CHAPTER XV Abduction at St. Michael’s Mount

By the time the sky began to lighten, Mary was stiff and cold and very, very cross. They had crossed the causeway without mishap the night before, although Justine had twisted her ankle as they had climbed from the village to the bottom of the path that led up the hill. Even here, the way was treacherous, filled with stones that could trip you and send you tumbling. Mary wondered once again how the Queen would make it all the way up to the castle, even if she was carried. Well, hopefully she would never set foot on St. Michael’s Mount!

Justine had insisted that she would be fine, and Beatrice had felt her ankle in the darkness to make sure it was not broken. The logical place for them to wait out the night had been a stone dairy at the bottom of the path. Luckily, all the cows were out on the hillside—they would not come in until morning for milking. There was enough room in it for the five of them to sleep on a pile of fresh hay, although only four were in the dairy at present. Diana was asleep, leaning against Justine. Catherine was curled up in one corner, exactly like a cat. Only Beatrice was not there. She was out in the garden, sitting somewhere among the plants. She did not want to poison the air inside the building.

Mary had slept only fitfully, leaning against her rucksack, which contained her pistol, a bottle of pepper spray, the silver mirror, and a bunch of rags. She simply could not make herself sleep anymore. She was too cold and, she had to admit, too worried about what that day would bring. Would they be able to save the Queen? Would they be alive at the end of it, or small white piles of ash? She did not want to think of that possibility. Neither did she want to stay here, staring into the darkness with nothing to do! Quietly, so as not to wake the others, she got up and went out into the cold morning. The sun would be rising soon, although the sky was so cloudy you could only tell because it was a lighter shade of gray. Rosy-fingered dawn indeed! This dawn was wearing gray gloves. It was just light enough for Mary to find her way around without stumbling over anything. She did not want to twist her ankle as well.

She found Beatrice sitting in a flower bed beneath one of the rocky cliffs, where she could be seen from the castle only by someone looking down directly from the south terrace. When she saw Mary, the Poisonous Girl smiled. She looked more content than she had for a long time.

“Good morning,” she said as Mary walked up to her.

“Is it?” said Mary. “I mean, I suppose it is. I suppose all mornings are good, in a sense. The world wakes up again, and no matter what else is happening, the birds are singing, the trees are growing.… This castle has been here for hundreds of years, this island for thousands. Or do I mean hundreds of thousands? Anyway, I suppose in that long history, our actions mean very little.”

“You are philosophical this morning,” said Beatrice. “What has caused this mood?”

“I don’t know,” said Mary. “Perhaps the thought that we might die today? We’ve always had help before—from Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, from Irene Norton and Mina Murray and Count Dracula. We’ve never been on our own, just the five of us. And we’ve never been up against anyone as strong as Queen Tera.”

“That is true,” said Beatrice.

“Do you believe our souls go to Heaven after we die?”

“I am a good Catholic,” said Beatrice. “But somehow, I have always though that my soul would return to the Earth and come up as some sort of plant—a flower, a tree. Perhaps I do not have a soul as others do. I would like to sink down into the dark soil and come up again each spring. That would be Heaven enough for me.”

Mary looked at her doubtfully. “If you say so. Personally, I would rather not die, at least not yet. But if I had to die, I would like to go someplace where I could see all the people I care about.”

“Are you thinking of Mr. Holmes?” asked Beatrice.

“What? No—I mean, I don’t know. I was thinking of you and Cat and Justine, and, yes, Diana. Mrs. Poole, of course. Alice, Mina, Irene… so many people. And of course Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson.”

“Mary, it is sometimes permissible to lie to others, but it is never wise to lie to oneself.” Beatrice plucked a leaf of some sort and began to chew on it. That was probably her idea of breakfast!

“What do you mean? I’m not lying to myself! Anyway, what about you and Clarence?”

Beatrice looked up at her, startled. “But I’m not lying to myself about the fact that I am poisonous. Do I feel love for him? Yes, I cannot deny it. Perhaps if I loved him less, I would try to give him what he wants—my companionship. What you would call a relationship. Then he would become poisonous, as I am. Would I want to place on him a burden I have borne all my life? Could I do that to a man I love? And imagine, Mary, if we had children. They would be poisonous as well. I could not birth more creatures such as myself. I am not my father—I will not create a race of monsters.”

“You’ve really thought this through,” said Mary, feeling a pang in her chest—pity for both Beatrice and herself. The Poisonous Girl looked so sad! Mary wanted to put her arms around Beatrice and comfort her. But that was the whole problem, wasn’t it? No ordinary human being would ever be able to comfort Beatrice in that way. Justine could breathe her poison, Count Dracula could heal from her burns… but the man she loved was denied to her. Was that Mary’s situation as well? Of course, what she felt for Mr. Holmes was different—compounded of regard for his intellect, respect for the work he did.… No. Beatrice was right, she needed to stop lying to herself. Regard and respect were the wrong words altogether.

“I’ve had to think it through, since he will not. Clarence believes we shall be together someday, and I cannot convince him otherwise. Sometimes, I do not even wish to try. Look, dew on the acanthus leaves.” Beatrice rubbed the dew on her hands and then rubbed her hands against her face. “It is good for the complexion.”

