CHAPTER III Adventures in Soho

Mary rang the bell on the gray stone wall. The sound echoed around the forbidding courtyard of the Magdalen Society. It had not changed at all since the last time she had seen it—how long ago was that now? Four months? No, five. Not quite six. Had it truly been such a short time ago that she had found Diana, and then Beatrice, Catherine, and Justine? It seemed as though she had known them much longer than that. Through the gate, she could see that the courtyard was still bare, except for a row of dark green yews by the stone wall of the building, and the building itself still looked as though it had come out of a novel by Sir Walter Scott.

“Should we ring again?” asked Justine. For the first time in a month, she was attired in women’s clothes. They felt strange—not uncomfortable, but as though she could no longer move freely and easily about in the world. She was aware of restrictions, limitations. Perhaps Beatrice was right, and our clothing did impact the way we thought and felt. And yet, there was a beauty to women’s garments that was lacking in modern men’s clothes. As a painter, she could see that. It was all rather confusing.

Mary raised her hand to ring again, but a woman—or rather a girl, because she looked only fifteen or sixteen—rushed out from the shadowy arched doorway of the building. She was halfway to the gate when the white cap on her head fell off and began rolling over the flagstones. Quickly, as though in a panic, she picked it up, put it back on her head, and ran the rest of the way, with one hand on top of her head to hold it on and another under her chin, clutching the ribbons. Surely it would have made more sense to stop and tie it? Mary remembered the sharp-featured and sharp-tongued Sister Margaret who had opened the gate for them last time. This was certainly a very different sort of greeting!

“I’m so sorry,” said the girl, panting, with one hand on her side. “I’m supposed to be the porter today, but I was in the lavatory, and I didn’t hear the bell until one of the other girls shouted. I came as quickly as I could. McTavish would be so angry if she knew I was away from my post! You must be—looking for linen to purchase? Or perhaps you wish to make a donation?” She looked at them curiously, as though wondering what two ladies were doing here. They were not fancily dressed, but nevertheless clearly ladies, and with these philanthropic young women you could never quite tell how wealthy they were by their clothes.

“Yes, that’s exactly right,” said Mary. “We’re considering a donation, but we would like to make certain that your organization is a worthy cause. Could you please tell the director that a Miss Jenks and a Miss Frank would like to see her?”

She had been wondering exactly how they would get in to see Mrs. Raymond. Well, this seemed as good a way as any! She hated lying, of course, but she thought it was justified under the circumstances.

“Follow me,” said the girl, unlocking the gate. “My name is Doris. I’ve been here six months. The society has become like a second home to me. At first I thought it was terribly gloomy, and the food bland though plentiful, but it’s been so much more jolly in the last few weeks.”

Mary looked at Justine and shrugged. How anyone could describe the Magdalen Society as jolly, she did not know!

They crossed the courtyard behind Doris. There was the ivy-covered wall that Diana used to climb when she was a resident—

DIANA: A prisoner, you mean!

—of the Magdalen Society. It was the same wall Catherine had climbed down the night she learned that Hyde was involved with the Whitechapel Murders. That night Alice had been kidnapped for the first time, drugged by Mrs. Raymond, and taken away by Hyde to the warehouse by the Thames.

CATHERINE: You do seem to have a habit of being kidnapped, don’t you?

ALICE: I’ve been kidnapped exactly twice! I would not call that a habit. And the first time was purely a coincidence—I was following you and trying to find out who you were, since you were clearly in disguise. It had nothing to do with me.

CATHERINE: Well, try not to be kidnapped again, if you can help it.

Once again, they stepped through the forbidding doorway of that gothic edifice. When they were inside, Mary was startled to hear… was that laughter?

“What in the world?” she said.

“Oh, them’s just the girls in the workrooms,” said Doris. “You see, miss, we sew linens of all sorts here—bed linens, linens for the kitchen, and even children’s clothes, leastways the simple things like smocks. Come this way. The director’s office is up the stairs, on the second floor.”

