The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter

by Theodora Goss

  Loose women! Well, looking around her, Mary had to admit they didn’t look particularly respectable. At least Alice had a mackintosh to cover her nightgown. But Catherine’s bare legs stuck out from under Holmes’s frock coat.

  “I’m Sherlock Holmes, and I’m taking this man to Scotland Yard.”

  “Mr. Holmes! Am I supposed to believe that? Then you’ll be able to tell me all sorts of things about myself, without me having to tell you.” The captain looked skeptical. “Tell me something, Mr. Holmes. Anything about me that you wouldn’t know.”

  Holmes’s expressions were usually difficult to read, but even by lantern light, Mary could see that he was thoroughly exasperated. “Your initials are G.M. You smoke a pipe, your preferred tobacco is Old Virginian, indeed you were smoking your pipe as we approached. You were a sailor but were wounded by a bullet to the shoulder, so you gave up the seafaring life to become a riverboat captain. Your wife is a conscientious woman who scolds you for drinking excessively. Is that enough to prove my identity, Captain? My associate, Dr. Watson, is grievously wounded.”

  The captain looked at him with wonder. “It’s like magic, it is! Aye, I’m George Mudge, and you’re right about everything, even the old woman, who’s far too good for a reprobate like me. How we do like reading those stories of Dr. Watson’s on a Sunday evening. It will be an honor to take the both of you—and your companions—upriver. Come aboard, Mr. Holmes! I’ll have to tell Mike, who runs the boiler. He won’t believe it’s really you!”

  If Mary had not been so tired, she might have laughed out loud. Next, Captain Mudge would be asking Holmes for his autograph! What a night it had been: fear and tragedy and absurdity, all mingled. She simply didn’t know how to respond anymore.

  The steamboat was small, just large enough for about twenty passengers. Under ordinary circumstances, it was probably a pleasure-launch hired for day trips up the river. Justine carried Watson to the back, where he could lie on one of the benches. Holmes followed her, leading Hyde. Beatrice went after him, and Mary was about to follow as well, but . . .

  “No, I want to go up front,” said Catherine. “It’s bad enough being on the water. At least let me breathe fresh air, not that stuff coming out of the chimney.”

  “I didn’t know you disliked water,” said Mary.

  “Did you ever know a cat that liked it?” Catherine led them to the front of the boat, past the chimney. Mary did not particularly mind the smoke, but to Catherine, with her cat’s nose, the stench must be terrible.

  CATHERINE: It was. Most of London smells terrible. Except the rubbish heap outside Billingsgate Market. That smells of lovely fish heads. . . .

  So Mary followed her, relieved that she did not have to sit near Hyde. Eventually, she would have to confront him, but not yet. Alice followed Mary. There, they settled themselves on the seats facing forward, presumably so pleasure-seekers could see where they were going. Renfield stood undecided, not certain which way to go, but finally turned to sit with Holmes and Hyde in the back. Thank goodness the madman would not be sitting with them. Yet another thing Mary would not have to worry about, for a while at least.

  When they were seated, Mudge cast off the line, and then they were free of the shore and on the water, steaming up the Thames in the darkness. I’ve never been on a boat before, thought Mary. Yet another item on the growing list of things she had never done. The wooden seat was hard, the air was cold, and there was darkness all around the lantern on the prow, like a large firefly leading them into the night. All around, she heard the lapping of water. The ground under her feet, which had always been so stable, was no longer stable, but swayed side to side, as though she were floating on uncertainty itself.

  BEATRICE: That’s a lovely image, Catherine.

  CATHERINE: Thank you. I rather like it myself. I may write “cheap popular fiction,” as a reviewer recently called it, but I can do symbolism. . . .

  Catherine, who was sitting next to Mary, touched her arm and leaned toward her. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. Probably not. It’s the first time I’ve had a dead father reappear, you know?” She said it low, so Alice would not hear. The last thing she wanted was Alice worrying about her.

  “It’s going to be all right.” Catherine squeezed her arm—the gesture was unexpected, from Catherine. She had been so aloof, so independent, until now. “We’re going to be all right. Adam’s dead, the Beast Men have been destroyed, and we’re going to get Watson to the hospital.”