“I’ll stick with cold cream and Pear’s soap, thank you very much,” said Mary. “We should probably get back to the others.”

Beatrice stood up and drew on her gloves, then offered Mary a hand. Mary took it and pulled herself up. The bottom of her trousers, where she had been sitting, was damp.

“Forgive me, Mary, I do not mean to pry into your affairs, but you should tell Mr. Holmes how you feel—that you care for him.”

“What if I’m not sure how I feel about him?”

“I think you are sure—you simply do not want to admit it to yourself. Listen! I hear a lark, high up in the heavens. Is its song not beautiful? I wonder what it is doing here. They usually stay inland and do not venture over water.”

“Yes, very nice,” said Mary. A lark was some sort of bird, wasn’t it? Someone had written a poem about a lark—something something blithe spirit, bird thou never wert, except that a lark was in fact a bird, as far as she could remember. She herself was more familiar with pigeons and sparrows. She felt a raindrop on her face, and then another. The lark continued making lark noises. When they reached the dairy, Catherine and Justine were awake. Diana was still asleep, with her head on Mary’s rucksack.

“Let sleeping Dianas lie!” said Mary and Catherine in unison. Mary smiled. Well, if she was going to die today, at least it would be among friends.

They ate a breakfast of hard ginger biscuits called fairings that they had bought at the general store. Mary wished very much for some tea, or even a little milk, to wash the biscuits down with, but this morning, at least, they must do without.

“Let’s go over the plans again,” said Catherine. “When we get to the chapel, Beatrice and Diana will climb up the tower. The rest of us will hide in the family pews. And then we wait. As soon as Beatrice sees the Queen’s yacht approach the harbor and the barge set out to meet it, she will light the beacon. Hopefully someone in the yacht will understand that it’s a warning and start to withdraw. If it does not and the Queen steps onto the barge, Diana will run down and tell us. At that point, it will be our task to capture Miss Trelawny, Mrs. Raymond, and Queen Tera as soon as they enter the chapel, before they can get to the Queen.” She turned to Mary. “Why can’t we just capture them now and avoid all this fuss? I know what their boat looks like. I can probably spot it in the harbor.”

“First of all, I doubt that,” said Mary. “You couldn’t even describe it when I asked. And second of all, they’re probably no longer on it. They’re probably hidden in one of the village houses or up at the castle. Remember they can make themselves invisible—there’s no reason for them to stay out all night in this weather when they can find more comfortable accommodations. I bet they’re somewhere much nicer than a cow house! They are on this island, and we have no idea where. Our best opportunity will be right here in the chapel. They will need to come here to capture the Queen, so as soon as we see them, we’ll do our best to capture them instead! And after we’ve saved Her Majesty, we will make them tell us where they’ve hidden Alice and Mr. Holmes. They weren’t in the keep, so where are they?”

“I hope they’re still alive!” said Catherine. “And that Alice is still on our side. She could be helping them, you know.”

“Of course they are still alive!” said Justine, as sharply as Justine ever said anything. “And I do not believe for one moment that Alice would betray us.”

Mary had been about to say the same thing, in the same tone. Why exactly did Catherine need to bring up such things just now? This was not a time to be pessimistic. Of course Alice and Mr. Holmes were still alive. They had to be. And she had complete—well, almost complete—faith in Alice.

ALICE: Almost complete?

MARY: After all, she was your mother.

Through the dairy window, Mary could see that it was beginning to rain more heavily. She looked at her wristwatch. “It’s half past seven—the sun should just be rising soon. We have to leave—the cows will come to be milked, and we want to be hidden in the chapel by the time the household is awake. I’m sure the kitchen staff is awake already, but I don’t want to run into any footmen or, worse, Mrs. Russell. Come on, help me shake Diana! For all we talk about letting her lie, she’s almost impossible to wake up in the mornings.”

DIANA: So you really do say that about letting me lie—and sometimes you do it! I thought it was some sort of joke. It’s a way of keeping me out of things, isn’t it? If I’m asleep, you can leave me behind whenever you want to. How convenient for you! Why do you even keep me around, if you don’t want me to participate? From now on you can open all the locked doors, and climb all the brick walls, and save all the Lucindas yourselves!

CATHERINE: Well, it sort of is a joke. Diana—Di, come back here. I think she’s genuinely hurt. Di, I’m sorry. Oh, for goodness’ sake, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.…

Getting into the castle was not difficult. Diana was able to pick the lock of the forbidding front door, made of dark wood bound with iron, and a second door that led to a terrace surrounded by a crenellated stone wall, “easy peasy.” From there, Beatrice looked back toward the mainland. The sky was growing brighter—she could see the small white houses of Marazion and whitecaps on the sea where they had crossed over the causeway last night. Now, it was underwater.

“Come on,” said Mary. “The chapel is over there. We need to hide before anyone sees us.”

As far as Beatrice knew, no one had seen them. Once, Catherine told them to hide in the trees beside the path. A minute later two men had passed, bringing a large chair down from the castle. Presumably the chair that the Queen would be carried up in? But Catherine listened carefully before they had opened any doors, to make certain there was no one about. So far, so good, Beatrice thought. It was a useful English phrase that Mary had taught her.

