“Think about what we need, Mrs. Raymond,” he said. “Hands, a lady’s hands. I’ll be back with your payment tomorrow night.”
“I should hope so,” said Mrs. Raymond. “And no hands until you do! I’m not to be trifled with, Mr. Hyde.” She followed him out the door, turning down the gas as she went. And then Catherine heard a key turn in the lock. She was locked into Mrs. Raymond’s office.
MARY: Alice, why did you follow Catherine? Were you just curious about where she was going?
ALICE: Oh, I was curious all right, but I didn’t care about that, miss. See, she was wearing Mrs. Jekyll’s dress. I recognized it right away: there was a darn under the arm that I had made myself when Mrs. Poole didn’t have time. Your mother had torn it in one of her fits. And so I thought, Why is this woman wearing Mrs. Jekyll’s dress? You could have sold it, of course, but I didn’t think you would sell your mother’s clothes unless you were in desperate straits. Perhaps she had stolen it, but something about her didn’t strike me that way. I’ve known thieves, and she wasn’t a thief. And then I saw her hiding in Mrs. Raymond’s office, behind the curtain. I could see her eye in the gap, staring at me. I didn’t know if she was a bad one, but I knew Mrs. Raymond was, and that little man—Hyde—and the tall hairy one, they weren’t right either. So I made a choice.
MARY: It was the right choice, and I’m glad you made it.
ALICE: Thank you, miss.
Catherine turned and examined the windows. They opened outward, and unlocked easily. All she had to do was turn the latch. She waited: there, two men, one of them carrying what looked like a sack of laundry. That must be Hyde and the Bear Man, and the woman following behind was Mrs. Raymond. They walked across the courtyard, and then Mrs. Raymond let them out through the front gate. She locked the gate behind her and returned to the house.
Would she be coming back to her office? The gas was turned down, but not off, so she might be coming back. Quickly, Catherine pushed one of the windows outward and climbed onto the ivy that covered the front of the house. She closed the window as best she could. She would not be able to latch it again, but perhaps Mrs. Raymond wouldn’t notice, or would assume that one of the girls had forgotten to relatch it after cleaning. She let herself down the ivy, hoping it would hold—Diana had described climbing up and down it, but Diana was lighter than she was. And it was two floors down to a courtyard paved with stone.
The ivy held. She let herself down onto the cold pavement, wishing she had worn her boots, although they would have made too much noise in the corridors. She slipped across the courtyard, hoping no one was looking out the front windows. There was the gate, but Mrs. Raymond had locked it. How would she get out? The stone wall was too high for her to leap over, and there was no ivy here to climb.
“Pssst.” It was Diana, standing on the other side of the gate. “Come on, I’ve already picked the lock. You should have taken off your nightgown to climb down that wall. You look like a ghost! Anyone could see you from a mile away.”
“Well, maybe they’ll think I’m a ghost,” said Catherine. “Hyde and a Beast Man—they went to the right! They have one of the girls in a sack.”
“That was my father?” said Diana. “My father’s alive? If I’d known, I would have looked at him more closely. I thought they were both Beast Men. Watson was keeping watch and saw them come out. And then I saw you climb out the window. I told him and Charlie to follow them, and that we would catch up. You can follow them by smell, can’t you?”
Yes, she could smell all four of them: Watson’s pipe tobacco, Hyde’s cologne, the rank scent of the Bear Man. Charlie smelled, surprisingly, of soap.
“Put this on,” said Diana. “It’s Watson’s jacket. He said you might get cold. My father’s alive. So Miss Mary was wrong after all—I’m not surprised. Mum always did say that he was clever enough for anything. And he never came for me, all those years. Bloody bastard.”
The jacket was too large, but Catherine was grateful for it. At least it covered part of her nightgown. For the rest—well, she would be bare-ankled and barefoot. Cats don’t need shoes, she reminded herself. “Come on,” she said to Diana. “They went that way.”
