“Justine does,” said Catherine. “She has all our money. Now go!”
Mary hesitated, then nodded. “Come on,” she said to Justine, who followed with reluctance, clearly worried about being separated from Catherine. Beatrice brought up the rear. Without a backward glance, they joined the crowd moving north.
JUSTINE: I gave a backward glance. I was so nervous! I did not know you then, and I did not know London. There were so many streets. . . .
BEATRICE: And you see how well it turned out! We are together now, all of us. Like sisters.
DIANA: Speak for yourself, Poison Breath. As though one sister weren’t enough to deal with!
On Sloane Street, Mary hailed a cab, and once they were seated inside, she breathed a sigh of relief. They were traveling north, with the verdure of Hyde Park to the left of them, the houses of Mayfair to the right. Soon, they would be home. Suddenly, she realized that she was hungry. After all, it was midafternoon, and she had not eaten lunch. She should have purchased something for herself when she bought Diana the meat pie. Next time she would know better. Not long ago, her days had followed an invariable schedule: each meal at its proper time, served by Enid the parlormaid. And in between, the paying of bills, the arranging of household affairs, the fulfillment of duties. For a moment, she missed her routine. Somehow, she did not think her life would ever be that orderly again. But there was no time for regrets—she had to get Beatrice and Justine safely home.
Meanwhile, Catherine and Diana were running across Ranelagh Gardens and the grounds of the Royal Hospital. Here they were visible, for the lawns were closely clipped, with shrubs and trees only at their edges, and the tall brick buildings offered no shelter. But they paused behind some convenient hawthorns. They had lost their hats some time ago, and Catherine’s braids had come down. They whipped around her face as she ran. “We need to leave a trail as long as we can,” said Catherine, panting. “I saw one of them a moment ago. He hid behind that—whatever that building is.”
“What are they?” said Diana. “They don’t look right. Are they deformed?” She was panting as well. She had been able to keep up, although Catherine ran with the speed and grace of a puma.
DIANA: Oh, you just had to put that in there, didn’t you?
“I know what they are, but it’s impossible. They look like the creatures my father made. Like Beast Men.” For a moment, memory took Catherine back to the island, to the menagerie of Dr. Moreau. Men whose legs were too short, arms too long. Who spoke in gruff voices and were hairy beneath their clothes. But all his creations had died on the island. Of them all, only she had survived.
“I see him!” said Diana. “Come on, if we run across that court, we’ll be in the streets of Chelsea. We can lose them in the alleys.”
“How well do you know London?” asked Catherine.
“As well as I know the palms of my hands!” Diana grinned like a wicked monkey.
JUSTINE: I don’t think that’s such an insult. Monkeys are quite clever.
DIANA: [Diana’s comments, being unprintable, are not included here.]
CATHERINE: Yes, I know you’re the one who got us safely home. And I’m grateful, truly I am. But you do have a wicked grin, you can’t deny. . . . Oh, all right, I take it back already! I apologize, really I do. Just for goodness’ sake let me finish this chapter.
To those of our readers who are not familiar with London, who may be reading this in the wilds of America, where we hear there are bears and savages, or in the wilds of Australia, where there are also savages but no bears (unless, adds Justine, they are marsupial bears), the problem that now presented itself to Catherine and Diana was as follows. How to get from Chelsea, in the south of London, to Regent’s Park in the north? They would have to cross a tangle of streets, and then the open spaces of Hyde Park, before emerging in Marylebone. It was a trip that could take hours by omnibus in London traffic. They were on foot, evading pursuers who seemed to follow them by scent, as hounds follow a rabbit. And neither of them had any money. Putting all their money into one purse and giving it to Justine might not have been the most sensible plan, Catherine realized, too late. But at least Justine would be all right. Catherine could take care of herself, couldn’t she?
She turned to Diana. “What do you suggest?”
Diana considered for a moment, looking at the green lawn they still had to traverse, and beyond it the buildings of Chelsea. “How well can you climb?”
Catherine made a sound that could have been a laugh or a growl. Then, “Look!” she said. There they were again, two hunched figures loping across the grass toward them. “Wherever you go, I’ll follow. Now run!”
They raced across the final stretch of lawn, then darted into the narrow streets, as though entering a maze. Here, buildings blocked out the light; once again they were in the shadow of London. To the astonishment of two boys playing at marbles and an old woman smoking a noxious pipe, Diana pulled off her jacket and began taking off her boots. “Rooftop,” she said, when she could take a breath.
“Keep the boots, you’ll need them later,” said Catherine, hopping on one foot as she untied her own boots, then tying the laces together and hanging them around her neck. “Here,” she said, tossing her jacket to one of the boys. “You’ll grow into it!”
“Can’t, they’re button,” said Diana, leaving her boots on the pavement. She scrambled up a ladder attached to a brick wall that led to a wrought-iron balcony. The building she had chosen had a series of such balconies, one on each floor. Catherine looked up, estimating how far she would have to climb after the last balcony to get to the roof. Could she do it? She could not climb as well as Diana, although she hated to admit that. But what choice did she have?
She tossed Diana’s boots and jacket to the other boy. “Happy unbirthday! Unless it’s your birthday . . . ,” she said, then started climbing up the ladder.
When she reached the final balcony, Catherine looked down. At the bottom, the two Beast Men were starting to follow. The first had reached the lowest balcony; the second was still on the ladder. Would they be able to climb all the way to the roof?
Above her, Diana scrambled up the last stretch of wall. “Staples!” she called down. Catherine looked up, confused, until she saw the iron staples that someone, for some reason, had once driven into the mortar between the bricks. In a moment, she had joined Diana on the rooftop. They looked down at the Beast Men, who were following them but with increasing difficulty. When they reached the top balcony, they stopped, looking up at Catherine and Diana. One of them howled with anger.
“I thought so,” said Catherine. “They smell like wolves. I think they’re Wolf Men, which means that as long as we stay on the rooftops, we’re safe.”