The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter

by Theodora Goss

  Catherine wondered whether her crooked tea towel, the second she had hemmed that day, would help the society. She rather thought not.

  “I have a friend who was here, about a month ago,” she said. “Her name was Molly Keane. Did you know her?”

  “You knew Molly?” said the girl to the other side of Catherine. She was thin and sallow, with dark circles under her eyes. Catherine vaguely remembered that her name was Agnes. “Well, I never. Horrible what happened to her, wasn’t it? It’s a lesson on the wages of sin, as Mrs. Raymond always tells us.”

  “No chattering!” said Sister Margaret. They had not heard her come in, but she stood in front of them, pursing her mouth, which made it look as though she sucked limes for the fun of it. “Idle chatter is the Devil’s work. Who would like to read to us from Reverend Throckmorton’s sermons?”

  And that’s the problem right there, thought Catherine, ignoring the voice of Agnes, droning on about how Jesus had separated the sheep from the goats, and the lesson Reverend Throckmorton had derived from that text. There’s never any time to talk in this damned place. It’s prayers and sermons and work, all day long.

  It had not been difficult to join the Magdalen Society. Mrs. Raymond had taken one look at her and assigned her a bed. Although she had said rather sharply, “I hope you understand that we expect all our girls to truly repent, Miss Montgomery.”

  “Oh, I will, I promise you,” Catherine had replied. “You don’t know how grateful I am for this opportunity, ma’am. It’s rough on the streets, and after that sailor came at me with the broken bottle, I’d had enough, I can tell you! And my landlady said I wasn’t paid up, so she wouldn’t let me in the boardinghouse. And my da won’t take me back—I’d taint all the other children, he says. All I have is the clothes on my back. I’m grateful you’re willing to take me in.”

  “Well, you just behave yourself here,” Mrs. Raymond had said with a frown. Catherine had nodded and signed in the big book, a large leather-bound volume in Mrs. Raymond’s office where girls who had come before her had written their names or made their Xs next to the names written for them. She had signed: Catherine Montgomery. The first thing she would have to do was look at that book. She assumed it contained the names of all the girls who had stayed at the Magdalen Society. Catherine would see if the murdered girls were listed. And then? She wasn’t sure. But whatever she did would have to wait until that night, when everyone was asleep. In the meantime, she had a seam to sew.

  DIANA: We were so bored waiting in the house across the street, me and Charlie. Dr. Watson didn’t seem to mind. He read all the newspapers, for mentions of anything unusual, he said. Once, he pointed out that the animals stolen from Lord Avebury’s menagerie were still missing. The search had been going on for a month, but they hadn’t been found. “What do we care about a bunch of animals?” I asked him. But he said any missing animals could have been used to make Beast Men.

  CATHERINE: At least you didn’t have to sew seams and listen to Agnes read sermons! Sister Margaret had a whole book of them, by a Reverend Throckmorton, whom she had once met and for whom I’m convinced she had a secret passion. They were about sheep and goats, and the saved and damned, and how one would be saved and the other damned forever. He seemed to have something against goats. . . . After several hours of listening to that, I was ready to rip her throat out!

  JUSTINE: It’s not such a bad thing to learn about God. I could not have lived all those years alone if it were not for the spiritual lessons my father taught me before he died. I find it comforting to believe in a divine Father who observes and knows all.

  CATHERINE: Oh, spare me! Religion is a tool some men use to control others. I saw that myself on Moreau’s island.

  DIANA: What Catherine said. If you had grown up in that damned society . . .

  BEATRICE: Please, we’ve had these arguments before. Justine will never convince you, and you will never convince Justine. Cat, go back to your story. Our readers aren’t interested in a theological discussion.

  At last, the bells announced that it was time for dinner. An entire day of sitting in an unnatural position doing unnatural work, listening to nonsense . . . Who actually needed tea towels, anyway? Or the horrible pin-tucked children’s smocks the more experienced sewers were making? Not children, who would rather run around naked, like animals or savages. And much healthier it would be for them too!

