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.”
“He doesn’t know me, but Seward and Prendick do,” said Catherine. Especially Prendick. “Those are the two English scientists. They’ve never seen Beatrice, but they might recognize me.”
“Then I think a disguise is in order,” said Irene. “Let me think about what I might have. . . .”
“I’ll wait,” said Clarence. “The two of you will need some help with your luggage, and anyway, I’d like to see you safely on that train, even if you’re not exactly going to be safe on the train itself!” He was talking to both of them, but looking at Beatrice as he said it.
Well, there it is: He’s caught Beatricitis, thought Catherine. I just hope he recovers—or learns to handle the symptoms!
BEATRICE: I am not a disease!
“Then I have something for you, Mr. Jefferson,” said Irene. From the sideboard, she handed Clarence a newspaper.
Clarence grinned. “The New York Times! I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
“There’s a whole selection in the parlor, including the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. I like to know what’s going on back home. And now, if you ladies will follow me downstairs?”
Catherine wondered why they were going downstairs, toward the kitchen and servants’ quarters, but her admiration knew no bounds when Irene admitted them into her windowless sanctum and she understood, for the first time, that Irene Norton, née Adler, was not quite what she appeared.
“What are you?” she asked, standing in front of the wall of weapons.
“An opera singer,” said Irene. “Alternatively, a collector of information.”
“La Sirène!” said Beatrice. “I thought that I had seen you before. It was in an article about the great opera singers of the seventies and eighties. You were said to have been a wonderful Carmen, but the article asked what you were doing now. . . .”
Irene smiled. “That was in another lifetime.”
“Does Mr. Holmes know about all this?” asked Catherine. She was looking appreciatively at a collection of knives, swords, and other edged weapons, including a machete.
“I’m glad you like my toys,” said Irene. “Although Beatrice might prefer my medicine cabinet?” She walked to the desk at the opposite end of the room, then opened one of the cabinets behind it.
Beatrice, who had followed her, gasped. “But these are poisons! This is curare, from the root of the South American vine Strychnos toxifera. I have seen it growing in only one place—my father’s garden. And this is digitalis, from the common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea. And aconitine, from Aconitum napellus, also called wolfsbane. Why do you have a cabinet of poisons?”
“Not because I poison people,” said Irene. “Unless, of course, it’s absolutely necessary.” She was still smiling, so she must be joking—right? Catherine could not be sure. “Anyway, as you know, the poison is in the dose. Curare has been used to counteract the effects of strychnine, for example. As for whether Sherlock knows, his brother Mycroft certainly does—we are counterparts, of sorts—and I suspect Sherlock has deduced a great deal. He wouldn’t expect me to be sitting idle here in Vienna. But I didn’t bring you down here to show off my office. Choose whatever weapons you think will be useful to you, and then come over here—I want to make sure you know where you’re going.”
Catherine gleefully chose a Webley revolver. If a Webley was good enough for Holmes, it was good enough for her! Although hers was smaller, a .32 that would fit comfortably in her hand or into a purse. Beatrice could not bring herself to touch the firearms. “I could not kill anything,” she said. “Truly I couldn’t.” She was at last persuaded to take a stiletto in a leather sheath, purely for defensive purposes. Just then, Hannah entered with what looked like black fabric draped over one arm.
“I thought these might be best, madame,” she said, holding up the fabric, which turned out to be two black dresses. Were they going to disguise themselves as widows? Or perhaps maids?
“Nuns!” said Beatrice. “You wish us to dress as nuns?”
“No one ever looks at a nun,” said Irene. “Especially not men. It’s a very useful disguise, almost like being invisible.”
“Would it not be a sin—,” said Beatrice.
“Not if you’re saving your friends,” said Hannah, speaking for the first time. Catherine was impressed by her English—she had assumed the maid would speak only German. “I assure you that God will understand, and if not, you can go to my confessor. He is used to absolving all sorts of sins!” She turned to Irene. “The tickets have arrived, madame. Greta had time to run down to the Staatsbahnhof. She’s gone back to her post now, observing Professor Van Helsing’s house.”
“Thank you, Hannah. Catherine, I hope the two of you won’t mind sharing a cabin for the night. I know of Beatrice’s . . . effect on others, shall we say? But it would look suspicious to reserve individual cabins—nuns are not that wealthy. Will six hours in a train cabin be a problem for you? Forgive me, Beatrice, but I think it’s best to be frank.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Catherine. “We’ll keep the window open, and I’ll go walk in the corridor every hour or so. I just—does it have to be nuns? I’m not very fond of nuns, generally. Or priests either, for that matter. I got enough sermonizing for the rest of my life on Moreau’s island.”
“You don’t actually have to take holy orders, and you’ll find it a very useful outfit to hide a gun in,” said Irene. “Among other things, it has pockets!” She took a document from her desk—no, it was a map—and unfolded it on the central table. “What I want you to do now is study this. Not all of it, of course—but if you’re going to search for the others in Budapest, and possibly the surrounding countryside, you should get a good sense of the general layout. See, here is the Danube, which Hungarians call the Duna. On one side is Buda, on the other side is Pest. Here, in Pest, is the National Museum, and on this small street next to it is the address on Miss Murray’s telegram. . . .”
