“I’m going to see who’s there,” said Diana.
Before Mary could object, Diana had scampered over the front railing and crept to the window, pulling herself up to look over the sill. In a moment, she was back. “Professor Petronius and a woman are sitting at a table, counting money. And there’s a dog, a big black one, sleeping by the fire. Beatrice isn’t there.”
“Don’t ever do that again!” said Mary. “You can’t simply go off by yourself whenever you want to. We have to work together. We have to follow a plan.”
“Well, what’s your plan then?” said Diana, crossing her arms.
“She told us her room was in the back, and they locked her in at night. She’s probably there now, locked in. We need to go around to the back.”
They walked down Searle Street and, at the end of the block of houses, turned into an alley. On one side were the backs of the houses on Searle, on the other were the backs of the houses on the next street over. Here, there were no lamps. The only light came from the windows, mostly dark at this hour. One of the windows at the back of Professor Petronius’s house was lit, but it was on the second floor.
“That may be her room,” said Mary. “She may be looking for us tonight, and the light may be her signal.”
“So now what?” asked Diana. “What’s your plan now, sister?”
“I don’t know,” said Mary. “Let me think.”
“We need to communicate with her,” said Watson. “But I don’t see any way of getting up there. If only we had a sweep’s ladder! Could we throw up pebbles and see if she notices? Perhaps she’ll come to the window.”
“We don’t know if that’s her room,” said Mary. “Or if she’s alone in it. No, we need to get up there somehow.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks for you and your plans!” said Diana.
Before Mary could stop her, she had run over to the wall of the house, silently as a cat, and crouched down in the shadows.
“What is she doing?” whispered Mary, urgently.
“I believe she’s taking off her clothes,” said Watson.
“What? Taking off—what?”
Sure enough, Diana was removing her hat, gloves, coat, boots, and stockings. Mary could see her in the dim light that came from the window, standing beside the wall in only her dress and bare feet. Then she clutched at the drainpipe that ran down the wall and began climbing, pulling herself up the pipe with her bare hands and feet, now and then supporting herself by putting her toes on the joints.
“She looks like a monkey!” said Mary. “I’m afraid she’ll fall.”
“A monkey would not,” said Watson. “And judging by her agility, I don’t think your sister will either.” Mary could not see his expression in the darkness, but he sounded—amused.
Mary shivered. It was not the cold, for the night was warm, at least for a late spring night in London. No, it was the sight of Diana climbing up the drainpipe in that primitive way. Wasn’t Diana her sister? And Hyde’s daughter. What sorts of experiments had her father been conducting, to turn himself into Hyde? What had Hyde been? And what, pray tell, was his daughter? She remembered how shocked Beatrice had been to learn that Diana was Hyde’s child. What had the girl inherited from her father, other than his unpleasant temperament?
When Diana reached the second floor, she let go of the pipe and crept along a narrow ledge to the window. Mary could see her silhouetted against the square of light. Then a face appeared. “That’s Beatrice!” said Mary. The window was pulled up, and Diana crawled in. “What is she doing? I don’t like this.”
But in a few minutes, Diana reappeared, climbing out the window and letting herself back down the drainpipe. At the bottom, she gathered her discarded clothes.
“What did you think you were doing!” said Mary, when she rejoined them. Diana sat on the muddy stones, pulling on her stockings and shoes.
“You wouldn’t have let me go up, but I knew I could,” said Diana. “I used to climb out of my window at the Magdalen Society all the time. I went inside and picked her lock. When Professor Petronius and the landlady go to bed, she’s going to try to get out. The dog is the landlady’s—she takes it down with her and locks it in the kitchen when she’s asleep. I told her we would be waiting in the park.”
They walked back to Searle Street and then across to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. There, they waited, sitting on one of the park benches, watching the light in the ground-floor window. Eventually, it went out, but there was still no Beatrice.
“How long do we have to wait?” asked Diana. “I’m bored.”
“As long as it takes,” said Mary. “She may not be able to get out tonight, in which case we’ll have to come back. I hope she can find the front door key!”
“It can’t be far from the door, in case of fire,” said Watson. “I’m more concerned that Professor Petronius will find her searching for it and guard her even more closely in the future.”
They waited for what seemed like hours—once, Mary looked at her wristwatch, but she could not see its face in the darkness. At last the front door opened and a cloaked figure emerged. It was Beatrice. Although there was a hood drawn over her hair, Mary could see her face in the light of the nearby street lamp. She closed the door carefully behind her, then hurried down the steps and toward the park.
As she reached the darkness under the trees, she looked around frantically.
“Here!” said Mary, keeping her voice low. Beatrice was so close, only a few feet away from the bench.
Beatrice started. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” she said. “Let us go quickly. Professor Petronius was snoring when I left, and I believe that woman is asleep as well. But her room is near the kitchen, so I could not see or hear. I do not want either of them to realize I am missing!”
“Well, someone’s awake,” said Diana. “Look at the light.” And Diana was right: when they looked back at the house, they could see that the fanlight, formerly dim, was now glowing. Someone had turned up the gas. Had Beatrice’s absence been noticed? If not, it might be at any moment. And then they heard the dog bark.