  At tea, Catherine discovered that meals at the Magdalen Society included no meat. Because vegetable matter was healthier, said Reverend Throckmorton—have you ever heard such nonsense? She stared down at what Sister Margaret cheerfully informed her was a vegetable ragout.

  “You’re not eating,” said Agnes, who was sitting next to her. “Are you quite all right?”

  “I’ve decided to fast,” said Catherine. “Hunger will remind me to repent of my sins.”

  “Oh, I understand!” said Agnes. “I felt that way myself, before I found peace and forgiveness for my sins. Those will come to you in time, I promise.”

  Catherine looked at her thin, earnest face and wondered what she would taste like. Not much meat on those bones, unfortunately. Doris would be more appetizing.

  A girl across the table from her, who could not have been more than twelve or thirteen, looked at her curiously, but when Catherine gave her a hard stare, she looked down again at her own plate.

  After dinner there was a lecture, and then more prayers, and finally, finally, the inmates of the Magdalen Society were dismissed and sent to bed. “You’re not in the dormitory,” said Sister Margaret. “Follow Alice. Here’s a work dress for you, which you should wear tomorrow, and a nightgown. It’s been freshly laundered, so it may be damp. Dresses and undergarments are laundered once a week, sheets once a month. If you have any questions, Alice should be able to answer them.”

  Alice was the girl who had been sitting across the table from Catherine, the one who had stared at her during dinner. “It’s this way,” she said. She gave Catherine a curious sidelong glance, but did not say anything further. Catherine followed her up a flight of stairs to the third floor. Here there were a number of smaller rooms. Each had been allocated to two girls, who shared one bed. Besides the bed, the room had only a chest of drawers and a single wooden chair. When Catherine saw the narrow bed she would be sharing with Alice, she wondered how she would be able to sneak out at night. Perhaps Alice was a heavy sleeper?

  “I could help you, miss,” said Alice. “With those buttons, I mean.”

  There were a lot of buttons on the dress she was wearing. She had not considered how she was to undo them.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And you don’t need to call me miss. Just Catherine.”

  “Yes, miss,” said Alice. She started on the buttons up the back. “I was in service, you see. Before I came down in the world. When my mistress died, there was no money left to keep servants, so we were all dismissed. It’s not so easy to find a job nowadays. I swept a crossing for a while, and then a gentleman offered me money for other kinds of services, but I said no. And a kind lady, seeing as he was importuning me, gave me a card with this address on it. It’s not so bad, if you can get used to the food and sermons.” She started on the buttons on the cuffs. “This dress now, it reminds me of one my old mistress used to have. Might I ask where you got it, if I’m not being too bold?”

  “What?” said Catherine. She had not been paying attention. How was she to sneak out of the bed, and then the room, without Alice waking up?

  “The dress, miss. Might I ask where you got it?” Alice folded it neatly, then put it on the chair. Sister Margaret would no doubt come for it in the morning.

  “Oh, I have no idea.” She briefly considered eating Alice, but she rather liked Alice. And the girl had been so helpful with the buttons.

  ALICE: You did not!

  CATHERINE: Oh, didn’t I? I would have eaten Mrs. Raymond herself, after that vegetable mess! Although I’m pretty sure she would have been tough. . . .

>   “I think one of the other girls gave it to me, when I started on the streets. She didn’t need it anymore, and she told me it would be attractive to gentlemen. You know, make me look like a lady. They like us to look like ladies, until they don’t.” Catherine put her undergarments away in the drawer Alice pulled out for her, then put on her nightgown. She lay down and pulled the thin, rough wool blanket over her. “You’re too young to know about such things.”

  “The gentleman didn’t think so,” said Alice, getting into bed beside her.

  “Ah, gentlemen. Best avoid them,” said Catherine. “I haven’t known a single one of them that didn’t want to ruin a girl, in one way or another. Good night . . .”

  The sky was darkening to dusk. Of course, they had not been issued candles. Such an extravagance would not have occurred to Mrs. Raymond or Sister Margaret. Catherine lay with her eyes closed. It would be several hours until she could sneak out of the room, through the long stone corridor, and down the stairs to Mrs. Raymond’s office. There would be no light, but that would not bother her. A cat can see in the dark.