An hour later, they were in a hired carriage traveling to the Staatsbahnhof—the three of them would not have fit in a cab. Clarence kept looking at Sisters Beatrice and Catherine, and then looking away. “Nuns,” he said, for about the fifth time. “Did it have to be nuns?”
Sister Catherine, whose revolver was resting comfortably in the pocket of her habit, frowned at him, although she doubted he could see her expression in the darkness. “You know, I think Irene was right—this really is the best costume. It hides firearms and makes men uncomfortable. A perfect combination.”
Beatrice, who was sitting on her other side, next to the window, said reproachfully, “Nuns are very holy women. It is an honor—and probably also a sin—to dress as one.”
“Right,” said Clarence. Then he whispered, so close to Catherine’s ear that it tickled, “It’s also really weird.”
“You’re going to have to get used to weird around us,” she whispered back.
BEATRICE: I did go to confession afterward, and the priest granted me absolution. But it is something I hope never to do again. We may solve mysteries, and carry weapons, and vanquish villains, but we need not do what is wrong in pursuit of what is right.
CATHERINE: Except sometimes.
By midnight, Clarence had helped carry their luggage to their cabin on the Orient Express, making sure the trunk was checked in with a porter and Beatrice’s suitcase was stowed under the seat. This was so much more luxurious than the ordinary train from Paris to Vienna! Irene must have paid a great deal. Catherine felt a twinge of guilt. First her—what was it called again? Parure. And now this.
Hopefully they would be able to pay her back someday.
MARY: I tried. She wouldn’t let me.
“Bye, Whiskers,” said Clarence, giving her a hug. “Take care of yourself.”
“Clarence, could you do me a favor?” she asked, when he had stopped squeezing her. She had never gotten used to this human custom of wrapping oneself around another person as though one were a boa constrictor.
“Sure, what is it?” He looked at her apprehensively. What in the world did he think she was going to say?
“Tell Zora about me. I mean everything—Moreau’s island and all. Tell her I’m a puma, or that I was a puma. I’ve lived with human beings for almost ten years now, but sometimes I still find your customs and society confusing. Maybe then she’ll forgive me—or at least understand.”
“Sure thing, Catherine.” He smiled down at her. “I’ll do my best.”
She turned away for a moment to check that the window was pushed down—standard procedure for riding in a train car with the Poisonous Girl—and when she turned back, she saw that he had his arms around Beatrice. Well, what of it? He was giving Beatrice a hug as well. But a moment later, as he said goodbye, she saw that blisters were beginning to form on his lips. Damn it, the man would never learn! Well, she hoped the kiss had been worth it. She looked at Beatrice and just shook her head. Beatrice winced and mouthed the word Sorry.
Once they were alone and the train was pulling away from the station, Catherine said, “Why don’t you get some sleep? I told the porter not to bother making up the beds—we’ll need to wake up in a few hours anyway—but he left us some blankets.”
“I don’t think I can,” said Beatrice. “I’m so worried about Mary and the others. What do you think could have happened to them?”
Catherine shrugged to indicate that she had no idea. “I suppose Van Helsing must have found them somehow? Maybe he’s keeping them somewhere, hidden until he can use Lucinda to convince his supporters to back him at the meeting of the society.”
“But then why has he been in Vienna all this time?” Beatrice frowned. “I think the Société des Alchimistes found them and has taken them . . . well, I do not know where, or for what purpose.”
“What would the society do with them?” asked Catherine, apprehensively.
“I have no idea,” said Beatrice. “My father always spoke of it as a society of scientists dedicated to expanding the boundaries of knowledge. I would not have thought it was in the business of kidnapping people. But Lucinda, Justine, and Diana are all the results of experiments in biological transmutation. What will be the society’s attitude toward them? I do not know.”
“I still think it’s Van Helsing,” said Catherine. “But my powers of deduction haven’t been particularly accurate lately! Well, there’s one thing that gives me hope.”
“What’s that?” asked Beatrice, shaking out one of the blankets and wrapping it around herself.
Catherine smiled. It was a grim smile. “Diana’s with them. There is no situation so well-planned that Diana can’t introduce chaos into it. Whoever is holding them, wherever they’re being held, is going to regret it.”
Beatrice shook her head, but could not help laughing. Then they sat in silence, Beatrice curled in her blanket, thinking about a kiss—unexpected but not unwelcome—and Catherine checking her watch to make sure she did not spend too long in the cabin. There would be no sleep for her—every hour, she would walk out into the corridor to get away from Beatrice’s poison for a while. The gas lamp flickered in the wind from the open window, throwing shadows around the cabin as the train sped through the night toward Budapest.
VOLUME II
From Vienna to Budapest
CHAPTER XVI
The Blood Is the Life
Mary,” said Justine, “I do not wish to alarm the others, but something is not right.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mary. It was their fourth day of being on the road, or rather a series of roads, each of which seemed to have its particular textures, its differing amounts of rocks and ruts. She was so tired of being jostled all day, day after day, like a sack of potatoes. Her buttocks—yes, Mary, I’m going to use that indelicate word—was sore from sitting all day, even on the cushioned seat of the coach. All she wanted was to get to Budapest and find Mina, take a hot bath, and sleep in a proper bed.
