The House of Hidden Wonders

by Sharon Gosling

“There are also boasts about experiments in electrobiology, a reanimated rodent, the strongest woman on the continent, a living ghost and a human monkey, if I remember correctly?”

  MacDuff looked pleased. “Among other things, yes. My, what a memory you have, sir.”

  “A human monkey?” Lady Sarah repeated, sounding entirely mystified. “What, pray, can that be?”

  “You must come and see for yourself, m’lady, once the house is finished,” MacDuff said. “There have been a few unavoidable delays but we are planning to stage a grand opening very soon. Sadly, as much as I adore your beautiful city, it seems as ridden by crime as any other. I have been robbed of a few valuable exhibits that must be recovered before I can invite the public inside.”

  “Oh, how terrible,” said Lady Sarah. “I am sorry to hear that, Mr MacDuff. The police have been helpful, I hope?”

  MacDuff gave an ugly snort. “I’m afraid not, m’lady. If you’ll excuse me saying so, they seem rather … uninterested.”

  Zinnie heard Conan Doyle chuckle and then saw MacDuff shoot him a black look that made a warning bell ring deep in her mind. Phineas MacDuff, she noted, did not like to be laughed at.

  “Something funny, sir?”

  “Oh no, it is only that I share your frustrations, but have found my own solution to them.”

  “Oh?” MacDuff watched him with interest. Zinnie still didn’t like the look in his eye – there was something about him that made her skin creep as if a spider had skittered across it.

  “When I need to find something lost in the underworld, it is the underworld to which I turn for help. It has never failed me so far.”

  MacDuff narrowed his eyes. “A good tip, sir. I thank you for it.”

  The door opened then. Perkins slipped in, approaching the mistress of the house and bending to speak into her ear for a moment. Lady Sarah nodded and then turned to the table.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “our medium is ready for us.”

  Zinnie followed the guests into a hexagonal room with a domed golden ceiling and a floor of red and black marble. The walls were entirely lined with books, volume upon volume bound in leather of greens, reds and blacks. Sconces holding great pillars of cream-coloured candles had been lit on each wall, the wax dripping to leave strange melted forms on the marble beneath. A golden chandelier hung overhead, right above a large round wooden table at which one person was already seated. It was a woman in an opulent dress with pearls glittering in her hair. Her eyes were shut.

  Zinnie sucked in a shocked breath.

  It was Constance McQuirter. She stopped so suddenly that Dorcas bumped into her. Zinnie didn’t know what to do. Constance McQuirter was surely no more able to speak to the dead than Zinnie herself. Lady Sarah had already taken her seat at the seance table, her head bowed in respectful silence. Conan Doyle was beside her, and Zinnie knew that he was entirely serious in his belief in what was about to happen. Otherwise why would he have paid Zinnie to be here? Which meant that Lady Sarah must also be in earnest – and she was about to be conned outright by Constance McQuirter.

  Zinnie thought fast. Constance must be receiving payment – probably quite a sum too. If she was doing a lot of these evenings, it would explain how she could afford the room in Writers’ Court and her new wardrobe of clothes. Zinnie went to the seance table and began to pour a glass of water for each participant. When she got to Constance, she made a show of putting the glass down a little harder than necessary.

  “Please, I must have complete silence,” said Constance, opening her eyes at the sound. She was putting on an accent that was vaguely French and not at all her own. “In this room, the spirits must hear nothing but my voice if we are to—” Constance broke off abruptly, staring straight at Zinnie. Zinnie glared back.

  “If we are to get them to speak to us,” McQuirter continued smoothly. “Please, everyone, do not open your eyes until I instruct you to do so.”

  Around the table, the silent party did as they were bid. Constance slipped one hand into the pocket of her voluminous skirt and drew out a gold coin, which she showed to Zinnie with a quick flash of her fingers. Glowering, she raised her eyebrows. Her meaning was clear. Keep quiet and earn this.

  Zinnie glanced at Lady Sarah, who still had her eyes closed. She shouldn’t take the money. She shouldn’t let Lady Sarah be deceived. Not to mention Conan Doyle. But a whole sovereign! Zinnie bit her lip as Constance waited, watching her with narrowed eyes. Zinnie gave a tiny nod. Constance slipped the coin back into her pocket with an answering tip of her head.