Once they were in the chapel, Diana picked the lock of the small door that led up to the bell tower. Beatrice had to stoop to pass through the doorway. Evidently, the monks that had built it had been shorter than her. Then she turned and said to Mary, “Good luck, and I hope we will be able to tell you that our mission succeeded.” The stairs inside the tower were narrow, and the ceiling was so low that she had to keep stooping all the way up. Lugging a metal container of camphine and two rucksacks filled with rags to the top of the tower was more difficult than she had anticipated. She had to keep stopping and resting on the steps.

“Why do we need this again?” asked Diana.

“To light the beacon fire,” said Beatrice. “You are so very good with fires. Remember how you rescued Lucinda from the Krankenhaus all by yourself?”

“Of course I do.” For a moment, Diana looked like a hen that had laid an egg and was very proud of itself indeed. “All right, I’ll carry this metal thing for a while. Why did they have to make it out of metal, anyway?”

“Because camphine is highly flammable,” said Beatrice. “It will make bright, strong flames.” At least, she hoped it would. Even within the stone walls of the tower, she could hear the wind rising. She wondered how hard the rain was coming down.

They passed a wooden platform and the chapel bells. She hoped no one would try to ring them while she and Diana were in the tower—the noise would be deafening. Ah, there it was, the trapdoor that must lead to the turreted top of the tower. Finally! She raised the trapdoor and looked about her.

Yes, the wind was rising, and darker gray clouds were rolling in from the east. Rain fell fitfully. She closed the trapdoor again.

“We must wait here on the platform, beside the bells,” she said. “It is too wet outside—we do not want our rags to become damp. We must keep them as dry as possible before we attempt to light the fire.” She looked at her lapel watch. Several more hours until the Queen’s yacht would arrive in the harbor. At least the slats that let out the ringing of the bells let in plenty of air. There was no danger of her poison building up.

“I hate waiting,” said Diana.

“But Mary told me that you had invented a most interesting game. I am thinking of something. I bet you cannot guess what I am thinking about.” She sat on the platform—it was ancient, but seemed sound enough to hold her weight.

Diana sat down on one of the steps and looked at Beatrice, eyes narrowed, as though trying to guess what she was thinking simply from the expression on her face. “Is it bigger than an elephant?”

CATHERINE: Diana, I’ll play that game with you, the one where you guess what I’m thinking. I’ll play it as long as you want. Are you seriously not talking to me?

DIANA: Go to hell. And I mean all of you.

If you have to hide in an ancient stone chapel for several hours, waiting to see if you will need to rescue the Queen of England, there are no better companions to wait with than Justine Frankenstein and Catherine Moreau. At least that was what Mary thought as they crouched in one of the pews, the one farthest from the door. It was high enough to hide them completely from anyone coming into the chapel. Justine had found a Bible that someone had left on one of the cushions and was silently reading something devotional. When they had first hidden, Catherine had taken out a piece of string and tied the ends together. Then she had proceeded to teach Mary a particularly complicated version of Cat’s Cradle. “I figured we would need something to do while we were waiting,” she said. “I learned this from Doris and Edith, the Twisting Jellicoe Twins, who made it up when they were children. We have at least two hours to wait. Let’s see if we can make up new variations.”

Every once in a while Justine would read from the Bible to them, quietly so it would not echo around the chapel. “ ‘To every thing there is a season,’ ” she read, “ ‘and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together’.… I think that is the most beautiful verse in Ecclesiastes.”

“Also, a time to fight evil Egyptian queens,” said Mary. “Which should be in about”—she looked at her wristwatch—“an hour.”

Just then she heard a grating sound. It was the chapel door opening—not the large one they had come through, but the smaller door close to the altar. Queen Victoria’s yacht would not arrive for another hour. Had it possibly arrived early? Could the Queen already be here? Unlikely. As far as she knew, queens operated according to regular schedules that were published in the Royal Court Circular and reprinted in the Daily Telegraph as well as other papers of general interest. It must be one of the castle staff coming into the chapel to pray. That seemed the most likely explanation. They were well hidden, and none of the staff members would use the family pews. As long as they were quiet, they should remain undiscovered.

But it was not just one person. She heard several sets of footsteps. She looked at Catherine and Justine—it was clear that they had heard the same thing as well. Justine looked alarmed, Catherine looked resolute

As though in a dance to which they all knew the steps, Justine put down her Bible, Catherine put down her string, and all three of them crouched farther down in the pew. Catherine drew her pistol out of the rucksack on the bench. Taking that as a cue, Mary drew her pistol as well.

The footsteps continued down the nave. There was another sound, as of something being dragged over the stone floor.

Catherine held up three fingers. Whoever they were, there were three of them. Mary’s revolver was a reassuring weight in her hand. With it, she had shot Beast Men and vampires. She hoped it would serve her as well today. Justine looked at them both, alert but calm. Thank goodness for Catherine and Justine! She could not have asked for better companions.

MARY: And I still can’t.

The footsteps continued all the way down the nave, toward the back of the chapel. There were some sounds that Mary could not make out, then a door opening. Mary heard what sounded like speech, but it was so muffled and distant that she could not distinguish any words.

Catherine held up a hand, as though to signal Wait. Whatever was happening, it was not over yet. A door closed. The footsteps retreated back up the nave, to the chapel door through which they had entered. Then the chapel door clanged shut.