“Did you not say the society was very strict?” whispered Justine as they followed Doris up the stairs.

She had, and it had been, the last time Mary was here. But now they passed a group of women sitting on the stairs—just sitting and talking, as though they hadn’t a care in the world. Several of them were wearing the regulation white caps, but the rest had taken theirs off.

“The director will be mad if she sees you sitting here chatting and not working,” said Doris with a frown.

“Then let her High and Mightiness be mad!” said one of them, who threw back her head and laughed. She was still young, with pretty blond ringlets, but was missing several teeth.

Doris shook her head. “They ought to treat her with more respect, they really ought to. After all, someone has to run this place and get donations, and arrange for us to sell our work. She tries to be strict, but the girls ain’t scared of her, as you can see. Though they’re good girls really, and they don’t break too many rules. No sneaking gentlemen visitors in or anything like that, I assure you! Just a bit of gin now and then, and cigarettes, and maybe a card game for pennies—all in fun. I hope I’m not shocking you, miss. Not so as you’ll decide not to donate, anyway. We’re all liable to temptation, and all sinners in our own way, ain’t we? I assure you that we truly repent our old profession, and would much rather be here than out on the streets!”

Mary did not quite know what to say to this, but now they were at the door of the director’s office. She steeled herself to meet Mrs. Raymond once again.

Doris knocked on the door, was answered with a “Come in!,” and pushed it open.

“A Miss Jenks and a Miss Frank here to see you,” she said. “They want to donate to the institution.” She let them through, then closed the door again behind them.

The director rose from her desk, smiled graciously, and walked out from behind the desk toward them. “Miss Jenks and Miss Frank, is it? If you’ll just take a seat—You!” The exclamation sounded like a cork popping from a bottle. “What in blazes—I mean, what in the world are you doing back here?”

The director was dressed like Mrs. Raymond, in a plain gray merino, with a chatelaine at her waist. Her hair was pulled back into a tight and very respectable bun at the back of her head, so tight that it stretched her skin a little. But it was not Mrs. Raymond.

“Sister Margaret!” said Mary. “Are you—”

“You will please address me as Matron McTavish,” said the woman who had been Sister Margaret. “Mrs. Raymond, my predecessor, resigned abruptly almost a month ago, causing no end of trouble and considerable inconvenience to me. The trustees asked me to step into her place temporarily, until a new director can be found. Of course, I told them I would help in any way I could.” Miss McTavish, as we must now call her, looked both aggrieved and gratified, as though the thought of being inconvenienced rather pleased her. “But your name isn’t Jenks,” she said, looking at Mary suspiciously. “What was it now?”

“Doris must have misheard our names,” said Mary. “I’m Mary Jekyll, and this is Justine Frankenstein.” Goodness, she was getting just as bad as Diana, with all these lies! “We most particularly want to speak with Mrs. Raymond. If you have any idea where she might have gone—”

“I haven’t the faintest,” said Miss McTavish coldly. “She left without giving notice or leaving a forwarding address. So you see, I cannot help you at all.” She smiled tightly, with pursed lips, as though not being able to help was the first thing that had given her pleasure all day. “Now, I have a great deal of work to do.”

“Thank you,” said Mary, mentally adding for nothing. “Come on, Justine. I don’t think we need trouble Matron McTavish further.”

As soon as they had left the director’s office, they saw Doris, halfway down the hall, talking to another of the magdalenes—a girl, short and slight—in a gray dress. As Mary approached, the girl turned to her.

“Miss Jekyll? Do you remember me?”

She was not a girl after all—her face was marked by fine lines, and she had obviously once had smallpox. But she had a pair of sharp, clever brown eyes.

“Kate Bright-Eyes!” said Mary. “What in the world are you doing here? This is my friend Justine.” She turned to Justine and continued, “Kate was a friend of Molly Keane’s. You remember, she helped Catherine make herself up to infiltrate—well, this place, when we were investigating the Whitechapel Murders.” Kate looked almost the same as the last time Mary had seen her, except of course for the absence of rouge and whatever it was that certain women—those in Kate’s profession—used to blacken their eyelashes. Her eyes were all the more birdlike without it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bright-Eyes,” said Justine, offering her hand.