  “Yes, I know.” Mary wished she could sound more convinced. It was the darkness, the motion of the river, the way it mirrored the uncertainty of her life—of all their lives. “But what about you? Prendick . . .”

  Catherine looked out at the darkness. “As soon as you told me he was alive, I knew I would see him again.” She was silent for a moment, then added, “He looks different. Older, and his hair’s turned gray. I didn’t get the chance to talk to him. Perhaps I never will, if he died in that fire. Although if he survived the ocean, he can probably survive anything. But Hyde . . . I mean, your father. You’ll have to speak with him, you know. At the very least, you’ll have to ask him about the Société des Alchimistes. You need information, if nothing else.”

  “I’m hungry,” said Alice, suddenly. “Begging your pardon, miss. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but I had the thought and then it just came out. Must be almost dying back in that warehouse. That would make anyone hungry, I’m sure.”

  Mary laughed, low so as not to disturb the silence. Not that anyone would have cared, but it was so present, the silence of the boat, the sound of the water, that it seemed almost a sacrilege to speak too loudly. She could not help it—here she was worrying about what would happen tomorrow, and the day after that, when there was plenty to worry about tonight. Thank goodness for Alice. At least her problem had a solution.

  “I’m sorry, Alice. I don’t have anything, although as soon as we get home, Mrs. Poole—wait, I do have something after all!” The tea cake she had put into the pocket of her mackintosh earlier—could it possibly still be there? “Reach into your pocket—no, the other one. Yes, can you feel something?”

  Alice pulled out the tea cake, flattened like a top hat at the opera.

  “Well, it will have to do for now, I’m afraid. At least it didn’t fall out along the way!”

  Alice ate it in small bites, to make it last. They could hear a murmur from the back of the boat. It was Holmes’s voice—Mary was sure of it. And then a rougher voice that must be the captain’s. What were they talking about?

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, miss,” said Alice. “See, the headmistress at the charity school, she weren’t a kind woman, or an educated woman neither, like you and Mrs. Poole. She didn’t like having charity girls—only the Board of Trustees made her take them so the school could get subscriptions. She always said no one would want an orphan. So when I was sent to you, to see if I would do as a scullery maid, I told Mrs. Poole that I had grown up on a farm. My friend had told me so much about it, because she was homesick, that I could talk about milking and gathering eggs and how the hay smelled when it was cut and stacked in the fields. I ain’t never seen a hayfield, really. I’m sorry, miss. I was only ten at the time, and didn’t know better.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. I’m just glad you’re safe and coming home with us! But tell me how you ended up at the Magdalen Society.”

  “And why were you following me?” asked Catherine. “That’s how she was caught by Hyde. I was in Mrs. Raymond’s office, looking through her desk, when that old witch and Hyde walked in. They started talking about the girls—Mrs. Raymond was the one giving Hyde their names, so Adam could kill them and take their body parts. And they heard a noise—Alice was outside the door. Why were you standing outside that door?”

  “Well, it were this way. I hadn’t nowhere to go, when Miss Mary dismissed me. I tried sweeping a crossing for a while, but a big boy took my crossing and the
broom I’d bought. The money Miss Mary had given me for my wages was running out. I slept in doorways, but the police would tell me to move on, so I would be walking most of the night. And soon I wouldn’t be able to buy food. So I thought, who can orphans turn to when they can’t turn to anyone else? Why, to God of course, like it says in those books Mrs. Poole never wants me to read because she says they’re so low, but only a penny. So I went into a church, and the minister asked about the state of my soul and whether I was afraid I’d fall into sin if I lived on the streets, and I said yes—although I’d have thrown myself into the Thames first, which I suppose is another kind of sin. The minister gave me a pamphlet and told me about the Magdalen Society. I was careful to tell Mrs. Raymond that a gentleman had importuned me, thinking she might not let me stay if I just said I was hungry, and she told me to sign that big book. I told that lie to you too, miss,” she said to Catherine, “and for that I’m right sorry. I didn’t know you were a friend of Miss Mary’s, then. So there I was for a week, getting fed regular and a bed to sleep in, although terribly bored, when I saw you.”

