Helsing. If he knows where Mary and the others are, he will lead you to them. And if not, you’ll want to be in Budapest anyway. But he leaves on the Orient Express tonight. Can you be on that train?”

  “You want us to spy on Van Helsing? Sure,” said Catherine. “But I don’t know how we’re going to afford train fare. We don’t have any money.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” said Irene. “The Orient Express leaves at midnight from the Staatsbahnhof. Why don’t you come to my apartment? I’ll give you dinner and tell you all about what’s been happening here, since you don’t know. And you can tell me about Sasha. I’ll have Hannah and Greta keep an eye on him—they’ll try to find out who his contacts are. He may be a member of the Société des Alchimistes himself, but it’s more likely that he’s working for them, like Jimmy Bucket. Mr. Jefferson, since Catherine and Beatrice seem to have taken you into their confidence, would you care to join us for dinner? I would be delighted to talk to another American. What do you think of McKinley? I’m a Republican, of course—my father was proud to fight for the Union. But I’m worried we’re going to get ourselves into another war with Spain over Cuba.”

  And then Clarence said a great deal that Catherine did not understand about things like the Monroe Doctrine, and places like Guam and the Philippines, all while carrying her trunk through the back halls of the theater. She and Beatrice carried the rest of their luggage, while Irene argued. Catherine could not tell whether she was agreeing or disagreeing with Clarence, but they both seemed to dislike someone named William Randolph Hearst.

  Along the way, Beatrice whispered to her, “Did you notice that Mrs. Norton’s parure is missing?”

  “I might have, if you would tell me what a parure is,” said Catherine.

  “That necklace she was wearing, and the matching earrings, and I think she also had a bracelet. She was wearing them when she came to the dressing room—they were very fine garnets, a dark red that matched her dress. She is no longer wearing any of them.”

  Catherine looked at her, puzzled. “Are you suggesting someone stole her jewelry?”

  “No, I think that is how she paid Lorenzo to let us go for the rest of the Vienna engagement.”

  MARY: Which is yet another debt we owe to Irene.

  Now they were in the lamplit street, and there was Irene’s carriage waiting for them. Clarence handed them up and got in beside Irene, whom he seemed to treat with unusual gallantry. As they rattled away over the cobblestones toward 18 Prinz-Eugen Strasse, Catherine berated herself. She should have handled everything—yes, everything—better. The great solitary puma wasn’t exactly doing so well. Thank goodness she had friends—Beatrice and Clarence, and now Irene Norton—to help her when she messed up. Maybe these humans were right to band together.

  BEATRICE: When I first saw Irene’s apartment, I thought I had—well, if it were not blasphemous, I would say that I thought I had gone to heaven. The furniture! The paintings! I could tell at once that she was a woman of taste and learning, a woman ahead of her time. Even the books. . . . Although some of them were very modern indeed! I admit the genius of Tolstoy and Ibsen. Nevertheless, I feel there are some values we do not need to overturn.

  CATHERINE: The weapons! The telephone! Clearly, she was a lot more important than she was letting on. What sort of person sends their telegrams through the American Embassy?

  MARY: Cat, should you be writing all this? I mean, Irene still lives in Vienna. Her secret room won’t be a secret once this book is published.

  CATHERINE: She said I could. Granted, she said no one would believe it anyway, the way no one believes Mrs. Shelly’s biography of Victor Frankenstein. Everyone assumes it’s fiction. She says people rarely believe in what they think to be improbable, although they often believe in the impossible. They find it easier to believe in spiritualism than in the platypus.

  BEATRICE: So she thinks our readers might assume this is a work of fiction?

  CATHERINE: Bea, you sound upset by that.

  BEATRICE: And you are not? Do you not care whether readers understand that this is the truth of our lives?

  CATHERINE: As long as they buy the book, no, not much. As long as they pay their two shillings a volume, and I receive royalties . . .

