The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  BEATRICE: I am so thankful to Dr. Watson for his system of rubber tubes. Without it, my plants would certainly have perished while I was away. Even the datura, which I was so worried about, survived magnificently. While our activities as the Athena Club are important, it is also important that I supply the hospital from my pharmacopeia.

  CATHERINE: I’m trying to tell an adventure story, and you’re talking about an irrigation system?

  With another shilling for Doris, Mary bade them farewell, grateful for the information they had provided, although wondering if it truly helped them at all. Once she and Justine were walking away from the Society of St. Mary Magdalen along the streets of Soho, she said, “If Mrs. Raymond was Mrs. Herbert, maybe she’s not the woman we’re looking for after all. If Raymond was simply an assumed identity, she may have nothing to do with Dr. Raymond or his experiment. The name may simply be a coincidence.… After all, there are plenty of Raymonds in London!”

  “Could we find out more about this murder?” asked Justine. “Frau Gottleib said she did not believe in coincidence. I would not discount the role of chance in human affairs—however, in a situation as tangled as this one…”

  “There should be more information in Mr. Holmes’s files,” said Mary. “He’s cataloged the details of every murder in London since he became a consulting detective—and many before that! If it’s not there, we might have to ask Inspector Lestrade.” She shuddered.

  “Where to now?” asked Justine. “Shall we proceed to the boardinghouse where the performers of Lorenzo’s circus are staying? Although as I told you, I cannot believe that Martin would hurt or even frighten Alice in any way.”

  Mary nodded. She did not share Justine’s confidence in the Marvelous Mesmerist.

  They were both tired, and walked without speaking. Had they really arrived home only yesterday? Mary felt as though she had never left the fog and grime of London. The bright sunlight of Vienna, the pink and green and ocher buildings of Budapest, seemed like a dream, rather than things she had actually seen for herself. How quickly the human mind adjusted to new circumstances! Or, in this case, old ones. She was glad to be back, but she wished they could have had some rest, some time to spend at home in Park Terrace, before starting on yet another adventure. If only their friends were not in peril.…

  On Whitechapel High Street, they caught an omnibus toward Clerkenwell. The boardinghouse was not difficult to find, but when Justine asked for Martin, the landlady, who smelled of cabbages, told them that he had moved out a week and a half ago. There were still circus performers staying at the boardinghouse, but they did not have much more information. Maisie the bareback rider told Justine that he had not said much about where he was going. “He said he’d found a better place, and didn’t want to be a circus mesmerist anymore. And then he was gone, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Do you have any news of Lorenzo? We heard the circus is doing a grand tour and making lots of money.”

  “Yes, how is everyone?” asked Daisie, who was Maisie’s sister and also rode bareback. “I wish we could have gone with them—but you can’t take the horses all that way, can you?”

  Justine told them as much as she could, while Maisie regaled her with all the gossip from the circus performers who had stayed behind. She and Daisie were appearing in a horse show at the Alhambra, temporarily—it didn’t pay quite as well, but then a job was a job, wasn’t it, particularly in these difficult times? Mary sat on a sofa in the boardinghouse parlor, lost in thought. She interrupted their conversation once to ask if Martin was tall and had dark hair. A tall, dark man had been see in Mrs. Raymond’s office. Could it have been the mesmerist? Of course Justine did not want to believe anything bad about her fellow performer, but he remained Mary’s prime suspect.

  “Very tall and very dark,” Daisie replied. “Why, do you know him, miss?”

  Mary just looked at Justine meaningfully, while Justine shook her head. Well, she might not want to admit it, but this disappearance was suspicious. Alice, Mrs. Raymond, and Marvelous Martin were all gone. That must mean something?

  Half an hour later, she and Justine were once again on the streets of London, heading back toward Park Terrace.

  “I suggest we stop at an ABC and have afternoon tea,” said Mary. “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. Well, at least Diana had a nice, quiet day, although I’m sure she drove Mrs. Poole quite mad, what with asking for jam and teaching Archibald to gamble!” But at least Diana was out of mischief.