The two girls hurried down the street, into the labyrinth of the London night.
CHAPTER XV
The Streets of Soho
Mary and Holmes waited in a narrow street across from a boardinghouse in Soho. It was a run-down, disreputable place, with shutters that hung awry and a general air of slovenliness. The area itself was not promising: above them hung lines of chemises and undershirts, drying in the tainted London air, and there were piles of refuse in the alleys. In a nearby yard, a dog had been howling off and on for the last half hour. Yet they were not far from the respectable Deerborne Hotel, where they had inquired for Mr. Prendick earlier that evening. They had agreed that there was no time to lose and a direct approach was warranted, so Holmes had shown the proprietor a letter signed by Inspector Lestrade that authorized him to make any inquiries necessary. The proprietor, a cheerful, red-faced man with an elaborate mustache, had said that yes, Mr. Prendick dined there regularly, always arriving as the dinner service began. They had waited in the proprietor’s office, on the chance that he might dine at the Deerborne that night.
And he was punctual as clockwork: at seven o’clock on the dot he walked in. Sitting as inconspicuously as possible behind some potted ferns, pretending to read Punch, they had watched him eat alone in the hotel dining room. Would he recognize them if he saw them directly? It was doubtful: he had not glanced at them this morning when almost running into them at the asylum. No doubt he had been too upset. Still, it was best not to take chances. After dinner, he paid his bill and made his way to the front entrance, retrieving his hat and umbrella from the hall stand. They had followed him, always staying about a block behind. Finally, he had turned into this street and entered the boardinghouse.
He was still there, in a second-floor room: every once in a while they could see his silhouette cross the window. It is easier than one thinks, Mary realized, to recognize a silhouette.
“Can’t we just go confront him?” Mary asked, at last. “We’ve been waiting for hours, and nothing’s happened.” Where were Beatrice and Justine? What had happened to them? How were Catherine and Diana doing? Why had Watson not sent word? She could not help worrying about them all.
“Something will happen,” said Holmes. “Miss Frankenstein and Miss Rappaccini have been kidnapped. That changes the situation for whoever murdered those women in Whitechapel and created the Beast Men. If Prendick is involved, he will be summoned. If not, he’s of no use to us, and we’ll need to start from the beginning. But I think he is involved, despite his protest to Dr. Seward. When he passed us in the asylum hallway, the look on his face was not anger, as it might have been if he’d been unjustly accused. It was fear. Wait, there—what is that?”
It was a strange little man, loping up the street. He seemed to be about Diana’s size, but his arms were longer than they should be, and he moved hunched forward, as though wanting to put his knuckles on the ground to help his progress.
“Beast Man,” said Mary. They were all different, but by this time she could see what was common about them all: the impression of misshapenness, of something inhuman in them. At last, something was happening.
The Beast Man stopped at the door of the boardinghouse, stood upright, and rang a bell. The door was opened by a woman as slovenly as the house, evidently the landlady or a servant of some sort. She stepped back and he disappeared through the doorway, then down the dark hall.
The door closed behind him. They waited: What would happen now? There was Prendick again, silhouetted briefly against the window. Then the gas was lowered. A few minutes later, the two of them emerged through the front door: Prendick and the Beast Man. They turned right and started walking up the street.
“Quickly,” said Holmes. “Stay as far behind as you can, but don’t lose sight of them.”
The
y followed Prendick and the shuffling Beast Man through the narrow streets of Soho, as inconspicuously as possible. There were gas lamps along the major streets, but many of the smaller streets were dark, lit only by the light from windows. Prendick was traveling by unfrequented ways, streets with few shops on them and fewer passers-by. Mary was glad: that meant fewer people to notice their presence. She could see the moon over the housetops, hanging above the chimneys like a shilling, half bright and half tarnished.
