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“Dear me, no,” Dr. Van Ripple replies. He fluffs his collar, and I imagine that in his day he was quite the dandy.
“What happened to her?” I prod.
“My associates suggested she ran away with a sailor or perhaps joined a circus.” He shakes his head. “But I think otherwise, for she claimed she was being hunted by dark forces. I am quite certain she was murdered.”
“Murdered!” we say as one. Dr. Van Ripple is not one to lose an audience of any sort, even for a tale so unseemly as this one promises to be.
“Indeed. She was a woman of many secrets, and, I am sorry to say, she proved quite untrustworthy. She came to me when she was but a girl of twenty, and I knew very little of her life other than that she was an orphan who had lived away at school for a time.”
“She didn’t speak of her past?” I ask.
“She could not, dear lady, for she was a mute. She had a remarkable talent for drawing and transcendental writing.” The doctor takes a bit of snuff from an enameled box and sneezes into a handkerchief.
“What is transcendental writing?” Ann asks.
“The medium goes into a trance, and whilst communing with the spirits, she receives messages from beyond which are communicated through writing. We turned a tidy profit….” He coughs. “That is, we aided those poor grieving souls desperate to speak with loved ones who had passed on to the spirit realm.
“Then one day, she came to the theater quite merry. When I asked her why she was so happy, she wrote upon the slate—for that was how we spoke to one another—that her dear sister had visited her, and they had a plan to ‘restore what has been too long lost.’ I did not know what she meant, nor did she explain. I was rather astonished at the mention of a sister, as I knew of no family she had. It seems the lady in question was a cherished friend from her school days. When I asked if I might meet her sister, she was evasive, callous.
“‘That would not be possible,’ she wrote, smiling. She was one for small cruelties, and I was quite certain she felt her dear friend to be far above my station.
“Soon after, she changed. One day, I found her in the shop among our many tricks and properties, holding fast to her slate. ‘My sister has deceived us,’ she wrote. ‘She is a monster. Such a wicked, wicked plan.’ When I asked her what could have caused her such distress, she wrote that she had had a vision—‘a most terrible vision of what should come to pass, for what I took as fair is foul and all shall be lost.’”
“Did she tell you what she saw in the vision?” I press.
“I’m afraid not.” The doctor’s brow furrows. “I should say that she had an unfortunate habit—a fondness for cocaine. She could not be without it. I believe it began to destroy her, body and soul.”
I think of my father, and my stomach tightens at the memory of finding him in the opium den.
“But cocaine is perfectly harmless,” Ann says. “It is in many tonics and lozenges.”
Dr. Van Ripple’s smile is strained. “So they say, but I think otherwise, my dear. For I saw how it ruined the girl so that she no longer knew what was truth and what illusion. She was suspicious in the extreme, seeing haunts in the shadows. She insisted that she was the only one who might stop this terrible plan, and she wrote long into the night on a secret tome which she said was of the utmost importance. Once, I surprised her as she worked past midnight in the studio, the candle burned nearly to the last of its wick. She startled and covered the pages quickly. She would not show it to me. I suspected her of divulging the secrets of my magic. I dismissed her, and that was all I saw of her for many months, until one spring day three years ago. Just after I’d dined, she knocked upon my door.
“I scarcely recognized her, so shocking was her appearance. Her eyes were those of the doomed. She’d not slept or taken food in some time. And her behavior was most odd. She asked for paper and pen, and I provided them. ‘I am wicked,’ she wrote. Naturally I thought her unsettled in mind and implored her to stay. But she insisted that dark forces were at work. ‘They will keep me from revealing the truth,’ she wrote. ‘I must act quickly before I am found.’”
“What forces did she speak of?” Ann presses.
The doctor stretches his long fingers over the top of his walking stick, preening like a rooster. “It seems we shall never know. The lady left my home—and vanished.”
“What became of the pages she wrote?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath. “I cannot say. Perhaps that terrible secret she feared died along with her. Or perhaps, even now, some diabolical plan is at work, and we are at its mercy.” The doctor smiles like a kind uncle. He offers his card. “For your mother. She might have need of a magician to entertain her guests some evening?” I take the card; he closes his hands over mine. “Open them.”
When I do, they are empty. The card is gone. “How did you—”
He pulls the card from behind my ear and places it triumphantly in my palm. “Ah, there it was! Such mischievous calling cards I have, I’m afraid.” Dr. Van Ripple pats his pockets and frowns. “Oh, dear. Oh, my.”
“What is the matter?” Felicity asks.
“I seem to have misplaced my wallet. I do hate to impose, but might you lend an old man a few shillings? I give you my word as a gentleman that I shall repay you in full on the morrow—”
“There you are! Really, girls, you had me quite worried,” Mademoiselle LeFarge announces, hastening straight for us with a fuming McCleethy behind her. I do hope the magic lantern show is a wonder, for this may be my last night on earth.
Dr. Van Ripple’s smile is kind. “Fear not, dear lady. Your daughters are well in hand and safe from the riffraff, I assure you.”
“These young ladies are not my daughters, sir. They are my charges,” Mademoiselle LeFarge splutters. “You had me quite worried indeed, girls.”
“Trouble, my dear?” Inspector Kent takes a stand beside Mademoiselle LeFarge. He gives the doctor the penetrating stare he has perfected as a policeman, and the magician blanches.