  BEATRICE: If only there were more places like the Aerated Bread Company stores, where women could go by themselves for a meal or to meet a friend! Where they were not liable to be importuned or insulted, as in a pub.

  CATHERINE: If anyone tried to importune or insult you, I’m sure they would get what was coming to them!

  BEATRICE: But, Cat, not all women have my natural defenses. Women ought to feel safe in public spaces, even if they are not poisonous.

  CATHERINE: So you admit that being poisonous can be a good thing?

  BEATRICE: Well, sometimes…

  When Mary and Justine reached home—

  DIANA: Wait a minute! You’re not going to talk about what I did? It was much more important than that trip to the bloody Magdalen Society. Don’t shake your head at me! You’re not much of an author if you leave out the most interesting parts. Not a patch on the bloke who wrote Varney the Vampire, anyway.

  CATHERINE: Fine, I’ll write about you. Then will you go somewhere else for the afternoon? The whole afternoon. And don’t slam the door behind you as you go out.

  In a particularly disreputable part of Soho, Diana knocked on the door of a dilapidated house, rat-a-tat-tat, in a specific pattern.

  “Who’s knocking?” came the rough cry from inside.

  “It’s Charlie,” said Charlie, who was standing slightly behind her. “I need to see Wiggins.” The door opened, and a small, sharp face peered out. It belonged to a boy a little younger than Diana. His face was covered with strawberry jam.

  “What the—” he said when he saw her.

  “This is Diana,” said Charlie. “Diana, this is Burton Minor. His older brother, Burton Major, brought him several weeks ago.” Charlie looked at Burton Minor disapprovingly. “Clean yourself up, man. What sort of guard are you, looking like that?”

  “Are you really Diana?” asked Burton Minor, eyes wide, the way he might have asked if she were really the Loch Ness Monster or the Feejee Mermaid.

  “What do you think?” she said rudely. She had no time today for underlings. “And that’s Miss Diana Hyde to you. Tell Wiggins I want to see him. Now.” She stepped over the threshold and into a large room with peeling wallpaper. Burton Minor retreated before her.

  “He’s powerful mad at you,” said Charlie doubtfully when Burton Minor had turned and fled up the stairs on his errand. “He says you left without saying goodbye.”

  “Well, I’m back now, so he’d better get over it,” said Diana. But she smiled, feeling rather pleased that Wiggins had been angry at her sudden departure. She liked making people angry—at least then they weren’t so dull! Not that Wiggins was dull. Indeed, he was the least dull person she knew. Still, it was gratifying.

  For a few minutes, she sauntered around that shabby room. It had a broken sofa against the far wall, with horsehair showing through the upholstery, and in one corner were a set of bowling pins and balls. Clearly someone had been bowling along the floor, because the planks were scuffed and the baseboard was marked with dents where balls had hit it. However, despite these signs of decay, there was no dust in the room, no dirt in any of the corners. The windows were covered with tattered curtains that kept a casual passerby from peering in, but they were washed. It would have been easy for Burton Minor and his ilk to keep a watch over the street through the holes in the curtains.

  Burton Minor clattered back down the stairs. “All right, Mr. Wiggins will see you. He says come on up.”

  Diana nodded. Of course he would see
her! If he had refused, she would soon enough have given him what for.

  She followed Burton Minor up the narrow staircase. On the second floor there were two doors opening from the hall. Neatly painted on one were the words:

  MR. WIGGINS

  OFFICE

  The other, she knew, was a sort of storage room. Wiggins himself had given her the grand tour the day Charlie had first brought her here. “Wiggins wants to meet you,” he had told her. “And I think you should get to know the boys.”

  She remembered that first day—how they had all looked at her, either suspiciously or with an expression of incredulity. What in the world had Charlie told them about her? He would not say.

  Wiggins’ office had been filled with boys of all ages from nine—which was the youngest you were allowed to join—up to fifteen. Wiggins himself had been seated behind a large desk. He had risen in a casual way she found insulting and had made her a mocking bow. Charlie had said, as politely as though he were addressing the blooming aristocracy, “Miss Hyde, may I introduce Mr. Bill Wiggins? Wiggins, this is Miss Diana Hyde.”