  She waited, motionless, like a cat that feigns sleep before a mouse hole. Slowly, she heard Alice’s breath slow, heard the sounds in the other rooms cease, except for gentle snoring. Slowly, a half-moon climbed the sky. There would be some light after all, but not too much. She didn’t want anyone to see her.

  By moonlight, she silently rose, careful not to wake Alice, and slipped out of the room. Through the window at the end of the hallway, she could see the moon, floating in the sky like a boat on the ocean. She passed the rooms of sleeping girls, then made her way down a flight of stairs to the second floor. Although she had been to Mrs. Raymond’s office earlier that day, the stone hallways and wooden doors of the Magdalen Society looked so much alike that it was difficult to remember where it was located. Thank goodness Diana had described the building so thoroughly, even drawing her a map on a corner of Watson’s paper. If Diana’s instructions were to be trusted, Mrs. Raymond’s office should be right at the end of this hall. . . .

  DIANA: Of course my instructions were to be trusted! I lived in that bloody house for seven years. I should know where her office was—Sister Margaret caned me enough in it. Never Mrs. Raymond: it was always something she left to Sister Margaret. Until one day I turned on her and broke the cane. After that, she never did it again.

  CATHERINE: I’m building suspense. If the reader isn’t sure whether to trust you, it builds suspense, don’t you see. Anyway, I wasn’t sure whether to trust you, then. Sometimes I’m not sure whether to trust you now!

  The office was exactly where Diana had described. It was not locked. Catherine pulled the door closed behind her and looked around. The brocade curtains had been drawn for the night; there was just enough light for her to avoid the armchairs, so much more comfortable than anything in the bare workroom, where girls sewed on wooden benches. She walked over thick carpet, soft under her bare feet and welcome after the chill of the stone floors, to Mrs. Raymond’s desk. Yes, the book was still there. She pulled open one of the curtains so moonlight would fall on the book. She opened it to the page where she had signed, then began to scan the list of names. Nothing. She turned back to the previous page. There, a name she recognized:

  Molly Keane

  Several weeks ago, she had entered the Magdalen Society. Why had she left? Catherine flipped back, page by page. And there were the others, scattered randomly among the list of names:

  Pauline Delacroix

  Susanna Moore

  Sally Jane Hayward

  Anna Pettingill

  More than a month ago, each of them. Even Pauline Delacroix, whom Holmes had not been able to trace, had been an inmate (that was the most appropriate word) of the Magdalen Society. What did it mean? There must be more information, perhaps letters. In the desk? She was about to open the top drawer when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Three sets of footsteps: one sharp and decisive, one irregular, one shambling. Who could it be? But there was no time to speculate now. Where could she hide? Quickly, she closed the book, moved it back to its place on the desk, and slipped into the window recess, drawing the curtain closed in front of her. The walls of the building were thick, the windows deeply set. There was plenty of space for her in the recess.

  The door opened, and the gas was lit: she could hear the striking of a match and suddenly, the curtains were edged with light. Catherine could not see them, but she could smell them: two human, one a beast.

  “I suggest that you moderate your tone with me,” said Mrs. Raymond. “I allowed Diana to be taken because I was heartily sick of her. And because you owe me, Mr. Hyde. When should I expect to be paid for the information I’m providing?”

  Hyde! This was Hyde? So he was alive after all. . . . Mary had been wrong, then.

  “We have always been on good terms, Mrs. Raymond.” The voice was hoarse, almost a whisper, as though the speaker were consumptive. He spoke in the cultivated accent of a gentleman, but something about that voice sent a shiver up Catherine’s spine.

  MARY: Did it really? Or are you exaggerating for effect?

  CATHERINE: It did! Really, there was something about his voice. . . . It set my teeth on edge. But there was a kind of desperation in it that made me pity him too.

  “Good business terms,” he continued. “My associate will pay you as soon as he can, I promise.”

  “I don’t trust this associate of yours any more than I trust you,” said Mrs. Raymond. “How am I to know he exists? Twelve girls, I’ve provided—descriptions, addresses. Twice I contacted the girls myself, luring them into places where you could collect what you desired. I want my hundred pounds. Once I receive it, I’ll tell you where to find your daughter.”

