Catherine turned and examined the windows. They opened outward, and unlocked easily. All she had to do was turn the latch. She waited: there, two men, one of them carrying what looked like a sack of laundry. That must be Hyde and the Bear Man, and the woman following behind was Mrs. Raymond. They walked across the courtyard, and then Mrs. Raymond let them out through the front gate. She locked the gate behind her and returned to the house.
Would she be coming back to her office? The gas was turned down, but not off, so she might be coming back. Quickly, Catherine pushed one of the windows outward and climbed onto the ivy that covered the front of the house. She closed the window as best she could. She would not be able to latch it again, but perhaps Mrs. Raymond wouldn’t notice, or would assume that one of the girls had forgotten to relatch it after cleaning. She let herself down the ivy, hoping it would hold—Diana had described climbing up and down it, but Diana was lighter than she was. And it was two floors down to a courtyard paved with stone.
The ivy held. She let herself down onto the cold pavement, wishing she had worn her boots, although they would have made too much noise in the corridors. She slipped across the courtyard, hoping no one was looking out the front windows. There was the gate, but Mrs. Raymond had locked it. How would she get out? The stone wall was too high for her to leap over, and there was no ivy here to climb.
“Pssst.” It was Diana, standing on the other side of the gate. “Come on, I’ve already picked the lock. You should have taken off your nightgown to climb down that wall. You look like a ghost! Anyone could see you from a mile away.”
“Well, maybe they’ll think I’m a ghost,” said Catherine. “Hyde and a Beast Man—they went to the right! They have one of the girls in a sack.”
“That was my father?” said Diana. “My father’s alive? If I’d known, I would have looked at him more closely. I thought they were both Beast Men. Watson was keeping watch and saw them come out. And then I saw you climb out the window. I told him and Charlie to follow them, and that we would catch up. You can follow them by smell, can’t you?”
Yes, she could smell all four of them: Watson’s pipe tobacco, Hyde’s cologne, the rank scent of the Bear Man. Charlie smelled, surprisingly, of soap.
“Put this on,” said Diana. “It’s Watson’s jacket. He said you might get cold. My father’s alive. So Miss Mary was wrong after all—I’m not surprised. Mum always did say that he was clever enough for anything. And he never came for me, all those years. Bloody bastard.”
The jacket was too large, but Catherine was grateful for it. At least it covered part of her nightgown. For the rest—well, she would be bare-ankled and barefoot. Cats don’t need shoes, she reminded herself. “Come on,” she said to Diana. “They went that way.”
The two girls hurried down the street, into the labyrinth of the London night.
CHAPTER XV
The Streets of Soho
Mary and Holmes waited in a narrow street across from a boardinghouse in Soho. It was a run-down, disreputable place, with shutters that hung awry and a general air of slovenliness. The area itself was not promising: above them hung lines of chemises and undershirts, drying in the tainted London air, and there were piles of refuse in the alleys. In a nearby yard, a dog had been howling off and on for the last half hour. Yet they were not far from the respectable Deerborne Hotel, where they had inquired for Mr. Prendick earlier that evening. They had agreed that there was no time to lose and a direct approach was warranted, so Holmes had shown the proprietor a letter signed by Inspector Lestrade that authorized him to make any inquiries necessary. The proprietor, a cheerful, red-faced man with an elaborate mustache, had said that yes, Mr. Prendick dined there regularly, always arriving as the dinner service began. They had waited in the proprietor’s office, on the chance that he might dine at the Deerborne that night.
And he was punctual as clockwork: at seven o’clock on the dot he walked in. Sitting as inconspicuously as possible behind some potted ferns, pretending to read Punch, they had watched him eat alone in the hotel dining room. Would he recognize them if he saw them directly? It was doubtful: he had not glanced at them this morning when almost running into them at the asylum. No doubt he had been too upset. Still, it was best not to take chances. After dinner, he paid his bill and made his way to the front entrance, retrieving his hat and umbrella from the hall stand. They had followed him, always staying about a block behind. Finally, he had turned into this street and entered the boardinghouse.
He was still there, in a second-floor room: every once in a while they could see his silhouette cross the window. It is easier than one thinks, Mary realized, to recognize a silhouette.
“Can’t we just go confront him?” Mary asked, at last. “We’ve been waiting for hours, and nothing’s happened.” Where were Beatrice and Justine? What had happened to them? How were Catherine and Diana doing? Why had Watson not sent word? She could not help worrying about them all.
“Something will happen,” said Holmes. “Miss Frankenstein and Miss Rappaccini have been kidnapped. That changes the situation for whoever murdered those women in Whitechapel and created the Beast Men. If Prendick is involved, he will be summoned. If not, he’s of no use to us, and we’ll need to start from the beginning. But I think he is involved, despite his protest to Dr. Seward. When he passed us in the asylum hallway, the look on his face was not anger, as it might have been if he’d been unjustly accused. It was fear. Wait, there—what is that?”
It was a strange little man, loping up the street. He seemed to be about Diana’s size, but his arms were longer than they should be, and he moved hunched forward, as though wanting to put his knuckles on the ground to help his progress.
“Beast Man,” said Mary. They were all different, but by this time she could see what was common about them all: the impression of misshapenness, of something inhuman in them. At last, something was happening.
The Beast Man stopped at the door of the boardinghouse, stood upright, and rang a bell. The door was opened by a woman as slovenly as the house, evidently the landlady or a servant of some sort. She stepped back and he disappeared through the doorway, then down the dark hall.
The door closed behind him. They waited: What would happen now? There was Prendick again, silhouetted briefly against the window. Then the gas was lowered. A few minutes later, the two of them emerged through the front door: Prendick and the Beast Man. They turned right and started walking up the street.
“Quickly,” said Holmes. “Stay as far behind as you can, but don’t lose sight of them.”