  Rat-a-tat-tat. It was the same knock, executed by the fist of Burton Minor on the office door.

  The door was opened from within.

  “Hallo, Dennys,” said Diana to the freckle-faced boy holding open the door as she passed inside. He looked at her with wide, innocent blue eyes, as though butter would not melt in his mouth. Those blue eyes had once gotten him out of a pickpocketing charge—the woman who had accused him, a grocer’s widow, had decided he was a poor orphan who did not know better but could be taught, so instead of being transported to Australia, he had been adopted. Officially, he worked as a grocer’s clerk. Unofficially, he was Wiggins’ right-hand man.

  Which probably made Buster his left-hand man? He was standing behind Wiggins, leaning against a windowsill. Unlike slim, fair, energetic Dennys, Buster was a big boy, fully grown despite his fourteen years. He looked slow and a little stupid, but he was in fact remarkably quick, both in movement and intellect. Diana reflected once again on the advantage it gave you to not look like what you were. That was the benefit of being a girl. If you dressed right and lowered your eyes convincingly, no one ever suspected you of anything.

  She had demonstrated that, the first day she had come here.

  “If you’ll forgive me asking, Miss Hyde, why should we pay any attention to you?” Wiggins had asked her, with a smirk on his face. “From the way Charlie described you, I expected you to be six feet tall, and as strong as an ox. You’re nothing but a little girl.”

  Five minutes later, she had been standing behind him with a knife at his throat. A roomful of Baker Street Irregulars had looked at her with equal parts horror and trepidation. She had shown them, all right! After that, they had treated her with respect.

  Now, the office was empty except for Wiggins and his lieutenants. Wiggins himself was sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair with his feet up, crossed at the ankles. His face was sullen, his brows drawn together in a frown. Had his father really been a Lascar pirate, and his mother a governess who had run away to sea for love of him? Or was that more of the legend of Bill Wiggins? He did not look quite English—more like a distillation of the various populations of the East End, wherever they originated. He was the oldest of the Baker Street Irregulars, and their leader. Every one of them would have died for him, which would have been preferable to disappointing him. He was not as tall as Buster, nor as handsome as Dennys, but there was something about him that compelled attention and loyalty. Not from Diana, of course! She had no loyalty, unless it was to the Athena Club and its members. Justine was prime, and Catherine had some admirable qualities. Beatrice was annoying, but at least she could poison people. And Mary—well, Mary was a pill and a sourpuss, that was all. But at least they were family.

  Wiggins glared at her, and for a moment it looked as though he would not budge from his chair.

  Diana walked up to his desk and stood in front of it, feet planted, hands in her trouser pockets. “Hallo, Bill,” she said.

  He looked at her for a moment, then put his feet on the floor, stood up, and said, “So you’re back, are you?”

  “I am, and I need your help.”

  He crossed his arms. There was that smirk again! “Gracious, Miss Hyde! Admitting that you need our help?”

  She shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  He scowled again and looked at the floor. “You prefer to play a lone hand, or so I noticed.”

  She frowned. Oh, so he was going to be like that, was he? As though he had a right to be angry with her. Well, he didn’t. She didn’t answer to Bill Wiggins. “I get it. You’re mad I didn’t tell you I was going to Europe. Well, I had to make my plans pretty damn quick—I didn’t even pack! Anyway, why should I tell you anything? I’m not Buster, here, to go where you want me to, or Dennys, to bring you information. Where do you get off—”

  “Boys, get out,” said Wiggins, waving his hand in a motion of dismissal. “This is between me and Diana.” Reluctantly, Charlie and the others filed out of the room. As he closed the door behind him, Charlie gave her a last, worried glance.

  “Now what?” She glared at him. “If you’re going to try to lecture me, Bill Wiggins, I’ll hit you so hard…”

  “All right! All right!” Wiggins raised his hands in front of his face, as though fending off blows. “You’ve made your point. Don’t look at me like that—”

  “Like what?” Diana put her hands on her hips. What look was he talking about?

