BEATRICE: It does not sound very impressive when you put it like that, and yet the committee has done some very good work. The research protocols I drafted have been adopted by the society, and I believe they have changed how such experiments are carried out. What Dr. Raymond did to Helen, for example—he could not do that, under our current structure.
All of these adventures and more can be found in the first two books, offered for the very reasonable price of two shillings a volume, in an attractive green cloth cover. Copies may be purchased in most fine bookstores.
MARY: This was supposed to be a synopsis, not an advertisement!
CATHERINE: Well, I don’t earn royalties on a synopsis, and we need money, especially now that Lucinda is staying with us.
MRS. POOLE: Remarkably cheap she is, compared with you lot! Even goes out and gets her own food, now she’s gotten the hang of it.
MARY: About which the less said, the better.
CHAPTER II
Return to Baker Street
Come in, come in,” said Mrs. Poole. “It’s terrible damp out, and the nights are growing colder. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you all safely home! Archibald, shut the door and lock up tight. He’s an excellent footman, miss,” she said to Mary, “but sometimes forgetful about things like locks. I don’t suppose orangutans have much use for them! Do take the ladies’ hats while I take their coats—you see how nicely he does it? Now, I have a fire laid in the dining room, and I’ll bring up dinner straight away. I’ve made pork chops for dinner, with creamed Brussels sprouts and a jam roly-poly. I’ll just need to heat it up in the warming oven. I didn’t know what time you’d be here, you see.”
“Jam roly-poly!” said Diana. “My favorite. Well, except for all those cakes in Budapest. You made it especially for me, didn’t you? Admit it.”
“What nonsense,” said Mrs. Poole. “They’re Archibald’s favorite too, you know. And I wonder those European cakes didn’t make you sick, as rich as they are!”
“Mrs. Poole, have you heard anything more of Alice?” asked Justine, drawing off her gloves. Mary could hear the concern in her voice.
“Or Mr. Holmes?” added Mary. “And Dr. Watson, of course.” She could not help sounding worried herself. She unbuckled her waist bag and placed it on the hall table. She must remember to take out her revolver and store it properly in the morning room desk. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any further news.”
“Not a peep,” said Mrs. Poole, shaking her head mournfully. “Almost a week Alice has been gone now, and Dr. Watson, too. He vanished the same day, Mrs. Hudson tells me, without leaving her a note or anything. The gentlemen have gone off sleuthing before—but they’ve never been gone as long as Mr. Holmes. Why, it’s almost a month now! Terrible worried she is, as am I—little Alice, what I’ve trained since she was a child! You’ll find her, miss, now that you’re home, won’t you?”
“Of course we’ll find her,” said Mary with what she hoped sounded like confidence. They would, wouldn’t they? After all, they had found Lucinda Van Helsing. Even in a city like London, with its six million inhabitants, Alice, Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson could not have vanished without leaving a trace!
“Do you like playing cards?” said Diana to the Orangutan Man. “I could teach you Écarté or Vingt-et-un. Those are French words. Do you speak any French?”
Justine squeezed Mary’s hand, a little too hard—it was always difficult for Justine to gauge her own strength. “We’ll find them, you’ll see,” she said. “We are the Athena Club, remember?”
Mary smiled and nodded, but in her heart she felt a cold foreboding. The Alchemical Society was not responsible for Alice’s disappearance—Ayesha had made that clear in Budapest. “The S.A. lost track of Helen Raymond before I became president,” she had told Mary the day they received Mrs. Poole’s telegram. “When Frau Gottleib located Lydia Raymond, whom you know as Alice, your kitchen maid, we placed her in your household so we could keep an eye on you both. We worried that she might have inherited her mother’s ability to harness the energic powers of the Earth—what you call mesmerism. From what you tell me, it seems she has grown into those powers. There are many reasons unscrupulous men—or women, like Helen herself—might want a child who is able to create illusions at will. I trust that you will do your best to find her, and apprise me when she has been found.”
Apprise Ayesha! There were several things Mary would have liked to do to Ayesha that did not involve apprising. But one had to tread carefully around a two-thousand-year-old Egyptian queen who could electrocute you with her touch.
Could Alice’s mother have found and abducted her for unscrupulous purposes, as Ayesha had implied? If indeed Alice had been abducted. “Mrs. Poole, you didn’t give us any details. How do you know it was a kidnapping? How do you know she didn’t simply leave with someone?”
“Follow me, miss,” said Mrs. Poole grimly. “I’ll show you.”
Where was the housekeeper going? Toward the narrow back stairs that led down to the kitchen and coal cellar. Mary wondered what Mrs. Poole was about to show them. She followed Mrs. Poole down the dark staircase with a growing sense of apprehension that sent chills down her spine. Justine’s and Diana’s boots clattered on the stairs behind her.
MARY: I did feel a growing sense of apprehension, but I certainly didn’t have chills down my spine. What would those feel like, anyway? You’re making this sound like some sort of gothic thriller, Cat. Really, sometimes I agree with Diana’s assessment of your writing.
CATHERINE: Some of my readers have wondered why I, as the author of this narrative, allow such interruptions. They tell me they find such a habit as annoying as I find Mary’s, Justine’s, Beatrice’s, and Diana’s continual intrusions into my space and time, particularly now that Lucinda is living with us and I must do my writing in the study. No, Diana, you may not play with Omega in here! Go bother Justine up in the studio.
If you ask such a question, dear reader, it’s because you have never lived in a house with six other women—seven if you count Mrs. Poole, although I’m not talking about you, Mrs. Poole. You can interrupt anytime, and also can I have some of the cold ham from yesterday? With a glass of milk, please? And there’s no need to bring a fork.
I assure you, reader, that Mary and the others are just as annoying in daily life as they are on the page. If my method of writing displeases you, I assure you that such interruptions are as irritating to me, but what can I do when they insist on having their say? It sometimes makes me long for the silent peaks of the Andes, where I roamed as a puma before Moreau turned me into a woman. But then, I would not be your author, and there would be no story.
DIANA: Which might be a good thing, considering the rot you write about us.
Just beyond the kitchen were the housekeeper’s suite and the small room where Alice slept—all the other servants’ quarters, up on the third floor, had been converted into a studio for Justine. Mrs. Poole took a key out of her apron pocket and unlocked Alice’s door. She stepped into the room and, looking around, said, “I didn’t let anyone in here after I found it like this, knowing how important Mr. Holmes thinks it is to preserve the evidence, as he always says. You see? Although it’s getting dark—should I bring a lamp?”