She put the blanket around her shoulders so she would not get scratched. Yesterday, her neck and arms had gotten scratched quite badly when she had squeezed herself between the shrubbery and the wall. Now, she pushed herself carefully through the thorny branches until she could crouch by the window.
“Mr. Holmes!” she called. “Mr. Holmes, can you hear me?”
She heard a faint groan in response.
“Mr. Holmes, it’s Alice! I’ve brought some more food for you.”
The only light in the ancient dungeon came from that window. After they had arrived, Margaret had led Mr. Holmes away from her down a dark corridor, followed by Queen Tera. When she had asked her mother where they were taking him, Helen had said that was no concern of hers, that he would be someplace he could not get out of. Of course Alice had known that meant the dungeon. In the sorts of books she read, prisoners in ancient castles were always kept in dungeons. That was—well, simply how it was done. It was only in London that one had to resort to coal cellars.
By the time her mother had taken her to a small bedroom, it had been too dark to explore the keep. But the next morning, when she realized no one was going to watch over her, or even ask her where she was going, she went down that dark corridor. It led to the kitchen and Mrs. Polgarth. Clearly that was not where they were keeping Mr. Holmes, so there must be a secret door somewhere? She had gone back down the corridor, but been unable to find it. If only Diana were here, she thought. She can tease me all she wants, if only she finds that secret corridor. Diana’s good at doing things like that.
DIANA: Did you really think that? Did you really wish I was there?
ALICE: I did. You would have gotten into that dungeon—easy peasy, right?
DIANA: Of course I would have. I won’t tease you anymore. I mean, not for a while, anyway. Not for the rest of the day, at least.
However, even a dungeon must have some sort of window, probably high up, covered with bars? That’s how it worked in the books, as though every dungeon had been designed by the same firm of not very imaginative architects: stone walls dripping with moisture, small window high up to give the prisoner a glimpse of the outer world, and plenty of rats. Anyway, there had been nothing to do indoors, and no one to talk to other than Mrs. Polgarth. Margaret had barely talked to her at breakfast that morning, focusing instead on making sure that Queen Tera had all she needed—she was already a loyal subject of the future Empress of the World. And Helen had listened carefully to all they were saying, paying attention to Alice only to ask if she needed anything—more porridge? Another cup of tea? Incongruously for an English breakfast table, Queen Tera had been dressed in a linen robe that she must have found in one of the boxes from her tomb. No doubt it had once been white, but it was now the color of old parchment. The scarab necklace blazed around her neck. On her head she had placed a net of gold beads that hung down to little points, each of which had a bell on it. They tinkled when she moved her head. There were gold bracelets on her wrists and upper arms. Her eyes were heavily outlined with kohl. Alice kept stealing glances at her. She did, indeed, look like an Egyptian queen, both fascinating and frightening.
After breakfast, Alice had been more or less dismissed. Evidently, Queen Tera, Margaret, and her mother did not need her. That was good, of course, but she felt lost and alone. She missed her friends! She was only the kitchen maid, but she had felt, in some small way, as though she too were part of the Athena Club. After all, she had been present at the battle in the warehouse, and she had gone with Catherine to spy on the members of the Alchemical Society in Soho. Would Mary and the others think she had betrayed them? Or would they understand that she could have done nothing to help them, and accept her back as one of themselves—if and when they managed to stop Queen Tera? She hoped they were all right, particularly Justine, who had been hit by the strongest wave of energic force that Alice had ever witnessed. She was terribly worried about Justine. Could even the Giantess have survived such a blow?
But there was no time to worry, not when she needed to figure out how to help Mr. Holmes. Sure enough, walking slowly around the keep yesterday morning, she had spotted the window. And there, in the dungeon, had been the detective, lying on a stone ledge that formed a sort of narrow bed, looking as wretched as she had ever seen him. She hoped he would look, and of course feel, better today.
“Alice, is that you?” Mr. Holmes staggered into the light coming through the small window. He did look a little better, but she could tell that he was pale and drawn, and that his face was damp with sweat.
“Yes, it’s me. Here, I’m going to lower this bag of food.”
She untied the sash of her dress from around her waist, then tied one end to the marketing bag and squeezed it between the bars on the window. She lowered it as far as she could. Dresses with sashes were for the likes of Lydia Raymond, not Alice the kitchen maid. Nevertheless, she was grateful for the frivolous thing. Even a frippery could be useful sometimes.
Below her, Mr. Holmes reached up—it was a bit of a stretch, even for him. He took out the contents of the bag. There was no furniture in the dungeon—he had evidently slept on the stone ledge, without a pillow or blanket. It reminded Alice of the coal cellar where she had been imprisoned, although she had at least been given a mattress. She remembered what it had felt like, being imprisoned there. Mr. Holmes must be feeling the same sense of despair, as though he might never get out of this place alive. Well, she would make sure he did—somehow.
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you to drink,” said Alice as he unloaded the bag onto the floor. Mrs. Polgarth had added thick slices of ham to the sandwich, then wrapped it in waxed paper. He spread the paper out and put the food on it, then began to eat, as politely as possible for a man who was ravenously hungry.
“I have enough water, thank you,” he said, nodding toward a tin pitcher on the ledge. Both hands were holding the sandwich. “It’s the one thing they seem to have given me. And if I were to run out, there is moisture on these walls. I believe it seeps in from the former moat you described. You have done—well, you have done a great deal, Alice. Henceforward, I shall never discount the ingenuity of kitchen maids.”
“We know what’s what, sir,” she said. “Is there anything else I can get you? You still don’t seem quite yourself, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“No, thank you,” he said. “I don’t want you to endanger yourself any more than is necessary. And the symptoms will pass. Moriarty must have kept me drugged—two weeks? I lost track of the days. That was a clever trick of yours, Alice—substituting the salt. If it were not for that, I believe I would have been in an even worse state. I hoped, in the British Museum, that I might be able to fight against whatever fate Moriarty had in mind for me. Then when I saw Queen Tera rise from her tomb, I thought that I must still be under the influence of the drug, that it must be a hallucination. But I could tell you were seeing what I was seeing. Did Queen Tera truly kill all those men, Alice? These energic powers—are they real? I would not have believed in them if I had not seen them for myself. But when you eliminate the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“Well, it depends,” said Alice. “I could show you the parlor back in Baker Street—” She waved her hand. It was not necessary, of course—her mind did all the work. But Marvelous Martin had taught her to be theatrical, and she found that physical movements often helped her focus. At her gesture, the comfortable, shabby parlor, with its books and scientific instruments, rose around Holmes, replacing the gray dungeon walls. He looked about him, startled. “But it’s just an illusion, you see.” She waved her hand again, and it all seemed to melt—the bookshelves with their unsorted stacks, the comfortable armchairs, the table with its cigarette and pipe burns. The dungeon looked like its bleak self again. “I could not kill anyone, not for real. Only Queen Tera can do that. It was no illusion, Mr. Holmes. I saw them turn to dust, same as you did.”