Kate shook it vigorously. “It’s a pity the Whitechapel Murders were never solved, ain’t it? Though I’m sure you and Mr. Holmes tried hard enough. I’m not blaming you, don’t think I am.”

“But they were solved,” said Mary. “I mean—we found out who did it, but he—well, he escaped to the continent, so he could not be brought to justice. And he died there—a painful death, I assure you. As painful as the deaths he brought on all those poor girls.” She remembered Adam Frankenstein in that bare room, on that small bed, dying of his burn wounds. Of course, Hyde had not been punished—he was still out there somewhere, free to continue his nefarious career. Well, if there was any justice in the universe, he would get his own comeuppance, someday.

“And it wasn’t in the papers?” said Kate. “Well, he must have been someone high and mighty, to keep it all so quiet. Connected to the Royal Family, maybe? But whoever he was, I’m glad he got what was coming to him. Anyone who did what he did to Molly deserves to rot in Hell. Talking about high and mighty, Doris tells me you’re looking for Mrs. Raymond.”

Mary looked at her, startled. “How did you know—”

“Keyhole,” said Doris. “Not very proper, I know, and my mum would scold me about it, but it’s important for us to know what’s going on around here, so we take turns eavesdropping. No one dared, while Mrs. Raymond was here—she always seemed to know what we were up to, I don’t know how. She must of had eyes in the back of her head. But McTavish doesn’t notice half of what goes on.”

“A completely necessary and understandable practice,” said Mary. “And yes, we are looking for information on Mrs. Raymond. Do you happen to know—”

“Not here in the hall,” said Kate. “Come on, follow me.”

She led them to a small room that was apparently used for storing the products made by the Magdalen Society, because there were shelves stocked with tea towels, aprons, and children’s smocks. Through a narrow window, Mary could look down to a dismal garden behind the building, with a few privets and an unkempt lawn.

“This is all I know, and it ain’t much,” said Kate. “Maybe Doris knows more—she’s been here longer than I have. I came because I caught the influenza, and when I got out of St. Bartholomew’s, I was too sick and tired to work—say what you will about this place, they do give you hot meals you don’t have to pay for! Anyway, about a week after Mrs. Raymond admitted me, we were told she was gone, and Sister Margaret—Matron McTavish, as she insists on being called—was in charge. There were plenty of rumors going around, I assure you—like that she wasn’t Mrs. Raymond after all, but a Mrs. Herbert. Do you remember the Herbert murder case? It was more than ten years ago—Mrs. Herbert was accused of murdering her husband, although they never could figure out how she done it, so she was acquitted for lack of evidence. They say she killed him to be with her lover!”

“The trustees found out about it—at least, that’s what we think—and she had to go,” said Doris. “Agnes insists that one night, about a week before Mrs. Raymond disappeared, she saw a man in her office. He was tall, with dark hair. Maybe that was her lover, come back for her? Or maybe he was blackmailing her and she refused to pay up? Then he told the trustees.…”

“Agnes has the most vivid imagination,” said Kate, shaking her head. “What she probably saw was the shadow of a hatstand—if anything at all! Anyway, some say Mrs. Raymond was the one who wanted to leave—the trustees were fair begging her to stay. Either way, one morning she was gone, and nothing has been heard of her since.”

“When was this?” asked Mary. “When did she disappear?”

“Around the end of August,” said Doris. “I’m sorry, miss, I wish we had more information for you. The truth is, no one really knows where she went, or what became of her.”

Mary sighed. Rumor and conjecture, that was all. Well, at least it was something! Mrs. Raymond had vanished about a month before Alice was kidnapped. Could the two disappearances be connected? She had no idea.

“Thank you both,” she said. “And Kate, if you ever need help, you know that you can come to us: 11 Park Terrace in Marylebone. If we’re not at home, tell Mrs. Poole who you are, and she’ll admit you.” She held out her hand, which had a shilling in it.