The three of them looked at one another. “Come on,” said Mary. “Let’s go see what that was all about.”

She crept out of the pew first, pistol in hand. The dragging noises had gone down the aisle toward the back of the chapel. The only thing there, as far as she knew, was the organ, behind an ornate wooden wall that separated the organ from the rest of the chapel. There was a door in the wall, but Mrs. Russell had said it was only used by the organ player to access the instrument, and provided just enough room to play. Why would anyone want to drag something to the organ? “Catherine,” she said. “What did you hear? Your ears are better than mine.”

Catherine was standing at the other end of the wooden wall. “I heard this door open and close,” she said. Ah, there was another door, hidden in the ornamental woodwork! Mrs. Russell had not mentioned that one on the tour. Carefully, holding her pistol in her right hand, Catherine opened the door with her left. When she saw what was beyond, she opened it farther to show Mary and Justine. It was a long, narrow hall, obviously a passageway that led to the service areas of the castle. On the floor, close to the doorway, lay the bodies of three women. Two were in maids’ uniforms, one in the black dress with white collar and cuffs of a housekeeper in her most formal attire.

“Mrs. Russell!” said Mary. “That’s the housekeeper Beatrice and I met yesterday, the one who is supposed to serve elevenses to Her Majesty. The others must be parlor maids. Are they…”

Justine knelt down and put her hand on their throats. “They are breathing, but not deeply. I believe they are in some sort of mesmeric trance. Shall I attempt—”

“Yes,” said Mary. “We must try to wake them up.”

However, as much as they shook the parlor maids and housekeeper, none of the three would awaken. Mary even slapped Mrs. Russell on the cheeks, and Mrs. Russell, if you ever read this, she apologizes for having taken such a liberty. But to no avail. The three remained unconscious.

“Well, at least now we know how to identify Queen Tera and the others,” said Mary. “I’m guessing they brought the housekeeper and parlor maids here so they could impersonate them. Which means they will try to abduct the Queen not in the chapel, but in the blue drawing room, where Mrs. Russell is supposed to serve tea to Her Majesty.”

“Then we must confront them there,” said Justine. “Mary, you must lead the way, since Catherine and I do not know where it is. Should we tell Beatrice what has happened and where we are going? But she is at the top of the tower, on the battlements. I do not think she would hear us from below.”

“There’s no time for one of us to climb up there,” said Mary. “And it would not change what she and Diana have to do—either way, they have to warn off the Queen’s yacht. I think we need to confront Queen Tera and her—what, henchwomen? Whatever we want to call them, we need to find and confront them now.”

“And I suggest we change into their uniforms,” said Catherine. “We would immediately be conspicuous in the castle dressed as we are. But if we’re dressed as maids, there’s at least a chance no one will look at our faces. No one looks at maids, not really. If we go into the castle, we should look as though we belong there.”

As quickly as they could, they took the uniforms off the two maids, leaving them in their shifts. And then, while Mary felt a horrible sense of guilt—imagine if someone had done such a thing to Mrs. Poole!—they took off Mrs. Russell’s black dress. Mary and Catherine attired themselves as the two maids, and Justine put on the housekeeper’s dress, which was the longest. On her, it was both too large and not long enough. Again, Mrs. Russell, if there’s any way we can recompense you, as well as Phyllis and Nora, for this indignity, we shall endeavor to do so.

MRS. POOLE: I should hope so! While I know what you did was necessary under the circumstances, I cannot approve treating a woman like Mrs. Russell in such a fashion.

“Well,” said Mary to Justine, “hopefully no one will look at your ankles!”

Using the silver mirror they had brought to fight Queen Tera, Mary and Catherine put on the parlor maids’ caps, which took some tucking-up of hair. Luckily their aprons had functional rather than purely ornamental pockets. Mary put her .22 in one and the silver mirror in the other, with its handle sticking out. She saw Catherine putting her .32 in one of her apron pockets as well.

Justine pulled down her bodice, which was, like the rest of the dress, both too large and too short. When she raised her arms, there was a gap between her bodice and skirt. “I shall take the bottles of pepper spray,” she said. “Mrs. Russell’s dress has pockets hidden in the lining. How practical.” She put a bottle of pepper spray in each.

Mary looked at all of them critically. “I think we’ll do. Justine, your collar is sticking up. Here, let me smooth it down. Now you look perfectly respectable, except for your short hair. But there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“Why do maids’ uniforms have to look so ridiculous?” asked Catherine. “Look at all these starched ruffles. Why can’t maids wear whatever they want to?”

“You sound like Beatrice,” said Mary. She looked at her wristwatch again. “Whatever you think of maids’ uniforms, we don’t have time to overthrow the social order today. The Queen’s yacht will be drawing into the harbor in a quarter of an hour. Of course, the timing won’t be exact, particularly if there’s a storm. Beatrice should be lighting the beacon right about now. Come on! We need to get to the blue drawing room.”

