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My very best regards, Giacomo Rappaccini
After all, wasn’t that transmutation? The transformation from a respectable gentleman to a suspected murderer . . .
He let out Hyde, and Hyde was taking over. You just don’t want to believe your father was a murderer.”
I’ve never had your high opinion of our father.” “You shouldn’t say that, even if it’s true,” said Mary. “We should not judge until we understand what happened. All this about Darwin, and Moreau—that’s another scientist, I’m guessing, like Dr. Rappaccini. And these experiments . . .” Diana snorted. “I don’t care who they are. Bastards, the lot of them, most likely.”
Mr. Utterson burned your father’s papers after his death. Perhaps your mother saved these so you could read them someday.”
“I always wondered why she—went mad.” Mary might as well say it. Because that was what had happened, hadn’t it? “This . . . her husband turning into a monster. Well, it would explain a lot of things.”
In a few minutes, Mrs. Poole was back with a copy of the Gazette in her hand. “Here it is!” she said triumphantly. “Goodness, it’s dark in here. Why haven’t you turned on the gas? I’ll do it, and then I’ll be able to see. . . . Yes, that’s better. ‘Beatrice Rappaccini, the Beauty who Breathes Poison. Appearing 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon Wednesdays and Fridays at the Royal College of Surgeons.
“Corpses, I think. Yes, he told her that with the right chemicals, corpses could be brought back to life. If they weren’t long dead, that is. He told her someone had done it with frogs.”
this is what we agreed on. You would each write your individual stories, and I would make them sound right. I would fit them into the whole, so they made sense.
“One day, Hyde said to her that he wanted a child, and if she had a child for him, he would take it and support it. Well, she didn’t want that, although he offered her a lot of money. She had her living to get, and she was done with trusting men’s promises.”
She told me when she got sick, before they sent her to the hospital. I think she knew she wasn’t coming back.
“No, he was tall and straight, like a lamppost. He had sharp eyes that looked me up and down, and thin lips that he pressed together with disapproval when he saw how I was dressed. He carried a cane with a dog’s head in silver as the handle—I kept looking at it because it was so lifelike. I wished it would bark.” “Mr. Utterson!” said Mary.
“But Mr. Guest didn’t know about any of those arrangements,” said Mary. “Why would Mr. Utterson not have informed his own clerk?”
Mary put her head in her hands. This affair resembled a jigsaw puzzle. One corner of it was starting to fit together, to show a picture. But there were so many other pieces that had no place as yet: Beatrice Rappaccini, the poor girl this morning with her brain cut out, and S.A., whatever that meant.
At least he had not been a Dr. Rappaccini, experimenting on his own daughter! Or daughters, because there was after all Diana. Was Diana, in a sense, the product of his experiments? Why had Hyde wanted a child, and a girl specifically? Perhaps he had simply been jealous of his alter ego and wanted a daughter of his own—if
The essence of the plants seeped into her, and as she grew into splendid womanhood, she also grew deadly to man. And now,” said Professor Petronius, “you shall see how deadly Miss Rappaccini can be.”
How could she communicate with the Poisonous Girl? There had been no indication that she spoke anything but Italian. Quickly, Mary drew a pencil from her purse. Did she have any paper? Yes, the pamphlet—she tore off a corner, scribbled on it the letters she had seen on the watch fob in Molly Keane’s hand and the seal on the mysterious letters from Budapest, and held it out, whispering as loudly as she dared, “Miss Rappaccini.”
I agreed to these shows because he promised that the physicians of the college would attempt to heal me of this dreadful curse, but he has made so much money that he has no interest in my cure—he has become greedy, and I believe he will not willingly let me go.
Experiments—on girls. What had the letter said about the female brain being more malleable? Molly Keane’s brain had been missing . . . why?
“There has been a confession. A madman by the name of Renfield claims he committed the murders.
“I wonder if you would have approved of Dr. Moreau’s research, Watson,” said Holmes. “I remembered the case as soon as Miss Jekyll mentioned his name. That was why I suggested she accompany us on this journey. Moreau was grafting together parts of animals, hybridizing in order to create new species.
“Montgomery!” said Mary. “He was in the letter too. He was going to present a paper for Dr. Moreau at a meeting of the society in Vienna.”
DIANA: I only said it because he was being an idiot. MARY: You said it because you wanted to protect me. Because despite your insufferable behavior, you love your sister. That’s why.
“Transmutation was the goal of the medieval alchemists,” said Holmes. “They were attempting to turn base metals into gold. It sounds as though these modern alchemists are attempting something more complicated: Moreau’s experiments point toward a biological transmutation.
He drew a small notebook out of his breast pocket, opened it, and read, “RE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS RENFIELD A LUNATIC MISSING TWO WEEKS RETURNED LAST NIGHT AND CONFESSED TO MURDERS HOLDING AT PURFLEET ASYLUM PLEASE SEND POLICE INSPECTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE GABRIEL BALFOUR M.D. That does seem fairly definitive, Miss Jekyll.”
She remembered all the times she had longed for a sister, someone to play with and later, someone to help with the household. And now she had one. A completely annoying one!
