But Mary could see well enough. The narrow bed had been pulled out from the wall, the chair beside it was overturned, and Alice’s clothes were scattered here and there. The basin and pitcher were lying in pieces on the floor, beside a tangle of bedclothes.
“Let me fetch a lamp from the kitchen,” said Mrs. Poole. “There’s something else I want to show you, but it’s too dark.… I won’t be half a moment.”
While Mary could hear Mrs. Poole clattering about in the kitchen, Justine stepped into the room beside her and Diana pushed in between them, saying, “Let me see too. You never let me see. Well, at least she put up a struggle. Good on Alice.”
Justine looked around the room as carefully as Mr. Holmes himself would have, but Mary had to stop Diana from kicking the clothes on the floor to see what was under them. If only the girl could restrain herself or behave with forethought just once!
MARY: Well, that has never yet happened.
DIANA: This morning I only had two eggs for breakfast.
MARY: How is that a sign of restraint?
DIANA: I could have had three, because Justine didn’t want hers, but I gave one to Omega because he’s been looking scrawny. I thought it would fatten him up.
MRS. POOLE: So that’s what that dratted cat threw up on the kitchen floor! I wondered what he could have eaten that was yellow. Child, you will be the death of me.
DIANA: Then who would make pudding? Mary is a rotten cook.
When Mrs. Poole returned, she leaned over and held the lamp down, close to the floor near the doorway. “You see?” she said. “I wager Mr. Holmes could make something of that.”
“Half a boot print,” said Mary. “A man’s, I think, by the size and shape of the toe. Are there any more?”
“Just the one, and it’s faint enough. I’m afraid I swept the kitchen and corridor first thing. I always do so now those dratted cats are bringing in who knows what! Last week I stepped on a mouse, and it wasn’t dead yet. It’s likely I swept away any others before I noticed Alice was gone. But there’s something else,” said Mrs. Poole, straightening up again with one hand on her back. “You know how prompt Alice always is. When she didn’t appear for breakfast, I knocked on the door, and when she didn’t answer, I entered this room. I found it as you see, with Archibald sound asleep on the floor. Archibald, show them your arm.”
The Orangutan Man, who must have followed them down the stairs and crept in behind them, rolled up his sleeve. On it was a mark Mary had seen before. It looked like an electrical burn, pink and blistered. Around it, his ginger hair was singed. She stepped back, startled.
“That is the sort of mark we saw on the vampires Ayesha dispatched with her energic power,” said Justine. She knelt and gently touched Archibald’s arm. “This must have hurt, little one.”
“Much pain,” he said. “Pretty Alice all gone.”
“At least they didn’t take him too,” said Mrs. Poole. “I’m grateful for that. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose poor Archibald as well. He’s such a gentle soul.”
“But Ayesha’s touch kills on contact,” said Mary. “This—well, it certainly looks painful, but Archibald is very much alive.” She turned to the Orangutan Man. “Did you see who took her?” Had he actually witnessed the kidnapping? He must have, if he had been injured by Alice’s kidnappers.
He shook his head and then wrapped his arms around it, as though protecting himself from harm.
“Perhaps he is too traumatized to tell us what he saw,” said Justine.
“He’s telling us they covered his head,” said Diana. “But you could hear them, couldn’t you? And smell them? I bet monkeys have a pretty good sense of smell.”
“I believe orangutans are apes,” said Justine. “Look, the pillowcase is shredded. Perhaps that is what they put over his head.” She held it up—Mary was shocked to see that one end was torn into long, ragged strips.
“Who the hell cares whether orangutans are monkeys or apes?” said Diana. “How many kidnappers were there? That’s the important question.”
Archibald held up two fingers. “Man and woman. Woman wear trousers, like me. She smell pretty, like flowers. Like Beatrice. Other smell like medicine. He put medicine in my nose.”
“They must have drugged him,” said Mary. “A man and a woman—who could they possibly be? Mrs. Raymond and an accomplice? Someone else entirely?” Who would want to kidnap Alice, and why? Her mesmerical powers, presumably—but how had they learned about those powers? Only Catherine’s friend Martin, the mesmerist of the Circus of Marvels and Delights, had known about them. Well, at least they were developing a list of suspects! “Mrs. Poole, did you think of notifying the police?”
“The police!” said Mrs. Poole. “In a gentleman’s household? That I did not, miss. Nor would I without your permission. Of course if you had telegraphed back with instructions, I would have gone straight away. If you wish me to do so—”
Should they consult the police? But that would mean Scotland Yard and quite possibly Inspector Lestrade. Mary remembered how rude he had been to her when they were investigating the Whitechapel Murders. She had no wish to see Inspector Lestrade or any of his ilk again.
“No, I think you did right. After all, we are the Athena Club. I think we can handle this matter ourselves.” She looked once again around the room. Had she missed anything Mr. Holmes would see? “Mrs. Poole, if you could finish warming up dinner, I’d like to look around here one more time. Would you mind leaving the lamp?”
Once Mrs. Poole had left, followed by Archibald and Diana, who said she wanted to check on the jam roly-poly to make sure it was good and jammy, Mary turned to Justine. “Let’s start at the door and go around the room systematically. That’s the way Mr. Holmes would do it. Look for—well, I don’t know what. Anything out of the ordinary, I guess. Then during dinner we can make plans. I have some ideas about where to get started.”
Justine nodded and began examining the floor and walls to the right of the door. If there was one thing Mary had learned about Justine in her travels, it was that she could always be relied on. What a relief that was! And Diana, of course, could never be relied on. Thank goodness she was preoccupied with Mrs. Poole’s pudding at the moment!
DIANA: I can too be relied on! Who found out what that list of addresses in Watson’s room meant? It was me, that’s who. If it wasn’t for me—
MARY: If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have been captured in Soho!
CATHERINE: How many times do I have to warn you not to anticipate the action for our readers?
There were no marks on the walls or the small window looking into the courtyard that separated the house from what had once been Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory. There were no marks on the floor of the room or the passageway outside except the single boot print. If only they could have found a cigarette butt! That was the sort of thing Mr. Holmes always seemed to find, and it always led him to the culprit, as though each criminal in London had his own individual way of smoking. Finally, Mary searched through the clothes on the floor, examining each garment, then folding it neatly on the bed. “Alice’s uniforms,” she said.