The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  “Is this not treason?” asked Harker. “What will happen to Her Majesty during this—this interregnum you are describing?

  “She will be kept in the Purfleet Asylum,” said Dr. Seward. “I assure you that she will be both safe and comfortable. If she claims to be the Queen of England, she will be seen as yet another madwoman. And when we return her after her abdication, any mention of having been abducted or confined will be treated as evidence of incipient dementia. Either way, she will not be believed.”

  “Jonathan, consider,” said Godalming, turning to the solicitor. “You and I have talked about how someone needs to take things in hand. This country is going to the dogs—with this depression, and beggars even in Pall Mall, and Fenians bombing whenever they please. India in rebellion, war coming in Africa… Someone needs to do something. Why should that someone not be us? If we abduct the Queen—for yes, that is what Moriarty is suggesting, let us have no illusions about that. She will be well taken care of, with the comforts that her age and station require, but this is nevertheless an abduction. If we do so, we will be doing it for a higher purpose, a greater good. Is that not true patriotism, to serve one’s country and one’s race, even if no one will ever know what we have done? Even if we earn no praise, receive no accolades, for our actions? Once we are in power, we will close our borders to the unwashed masses that pollute our cities. England for Englishmen! We will administer our empire with a firmer hand—no more rebellions, or at least not ones that go unpunished. No more concessions to native populations who have no idea what is good for them. I assure you that in public policy, mercy is an overrated virtue. Come, man, do you not want to save your country?”

  Alice, who still had an uneaten sandwich on her plate, put it aside. She was shocked by what these men were planning to do. Kidnap the Queen? And then hold her prisoner in a mental institution where she would not be listened to or believed while they rearranged the government to suit their purposes? Impose this system of “eugenics,” whatever that meant, on the English people? She did not understand all the details of their plan, but what she did understand horrified her.

  Harker still looked undecided, but Morris said, “I’m in, gentlemen. This is about as dangerous as hunting lions in Rhodesia, I reckon. Tell me what we do next.”

  “As you can see,” said Moriarty, “Helen has considerable power—but not enough, not yet, to effect our purpose. Initially, we thought that if we found the most powerful mesmerists in England, they could, as it were, augment her power—but they turned out to be poor specimens, after all. One of them led us to Helen’s daughter, whose power I have seen with my own eyes. Helen, show us what Lydia can do.”

  What had he just said? Was he expecting Alice to do something, in front of all these people? She shrank back even farther into the cushions of the armchair.

  “Here? Now?” said Mrs. Raymond. She sounded surprised and angry. “I thought perhaps later, when Lydia has recovered a little—”

  “Yes, here and now,” said Moriarty. “We need to see what abilities she can add to our cause. Or are you not as committed to that cause as you have told me?”

  Mrs. Raymond glared at him. He merely looked back at her, imperturbable. “All right,” she said after a moment. “Lydia, come here.”

  What in the world was Alice supposed to do? She felt like Galatea before Aphrodite brought her to life—as though she were a statue incapable of motion.

  “Go on,” whispered Margaret Trelawny, pushing her just a bit, so that she slid to the edge of the armchair. “Go to your mother.”

  Feeling numb, Alice stood up and walked over to Mrs. Raymond. She had no idea what to do. Mrs. Raymond grabbed her wrist and pulled her over, more roughly than necessary. “Just open your mind,” she hissed under her breath. “I can’t do this unless you open your mind to me. Do you understand?”

  Open her mind how? Alice did not even know that it was closed. But then she felt it—another presence in her head, tugging at her consciousness, pulling her spiritually rather than physically. She looked down at her arms in wonder. The mesmerical waves—she could see them flowing from her to Mrs. Raymond. Their waves were merging. Suddenly they were no longer seated in the common room of the Alchemical Society. Columns were rising around them, coming together into pointed arches between walls of white stone with statues of saints in carved niches, and then windows of stained glass, letting in multicolored light, and then up until the illusion knit itself together into a high domed ceiling, gilded and painted. Alice had never seen anything so magnificent in her life.