  “Very well,” Constance said in her pretend sing-song voice. “Let us begin. Join hands, fair ladies and gentlemen, and open your eyes even as you open your hearts and minds. Let Madame Khartoubian see what the spirits have to offer us this night.”

  At least now Zinnie knew who the figure in the cloak had been and what it had been paying the servants for. Guilt warred with a little spark of excitement in her gut at being part of the subterfuge. Conan Doyle had told her she’d be good at that, hadn’t he? And, now that she knew there would be no real answers from the other side for her to listen to, she could relax a little. She was about to see a show, after all.

  For the next two hours Zinnie was transfixed. She had to admit that the old fraud was very good. Zinnie spent her time trying to work out how every little thing was done. The pebble and alphabet board that Constance used to ‘talk’ to the spirits was easy – to Zinnie it was obvious that letting the medium rest one finger on the pebble, even lightly, allowed her to move it to whatever letter the spirit ‘chose’. Other ‘movements of the spirits’ were harder to work out. While the guests gasped as the table moved in response to a question from one of them, Zinnie wondered if Constance had a toe under one of the legs or some other way of moving it herself. When ‘Madame Khartoubian’ managed to reply correctly to a question asked of the loved one she was supposedly ‘channelling’, Zinnie had to ask herself how much time Constance had spent researching the guests she knew would be here tonight. Had she bribed others too – coachmen, stableboys, housemaids?

  When the candles guttered out seemingly on cue, Zinnie wondered which of Lady Montague’s silent footmen had been paid to create a draught at precisely the right moment.

  Lady Sarah and her guests appeared to be entirely taken in. Conan Doyle seemed most put out that there were to be no words from the spirit realm for him, as if he had genuinely expected to be told something of use in solving ‘the Mystery of the Severed Ears’. Phineas MacDuff, meanwhile, seemed desperate to receive messages from some old acquaintances of his own.

  “Try again,” he hissed, as Constance shook her head and professed that there was only silence. “The Kings. Are they there? Any of them?”

  Constance shook her head again, the blank serenity of her face betraying nothing.

  “Well, what does that mean, woman?” he demanded. “That they’re not there, in the realms of the dead? Or merely that they do not wish to speak?”

  “I cannot say, sir,” said Constance, in her soothing French voice. “I am a conduit, not a commanding force. I can but see what the spirits want me to see.”

  MacDuff leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, that black look settling once more upon his face. The seance continued, but to Zinnie it seemed that Phineas MacDuff had lost all interest.

  Later, after the seance was over and the guests had gone, Zinnie found herself downstairs with the other servants, helping to dry the dinnerware. She wondered how long it would be until she could leave, find Constance and get her coin. She hadn’t seen the so-called medium since the seance had concluded, but Zinnie had no intention of letting her get away without payment. She felt bad that she had allowed Lady Sarah to be defrauded for the sake of Nell and Sadie, but her sisters, she had promised herself, would always come first.

  “Zinnie,” said the butler, appearing beside her. “Her ladyship wants you. I’ll show you upstairs.”

  “Ah, Zinnie, there you are,�
� said Lady Sarah from her seat beside the fire in the drawing room. Zinnie saw that, besides Conan Doyle, Doctor Jex-Blake was also in the room. “I must say you did a fine job tonight. I hardly remembered you weren’t one of my staff at all.”

  “Waste of time, though,” Conan Doyle said with an unhappy sigh. “Not a hint of our earless spirits. Not even a single murmur.”

  “Arthur’s been telling us about his severed ears,” Lady Sarah added. “It’s most intriguing. Sophia, have you come across the like before?”

  Doctor Jex-Blake shook her head. “Indeed, I have not.”

  “Well, I can’t see that we have anywhere to try next now,” Conan Doyle said gloomily. “I was sure the medium would be able to call out those spirits from among the dead.”

  “Perhaps they couldn’t hear her,” Zinnie suggested. “Without their ears, I mean.”

  The three adults in the room stared at her for a moment and then Lady Sarah broke out into loud, unbridled laughter.

