They were in the parlor, waiting for Justine to join them. She had insisted on checking Beatrice’s greenhouse to make sure some sort of plant, with a name Mary could not remember except that it reminded her of fingers, was flourishing where she had put it.
BEATRICE: That was the Digitalis purpurea, what you would call foxglove. It almost died while I was away.
CATHERINE: I don’t think our readers need to know that. This isn’t a horticultural manual.
BEATRICE: But it is always best to be precise, particularly with poisons.
“I told you, to see Kate Bright-Eyes,” said Mary. “I’ve never been inside an opium den, but one of the inmates of the Magdalen Society must have. She can tell us what to expect, and Kate can help us with our disguises. We want to look like habitual opium eaters, and I have no idea what that looks like.”
“I’m not going anywhere near that blasted society,” said Diana. “Never again. You can bloody well go without me. I told you those houses were opium dens, didn’t I, and gave you directions for where to find them? So I think I’ve done my bit. Anyway, who cares whether we find the Great Detective? If he can’t take care of himself, what good is he?”
Mary resisted the urge to slap her sister. “And what will you be doing all day while we’re gone?” she asked suspiciously. What mischief was Diana up to this time? First she had run off to Soho when she was supposed to stay home, and now when she was being offered a chance to participate, she refused to go. The girl was insufferable.
“I thought I would help Mrs. Poole scrub the kitchen range,” said Diana. “It’s very dirty, you know.” Her eyes were limpid pools of innocence in her freckled face.
Did she actually think that would fool anyone? Mary crossed her arms and waited. For a moment, the parlor was very quiet. Diana did not like silence—Mary had learned that the best way to get her to tell you something was to merely wait.
“All right, fine, if you must know,” said Diana impatiently. “The Baker Street boys aren’t allowed to look for Holmes, but no one said anything about Mrs. Raymond. Charlie says they’ll help us find her. They know every corner of London, so if anyone can find her, they can. And Wiggins says I can be in charge of the search. If they find her, they’ll also find Alice, and I can rescue her, just like I rescued Lucinda. I’ll have saved the day, as usual! And then we’ll send Mrs. Raymond to Newgate, where I hope she hangs.”
Diana looked very satisfied with herself, as though she had already accomplished this feat.
Should Diana be trying to find Mrs. Raymond among the slums of London with a bunch of street urchins and ragamuffins? But then, she would be as safe with the Baker Street boys as in opium dens, and perhaps their search would not find anything after all. Mary would rather they came up empty-handed than have Diana confront Mrs. Raymond by herself, as no doubt she would! In Diana’s mental world, Mrs. Raymond was a kind of demon incarnate.
“Oh, all right!” she said. “Go off with Charlie if you must. At least I’ll know you’re with him this time, which is better than running off without telling anyone. I wish you were helping Mrs. Poole scrub the kitchen range! She misses Alice terribly.”
“Archie can do that,” said Diana. “Can’t you, Archie?”
The Orangutan Man was standing at the parlor door.
“You rang, miss?” he said.
Had she? Oh yes, just a minute ago. In this verbal altercation with Diana, she had almost forgotten.
“Yes, could you fetch my coat and hat, please? And my purse—the black one.” It was large enough for her pistol. She did not want to go into an opium den unarmed.
He moved away in his awkward fashion, half the lope of an ape, half the walk of a man. And yet, Mary had to concede that he was an excellent footman—and maid, for he also did the work that Enid would have done, without once breaking the bibelots on the mantelpieces.
“Mary, I am ready.” Justine was standing in the doorway.
Mary looked at her judiciously. “Yes, you’ll do. I don’t know what it is exactly—perhaps that floppy purple beret and the matching cravat—but you look exactly like Punch’s idea of a degenerate artist.”
“Thank you,” said Justine. “They’re Beatrice’s. The cravat is actually one of her belts. I think they are a little feminine, but not so much that a gentleman would not wear them.”
BEATRICE: They are the clothing of the New Woman. They are meant not to be feminine, but practical.
CATHERINE: On women they look like men’s clothing, on men they look like women’s clothing. That’s where the New Woman meets the Dandy.
BEATRICE: Why is it necessary to categorize people in that fashion? Why can we not all wear whatever we wish, whatever is useful and aesthetically pleasing? I believe that someday we shall all wear garments that are light and of a pleasing texture, easy to put on and take off. At the same time, they will express the aspirations of the spirit. They will be like the garments of the Greeks, both graceful and functional. Why can we not dress in such a fashion now?
MRS. POOLE: Because this is England, and you would all catch your deaths of cold.
Mr. Justin Frank stared across the street at the perfectly ordinary house they knew to be an opium den. “You do not need to come in. I can do this by myself, if necessary.”
“Well, it’s not necessary,” said Mary crossly. “I’ll be fine. I just don’t feel comfortable looking like this, that’s all. What in the world would Mrs. Poole think?” She looked down at herself, wearing a cheap, shabby dress that revealed more of her décolletage than modesty would have dictated, despite the shawl she had wrapped about her shoulders. It had come from the storage room of the Magdalen Society, where the clothing of recent penitents were kept before being turned into rags. Kate Bright-Eyes had chosen it for her, and fixed her hair, and put rouge on her cheeks and lips as well as a little lampblack on her eyelashes. She was supposed to be a—well, a prostitute, there was no other way of saying it—accompanying Mr. Frank to an opium den. “I know you wanted to be a working woman, Miss Jekyll,” Kate had said. “But working women have better things to do with their time than smoke the pipe of sweet dreams. A woman of the profession—my profession that is—would accompany a gentleman there if she were paid to do it. The way to be least conspicuous is to accompany Mr. Frank as his, shall we say, paid companion, I assure you.” She had even put an artificial flower into Mr. Frank’s buttonhole to complete the effect.
How in the world did one act like a prostitute? Mary had no idea. All the ones she had met, like Kate and Doris, were simply ordinary women trying to get by without family to support them, or friends to offer them help, or the training required for more respectable employment. But she had never seen them in action, as it were, plying their disreputable trade. Well, she would have to do the best she could.
The door was opened by a perfectly ordinary woman, a shopkeeper’s wife perhaps, who asked what they wanted, but when Mr. Frank explained in hushed tones that they had come for the drug and put something that clinked in her hand, they were admitted into a chamber that looked as though it had been decorated for a theatrical performance set in the fabled, fantastical East. A “Chinaman” with a long beard, in an embroidered robe, greeted them by putting his hands together and bowing, then led them into a second chamber where, on low sofas and cushions spread on the floor, sat and sprawled dreamers in the land of Opium. They were gentlemen, most of them, with a few sailors and less reputable-looking fellows, as well as a few women who looked, Mary thought, thoroughly fallen indeed. Beyond was another room of dreamers, and another, three altogether. Dr. Watson was not in any of them.