  DIANA: I told you, Our Lady of Dullness . . . and Murder! I guess the murdering part wasn’t that dull.

  ALICE: I’d rather the dullness, thank you very much, having almost been murdered myself. I’ll wear scratchy wool, eat overcooked food, and listen to sermons that make you fall asleep in your chair, if it means not being poisoned.

  DIANA: Alice, you have no sense of adventure.

  ALICE: Quite right, miss.

  “You hadn’t yet gotten your Magdalen Society dress when I saw you,” Alice continued. “That terrible gray wool we all had to wear! It was when you were coming out of Mrs. Raymond’s office. I was mopping the floor on my hands and knees, and got a good look at you as you walked past, though you wouldn’t have noticed me then. I thought, I’d know that dress she’s wearing anywhere—it belonged to Mrs. Jekyll, God rest her soul. It was her lavender tea gown, and many’s the time I’ve helped Mrs. Purvis, the laundress, wash it. And I thought, I want to find out why she’s wearing that dress. So when we went into the sewing room, I watched you, and then at dinner I sat next to you. I asked Sister Margaret if you could share my bed, since I was lonely at night, having always slept with another servant. That was another lie, I’m afraid. And then when you got up at night, I followed.”

  “Well, that explains a great deal,” said Catherine. She sounded amused. There was just enough light from the lantern to see that she was smiling. “And I have to compliment you on the lying—you seem quite accomplished at it.”

  “Oh, it’s terrible, miss,” said Alice. “But once I get started, I can’t seem to stop. Going on about gathering eggs in the morning, how warm they felt in my hand, and the cornflowers in the fields, and my two brothers. About how I missed the farm, when I’d never been farther from London than a cab horse!”

  “Oh, Alice, if only I’d known!” said Mary. “I couldn’t have paid you, but you would at least have had a roof over your head.”

  “I couldn’t tell Mrs. Poole, miss. Not after the terrible lies I’d told.”

  “Well, we’re going to go home and tell her. And then you’ll stay at Park Terrace until we can figure out what to do with you.”

  “Home,” said Catherine. “That sounds rather nice—home.” She was not sure she believed in the concept.

  It does sound nice, thought Mary. And that was what she’d been assuming, without realizing it—the house on Park Terrace would become a home. For Diana and Beatrice, and Catherine and Justine, and now for Alice. They would all live there together, no more going off to join the circus or perform in freak shows. Which might not at all be what the others were assuming would happen.

  In the back of the boat, a different conversation was taking place.

  “Your initials are on your handkerchief, which is tucked into the sleeve of your jacket. The pipe is in your breast pocket—I can see the stem, and you smell of tobacco smoke. There is ash on the breast of your jacket, which together with the distinctive smell allowed me to identify your preferred tobacco at once as Old Virginian. As you may know, I have written a monograph on the different types of tobacco ash and how to distinguish between them. You have the weathered face of a man who has spent years in a tropical climate and the bearing of a military man, particularly about the neck, so you could have been a soldier. But the knots at the end of your dock lines are distinctly nautical; even if they were made by your subordinate, you would have taught and supervised him. I deduced a man who had served on a sailing ship, most likely in the South Seas, and had come back to London to settle down. It would be easy and logical for such a man to run a steamboat up and down the Thames. You move your left arm stiffly, likely from an old wound, and there is a bullet on your watch chain, no doubt the very bullet dug out of that shoulder. You have the flushed nose and cheeks of a drinker, and your trousers are patched on one knee—a thick patch, carefully sewn around the edges. There is your conscientious and no doubt thrifty wife. Such a wife would object to your nights at the pub, and is not likely to refrain from scolding.”

  “Ah, well, when you explain it like that, it seems obvious,” said Mudge.

  “Of course, it always seems obvious once it’s been explained.” Holmes sounded annoyed, but Beatrice could tell he was scarcely paying attention to Mudge. He was worried about Watson.

  “Put your hand on Dr. Watson’s forehead,” she said to Justine. “How does it feel?”