  “Oh, Arthur, I love her!” the lady declared, once she had recovered. “Zinnie, do come and work for me. You can share a room with Dorcas and train to be a housemaid here. What do you say?”

  It was Zinnie’s turn to stare. Live here? In this huge, beautiful house with all its strange decorations and key to Queen Street Gardens? With Lady Sarah, who fed her staff well and went gallivanting off round the world whenever she felt like it? There were girls out there who would consider such an opportunity as the pinnacle of their hopes, and, if things were different, Zinnie might have been one of them.

  “I – thank you, my lady, that is very kind of you, really. But I can’t. I’ve got to look after my sisters. They don’t have anyone else and if I left they’d be all alone.”

  It was Doctor Jex-Blake who spoke up. “Your sisters? How old are they, Zinnie? You have no parents to look after you?”

  Zinnie’s heart turned over as she realized her mistake.

  “Old enough to look after ourselves,” she said shortly, the spectre of the orphanage looming over her like a malevolent ghost.

  “But—”

  Whatever the doctor had been about to say was drowned out by the furious ringing of the front doorbell. It was immediately followed by a ferocious knocking, as if someone were hammering against the door with their fists.

  “My goodness!” exclaimed Lady Sarah, jumping to her feet. “Whoever can that be?”

  They heard the sound of hurried footsteps as Perkins made for the door and opened it. As he did, there instantly came the sound of a voice, high, loud and pleading. Zinnie recognized it immediately.

  “That’s Sadie!”

  She rushed out into the entrance hall with Lady Sarah, Conan Doyle and Doctor Jex-Blake behind her. Perkins was standing in the open doorway, blocking the entrance as he tried to talk over the unexpected visitor.

  “Sadie!” Zinnie cried, wrestling the butler out of the way to see her sister, flush-faced and out of breath from running, standing on the step outside. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Oh, Zinnie,” Sadie sobbed. “It’s Nell! That wasn’t medicine that Constance gave you. It was nothing but stale water with some old rosemary in it. The pippin’s been getting worse all day – she’s got a fever and I can’t stop her coughing. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I had to find you. Please come home. Please. I don’t know what to do. Everyone in the close is saying we should put her out on the street before we all get sick!”

  Cold fear splashed through Zinnie. She joined Sadie on the steps, ready to run all the way home.

  “Wait a moment!” came a voice from behind them. It was Doctor Jex-Blake, a look of purpose on her face. “Perkins, get my cloak and tell your man to bring my trap round. Zinnie and – Sadie, is it? Tell me where we’re going.”

  The butler hurried away as Zinnie blinked at the doctor, so stunned by fear that she thought she had misheard.

  “Zinnie!” Jex-Blake said loudly, grasping her by the shoulders. “I will come to your sister. Tell me where we need to go.”

  “Mary King’s Close,” Zinnie said hoarsely.

  “Mary King’s Close?” Conan Doyle repeated in a shocked voice, from behind them. “Surely not. I thought that place had been derelict and abandoned for years.”

  Zinnie shook her head, her heart thumping heavily. “One,” she said. “Not the other.”

  Perkins reappeared, bearing the doctor’s cloak as the clatter of horses’ hooves sounded on the cobbles outside. He also passed Zinnie a cloth bag. Inside were her own clothes.

  “Quickly,” the doctor ordered. “There is no time to lose. My doctor’s bag is in the trap.”

  “I’m coming too,” said Conan Doyle, as the others made for the door.

  “There’s no need,” said Jex-Blake.

  “As capable as I know you are, Doctor, I still would not let you go there alone,” Arthur said. “My mind is quite made up. Besides,” he added, “I’ve always wanted to have a look around down there. I’m not going to miss out.”

  Lady Sarah followed them to the door, a worried expression on her face. “I would come too, but I shall be of no use to you and only get in the way. Goodbye, dear Zinnie – your sister will be safe in Sophia’s hands, I guarantee it. Fear not.”

  A few minutes later, they were all seated in the trap. Doctor Jex-Blake took the reins and away they sped into the night, making for the Royal Mile.

  The bells of St Giles were striking midnight as they reached the top of Bank Street. The taverns had emptied and those people still on the streets staggered on their way through fresh rain, the worse for cheap whisky and lack of food.