On the other side of the road grew oaks and beeches, beyond which she could see a wilderness of marshland. The closest she had come to wilderness for many years was Kensington Gardens. She was delighted to have left the city behind, if only for a little while.
“So this man Renfield has escaped before?” said Lestrade. “Oh, aye. He makes a regular career of it. He’s been here as long as I can remember, and I’ve been here these ten years at least. He’s gotten out every few months, regular. I used to think he just wanted to stretch his legs and go on a little walk by moonlight. He seemed such a harmless old devil, until this happened.”
was shocked to hear him say he’d killed those women. I’ve never heard of him hurting anyone before—except his flies. But Dr. Balfour will tell you all about it.”
the building reminded her of a hospital. There was the same smell of carbolic, the same bustle of attendants in white coats. Here and there she could see what were evidently patients, because they were dressed in uniforms of light blue serge: shirts and trousers for the men, gowns for the women, all shapeless.
“The director!” said Dr. Balfour. “Oh Lord, no. I’m the assistant director, hired only a month ago after the former assistant director, Dr. Hennessey, retired—rather suddenly, I gather. The director is Dr. Seward, but he’s been away for the last three weeks.
Dr. Seward went off to Amsterdam to consult on a patient, and he hasn’t returned since.
We assumed he would be the one in danger, from boys throwing sticks or from inclement weather. Yesterday afternoon, Joe found him wandering about the grounds. His clothes were filthy and spotted with blood. When we asked where he had been, he told us he’d been in London, and done terrible things there. Those are the words he used—terrible things. When we asked him what he had done that was so terrible, he said he’d killed four—women of the streets, if the young ladies will pardon the expression. But you’ll want to hear all this from him directly.”
Based on his files, Renfield has been an inmate here these twenty years. It’s a pity that a respectable gentleman, a man of science, should fall into madness. He took ill on a trip abroad—in Austria or Romania, one of those Mittel-European countries—and returned a broken man. His family confined him to this asylum, and he has lived here peacefully since.
When you see him, you’ll find it as difficult as I do to believe he committed these dreadful crimes. And yet—well, here we are, and you can hear it from his own lips.”
a fly flew into the room through the window. It circled around the table. The room was so quiet that Mary could hear it buzz. Renfield’s attention was immediately on it: he watched as it settled on the rim of the blue bowl. In a moment, he was across the room, the fly in his cupped hand, the cupped hand at his mouth. With a triumphant expression, he opened his hand: it was empty. He had swallowed the fly!
“Did you commit these murders or not?” “Oh yes,” said Renfield, still looking at the floor. “Tuesday was the day I ran away, that was very wrong of me. Thursday evening I found Sally Hayward and chopped her legs off at the knees. Friday was Anna Pettingill, I took her arms. Pauline Delacroix, that was on Monday, because I wouldn’t kill on a Sunday, not me! Or God would smite me for sure. I took her head that time. Right pretty she was! Then Molly Keane on Tuesday, that was brains. I killed them in Whitechapel. I killed them, and I deserve to be punished.” He looked up again. “Will it hurt very
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“Oh, I have the strength of a madman,” said Renfield. “Haven’t you heard, Mr. Holmes? Madmen are strong! Joe said that, when I told him all about it. I snapped her neck just like I would snap a matchstick.” He smiled gently.
“Why did you kill those women?” asked Mary. “Why?” said Renfield. He stared at her, his eyes wide. “Because he’s a lunatic,” said Lestrade. “Yes. Yes, that’s right, I’m a lunatic.” Renfield smiled again, that strange, gentle smile, as though he had explained everything. Yet Mary could have sworn that when she had asked the question, he did not have a response.
“Yes, yes, I’ll come quietly,” Mary heard him mutter to himself. “And then eternal life!”
“Took you long enough,” said Diana. At the sound of her voice, the prisoner stopped and jumped back as though startled,
“You’re his daughter, you are. When you see your father, tell him I did well. Will you do that for me? Eternal life, that’s what I want. That’s what I was promised. You tell him I did everything I was told.”
Lestrade failed to notice the discrepancies in Renfield’s story—even in his appearance.”
“There were no bloodstains on his knees. You remember the body of Molly Keane. Her head lay in a pool of blood. How could he have cut her brain out without kneeling on the pavement? I asked if he had a confederate, but he said no. And I scarcely think Renfield was carrying a pocket watch. The asylum uniform has no pockets. That leaves the fob in Molly Keane’s hand unexplained. She might have torn it from someone else’s watch chain, but why? Surely she was defending herself against her attacker.
Finally, if Lestrade had looked more carefully at Renfield’s hands, he would have seen that although they were dirty, there...
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he washed his hands, and recently. The dirt was added later.”
Out of her coat pocket, she drew an envelope. Affixing the flap was a red wax seal stamped S.A.
After all, that murder had not been connected to the society, as far as she knew. Who were its members? What were its goals and aims?
But acceptance has been growing, and after the setbacks of the last few years, we can finally show results. Research is ever like this, friend John!
You do not know what it was like for us old fogeys, as you may call us, resurrecting the Société from the decrepitude into which it had fallen and redirecting its energies to biology, to the material of life itself!