She led the way out of the chapel, through the door that Miss Trelawny, Mrs. Raymond, and Queen Tera had used. To their right across the terrace was the entrance to the vestibule that led to the blue drawing room. It was a good thing they had dressed in servants’ clothing, because the servants were already starting to assemble on the terrace. The Queen would likely be brought up the way they had come that morning, through the front doors of the castle and directly to the north terrace, then into the blue drawing room—the St. Michael’s Mount staff would try to make it as easy for her as possible. That was good—it meant the blue drawing room was the only place Queen Tera could abduct her now. Well, Mary was going to prevent that from happening!

A man who looked like a butler was bustling around the terrace, directing a small army of footmen. But as Catherine predicted, no one paid attention to them as they passed. The convenient thing about a uniform was that if you were wearing one, no one noticed the woman inside.

As Mary walked through the vestibule, she pulled her pistol out of her apron pocket. She saw Catherine do the same. Thank goodness all the servants seemed to be gathering outside on the terrace! Someone would surely have remarked on two maids carrying pistols.

She stepped through the arched doorway into the blue drawing room, pistol drawn, ready for whatever might happen—for a lightning bolt, even. The room was empty. Well, not empty—there were the Chippendale sofa on which the Queen would be sitting, the rest of the furnishings, the paintings and bibelots. But no one was there.

Where were Queen Tera, Mrs. Raymond, and Miss Trelawny? Had they made themselves invisible? But why? Surely the whole point was for them to look like the housekeeper and two housemaids so they could fool the household—and Her Majesty.

“What about that other room?” asked Catherine in a low voice, pointing at the door to the right of the fireplace.

Through that doorway was another small room, but Mrs. Russell had indicated that it was used primarily to store extra chairs for larger receptions. As quietly as she could, Mary crossed the blue drawing room, waving for Catherine and Justine to follow her. The door to the storage room was closed. Carefully, she turned the handle and opened it, entering the room pistol-first. It, too, was unoccupied, and filled only with chairs and a few small tables. It was painted the same delicate shade of Wedgwood blue as the drawing room.

“I have no idea,” she said to Catherine and Justine. “I assumed they would be here. Why else would they have taken the housekeeper’s and maids’ uniforms? Could I have misunderstood their plans?” If only Sherlock were with them! He would be able to figure out this mystery, as he had figured out so many others. But he was not, so she would need to figure it out for herself. Somewhere in her chain of deduction, she must have made a mistake.…

Catherine put a hand on Mary’s arm. Startled, she looked at the Puma Woman. Catherine did not often touch anyone. Now, she had a finger to her lips. Be quiet, she seemed to be saying. Then she put that finger to her ear, and then her nose. Finally, she pointed back toward the blue drawing room. Justine was listening intently. Could she hear something that Mary could not? No, now she heard it too—someone was in the blue drawing room.

Catherine walked quietly back to the doorway into the drawing room and stood listening. Mary waited for a moment, but the only sound was of footsteps. If Queen Tera was in there, she wanted to act, and quickly. She stepped past Catherine and stood in the doorway with her pistol in front of her, finger on the trigger.

There, in the middle of the blue drawing room, stood Mrs. Russell, supervising two parlor maids. They must have entered while Mary and the others were in the storage room. One of the parlor maids was dusting the ornaments on the mantel in a way that no competent parlor maid had ever dusted, without picking them up, simply moving the feather duster over them. In a moment, Mary was sure, one of the marble busts would crash to the floor. The other was plumping a pillow on the blue sofa, although it was not the sort of pillow that needed plumping, being filled, most likely, with horsehair. They looked like actresses playing at being parlor maids in a theatrical performance. But of course it was not Mrs. Russell, because she was lying unconscious in the hall, and they were not parlor maids. Which of them was Queen Tera? Which were Mrs. Raymond and Margaret Trelawny? And who was producing this illusion? Mary had no idea. Which of them should she shoot? She had to choose one, but she hesitated. At that moment, Mrs. Russell noticed her standing in the doorway. She snarled and raised her left hand. It had seven fingers. Mary pulled the trigger and shot the housekeeper in the shoulder.

In the quiet drawing room, the sound of the shot was almost deafening. Mrs. Russell screamed and collapsed. But what hit the floor was not Mrs. Russell—it was the small figure of Queen Tera, dressed not in the housekeeper’s black dress but in a white linen gown, on which a red stain was rapidly spreading. It matched the ruby scarab at her throat. And the two parlor maids were no longer maids, but Mrs. Raymond and Margaret Trelawny. Mrs. Raymond looked at Mary with astonishment and dismay. Miss Trelawny cried out and knelt beside the fallen figure of Tera, putting her hands on the Egyptian queen’s shoulder to staunch the blood.

“Good shot,” said Catherine. She and Justine had come through the doorway and were standing just behind Mary, to either side. “Now let’s get those two.”

From where she was kneeling on the floor, Miss Trelawny raised one hand, pointed at Mary, and said to Mrs. Raymond, “Kill her.”

CATHERINE: That was an excellent shot, Mary.

MARY: It was a lucky shot. If I had shot Margaret Trelawny instead, Queen Tera would quickly have electrocuted us, and that would have been the end of the Athena Club. Or at least three of its members!

Beatrice checked her lapel watch. It was time. “Come,” she said to Diana. “We must light the beacon fire.”

“Were you thinking of Big Ben?” asked Diana.

“Yes,” said Beatrice. It had in fact been Mary’s wristwatch, but there was no more time to play Diana’s game.

