The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Read online

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  CONTENTS

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER I THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR

  CHAPTER II CONSULTING MR. HOLMES

  CHAPTER III THE MAGDALEN SOCIETY

  CHAPTER IV A MURDER IN WHITECHAPEL

  CHAPTER V THE LETTER FROM ITALY

  CHAPTER VI DIANA’S STORY

  CHAPTER VII THE POISONOUS GIRL

  CHAPTER VIII THE MAN WHO ATE FLIES

  CHAPTER IX A RESCUE AT NIGHT

  CHAPTER X BEATRICE’S STORY

  CHAPTER XI THE MARVELOUS CIRCUS

  CHAPTER XII CATHERINE’S STORY

  CHAPTER XIII RETURN TO THE ASYLUM

  CHAPTER XIV THE TWISTED MAN

  CHAPTER XV THE STREETS OF SOHO

  CHAPTER XVI INTO THE WAREHOUSE

  CHAPTER XVII A BOAT ON THE THAMES

  CHAPTER XVIII BACK TO PARK TERRACE

  CHAPTER XIX JUSTINE’S STORY

  CHAPTER XX THE ATHENA CLUB

  CHAPTER XXI THE LETTER FROM AUSTRIA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For Ophelia, who read it first

  Here be monsters.

  MARY: I don’t think that’s the right epigraph for the book.

  CATHERINE: Then you write the bloody thing. Honestly, I don’t know why I agreed to do this.

  MARY: Because we need money.

  CATHERINE: As usual.

  CHAPTER I

  The Girl in the Mirror

  Mary Jekyll stared down at her mother’s coffin.

  “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.”

  The rain had started again. Not a proper rain, but the dreary, interminable drizzle that meant spring in London.

  “Put up your umbrella, my dear, or you’ll get wet,” said Mrs. Poole.

  Mary put up her umbrella, without much caring whether she would get wet or not. There they all were, standing by a rectangular hole in the ground, in the gray churchyard of St. Marylebone. Reverend Whittaker, reading from the prayer book. Nurse Adams looking grim, but then didn’t she always? Cook wiping her nose with a handkerchief. Enid, the parlormaid, sobbing on Joseph’s shoulder. In part of her mind, the part that was used to paying bills and discussing the housekeeping with Mrs. Poole, Mary thought, I will have to speak to Enid about overfamiliarity with a footman. Alice, the scullery maid, was holding Mrs. Poole’s hand. She looked pale and solemn, but again, didn’t she always?

  “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.”

  At the bottom of that rectangular hole was a coffin, and in that coffin lay her mother, in the blue silk wedding dress that matched the color of her eyes, forever closed now. When Mary and Mrs. Poole had put it on her, they realized how emaciated she had become over the last few weeks. Mary herself had combed her mother’s gray hair, still streaked with gold, and arranged it over the thin shoulders.

  “For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying, dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia.”

  “Alleluia,” came the chorus, from Mrs. Poole, and Nurse Adams, and Cook, and Joseph, and Alice. Enid continued to sob.

  “Alleluia,” said Mary a moment later, as though out of turn.

  She handed her umbrella to Mrs. Poole, then took off her gloves. She knelt by the grave and scooped a handful of dirt, scattering it over the coffin. She could hear small pebbles hit, sharper than the soft patter of rain. That afternoon, the sexton would cover it properly and there would be only a mound, until the headstone arrived.

  Ernestine Jekyll, Beloved Wife and Mother

  Well, at least it was partly true.

  She knelt for a moment longer, although she could feel water soaking through her skirt and stockings. Then she rose and reclaimed her umbrella. “Mrs. Poole, will you take everyone back to the house? I need to pay Reverend Whittaker.”

  “Yes, miss,” said Mrs. Poole. “Although I don’t like to leave you alone . . .”

  “Please, I’m sure Alice is hungry. I’ll be home soon, I promise.” She would follow Reverend Whittaker into the church and make a donation to the St. Marylebone Restoration Fund. But first she wanted to spend a moment alone with her mother. With what was left of Ernestine Jekyll, in a wooden box on which the raindrops were falling.

  MARY: Is it really necessary to begin with the funeral? Can’t you begin with something else? Anyway, I thought you were supposed to start in the middle of the action—in medias res.

  Before Mary could stop her, Diana crouched by the body of Molly Keane, getting blood on the hem of her dress and the toes of her boots. She reached across the murdered girl to the stiff hand that lay on her bosom and pried open the clenched fingers. From that cold grasp, she withdrew what the girl had been holding: a metal button.

  “Diana!” cried Mary.

  MARY: Not that in medias res! They won’t understand the story if you start like that.

  CATHERINE: Then stop telling me how to write it.

  It was no use standing there. It would accomplish nothing, and Mary needed to accomplish so much today. She looked at her watch: almost noon. She turned and walked under a gray arch, into the vestry of St. Marylebone to find Reverend Whittaker, who had preceded her inside. Ten pounds for the Church Restoration Fund . . . But she was Miss Jekyll, who had been baptized and confirmed at St. Marylebone. She could not give less.