  “Like you’re going to kill me with your eyes.” He glanced at her ruefully. “I was just worried about you, that’s all. Charlie said you’d disappeared, but he didn’t know where—finally your housekeeper told him you’d run away to Europe. That’s all I—all we knew. Do you blame me for worrying?”

  “Yes.” She put her hands back in her pockets and paced around the room, stomping her feet a little as she spoke. “Because it means you think I can’t take care of myself. I can take care of myself perfectly well, Bill Wiggins, and you know it. I forbid you to worry about me!” I forbid you—she liked the way that had come out. It sounded rather grand.

  “Forbid me! You can’t forbid me from doing anything.” He looked at her from beneath lowered brows. Oh, didn’t he look angry! Like a thundercloud. She enjoyed making him angry.

  “And you can’t forbid me from doing anything either. I’m not one of your Baker Street boys. You may be the high and mighty Mr. Wiggins to them, but you’re nothing to me!”

  “Nothing, Diana?” Now he looked pained. “Am I really nothing to you?”

  If she were Mary, she would have felt guilty. If she were Beatrice, she would have attempted to comfort him. But she was Diana, so she felt a deep sense of satisfaction.

  “Well, not nothing. I’ve come for your help, haven’t I? But then you go on about how I left without telling you, as though I was supposed to report to you—I don’t report to anyone, and don’t you forget it!”

  He looked down at the floor sheepishly. “All right, Diana. You don’t have to go on and on. What do you need help with? You know I’ll help you any way I can.”

  “I don’t know, unless you tell me! I’m not Dr. Freud, am I? Here—” She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. “I need to know what these are.”

  It was the list Mary had so carefully locked into her mother’s desk that morning.

  MARY: Don’t you leave anything alone?

  DIANA: If you want me to leave something alone, don’t put it in a locked desk, where it’s just lying for me to take!

  Wiggins looked at it for a moment. “I think these are in Limehouse, but Cartwright will know for sure.” He looked at her more gently than he had so far. “Are we friends again, Diana?”

  “Speak for yourself. I was never not friends. You’re the one who’s been kicking up a fuss.” She looked at him scornfully for a moment. Really, what was wrong with boys? If she had
been given a choice, she might have preferred to be one herself. Life was so much easier as a boy! No one telling you to behave yourself, or forbidding you from going out at night, or climbing trees, or getting into any kind of mischief. And it seemed as though everything the least bit fun in the world counted as mischief. But then, boys were so emotional! Even Wiggins, with all this fuss about her going on a trip…

  “All right, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Apology accepted?” He held out his hand.

  She shook it a little too hard, to show that she was still angry with him. Seriously, she had no time for this! “Accepted. Now, those addresses? I want to get home before Mary does.” Wiggins’ fussing was annoying, but Mary’s was going to be ten times worse. She didn’t particularly feel like facing the wrath of Mary today.

  MARY: My wrath! When do I ever get wrathful?

  CATHERINE: It’s your particular kind of wrath. You don’t shout—you just get precise and icy.

  MARY: That’s not wrath. I don’t think that counts as wrath.

  DIANA: It’s Mary wrath. Your particular kind, as Cat said. Not that I’m scared of it, mind you. But it’s worse than being shouted at.

  MARY: I have no idea what either of you are talking about. Alice, am I ever wrathful?

  ALICE: Well, yes, actually. If you don’t mind my saying so, miss. When you learned what the Order of the Golden Dawn had done to me and Mr. Holmes—

  CATHERINE: Oh no, you don’t! We have chapters to go before you can talk about that. Really, not one of you has any idea of narrative timing.

  MARY: And I think you can stop calling me miss now, Alice.

  ALICE: Oh, right. Sometimes I forget. Sorry, miss—I mean Mary.

  Wiggins opened the door. “Buster, can you tell Cartwright to come down? I want him to look at something.”

  Through the doorway, Diana could see Buster, Dennys, and Charlie looking in apprehensively. What did they think, that she and Wiggins might have had some sort of fight? As though he would try anything so stupid!