“They’re going to some house, right?” said Diana. “Some house the one they called Margaret has all prepared. So we have to find that house, wherever it is in London. Mrs. Poole, if I take one of Mary’s cutlets now, she can have one of mine when you bring it up.” She took a cutlet from Mary’s plate and dodged Mrs. Poole’s ineffectual slap at her hand.
“Cornwall,” said Mary. “Miss Trelawny said ‘my house by the ocean’ is all prepared.” She hoped she remembered that correctly. “Professor Trelawny had a house in Cornwall where he died, and I bet it wasn’t because of an electrical malfunction. That would be her house now.” Although she was so tired, in her head a plan was already coming together.
Once again, they would be packing for a journey, but this time it would not be to Europe. They would go to Cornwall, they would find Alice and Mr. Holmes, and then they would rescue their friends from the clutches of Queen Tera. How, she did not know.
VOLUME II
The Mummy
CHAPTER XI
The Trelawny Exhibit
Mary, there’s a man here to see you. He said you know who he is. He gave me this for you.”
Mary opened her eyes, then immediately closed them again. It was too bright—daylight, broad daylight, coming through the open curtains of her bedroom. What time was it? She opened her eyes again, tentatively. At least it was not the strange white light with multicolored sparkles in it that she remembered from the night before! Mrs. Poole was sitting on the side of her bed, holding her waist bag. She could tell immediately, by the shape, that her revolver was in it.
“Isaac Mandelbaum?” she said, sitting up. Her revolver had been confiscated by Professor Moriarty. Isaac was the only person she could think of who might have known where it was or retrieved it for her.
“He didn’t give a name,” said Mrs. Poole. “A handsome young man with quite a lot of dark hair. He had a foreign accent.”
Yes, that described Isaac exactly. Mary rubbed her eyes. “How is Justine? I need to go check on her.”
“Still the same, I’m afraid. She has not woken up yet. Archibald is sitting with her, and has strict instructions to let me know as soon as she so much as turns her head. Diana is asleep, of course. That child never gets up until I’ve summoned her at least twice. But you should probably see this young man first. He said he could only stay for a little while.”
“Right,” said Mary, sitting up. “I’ll see him in the parlor.”
“He wouldn’t come farther than the kitchen. He knocked at the back door, like a tradesman, and said he would wait for you down there, if that was all right. Is it?”
“I guess so. Is it proper for me to see him in my wrap?”
DIANA: Why the hell wouldn’t you be able to see him in your wrap? It covers you all the way to the neck.
MARY: Is it any use asking you to stop swearing?
JUSTINE: For once, I must agree with Diana. There is modesty, and there is propriety. The former is a natural instinct, given to us when Adam and Eve left the garden and realized their nakedness. The latter is merely a social construct. Although as human beings we wish to consort with our fellows, and therefore yield to their judgments in matters of dress and behavior, surely we may break the rules of propriety when they interfere with the important matters of our lives, so long as modesty is not thereby wounded.
DIANA: It sounds like you’re going to write a book! Who cares if modesty is wounded? How do you wound modesty anyway? It’s just a word. Mary needed information. Why shouldn’t she meet a man in her nightgown if she wants to?
MARY: I would never do such a thing! Meet with a man in my nightgown? Mrs. Poole would be shocked.
DIANA: More than when Lucinda drinks blood? Or when Kate Bright-Eyes and Doris come over for tea? Is that proper?
MRS. POOLE: Kate and Doris are good women, and don’t you forget it! It’s not their fault they’ve fallen off the path of virtue. And Lucinda can’t help what she eats.
LUCINDA: I do not wish to give trouble, Mrs. Poole. If my diet discomfits anyone—
MRS. POOLE: It’s no trouble at all, not any more than making Beatrice’s teas. Most of the time you provide for yourself anyway, and if we have a dinner party or some such, I just go to Mr. Byles. I tell him one of the young ladies is anemic, and he gives me nice fresh blood. So don’t you fret—and don’t listen to Diana!
At the kitchen table sat Isaac Mandelbaum.
“Ah, Miss Jekyll.” He rose when she entered. “I have only a little time—I must get my family out of the city. Mr. Hoskins does not understand how Moriarty and other gentlemen disappeared from the museum. He is leading a search through Bloomsbury, but soon his attention will turn back to the house in Soho. My mother and father, my sister—they are brave. They survived in Poland, and when it became too dangerous to stay, they left their lives behind to make the arduous journey here to England, where I hoped and prayed they would be safe. But there are hazards here as well, almost as great as those in my own country. I will take them to the countryside, where I hope they can stay until Moriarty’s confederates have been rounded up and they can once again return to London.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mary. “How did you come to be working for Moriarty in the first place?”
He looked at her earnestly. She could not help noticing that he had beautiful eyes, with long, dark lashes. “You do not know—the English do not know—the history of pogroms in my country. Many of us have attempted to flee to the West. There are men, some of them good, some unscrupulous, who help families like mine—they provide transportation, food, shelter along the way. They charge a great deal. Those who have money, pay. Those like my family who have no money go into debt. Colonel Moran was one of those men. He suggested that to repay our debt, we work for Moriarty. We were happy to do so—until we realized what sort of criminal enterprise he was running.”
“Wait,” said Mary. “Moriarty was making money off transporting refugees to England?”
“Among other activities—gambling, prostitution, narcotics, all preying upon the weak to enrich himself. I could see what an evil man he was, the men and women whose lives he ruined. Many of my compatriots had to work off their debt indentured to sweatshops or butchering yards. He was, among other things, a hypocrite—a nationalist and racial supremacist making money off people he regarded as vermin. I will be glad to get my family out of his clutches.”
“Do you need any help?” asked Mary. “I don’t have much money, but if you need—”
Just then, the teakettle began to whistle. Isaac started, turned around, saw that it was only the kettle, and breathed with visible relief. “Thank you, but I have enough, and can get more if necessary. My employer has been quite generous.”
“Your employer—your real employer. Do you mean Mycroft Holmes?”
Mrs. Poole put two teacups on the table, then the sugar bowl and a small plate of lemon slices.
Isaac smiled. He had a very attractive smile, kind but also mischievous. Mary scolded herself—how could she be thinking about such things when Mr. Holmes had once again been kidnapped, and was probably imprisoned somewhere—she knew not where? “Then you know that peculiar gentleman as well. When he—I think the word is recruited—when he recruited me, he told me that above all we must work in secret. That we must protect this country, but that no one must know who we were or what we did. Perhaps I have told you too much already. Despite the danger—not to me, which I disregard, but to my family—I was willing to help him. I asked my parents, should I do this thing? My father is a school teacher, Miss Jekyll. He has never done an immoral thing in his life. He told me that I must fight evil wherever I see it. My mother and sister agreed with him. So I told Mr. Holmes that I would join his network of—should I call them spies? Or, rather, informants. I was not to expose myself, or become involved in any way, only to watch and report. But last night, I knew I had to do something, so I sent a message to Scotland Yard that a robbery was taking place at the British Museum and that Moriarty was involved. I hoped the presence of the police would at least frighten Moriarty and his men from doing whatever they planned. And if he was arrested, we finally had the evidence to convict him, assembled over many months. As for what happened—”