“Then why did you say it was smaller than an elephant?” asked Diana.

“Is Big Ben larger than an elephant? I meant only the clock face. You can carry the rags, and I shall carry the container. Vieni, cara mia.” Beatrice opened the trapdoor. The wind had picked up, and rain was coming down in a steady drizzle. Would they be able to light the fire? From the top of the tower, she was able to see the horizon on three sides. On the other, she could see the coast, with the houses of Marazion white against the gray hills. The ocean was gray, with white foam on the tops of the waves where they rushed in and crashed against the shore. And there—she could see the Queen’s yacht, white against the gray water, getting closer to St. Michael’s Mount. But it was still farther out than she had expected. The weather must have put it behind schedule. She should wait a little longer to light the beacon fire. Ten minutes should do it. She took off the silly waterproof coat that Mary had insisted she wear and laid it over the rucksacks filled with rags. They must be kept dry, at least. Then she pulled off her gloves and put them into her trouser pockets. She would need bare hands for what was to come.

“Are we just going to stand out here in the rain?” asked Diana.

“Yes,” she replied, checking to make sure the matchbox was still in the pocket of her coat—what the English called a mackintosh, which she found difficult to pronounce.

“Oh. All right. Look, there’s the keep. I can see it all the way from here. And there’s the inn. I wonder what Mrs. Davies will make for dinner tonight? I told her Beef Wellington was my favorite, and she said she would try to make it just for me.”

The yacht sailed closer, closer.…

Beatrice checked her watch again. It had a few water drops on it. Now was the time.

“Or sausages. She said she had some sausages from a pig that was killed in August, from a farm near Perranuthnoe.”

Beatrice was about to tell Diana to be quiet and pull out the rags when she noticed that Diana was pulling out the rags, even as she was describing some sort of special Cornish sausage called, improbably, Hog’s Pudding. Apparently, her obsession with their dinner menu did not preclude her from getting things done.

And then she heard, above the wind and rain and Diana’s chatter, a grating noise. It was the trapdoor opening. She watched it rise an inch, two inches.

Someone had followed them—presumably, someone who was going to try and stop them from signaling the Queen. Unlike Mary and Catherine, she had no pistol, only her poison. Quickly, she moved to the trapdoor and stood with her hands outstretched, her fingers curved, ready to burn the face of whomever came through it.

“I’ll slit his throat with my knife.” Diana was standing next to her, knife out, also ready. Annoying as she could be, you could always count on her in a pinch.

The trapdoor continued to rise, revealing a man’s head with dark eyes, two days’ worth of beard, and dark, tousled hair under a checked cap.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Diana, lowering her knife. “It’s only Isaac Mandelbaum,” she said to Beatrice, apparently disgusted at not being able to stick her knife into anyone. “He was pretending to work for Moriarty, but really he’s on our side.”

Beatrice stepped back and lowered her hands. “Mary said you work for Mycroft Holmes.”

Cautiously, as though afraid they might still attack him, Isaac climbed up the remaining steps and closed the trapdoor behind him. He had a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. When he saw the rags in the metal basin, he grinned. “I see that we had the same idea, more or less. I’m here to warn the Queen as well. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss—”

“Rappaccini,” she said. “We’re going to light a beacon fire. What is your plan?”

“Signal flags,” he said, pulling two sticks with pieces of cloth wrapped around their ends out of his satchel. “But I’m afraid the captain won’t see them in this rain. I have two compatriots down by the dock who will attempt to warn the Queen if she comes ashore. We tried to warn her through more direct channels, but Moriarty’s co-conspirators are still in positions of power around her. They do not yet know he is dead, and are continuing to implement his plans. We need to stop them as well, but the first step is making sure the Queen does not set foot on St. Michael’s Mount. Perhaps we could work together? It would be a pleasure to work with such a charming collaborator.”

“Are you going to flirt with Beatrice or light the fire?” asked Diana. She crossed her arms and glared at them.

“Hello, Miss Hyde,” he said, grinning. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, although we keep meeting under such inauspicious circumstances.”

“I’ll inauspicious you!” said Diana. “Who sent you? Was it that that big slug who stays in his fancy club instead of actually helping anybody? At least his brother gets out and does things!”

“All right, Mr. Mandelbaum,” said Beatrice. Per carità! Could they not concentrate on the task at hand? “Take that container and douse the rags with the liquid inside. Be careful—it’s camphine, and highly flammable. Don’t get any on yourself. You would not want to go up in flames.”

Isaac nodded, picked up the container, and unscrewed the cap. He poured the contents carefully but thoroughly over the rags. Beatrice put her hands up to her nose—the camphine smelled foul. The rags were wet—not soaked, but certainly not dry. Would they catch fire? She worried that she had waited too long.

Isaac stepped back and put the container down on the stones.

“You, too, Diana,” said Beatrice. “Step back, and give me my mack—” The word stuck in her mouth. “My coat. You should have folded it neatly instead of tossing it down in that untidy fashion.”

Diana made a rude gesture, but handed her the mackintosh. Beatrice took her matchbox out of the pocket, struck a match, and tossed it on the camphine-soaked rags. She need not have worried after all. The rags blazed up—the fire rose higher and higher, white and hot. Hastily, she stepped back, all the way to the battlements.