  “The dome of St. Paul’s!” said Harker in wonder, like a visitor from the country seeing it for the first time. “How is this possible?”

  “Well, damn,” said Mr. Morris. “Now that’s impressive.”

  And then, like the illusion of Queen Victoria, it dissipated, the cathedrals and statues and stained glass swirling away like smoke. Once again they were standing in the common room. Alice’s arm hurt where Mrs. Raymond had gripped it.

  Dr. Raymond rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said. “You see, Helen, this is what I always wanted. This is what I suffered and sacrificed for. Look what you and little Lydia can do together. Surely this will allow us to implement Professor Moriarty’s plan.”

  “No,” she said coldly. “It will not. Even drawing upon Lydia’s powers, I can only maintain such an illusion for a limited period of time. We need to fool hundreds of people over a period of weeks.”

  “And for that, we need something more,” said Moriarty. “What we need, gentlemen, is to summon the Great God Pan!” He said it dramatically, as though it might mean something important. However, the only response was Dr. Raymond’s sharp intake of breath and Mr. Harker’s “I’m afraid I don’t understand. What does classical mythology have to do with all this?”

  “Dr. Raymond, if you will explain?” said Moriarty, looking irritated.

  Raymond took a deep breath and said, “I’m not quite certain what you mean by it, Moriarty—whether you mean what I think you mean. But it’s an alchemical procedure that I myself… well. It’s a metaphor, of course. The alchemical sciences have long used metaphors to express the inexpressible, or what, for practical purposes, must be kept hidden from the ignorant public. As you know, the god Pan was the Greek deity of the natural world. To summon Pan means to summon the energic powers of the Earth and contain them within a host. That is what I tried to do, long ago, to a girl—a beautiful young girl, my wife, Helen’s mother. Unfortunately, her mind could not support such an influx of power, and she went mad. At the time, unbeknownst to me, she was with child. You see the result.” He nodded toward Mrs. Raymond. “My wife died in a mental hospital, so I sent Helen to be raised in the country, which I thought would be healthier for her. Besides which, I did not want to be reminded of my dear departed. Since my experiments were not yielding the results I wanted, I gave them up and pursued other studies. And then, after many years, for we had become estranged, I heard from Helen again. I’m sorry that we did not speak for so long,” he said to Mrs. Raymond. “And I’m glad to see that you have grown into such a fine woman. You have your mother’s eyes, my dear.”

  Mrs. Raymond did not respond.

  “Well,” he said after a moment. “When Helen contacted me, she told me something I could scarcely believe. I am still not certain whether to credit her account.…”

  “And yet it is entirely accurate, Dr. Raymond,” said Miss Trelawny. “As I’m sure you all know, for it was featured prominently in The Times, six months ago my father discovered the burial chamber of Queen Tera. That was not surprising—such discoveries seem to be made every year, now that we have men such as Flinders Petrie in Egypt and the support of the Egypt Exploration Fund. What did surprise us was the intact state of the chamber, which had never been looted, and the paintings we found on its walls. Queen Tera was the High Priestess of the Temple of Isis at Philae. On the walls of her burial chamber, in faded hieroglyphs, was described
a ritual for raising the energic powers of the Earth and imbuing the High Priestess with such powers. For those of you not familiar with Egyptian history, Tera was the second wife of Ptolemy Auletes and mother of Cleopatra, whom you know from Shakespeare. After Ptolemy’s death, she was sent as far away from Alexandria as possible—to Philae, near the first cataract of the Nile, on the border between Egypt and Nubia. There, she became High Priestess of the Temple of Isis. She died in 30 B.C., when Augustus invaded Egypt. After he had secured Alexandria, he sent his soldiers south, to attack Philae—most likely because Tera was there. Cleopatra was already his captive—he was planning to parade her through the streets of Rome. It would have been imprudent to leave her mother, the former queen, behind in Egypt, where she might try to ascend the throne and challenge the Roman forces.”