“That’s very good of you, miss,” said Kate, taking the shilling and then pressing her hand.

“Particularly if you need medicine,” said Justine. “Beatrice cannot cure the influenza, but her plants can help you recover from it sooner. She’s away from home, but should be back in a few days. Her medicines are as effective as anything you’ll receive at St. Bartholomew’s.”

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!

A moment later, Cartwright clattered down the steps from the third floor. He was a small boy with spectacles and tangled hair.

“Cartwright! Jam on your nose. What have you been doing, man? You look like a circus clown.” Wiggins sounded disapproving.

Cartwright wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Sorry, Mr. Wiggins,” he said with consternation. “Me and the boys upstairs were having our tea.”

“Well, I want you to identify these addresses. You can take them upstairs and consult the maps if you like.”

Cartwright glanced down the list. “There’s no need, sir. I know these right enough. They’re in Limehouse, down by the docks. They’re all opium dens. Oh, they don’t advertise themselves that way—some of them look like warehouses or regular shops, in front. But you go inside, and they’re opium dens right enough.”

Diana grinned. “Well, well. So there’s where Dr. Watson was searching for the great detective! And him so prim and proper all the time. I bet we’ll find him in one of those places, smoking an opium pipe. Wait until Mary hears about this!”

Wiggins looked at her with alarm. “Is that what this is about? If you’d told me you were looking for Mr. Holmes, I would have ripped this list up as soon as looking at it. He said he was going to disappear for a while, and gave us instructions not to look for him, no matter who asked—not even Dr. Watson! He said it was too important, and too dangerous. Diana, give me that list!”

“Not on your life!” said Diana, scrunching the piece of paper up into a ball and putting it in her mouth. “You try to get it from me, Bill Wiggins, and I’ll skewer you until you scream like a pig, see if I don’t!” Her little knife was already in her hand. She had the wall to her back, and she would die, or more likely kill him, rather than give it up. Of course, the addresses were still on the blotter, and Justine could copy them again—but it was the principle of the thing. Wiggins was not going to tell her what to do, nohow!

JUSTINE: Ah, that is why the paper was so damp when you showed it to us later! It is good that I wrote the list in pencil rather than ink.

MARY: Why must you always do things in the most disgusting way imaginable?

Fifteen minutes later, Diana sauntered back through the streets of Soho with Charlie by her side. In her pocket was the list of addresses and Cartwright’s handwritten instructions for how to get to them, together with a map he had marked with red crosses. She could be very persuasive when she chose, even with someone as pigheaded as Wiggins. Mary was Mr. Holmes’s personal assistant—whatever rules applied to the Baker Street Irregulars didn’t apply to her, did they? As Wiggins had finally conceded, although Mr. Holmes had told the boys not to follow him, he had not said anything about the Athena Club—and could Diana put the knife down now please? It was tickling his throat.

Mary would be so impressed! Of course, Mary was never sufficiently impressed by her cleverness.

“Do you want to hear about how I rescued Lucinda Van Helsing from an insane asylum?” she said to Charlie.

His look of admiration and prompt “Cor, did you really?” was all she could ask for.

She did not know, she could not know, that at no great distance from her, in the tangled streets of Soho, Alice was sitting on a cellar floor, gnawing on a crust of bread and drinking a cup of weak tea. The dim light of a single lantern shone on the shackle around her ankle and the chain by which it was affixed to the wall.

What was that sound? Footsteps approaching along the corridor! She stuffed the bread into her mouth, chewing as quickly as she could so she would not have to taste it, and gulped down the tea. Then she crawled back to the wall, beside the thin mattress she had been sleeping on, and put her arms around her knees. Having the wall at her back gave her no particular protection, but it made her feel safer.

The footsteps stopped right in front of her prison door—they must be coming for her again. Twice now she had refused to help them. The key turned in the lock. She wondered what they would do to her if she refused a third time.