On the other side of the tower, Isaac had unfurled his flags. She was startled to see him step closer to the fire and wave his flags through the flames. In a moment, the ends of both flags were on fire! Then he turned and walked to a corner of the tower facing the shore—and the Queen’s yacht. He raised both flags and began moving them from one position to another, sending a message: Danger? Retreat? She had no idea what he was signaling.

What would it look like, from the yacht below? The sky had grown darker. Against it, the beacon would flame brightly, and beside it, the fiery flags would dance the message that there was danger here: retreat, retreat, retreat they seemed to say.

After repeating the same motions several times, Isaac turned and threw the flags into the fire—they were almost completely burned to the sticks. In another moment, the sticks themselves would have been consumed.

He looked at her, firelight dancing over his face, which was covered with sweat from the heat of the flags, despite the drizzling rain. “We’ve done what we can do.” He was not grinning now. His dark eyes were serious, and the set of his jaws was grim. Beatrice joined him at the battlements that faced the shore. She could feel the heat of the fire on her back.

Had they done enough? They stood together at the top of the tower, looking down at the yacht, which continued its steady movement toward the harbor. In one corner of the tower, Diana paced back and forth. “It didn’t work,” she said.

For an agonizing minute, and then another, nothing happened. Then, the yacht began to turn. Slowly, it turned away from the entrance to the harbor, away from St. Michael’s Mount, away from danger—toward the safety of the great gray sea.

“Grazie a Dio,” said Beatrice.

“I’ll go tell them,” said Diana. “At least they won’t have to fight Queen Tera in the chapel!” She opened the trapdoor and disappeared down it. Beatrice could hear her clattering down the stairs.

“We did it, Mr. Mandelbaum,” she said.

“We did indeed, Miss Rappaccini,” he replied, grinning and wiping sweat from his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “I understand Miss Jekyll is down below. Shall we go help her?”

Beatrice nodded. This day was not over yet, but at least they had done one thing right—they had saved the Queen.

CATHERINE: You were heroic in the tower, Diana. It was you and Beatrice who saved Queen Victoria. Oh, come on, I said I was sorry.…

Mrs. Raymond pointed one finger at Mary. Lightning crackled from it, but reached only halfway across the distance between them before it sputtered and went out. She pointed her finger again, but with the speed of a puma, Catherine pulled the silver mirror out of Mary’s left pocket, leaped forward, and held it in front of her. This time the lightning bolt was stronger. It hit the mirror squarely in the center. The mirror shattered, but the bolt ricocheted off and struck an elaborately gilded eighteenth-century clock on a marble side table. Mary cried out. There was blood on her hands—some pieces of the mirror had hit her.

“Use your gun, Helen!” shouted Margaret Trelawny. “I can’t reach mine.” She was still kneeling by Tera, who appeared to be unconscious, with both hands on the wounded shoulder of the Egyptian queen.

Justine pulled the bottles of pepper spray out of her pockets. She held them in front of her and advanced toward Mrs. Raymond.Catherine pulled out her pistol. If she could shoot Mrs. Raymond, this fight would be over, more easily than they had anticipated. Unlike Mary, she would not bother trying for the shoulder. If she killed Mrs. Raymond, so be it.

For a moment, Mrs. Raymond simply looked at them—Catherine advancing with the mirror in one hand and a pistol in the other, Justine with the bottles of pepper spray. Then she raised both her arms. Suddenly, a gray fog rose from the floor. It roiled around their legs, then waist high, then at the height of Catherine’s chest. In a moment, she could not see anything.

“Justine!” she called. “Where are you?”

“I am here.” That was Justine’s voice. And Catherine could smell her—she smelled like lavender, probably from Mrs. Russell’s dress. She reached out—her hands found long, slender ones. Yes, this was Justine, although Catherine could barely see her face in the fog.

“Where is Mary?” she asked.

“I do not know.” Justine looked frantically around, but there was no around to look at—only fog.

Gray fog everywhere. Catherine took an experimental step to see if she could feel anything in her immediate vicinity and stumbled over a Chippendale side chair with blue upholstery. So at least they were still in the blue drawing room!

“What now?” she asked Justine.

“I think it’s starting to dissipate,” said the Giantess from her vantage point. Yes, the fog around Catherine’s head looked lighter, although her body was still lost in it. But in a few moments, that too started to blow off, until the room was at it had been. The fog was gone. So were Queen Tera, Margaret Trelawny, Mrs. Raymond, and Mary Jekyll.

DIANA: I can’t believe you let them take my sister.

CATHERINE: Well, we certainly didn’t mean to! It just happened.

DIANA: I was talking to Justine, not you. I’m never talking to you again.

Alice put her finger up to the keyhole. She concentrated as hard as she could. A small bolt of lightning leaped out of her finger and into the lock. She pulled at the door. It did not open.

“I’m not strong enough,” she said.

“But you’re getting stronger,” said Sherlock Holmes, who was sitting on the steps just below her. “Look at how far you’ve come since last night. Apparently, those electrical impulses are a physical phenomenon controlled by your brain. The more you practice creating them, the easier it will become. There’s no reason you cannot do what Tera can, with enough time and practice.