  Miss Trelawny leaned forward and looked at each one of them, as though addressing them directly.

  “We know what happened at Philae because those who survived recorded it on the walls of Tera’s tomb. The priestesses defended the temple, and many of them were killed. Tera herself died leading the defense. The survivors ordered a tomb to be built for Queen Tera. Its walls were covered with friezes carved into the stone. Among them, my father found rituals and recipes—medicines long lost to civilization, ways of performing surgical procedures—as well as an account of that final battle with the soldiers of Augustus. They showed lightning coming out of Tera’s left hand. They also depicted a ritual for raising the energic powers of the Earth and containing them within a living host, who was intended to be the High Priestess herself. Once these powers were contained, they could be redirected and used—for whatever purpose the host desired. This ritual, my father attempted to perform, with himself as host. Also present were Eugene Corbeck, my father’s assistant, and my fiancé, Malcolm Ross—a solicitor like yourself, Mr. Harker. You will no doubt have heard of the terrible accident that took my father’s life, as well as those of Ross and Corbeck. But it was no accident. There was, indeed, an explosion in the room where he housed his collection, but it was not set off by bitumen, as reported in the papers. Rather, it was the ritual itself that killed them. You see, the ritual demands a sacrifice—as it fills a host with power, it must drain power from another. Someone must die. My father did not realize that—he had not read the original Egyptian hieroglyphs as carefully as he should have. Alas, I realized it only after his death, when it was too late. This ritual can indeed give you gentlemen power—but do you truly want to attempt it? The two men I loved most in the world perished in the quest for knowledge. Do you, too, wish to risk your lives for the power and wisdom of ancient Egypt?”

  She looked around at the men in the room. Alice, cradling her arm where Mrs. Raymond had gripped it, looked around at them as well. Mr. Harker seemed apprehensive, but the rest of the men appeared to be eager, even cupidous. Dr. Raymond was rubbing his thin, dry hands together. If Miss Trelawny’s words had been meant to deter them, she had not succeeded.

  “And who is to be our host?” asked Seward. “Who is to wield these powers? You, Moriarty?”

  “I am,” said Mrs. Raymond. “I already know how to wield energic power, and I am willing to risk my life in this endeavor.”

  “The danger of this ritual will be primarily to her,” said Moriarty, putting a hand on her shoulder. “However, she is willing to undertake that danger to further our cause.” What was the relationship between him and Mrs. Raymond? Clearly she was his subordinate—he told her what to do and she obeyed. And yet his attitude toward her was more intimate than such a relationship implied. Whatever it was, it made Alice feel a little sick. She did not particularly care about Mrs. Raymond—why should she? What sort of mother had she been? But Moriarty, despite his high, white forehead, which should have signified intellect, reminded her of a devil in human form. As imperceptibly as she could, she returned to her seat beside Margaret Trelawny. She wanted to get as far away from Moriarty as possible. Fortunately, no one seemed to be paying attention to her.

  “Well, gentlemen?” said Moriarty, looking around at all of them. “Are you with us?”

  “Of course we are,” said Godalming. “What man would draw back from such a challenge?” He smiled his charming, sincere smile, which Alice was beginning to distrust. Better a cold smile like Mrs. Raymond’s than Lord Godalming’s deceptive warmth! Harker continued to look dubious, but Alice could see the other men nodding.

  “Excellent,” said Moriarty. “Now that Dr. Raymond and Mr. Harker have agreed to join us, we have everything we need for the ritual.”

  “Well, I don’t know…,” said Harker, but Lord Godalming glanced at him in a meaningful way, and he did not finish his sentence.

  “Which are what?” asked Seward. “What do we need exactly? And how do we know that what happened to Trelawny and his assistants won’t happen again?”

  Mrs. Raymond rose and walked over to Miss Trelawny’s armchair. The men who were seated rose when she did, and did not sit again until she had seated herself on the arm of the chair, next to Alice, who looked up at her uncomfortably. She hoped she would not be called upon to demonstrate her mesmerical powers once more. Her mother and Miss Trelawny looked like sisters, with Mrs. Raymond as the elder. Alice felt very small between them.