  “Hot. Hotter than it should, I think.” Watson’s head was on Justine’s lap. She held him as tenderly as though he were a young bird in a nest. It is the way she holds everything—when you are as strong as Justine, the world is terribly fragile.

  “I was afraid it would be,” said Beatrice. “He’s running a fever, Mr. Holmes. If I had my medicines, I could bring down the fever and fight the infection—but I have nothing. I only hope the hospital has what he needs. The state of medical knowledge in London is, let us say, not what one might expect of the largest city in the world.”

  “I’ll get you there as quickly as I can,” said Mudge. “I’ll tell Mike to stoke up the boiler, then send him back here to meet you. He won’t believe it’s you, sir. What a night! We came down here because a party of gentlemen, fresh from a club in Mayfair and deep in their cups, wanted to go slumming, see what they called the real London. But they were supposed to be back hours ago. No doubt they’re dreaming in some opium den, unless they’ve been murdered already. I was cursing my foolishness in having agreed to bring them down here, but it’s allowed me to meet you. Life’s a rum thing, ain’t it? If I find a piece of paper somewhere, you’ll give me your autograph, won’t you, Mr. Holmes?”

  Holmes assured him that yes, he would be perfectly happy to autograph anything, if the captain would just get them to Chelsea as quickly as possible.

  Mudge went to check on his boiler, and they sat in silence: the detective, the murderer, the Giantess, the Poisonous Girl, and the man who might die that night.

  In the bow, Mary, Catherine, and Alice had also fallen into silence. What were our heroines thinking, as the boat moved upriver through the darkness?

  DIANA: Now you really do sound like a penny dreadful! Anyway, how could you possibly know what was happening in the back of the boat, when you were sitting in the front?

  CATHERINE: Because I asked Beatrice, and unlike you, she has an excellent memory.

  BEATRICE: Please don’t interrupt. I want to know what we were all thinking. I remember what I was thinking . . .

  Beatrice watched the face of the feverish man. Had she done enough to sanitize the wound? If there was fever, infection must be present. Could it be stopped in time? She thought of her father’s garden in Italy. The herbs she had grown there could stop the infection, but where would she find them in England? She remembered the Italian sun and the hills around Padua, with their vineyards, their orchards of fig and olive trees. How different from this city, where it was always cold and wet. Would she ever b
e warm again? Once, she had wanted love and joy, but those were gone. She no longer expected them of life. All she wanted now was freedom. If she had that, it would be enough.

  Catherine remembered another ship, bearing her away from the island where she had been made. Pretending to be an Englishwoman although she had never seen one, guessing how she was supposed to act by what seemed to be expected of her, what the captain and his sailors were startled by in her behavior. She had learned quickly: not to climb the rigging, to eat her food with fork and spoon as well as a knife, to agree that the heat of the sun made her feel faint and accept a seat in the shade. Anything unusual in her behavior, she explained as loss of memory from the trauma of being shipwrecked and having to sustain herself on a deserted island. And then the long voyage to England as the ward of Sir Geoffrey Tibbett, wearing white cotton dresses he had bought for her in Lima, carrying a parasol to shield herself from the sun. He was half in love with her but unwilling to admit it to himself. She was not surprised that when he introduced her to his wife, on the doorstep of his house on Curzon Street, the woman had welcomed her with a frown and said, “Do come in” as though meaning the exact opposite. Then scrounging on the streets of London, like one of the stray cats that lived on refuse. Would she have to go back to that life? Or was this a new life waiting for her, a life with these . . . other monsters, for weren’t they monsters, after all?

  Mary was thinking of the handcuffed man who sat in the back of the boat. This small, crooked man with the sneering face—was he truly the tall, respectable Dr. Jekyll? The father who had perched her up on a laboratory chair and shown her the different colors of the Bunsen burner flame in response to various chemicals? He had not acknowledged their relationship except by a careful nod, which could have meant anything but felt significant somehow—as though he were afraid of going too far, of making a gesture that would be rejected. As it would be, she thought. I could forgive him betraying me, but betraying Mama—never. Diana might accept him as her father, but Mary never would.