She did not know where they were. She recognized nothing, and she could not ask Holmes while they were in pursuit. Thank goodness she had left her umbrella at home. It would have been a nuisance under the circumstances. If it rained, she would simply get wet. Three times they almost lost Prendick, but each time they saw him again. If it had not rained the day before, they would likely have lost him altogether. Each time, Holmes found footprints that pointed them in the right direction. Prendick’s footprints were not particularly distinctive—he wore a brand of ready-made boots bought by many gentlemen, Holmes told her under his breath. But he was walking beside the Beast Man, whose footprints stood out like a beacon in the darkness. After a while, even Mary could distinguish them from the other footprints on the muddy pavement.
On one long, lonely street, they had to wait in an alcove to avoid being seen.
“I think I know where he’s going,” said Holmes.
“Where?” asked Mary. “And how can you know?”
“By logical deduction: if he’s making Beast Men, it must be somewhere his actions will not be noticed. Where the presence of animals will not be remarked upon, where limping men with dark skin and excess hair will be treated not as monstrosities, but as foreign sailors.”
“The docks!” said Mary. “I’ve heard they’re the locus of iniquity and vice. Of course, that was according to Mrs. Poole, and she might well say the same of Mayfair. I’m not sure how much her assessment is to be trusted.”
“In this case, she’s not too far off,” said Holmes. “Come, they’re almost at the end of the street. If I’m right, they will be turning south.”
“Have we been walking east?” asked Mary. “I’ve lost all sense of where we are.”
“Yes, can’t you smell the Thames? We’ve been walking parallel to it almost all this time.”
Of course. She blamed herself for not having noticed the rank smell, or for having noticed it but only as a matter of course, as something at the edge of her consciousness but not as a clue. Let that be a lesson to her—one she was not likely to forget.
“They’ve turned the corner. Come on!”
Mary hurried along the street behind Holmes. Her feet hurt terribly, but that did not matter. They had to find Justine and Beatrice.
They turned where Prendick and the Beast Man had turned before them, toward the river. This street was lined with warehouses. Prendick rapped on the door of the second one on the left. She could hear the sound reverberating. The door opened, and for a moment she could see a rectangle of light. Then it closed behind the man and beast, and the street was dark once more.
Keeping to the shadows, she and Holmes drew closer. Here there were no streetlights, but the street was wider and the moon shone down as it could not in the narrow alleys. They could see the warehouses well enough. The one into which Prendick had been admitted was two stories high and made of brick. It had a great door, most likely to admit carts, and then the smaller door on which Prendick had knocked. Over the great door was the name ALDERNEY SHIPPING, in white paint that was visible even in the darkness. On the second floor were several windows, all dark. On the first floor, there was only one window, in which a light was shining.
“Shall we try to see what’s going on?” Without waiting for a response from Holmes, she crept up to the window with the light in it. The shutters were closed, but they were so old that some of the slats had rotted away, and the window itself was broken in several places. She had a clear view of the room, or a portion of it. What she saw caused her to gesture wildly to Holmes. He was right behind her, having followed her almost immediately. He looked in as well at the horrific scene. Mary’s blood ran cold in her veins.
CATHERINE: Now am I being melodramatic?
MARY: No, it really did make my blood run cold. I mean not really, because blood can’t run cold within the human body. But as a metaphor, it accurately describes how I felt at the time.
CATHERINE: Oh, for goodness’ sake!
Even Holmes said “Dear God” under his breath.
MARY: He really did say that. I remember it distinctly.
The room had no doubt once served as an office for Alderney Shipping. An oil lantern hanging from the ceiling lit the center of the room, but left much of it in shadow. The room was lined with shelves that had probably once held smaller packages. Now, those shelves held large bottles that reminded Mary of the Royal College of Surgeons. Swimming in those bottles were parts of bodies. Hands, legs, torsos. Perfectly preserved heads. Eyes closed, they swam in preserving fluid. But surely there were more parts than five girls could have provided? She could see at least three heads, and she did not want to count the number of limbs, of various sorts. Along one wall was a large cage, which had probably once safeguarded valuable merchandise. Now it held Beast Men. She could see two, or was it three, standing in their hunched, misshapen way close to the bars, but only part of the cage was visible from where she was standing. In the center of the room, under the lamp, was what appeared to be an operating table. Around it stood Prendick and two Beast Men—the hunched, shuffling one that had fetched Prendick, and a tall, hairy one that looked suspiciously like a bear.