  They left the trap in the care of a passing boy in return for a shilling. Conan Doyle took down one of the oil lamps that hung from its rails, Doctor Jex-Blake retrieved a black bag from beneath her seat and then the two girls led the way. When they reached the broken door leading to the close, Conan Doyle hesitated.

  “We’re not going down there, surely?” he asked.

  “Aye, we are. The closes are all under the ground now,” Zinnie said, impatient. “What were you expecting, gates poured from gold?”

  “Of course not. It’s just I don’t think—” Conan Doyle glanced at Sophia. “Doctor Jex-Blake, I hardly feel this is an appropriate place for a lady. It’s bad enough on the Mile at this time of night, but this…”

  A look of irritation crossed the doctor’s face. She reached out and took the lamp from him, squaring her jaw. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she said. “I didn’t ask you to come, Mr Conan Doyle, and you can leave if you think you’re going to impede me now. Lead on, Zinnie. I’m right behind you.”

  Zinnie hurried down the stairs and into the darkness below. A murmur of voices rose around her and, when she reached the bottom step, she saw that the room was even more packed than usual. There was barely any space at all between the huddles of people trying to bed down on the floor.

  “My God,” came Conan Doyle’s low voice from behind her. “I had no idea it would be so crowded.”

  “There aren’t usually this many people. Not all so close together anyway,” Zinnie said, as she began to make her way across the room.

  “It’s the ghost,” Sadie said. “It’s all anyone’s been talking about all day.”

  Zinnie turned to stare at her sister in confusion. “The what?”

  “The ghost,” Sadie said again. “Don’t you remember – the cry we heard the other night? Well, now others are saying they’ve heard it. Seen it too. A lot of others. They say it’s haunting the lower levels. No one wants to be down there with it.”

  “A ghost?” Conan Doyle repeated, sounding intrigued. “And people say they’ve actually seen it?”

  “Oh, what does that matter now?” Zinnie snapped. “Come on.”

  As she pushed her way through the room towards the corner that the girls called home, she began to fear it would be overrun. There were people crammed everywhere, making it difficult to move. But, when she reached their room, Zinnie was
relieved to see that their drape was still in its usual place, once they managed to make their way through the throng.

  “You’ll have to wait here,” she said, turning to Conan Doyle when she realized it would be impossible for them to all fit inside the girls’ alcove at once. “Don’t move and don’t talk to anyone.”

  “But how can I offer protection if I’m over here?” Conan Doyle protested.

  “You’re the one likely to need protection in this place,” Zinnie told him curtly. “Keep your eyes open. If you see trouble coming, shout as loudly as you can. All right?”

  Zinnie turned away before he could argue further. Sadie was still helping Doctor Jex-Blake to pick her way across the floor. The sleepers grumbled and mumbled as they shifted out of the way to let them pass. Beyond the drape, Zinnie could hear the ugly hacking of Nell’s cough. Once she arrived by Zinnie’s side, Doctor Jex-Blake didn’t hesitate until she’d pushed aside the curtain. She looked down at Nell, who was asleep, breathing heavily, before turning to Zinnie.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “This is Nell,” Zinnie told her. “Our sister.”

  “But she can’t be your sister,” said Doctor Jex-Blake. “She’s—”

  “She’s our sister,” Zinnie said again, staring the doctor straight in the eye and daring her to say anything else.

  “Her parents are both gone – dead of consumption, we think, by the sound of it,” Sadie said quietly. “Zinnie found her more than a year ago, all on her own in a gutter down on Canongate. She was hungry and scared. She didn’t have anyone.”

  “Now she has us,” Zinnie said.

  The doctor looked between Zinnie and Sadie for a moment, and Zinnie could tell exactly what she was thinking. Sadie’s rivers of red hair and Irish accent had nothing in common with her own Scottish drawl and short pale hair, either. “So when you say that these girls are your sisters…”

  “They are my sisters,” Zinnie said.

  Sophia Jex-Blake smiled faintly. She gave a quick nod, then put down her bag and kneeled beside Nell, pressing one hand to the little girl’s forehead.