  She emerged from the quiet of St. Marylebone into the hurry and bustle of Marylebone Road, with its carriages and carts, the costermongers by the sides of the road, crying their wares. Although it was out of her way, she took a detour through Regent’s Park. Usually, a walk through the park could lift her spirits, but today the roses just starting to bloom were bowed down with rain, and even the ducks on the pond seemed out of sorts. By the time she reached the staid, respectable brick house at 11 Park Terrace where she had spent her entire life, she was tired and wet, despite her umbrella.

  She let herself in, a procedure that would no doubt scandalize Mrs. Poole, and put her umbrella in the stand, then stopped in front of the hall mirror to take off her hat. There, she caught a glimpse of herself, and for a moment she stood, captured by her own reflection.

  The face that stared back at her was pale, with dark circles under the eyes. Even her hair, ordinarily a middling brown, seemed pale this morning, as though washed out by the light that came through the narrow windows on either side of the front door. She looked like a corpse.

  I have paused to show you Mary sta
ring into the mirror because this is a story about monsters. All stories about monsters contain a scene in which the monster sees himself in a mirror. Remember Frankenstein’s monster, startled by his reflection in a forest pool? That is when he realizes his monstrousness.

  MARY: I’m not a monster, and that book is a pack of lies. If Mrs. Shelley were here, I would slap her for all the trouble she caused.

  DIANA: I’d like to see that!

  “What are you going to do?” Mary asked the girl in the mirror.

  “Don’t you start talking to yourself, miss,” said Mrs. Poole. Mary turned, startled. “It reminds me of your poor mother. Walking back and forth in that room of hers, until she near wore a hole in the carpet. Talking to who knows what.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Poole,” said Mary. “I have no intention of going mad, at least not today.”

  “How you can joke about it, I don’t know! And her just in the ground,” said the housekeeper, shaking her head. “Would you like a cup of tea in the parlor? I’ve started a fire. Cook says lunch should be ready in half an hour. And there’s a letter for you, from Mr. Guest. I found it pushed through the slot when we arrived. I’ve put it on the tea table.”

  From Mr. Guest, her mother’s solicitor. Well, hers now, although she did not think Mr. Guest would want to do business with her much longer. It had been different while her mother was alive. . . .

  “Thank you, Mrs. Poole. Could you tell everyone to come into the parlor? Yes, even Alice. And could you bring—you know. I think it had best be done right away, don’t you?”

  “If you say so, miss,” said Mrs. Poole, visibly reluctant. But there was nothing else to be done. Unless this letter from Mr. Guest . . . Could it possibly be about a change in her circumstances?

  Mary went into the parlor, took the letter from the tea table, and tore open the envelope—neatly, but without searching for a letter opener. Perhaps . . . but no. If you could come to my offices at your earliest convenience, we can settle a few final matters concerning your late mother’s estate. That was all. She sat down on the sofa, stretching her hands to the fire. They were pale and thin, with the blue veins visible. She must have lost weight in the last few weeks, from worry and the long nights sitting by her mother’s bed so Nurse Adams could get some sleep. She wished she could lie down now, just for a moment. The funeral had been so . . . difficult. But no, what had to be done should be done as soon as possible. There was no point in putting it off.

  “Here we are, miss,” said Nurse Adams, leading what reminded Mary of a procession from a fairy tale: the cook, the footman, the maid, and the poor little scullion in the rear. Mrs. Poole followed them in and stood by the door, with her hands folded and the expressionless face of a disapproving servant.

  Well, this was it. How she hated to do it, but there was no alternative.

  “Thank you all so very much for coming to the funeral,” Mary began. “And thank you also for your—your care and loyalty, particularly these last few weeks.” While Mrs. Jekyll had screamed and torn her hair, and refused to eat, and finally declined into her last illness. “I wish I were calling you in here simply to thank you, but I’m afraid there’s more. You see, I have to let you go, every one of you.”

  Cook took off and wiped her spectacles. Enid sniffed and started crying into a large handkerchief that Joseph handed her. Alice looked like a scared rabbit.

  How horrible this was! More horrible even than she had imagined. But Mary continued. “Before my mother’s death, I met with Mr. Guest, and he explained my financial position. Cook remembers, for she was here while my father was alive, but I don’t suppose the rest of you know. . . . My father was a wealthy man, but when he died fourteen years ago, we discovered that his fortune was gone. He had been selling his Bank of England securities and transferring the money to an account in Budapest. When Mr. Utterson, his solicitor at the time, contacted the Budapest bank, he was told that the account holder was not Dr. Jekyll, the bank had never heard of a Dr. Jekyll, and it was unable to supply information on one of its customers without an order from the Austro-Hungarian government. Mr. Utterson attempted to get such an order, but it proved impossible. The Austro-Hungarian government was not interested in a widowed mother and her child in faraway London. I was only seven at the time, so I remember little of this. But as I grew older and my mother grew increasingly . . . well, unable to handle her finances, Mr. Utterson explained it to me. She had an income left to her by her father, which was enough to keep us all in modest comfort.”