On the table lay Justine, still in her white nightgown. Her wrists and ankles were strapped to the table. She was staring up at the ceiling, calmly.
JUSTINE: I was waiting for death and preparing to meet my Lord.
“There are three of them,” Mary whispered to Holmes. “Do you think we could rescue her? The Bear Man looks strong.”
“That can’t be all of them,” he whispered back. “What’s in the portion of the room we can’t see? Wait and watch. I think we need to know more before we act.”
“Well, Prendick? Can you do it?” The voice Mary heard was deep, harsh. It was not a voice she had heard before.
“I don’t know,” said Prendick. “It’s a delicate operation, removing a brain. Moreau could have done it, but I’m not Moreau. I could damage her forever.”
“Damn you! You’ll do it, and it will work, or I’ll strangle you with my bare hands!”
A shape—a man’s shape—strode across the room, hands outstretched, as though to show Prendick what exactly he might expect. When Mary saw him, she gasped. He was the largest man she had ever seen, at least seven feet tall, but it was not his height that struck her most. No, it was the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his arms and legs, muscled like the strongest of circus strongmen. He was in shirtsleeves, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, so the blue veins on his forearms were clearly visible. And then, the pallor of his face, the rough black hair, the black eyes rolling with an expression of fury . . . She had never seen anyone so frightening.
“Killing me won’t help you create the woman you want,” said Prendick. How could he be so calm? Was it desperation, or exhaustion? Certainly he seemed exhausted. “I can try to replace her brain. It will, at any rate, be easier than creating an entire woman, which was your original insane plan.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll tear it out! You can create a woman for me as well dumb as speaking—and I shall enjoy your company more.”
Prendick looked down at the ground and said, “All right. I’m ready to start when you wish.”
“Do you see what you’ve driven me to, Justine?” The giant looked down at her. “I give you one final chance. Say that you love me, that you will return to me willingly, and I will spare your life.”
“I will never love you,” said Justine in a voice that sounded as though she were speaki
ng from a great distance. “I welcome death, and willingly choose it over a life with you, Adam.”
The giant roared with displeasure. He turned to the cage where the Beast Men were kept and pounded his great fists on the bars. All the Beast Men cried out, some in fear, some in anger. The shuffling Beast Man leaped up as though startled and gave a high screech, but the Bear Man stood silent and motionless.
“Very well then! Prendick, begin the procedure. Once your brain is replaced with the brain of that girl, that governess, it will be a blank slate, ready for whatever I teach it. I shall be your Frankenstein then, not he—not the cursed father who created us both!”
He took a jar off the shelf. In it was a brain, a human brain floating in preserving fluid. “Do you see this, Justine? This is what will replace you! The brain of”—he looked at the label on the jar, where a name was written—“Susanna Moore. Your body will continue, but you—all that you are—will be gone!”
Justine looked calmly at the brain in the jar and said, “I am ready.”
With a growl, the giant handed the jar to Prendick, who put it on a cart next to the table. Still calm, he said, “I’ll need time for the ether to work. For an ordinary woman, it would take several minutes, but she isn’t an ordinary woman. I don’t know the dose that will put her under, or kill her. I’ll have to experiment.” He looked down at Justine and said, “I’m sorry.”
She did not look at him. Instead, she closed her eyes and said, “Notre Père, qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, que ton règne vienne, que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel . . .”
Prendick took what looked like a sponge off the cart, put it on top of a bottle, and turned the bottle over so the sponge was saturated with the chemical within, then held the sponge over Justine’s nose and mouth. If she continued to pray, it was inaudible.
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Page 25