“But there isn’t enough time.” Discouraged, she sat down on the step beside him. “They’re kidnapping the Queen today, and we’re stuck in here. We’re never going to get out of here or see our friends again.”

“We most certainly will,” he said. “Don’t you trust me, Alice?”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Well, you are Sherlock Holmes.”

He threw back his head and laughed. He must be feeling better—this was the strongest she had seen him since she had found him drugged at the house in Soho. “Yes, you’re right. I am, aren’t I? Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, immortalized by Dr. Watson in The Strand, a shilling an issue, promises you that we will get out of here. And I promise as well. Come, let’s have something to eat, and then get some rest. You need to build up your strength. I believe in you, and I know that you or I, or the both of us, will find a way out of this dungeon.”

Alice nodded and squeezed his hand. Ever since she had first met him, she had been afraid of Mr. Holmes. Now, she wondered why. Once you got to know him, he was not so very fearsome after all.

ALICE: Well, he is still a little fearsome.

DIANA: Bollocks.

It was almost dark by the time Catherine, Beatrice, Justine, and Diana stepped off the small fishing boat piloted by Isaac Mandelbaum and his two compatriots, who had not given their names. They were both ordinary-looking young men who could have passed for bank clerks, but Catherine suspected that they belonged to an organization more secretive than even the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, as the Bank of England was called by those who worked in her mysterious halls.

“We shouldn’t have left the island without Mary,” said Diana. She punched Catherine on the arm, but in such a dejected way that it barely hurt.

“Diana, Mary is not on the island,” said Justine. “We searched everywhere.”

Once they realized that Mary was gone, Catherine and Justine had made their way as quickly as possible out of the blue drawing room, hoping not to be noticed. Luckily, the terrace had been filled with scurrying maids and footmen, while the butler shouted orders. Everyone had been staring up at the tower and the flames that danced at its top. So Beatrice had lit the beacon! Had it worked? Had it driven the royal yacht safely away from St. Michael’s Mount?

As soon as they entered the chapel again, Diana had greeted them with “Where have you been? We saved the Queen. What in the world have you been doing, and where is Mary?” Beatrice and Isaac Mandelbaum had appeared a moment later to explain the situation. Catherine had breathed a sigh of relief. They were still in trouble, a great deal of trouble, but at least they had done one thing right—they had indeed saved the Queen.

In the hallway behind the wooden wall that held the organ, Catherine and Justine had changed once again into their ostler’s clothes, leaving Mrs. Russell’s dress and the maid’s uniform Catherine had been wearing folded neatly on the floor beside the sleeping servants. Even then, the parlor maids were starting to stir. They would awaken soon, and hopefully they would wake up Mrs. Russell. She was snoring slightly—Catherine thought that was a good sign.

Then, they had searched every inch of the island. Mary was not on it. Neither were Miss Trelawny, Mrs. Raymond, and Queen Tera.

“How do you know Mary’s not on the island?” Diana asked now. Isaac Mandelbaum’s boat was carrying them closer and closer to shore. “Maybe they made her invisible. Maybe they’re all invisible and hiding out for a while.”

“I think it is unlikely,” said Beatrice. “From what Catherine told us, it sounds as though Queen Tera is seriously wounded. They will want to take her somewhere she can rest and heal. That is probably where they have taken Mary as well.”

“Their most likely destination is the keep,” said Justine. “That is where they are strongest and safest. If I were planning a defense, it is certainly where I would choose.”

“Then we’ll attack the keep,” said Catherine. “Four of us against Margaret Trelawny, Mrs. Raymond, and a wounded Queen Tera, in a fortress designed to keep out invaders. Easy peasy, as Diana always says.”

“Are you being ironic?” asked Justine.

“Of course I’m being ironic. We caught them by surprise today. We’re not going to catch them by surprise tomorrow. It looks as though Mrs. Raymond has been practicing throwing lightning bolts, although she’s nowhere near as good as Queen Tera. How are we going to fight them? I have no idea.” She sounded angry, which didn’t help anything, she knew that. But she was deeply worried. If Mrs. Raymond or Margaret Trelawny hurt Mary, she would tear them limb from limb.

As they disembarked at one of the small natural harbors that appeared around Marazion at high tide, they all shook hands with Isaac except Diana, who was already halfway up the stone steps carved out of the cliff. He leaned down to kiss Beatrice’s gloved hand. Catherine wondered what Clarence would think of that!

“I am only sorry that we cannot help you further,” he said. “But our instructions were very clear—save the Queen, and then return immediately to London. There is still a great deal of work to do there—Moriarty’s allies remain in positions of power. They must be our immediate priority until they no longer threaten to topple the government. But I shall let Mr. Holmes know of this situation and the continuing threat Queen Tera poses. She did not succeed today, but I am certain she will try again.”

“That’s all right,” said Catherine. “We’ll save Mary, and Alice, and Sherlock Holmes. Somehow.” Even to herself, she did not sound confident.

They followed Diana up the steps to the top of the cliff and then down Turnpike Road to the inn. When Catherine stepped through the inn door and followed the smell of supper being served in the dining room, she saw Diana standing at one of the tables, with an enormous grin on her face.

“Look who I found,” she said.

Seated at the table were Ayesha, Laura Jennings, and Lucinda Van Helsing.