  She did not need to tell them how modest. No doubt they had noticed her economies, although she had tried to feed them well and keep them comfortable. To have meat on Sundays and coal in the cellar. But they must have noticed books disappearing from the library shelves, silver replaced with plate. Over the years, she had sold off china shepherdesses, and ormolu clocks, and all the silverware, including the epergne her mother had received as a wedding gift from the Archbishop of York. There were outlines on the walls where paintings had hung. Once, Enid had remarked that she was thankful there were fewer figurines to dust, then quickly said, “Sorry, miss!” and scurried off to the kitchen. Her mother’s income had not been enough to cover the household expenses, and her medicines, and Nurse Adams.

  “But it was only a life-income. When she died, it died with her. It does not come to me.”

  For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire.

  “Then are you quite ruined, miss?” asked Enid, who indulged in romances of the cheapest sort.

  “Well, I supposed you could put it that way,” said Mary. What a way of putting it! And yet it was true enough. She was, if not ruined, then nearly so. Her grandfather had died years ago, never dreaming that the provisions of his will would leave his granddaughter impoverished. He had been her last living relation—there was no one to whom she could turn. So that was it. Ruined was not, after all, such a bad choice of expression.

  BEATRICE: The laws regarding female inheritance in this country are barbaric. Why should male heirs be left fortunes outright, while female heirs are left only an income for life? What if their husbands abandon them, as so many do? Or transfer their fortunes to accounts in Budapest? Who is to take care of their children?

  DIANA: Oh bloody hell! If you let her get started, we’ll never hear the end of it.

  “Mrs. Poole, if you would bring me the envelopes?” They had been locked in the housekeeper’s room since yesterday, when Mary had gone to the bank to withdraw . . . she did not want to think how much. Mrs. Poole pulled them out of an apron pocket and handed them to her. “In each of these envelopes is your fortnight’s pay, as well as a letter of reference for each of you. You need not stay the fortnight. As soon as you find other, and I hope better, employment, you are free to go, with my blessing. I am so very sorry.” She sat silently, looking at them, not knowing what else to say.

  “Well, as for myself,” said Nurse Adams, the first to speak, “I must confess, Miss Jekyll, this has not caught me unprepared. I knew as soon as your mother started muttering about that face at the window. That’s how they start, if you’ll forgive my saying—seeing things that ain’t there. I thought, the poor woman won’t survive the month, and I was right. I always know these things! So I spoke to my agency, and there’s a position just opened up accompanying an elderly gentleman to the spas in Germany. I’ll be taking my leave tomorrow, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mary. “And thank you so very much, Nurse. The last few weeks were difficult for you, I know.” What would she have done without Nurse Adams? She and Mrs. Poole could not have held her mother down when she began screaming and crying about the face, the pale face. . . . Even in her final days, when she was too weak to leave her bed, Mrs. Jekyll had whimpered about it in her sleep.

  “As for me and Enid, miss,” said Joseph, “we didn’t want to tell you in the middle of your troubles, but we’re planning to wed. My brother is the proprietor of an inn in
Basingstoke, and he has too much custom for one man to handle, so I’ll be going into business with him. And we’re hoping you’ll give us your blessing, like.”

  “Why, that’s wonderful news,” said Mary. Thank goodness, for Enid’s sake, it had not merely been a dalliance. “I’m so pleased for you both. And Cook?” For Cook was the one she had really been worried about.

  “Well, I’ll be honest with you, miss, I’d been hoping to stay on awhile yet,” said Cook. “But my sister’s been at me to come live with her, back in Yorkshire. Her husband died last year, and her daughters are grown and in service, so she’s all alone. Two old women living together—I’ll be bored to tears, without the hustle and bustle of London. Perhaps I’ll take up knitting! But I’m sorry to leave you in your troubles, miss. Having known you since you were a wee thing, and coming into my kitchen for jam tarts!”

  “No, it’s I who am sorry,” said Mary. They were all being so kind, when here she was, telling them they no longer had a home. At least Alice could return to her family in the country. “You’ll be able to see your mother again,” she said to the scullery maid. “And your brothers, and that hen you miss so much, what was her name?” She smiled encouragingly, but Alice just kept twisting her hands in her apron.

  When she had given them the envelopes and Mrs. Poole had ushered them downstairs to their lunch, all except Nurse Adams who asked for a tray in her room so she could start packing, Mary leaned back into the sofa and stared at the painting of her mother over the mantelpiece. Ernestine Jekyll, with her long, golden hair and eyes the color of cornflowers, smiled down at her in a way Mary could not remember her smiling while alive. Almost as long as Mary could remember, her mother had stayed in the large bedroom she had slept in since marrying Dr. Jekyll and moving to London from her native Yorkshire—pacing around the room, talking to invisible companions. Sometimes she scratched herself until she bled. Sometimes she tore out chunks of her hair, so it lay in long strands on the floor. Once, Nurse Adams had suggested she be sent to an institution for her own safety. Mary had refused, but in the last few weeks she had begun to wonder if she had been wrong. What had caused those violent spasms, those shrieks in the night? That final swift decline?