  “The ritual was meant to be enacted by the priestesses of Isis,” said Mrs. Raymond. “They were accustomed to manipulating the energic powers of the Earth. That is why the ritual will be conducted by myself, with the assistance of my daughter.” She put one hand on Alice’s shoulder. Suddenly, all eyes were on Alice again. She wished that she could sink down into the cushions—down, down, through the stuffing and then the common room floor, back down to the cellar where she had been held captive. “Of course, we will be acting under the direction of Miss Trelawny.”

  “And we will have the seven of you to light the lamps,” said Miss Trelawny. “Seven lamps, carved to resemble the seven incarnations of Hathor, were found in the tomb. My father lit them one by one—I believe they need to be lit simultaneously, and at the correct moment, for the ritual to take effect. Furthermore, when my father conducted the ritual, he did not realize it required a source of energy before it could draw upon the energic powers of the Earth—as one needs to prime a pump. It drew power out of him rather than imbuing him with it. We will have a source of power to draw on—a battery, you could call him. Or, if you prefer, a sacrifice, as Professor Moriarty said. You see, we have planned very carefully. We do not intend to repeat my father’s mistakes. The exhibition opens on Monday—we are planning on conducting our ritual on Sunday, while the British Museum is closed and we have Queen Tera’s artifacts all to ourselves.”

  “This sacrifice…,” said Harker. “Are you speaking of a human being?”

  “An old enemy of mine,” said Moriarty with satisfaction. “A man I have been trying to get rid of for years, and who almost managed to get rid of me at Reichenbach Falls! I do not know how he survived in the turbulent waters—if Moran had not dragged me out of the pool below the falls, I would have drowned myself. He is a man the world would be better off without. It will, indeed, be a mercy to rid the world of such a meddling, sanctimonious—well. Are you satisfied, gentlemen? If so, I suggest Lord Godalming and Dr. Raymond continue this conversation in my office. We have some logistics to discuss. The rest of you may smoke—Helen and Margaret won’t mind, I’m certain. And the child can go back to—wherever you’ve put her.”

  “Come on,” Margaret Trelawny said to Alice, taking her hand. “I’ll bring you back to your room. And put some of those little rolls in your pocket—you need something nourishing, after that diet of dry crusts!”

  Alice took three of the pastries, put them in her apron pocket, and followed Miss Trelawny, dodging the gentlemen who were milling about now, talking among themselves and paying no attention to her. Once they were in the hall, Miss Trelawny said, “Gitla, just a moment! Einen Moment!” The maid was halfway up the stairs, carrying a water jug. “Can you take Lydi
a back to her room?” She pointed to Alice, then up, toward the second floor.

  “Jawohl, Madame,” said Gitla, nodding. She gestured for Alice to follow—with her head, because she had no hands free.

  “I’ll make sure Mrs. Mandelbaum sends up some supper,” said Miss Trelawny. “You’ll be all right, won’t you, my dear? No one will mistreat you, now that I’m here. And you must not think too hard of Helen—of your mother. Her life has been difficult in ways you cannot imagine. Now, go on. I won’t see you again tonight, but tomorrow we shall have a great deal to do.”

  Miss Trelawny leaned down and kissed her on one cheek. Alice was so startled that she could only nod. Then, she ran to catch up with Gitla on the stairs.

  As they walked along the second-floor corridor, Gitla said something incomprehensible, then stopped in front of a door that was not Alice’s. She placed the water jug on the floor, unlocked the door, turned to Alice, and held up her hand—clearly, Alice was supposed to wait outside—then opened the door and carried the jug in.

  Through the open door, Alice saw a room that resembled hers, with afternoon light streaming through the window. Someone was lying on the bed, under a blanket. As Gitla entered, the form on the bed turned toward her, murmuring weakly, “Watson, is that you? Watson…”