  “It’s almost nine o’clock, and you need to catch the train at midnight,” said Irene, when they were all seated at her dining room table, with a very smart maid in uniform setting dinner in front of them. “By six a.m. you should be in Budapest. We know Van Helsing and his friends will be on that train—his housekeeper, who was loyal to Mrs. Van Helsing and has been keeping me apprised of his movements, saw the train tickets herself. I’m hoping he’ll lead you to Mary and the others, or at least provide you with some sort of clue as to where they might be. My hypothesis is that the driver of the coach, a man named Miklós Ferenc, was in his pay—my coachman has since heard some things about Herr Ferenc that lead me to believe he was less trustworthy than we thought. Among other things, he left unpaid bills in Vienna. He may have taken them in a different direction, perhaps through Gratz to throw us off the trail? But Van Helsing will eventually want them in Budapest—at least, he will want his daughter there. Frau Müller overheard him talking about bringing Lucinda there, although he did not say for what purpose. What he intends to do with Mary, Justine, and Diana, I don’t know. I’m desperately worried about them. But there’s nothing you can do until you need to leave for the train station, so I suggest you finish your dinners, and then I have some things to show you that may help you in Budapest.”

  “And you will tell us how you rescued Lucinda?” asked Beatrice. “I’m so glad that she was all right.”

  “Well, sort of,” said Irene. “See, it’s like this . . .”

  Over dinner, Irene told them about Dr. Freud, and the Krankenhaus, and Diana’s daring if somewhat foolhardy escape. She told them about the altercation in the back streets with the men who would not die. Catherine listened intently enough, but part of her mind was elsewhere. Those two English scientists Irene had mentioned—they must be Seward and Prendick. If so, she would see Edward Prendick again. She both wanted and did not want to. She could not help thinking of the year they had spent together on Moreau’s island, after Moreau and Montgomery had died. There had been bad days, when he had been morose and impossible to talk to. But there had been good days as well, when they had gone swimming together, or cooked fish over a fire, or hunted one of the Beast Men together. He had not enjoyed these hunts, but she had—she was still proud of the way she had dispatched the Hyena-Swine Man, with a single blow to the head and a bite through his throat. And then on rainy days they had sat in the cave they called their parlor, while he had told her stories about his childhood in Surrey, and being a student at Cambridge, and studying with the great T. H. Huxley himself at the Royal College of Science. He had a way of running his fingers through her hair. . . .

  “Bea, I’m worried about the two of you going into such a dangerous situation,” said Clarence. “Mrs. Norton, you’ve been describing all this very calmly, but a ma
n who would conduct experiments on his own wife and daughter must be a man entirely without moral qualms. If Beatrice and Cat need my help . . .”

  “That’s very kind of you, Clarence,” said Beatrice gently. “But you see, Catherine and I have natural defenses—I have my poison, and Catherine has her agility, her ability to see and smell beyond the human range, her fangs. You would not be protecting us—we would need to protect you.”

  “Got it,” said Clarence. He looked a little nonplussed as he cut into his schnitzel.

  “But it was chivalrous of you to offer,” she added.

  He gave her a swift glance, as though wondering if she were mocking him, but Beatrice simply smiled and continued with her dinner.

  How nice it was to have a really thoughtful hostess! While Irene and Clarence dined on Wiener schnitzel and potatoes with little bits of green stuff on them (which Beatrice later informed Catherine was parsley—why would anyone put leaves in their meal?), Catherine had been provided with a thin, very rare steak, still bloody and absolutely delicious. She felt almost as though she had caught it herself. And Beatrice was enjoying a bowl of what looked like her usual green goop. Catherine imagined it probably tasted the same as always—Austrian goop was probably no different than English goop.

  BEATRICE: Actually, the vegetation of Austria is different from English vegetation, so Austrian goop has its own distinct flavor.

  CATHERINE: We really didn’t need to know that.

  BEATRICE: You were the one who mentioned it!

  They were served by the maid, whom Irene addressed as Hannah. Hadn’t she said something about a sharpshooting act with a Hannah and Greta? But this Hannah did not look as though she could be a sharpshooter—like a perfect maid, she almost blended into the wallpaper.

  After dinner, Irene said, “Catherine and Beatrice, I have some information to give you, and also some . . . well, equipment. Clarence, would you prefer to go back to your lodgings, or stay here and wait until they’re ready to go, then accompany them to the Staatsbahnhof? I can’t go to the station myself—Van Helsing may recognize me, since I recently visited his house as Frau Müller’s sister from Swabia! Who knows, he may be as good at seeing through disguises as Sherlock.”