Across from her, Diana had dozed off, and next to her Lucinda was also sleeping. She had been sleeping much better since they had figured out how to keep her fed.
“What I mean is—that farmhouse where we stopped to give the horses their oats? Dénes spoke to them in German.” Justine looked at her meaningfully.
“Isn’t that what people speak here?” asked Mary. “I mean, we’re still in Austria-Hungary.”
“Yes, but we should be in the Hungary part of it. The official language is German, but the common people speak Hungarian. Don’t you remember our Baedeker?”
“Not as well as you do, evidently,” said Mary. “Also, I don’t think I could distinguish between German and Hungarian—what’s the difference? And what are you implying—that we’re traveling more slowly than we should be?”
“I don’t know,” said Justine, shaking her head. “But there is also a change in the countryside. Have you noticed—”
“Fewer farms, more forest? Yes, I’ve noticed.” Mary frowned. She had not thought much about it—she had simply assumed that Hungary was not as civilized as Austria, sort of like Scotland in relation to England. “But what does that mean? If anything?”
“It’s not just that,” said Justine. “We’ve been traveling upward. Slowly, imperceptibly, but I have lived among mountains. The quality of the air is different here—we are higher up. I looked at all the maps carefully before we left England. There are no mountains between Vienna and Budapest.”
“Then where do you think we are?” asked Mary. “I would check the Baedeker, but I think it’s in the trunk. Maybe next time we stop, I can get Dénes to take it down, telling him I need a shawl or something?”
“I have no idea,” said Justine. “We only studied the route we were planning to take. I do not think we are on that route anymore. Irene said it should take us three days to reach Budapest, depending on the condition of the roads. It is now the fourth day. I know this sort of travel is not as reliable as a train, and a private coach does not run to schedule, but . . . I am worried.”
Damn. Damn and double damn. Could Justine be wrong? Mary looked out the window. It was starting to grow dark, and a fog was rising. The coach lanterns were already lit. The countryside around them was, not wooded exactly, but wilder and rockier than it had been around Vienna. The trees were different—she did not know how, except that they were taller and darker. She had seen all these things, but had not thought anything of them in particular. There had been other things to worry about—how to get Lucinda fed being the chief of them.
After the rather gruesome discovery that Lucinda would need blood for nourishment, the first day of their journey had been uneventful. They had stopped several times to rest the horses, once in a market town where Justine had bought peaches and cherries to supplement their food supply. As the sun was setting under orange and purple clouds, they had arrived at an inn. While Herr Ferenc and his son stabled the horses for the night and bargained for a fresh pair for the next day’s journey, a stout, pleasant woman who seemed to be the innkeeper’s wife welcomed them in German. Assured by Herr Justin Frank that they were all brothers and sisters so there was no impropriety involved, she led them to a room with two beds, a chest of drawers with a basin and pitcher, and a table with four chairs. Over the beds were two paintings of no particular artistic merit: one of the Empress Elizabeth, the other of the Virgin Mary. She told them that she would bring up dinner in half an hour, then left them to unpack their bags.
“I’m not sleeping with her,” said Diana, pointing to Lucinda.
“You can sleep with me,” said Mary. “Justine, would you mind—”
&n
bsp; “Of course not,” said Justine. “At least she does not snore!”
“No, she just drinks blood!” Diana retorted.
“Will she—I mean, is it like a meal for her?” asked Mary. “Will she need blood every time we eat? Because I don’t think I can do that again today. I’m still not feeling entirely well.”
“We could ask her,” said Justine. She turned to Lucinda, who was sitting on the bed under the Virgin Mary. “Do you need to feed again? You know, on blood?”
Lucinda looked at her with haunted eyes. “When Jesus met with his disciples in Galilee, he offered them the blood of his veins and said, drink this in the remembrance of me.”
“I don’t think asking her is going to do any good,” said Mary. “Her color is better, and she seems stronger than before, but she’s not sounding any more coherent. In fact, rather the opposite.”
“Perhaps we should try to give her some, and see how she responds,” said Justine. “I believe it’s my turn. Diana, can you give me your knife?”
“I don’t know what the two of you would do without me,” said Diana. She reached under her skirt again and produced the knife, then put it into Justine’s outstretched hand.
Just as Mary had, Justine cut her left wrist. But almost as soon as Lucinda put her mouth to the cut, she spit out the blood she had taken into her mouth so that it spattered in droplets onto the floor. She scooted away from Justine until she was huddled against the headboard, right under the Virgin. “You are dead,” she said. “Dead and damned like me.”
“Well! I guess your blood’s not good enough for her,” said Diana with a snort.
“Justine, I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it,” said Mary.
“And yet she’s right,” said Justine, looking as sad as Mary had seen her since the day she had read Mrs. Shelley’s book. “I have been dead a hundred years. My blood is tainted—it is the blood of a dead woman.”
European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Book 2) Page 36