He took the vial from my hand and drank the emerald liquid. He smiled down at me reassuringly, but then his face contorted with pain and he fell to the ground, writhing, clutching his abdomen. I fell to my knees beside him. I, who had made my father’s medicines, did not know what to do, what to give him. I took him in my arms and pleaded with him not to die. But in a moment it was over. Giovanni lay in my arms, dead.
I took up the vial he had let fall and drank the remaining antidote, intending to die myself. But nothing happened. The poison in my system was so strong that it had no effect. That night I thought about killing myself, with a knife perhaps. Did I not deserve death? I had killed the man I loved, as surely as though I had driven a knife through his heart.
But I lacked the courage. Instead, the next day I told my father that he must reverse the process. I did not wish to be poisonous any longer, not after killing the man I loved. I wished to be an ordinary woman. That was when he told me the process was irreversible. So I left my father’s house and went to the university. I found Professor Baglioni and told him that if he did not find a cure for my condition, I would tell all Padua he had murdered Giovanni. He tried, again and again, to find an antidote. Not for my benefit, or out of a sense of responsibility for Giovanni’s death. No, I believe he was motivated by malice toward my father. Nevertheless, I stayed, living in his house, although he kept well away from me—hoping for a cure, or death. There was no one else who knew of my condition, and my father had made it clear that he could not help me, that he wished me to remain as I was—his greatest creation. So I became Baglioni’s collaborator, working with my enemy, the man who had caused my lover’s death, creating potion after potion in his laboratory. But none of them made me less poisonous.
One day, Baglioni came into the laboratory, where I was brewing the latest potion. “Your father is dead,” he told me. He had been found in his garden, among the poisonous plants. Signora Lisabetta had seen him and alerted the authorities. I had left him without a word, and in the weeks I had been staying with Professor Baglioni, he had never come to see me. Always, I had been the one to tend his garden. The plants could not harm me, but he was too frail and had succumbed to their poison. Because of his reputation, none dared enter the garden. I was the one who entered it once again and buried him there. As I left my father’s house for the last time, Signora Lisabetta leaned out of her window and cursed me. It was only what I deserved.
JUSTINE: Beatrice, that is certainly not true.
DIANA: Why did you even bother going back? I would have left him to rot.
So you see, I killed my mother and Giovanni. Perhaps I killed my father as well, who knows. Giovanni was right to use the word monster.
MARY: That’s ridiculous. It’s not your fault that your mother or Giovanni died, and your father is certainly responsible for his own death. I agree with Justine. Honestly, even Diana has a point, for once.
CATHERINE: Has everyone forgotten that I’m trying to tell a story? We’ve left Holmes and Watson on the threshold.
MARY: Cat, you’re the one who insisted we tell our own parts of it. And now you’re upset that we’re interrupting the plot. This isn’t one of your thrillers. We’re trying to recount how we all came together, describe who we are. That’s not just the story of how we solved the Whitechapel Murders. It’s the story of us.
DIANA: I don’t think you’re supposed to say that we solved the murders.
MARY: Well, of course we solved them, eventually. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t be writing about them, would we? But how did we solve them and what happened to us along the way? That’s the real story.
“Renfield escaped!” said Mary. “Show them in at once, Mrs. Poole.”
Both of the men bowed upon entering, and Holmes cast his keen, hawk-like glance at Beatrice.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Rappaccini,” he said. “I often feel like a biological curiosity myself, so you and I have something in common.” Mary felt a pang of jealousy. Did Beatrice have to be quite so beautiful? For a moment, she was glad Beatrice was incapable of touching anyone, that she burned on contact.
MARY: Is it necessary to include every detail of what we were thinking? And keen, hawk-like glance! Seriously, Cat.
CATHERINE: It’s the story of us, remember?
“I think it’s time for a confabulation,” said Holmes. “We have information you don’t, and I suspect Miss Rappaccini has given you information we are lacking. Shall we all consult together?”
“Yes, of course,” said Mary. “We were just finishing breakfast. Let’s go into the parlor. Mrs. Poole, could you bring us another pot of tea?”
She put the documents back in the portfolio and carried it with her. It was time to show Mr. Holmes what she had found. Once they were sitting in the larger room, with Holmes and Watson in the two armchairs, and Beatrice on one of the deep window seats, Holmes said, “Our news, in brief, is as follows. We are now up to five bodies: Sally Hayward, Anna Pettingill, Pauline Delacroix, Molly Keane, and a Susanna Moore, who was in the same line of business as the others. The last two bodies both had their brains removed, we don’t know why. Although curiously, like Molly Keane, Susanna Moore had also been a governess. All the victims were murdered in Whitechapel. We know that despite his confession, Renfield could not have committed the last murder. The body of Susanna Moore was found just after we left for Purfleet with Lestrade. She had been killed the night before, while Renfield was in his room at Purfleet Asylum, watched by an attendant. So who killed her? The next day, we saw Lestrade lock Renfield into the police wagon. He was in handcuffs and guarded by Sergeant Evans. By the time the wagon arrived at Newgate, the door was unlocked, Evans was unconscious, and Renfield was nowhere to be found. Did he kill the other women, but not this one? Is that why the brain was taken again? Or were all the murders committed by someone, or some persons, else? As you know, I’ve always inclined to the latter theory. And who helped Renfield escape? He could not have done it himself—he did not have the means, or even the courage.”
“By someone else,” said Beatrice. “There is a method behind this seeming madness, Mr. Holmes. The murderer is not a madman. What I do not understand, however, is why these murders are being committed now. It does not make sense.”
“Beatrice has been telling us about the Société des Alchimistes,” said Mary. “Its members were interested in the evolutionary theories of Mr. Darwin, although they seem to have gone considerably beyond him. They wanted to advance evolution, to create more-perfect men—well, women, really. But she said this putting limbs together was an old experiment, a crude one. . . .”