  Twelve girls! And Lestrade only knew about five. The other seven . . . presumably their bodies had not been found. Catherine heard a low growl.

  “And your friend here doesn’t frighten me. I’ve seen worse in the alleys of Spitalfields.”

  “I already know where Diana is, Mrs. Raymond.” So the Wolf Men had been his spies! Well, that made sense. And that growl . . .

  “But evidently she’s not in your possession. Are you having difficulty retrieving her? One small girl? I don’t think much of you or your organization, Mr. Hyde, if one small girl gives you difficulty.”

  “We have not yet retrieved her, no. We have not had time to turn our attention to such a trifle. But once we have time, it will present no difficulty. Our organization is more powerful than you can imagine, Mrs. Raymond.”

  Was there a way Catherine could see, just a little? She wanted to see Hyde. He sounded confident, but underneath that confidence, she could smell fear. This was Diana’s father . . . and Mary’s, if her hypothesis was correct. Hyde, the criminal, alive. Could she catch a glimpse?

  “My associate is very real, and will reveal himself in his own time. Meanwhile, we need a pair of hands. Delicate hands—he is most specific. Anna Pettingill’s hands were rough and chapped. We need the hands of a lady. Another governess, perhaps. Or a lady’s maid.”

  Catherine edged slowly toward the center of the window, where there was a gap in the curtains about the width of an eye. Yes, there—no, she could only see Mrs. Raymond. What was that? A floorboard had squeaked, and for a moment Catherine wondered whether she had stepped awry. But it was across the room, outside the door.

  Mrs. Raymond had heard it as well. She wrenched open the door, grabbed what was standing there, and pulled it inside the room.

  It was Alice.

  “How long have you been standing there, brat? How much of our conversation have you heard?” She held Alice by the collar of her nightgown.

  “Just about everything, I reckon.” Curiously, Alice did not seem afraid. Foolish of her, thought Catherine. She should be afraid, very much so.

  “So the girls have been spying on me! How many of you are there, beside yourself?”

  “Just me,” said Alice. “And I wasn’t spyi
ng. That new girl, Catherine, was snoring so loudly I couldn’t sleep. So I walked around and came down here to see if I could get a bit of food, dinner not being what they call nourishing. I saw the light, and I came to investigate.”

  Ah, Catherine had been too quick to dismiss little Alice. She could lie like a champion. But why? She had clearly followed Catherine. Why was she protecting her?

  “That will make it easier,” said Mrs. Raymond. “There will only be one of you to get rid of. Hold her, Mr. Hyde! And you, whatever you are!”

  What was happening? Through the gap in the curtain, Catherine saw Alice crumple to the floor, and then light flash on something in Mrs. Raymond’s hand. A knife? No, now she could see it—a hypodermic syringe. Had Alice been drugged? She should have leaped out earlier, when Alice was still talking. When they could both have run. Now, the best course of action was to wait.

  “You’ll have no use for this morsel—her hands are as red and raw as a scullery maid’s,” said Mrs. Raymond. “But you might as well take her with you. It’s too dangerous to keep her here, where she can talk to the other girls. Dispose of her as you will.”

  “You, take her,” said Hyde. A dark shape leaned down and gathered Alice in its arms. When it stood again, Catherine could tell that it was a Beast Man, tall and hairy. A Bear Man, judging by the smell. Instinct said attack, but if she showed herself now, she would be caught. Would she be able to fight a bear? She didn’t think so. He was an ugly specimen, badly sewn together. Moreau had been cruel enough, but at least he had tried to make his creatures aesthetically pleasing. These creatures were malformed, even for Beast Men.

  And then, finally, as the Bear Man turned to go, she caught a glimpse of Hyde. He was small, certainly smaller than she was. He gave an impression of deformity, although perhaps it was simply the way he walked, hunched over, with a queer shuffle. If he had stood upright, he might have been handsome—in his face there was charm, as well as craft and guile. But his sneer would have made most women avoid him.