Alice wasn’t sure she understood. She tried to imagine going out into the world and taking children, one by one, like some kind of monster out of a fairy tale. She shook her head slowly. There was always other work. “I don’t know that this is what I do,” she said reluctantly.
“What? Help children?”
“Steal them.”
Mrs. Harrogate smiled thinly. “Let’s not be dramatic, my dear. Perhaps it would help if I told you what I know. I’m not in perfect knowledge about it. You will have heard, perhaps, of the Royal Society, yes? It was the beginning of an organized scientific approach here, in England, to the world around us. At one of its earliest meetings, a blind girl was brought before them, a girl with a most inexplicable affliction: it appeared she could see the dead. None of the scientists were deceived; such frauds had been perpetrated for centuries; but, disturbingly, none could disprove the girl’s claims either. It troubled them, the anatomists most of all. The Cairndale Institute was founded some twelve months later, dedicated to phenomena that fell outside the realms of scientific investigations. In their very first month, twin sisters were brought before them from a hamlet in Wales. Both had exhibited unusual symptoms around the age of five. And there were others, other children who were similarly—how shall I say it?—afflicted. The institute has been working to find such children ever since, to work with them in their sickness.”
“Work with them how?”
Mrs. Harrogate met her gaze. Her eyes were very dark. “Their flesh, Miss Quicke,” she murmured. “It can appear to do strange things. Regenerate itself, transform itself.”
Alice felt lost. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I. I am no expert. But I imagine, to one who has not the scientific mind, that it would appear amazing. Resembling, I don’t know, a miracle.”
Alice looked at the woman, suddenly wary. She was trying to gauge her meaning. “I beg your pardon?” she said softly.
“My dear?”
“Why, exactly,” she asked slowly, “did you come to me, Mrs. Harrogate?”
“But you know why.”
“There are other detectives.”
“Not like you.”
Alice wet her lips, beginning to understand. “And what am I, exactly?”
“A witness, of course.” Mrs. Harrogate smoothed out her dress. “Come now, Miss Quicke, you do not imagine we have not done our due diligence?”
When Alice did not speak, Mrs. Harrogate reached into her handbag and withdrew a long brown envelope. She started to read from the papers in it.
“‘Alice Quicke, from Chicago, Illinois,’” she read. “That is you, yes? You were raised in Adra Norn’s religious community, at Bent Knee Hollow, under the care of your mother, yes?”
Alice, stunned, nodded. She had not heard that name in years.
The woman’s strange face softened. “You witnessed a miracle, when you were a little girl. You saw Adra Norn walk into a fire and stand in it and then walk out of it, unburned. Oh, the story is quite famous, in certain circles. Our director, Dr. Berghast, was a correspondent of Adra Norn’s. They were acquaintances for many years, in fact. It is a terrible shame what happened, what your mother did. I am so very sorry for you. And of course for your mother.”
“She was crazy. Is crazy.”
“Nevertheless.”
Alice got to her feet. She’d heard enough. “You should be sorry for the people she burned in their beds,” she said. “That’s who you should reserve your pity for.”
“Miss Quicke, please. Do sit down.”
“I’ll show myself out.”
“Sit.”
The voice was cold, grim, deep-toned, as if it came from a much older and fiercer woman. Alice turned back in a fury but was surprised to see that Mrs. Harrogate did not appear imperious at all, just the same mild figure, the birthmark discoloring her face, her red-rubbed fingers reaching now for a second cup of tea.
“Miss Quicke,” she said. “You of all people know how a life can be injured by prejudice, how swiftly fear can be aroused. These children need you.”
Alice was still standing, her fists tight at her sides. She saw the man Coulton had unfolded his arms near the hat rack, his big hairy hands loose at his sides. Under the brim of his bowler his face was unreadable.
“And if I say no?”
But Mrs. Harrogate just smiled thinly and poured the tea.
* * *
She hadn’t, of course, said no.
And now here she was, bone-tired, mud-spattered, doing the very thing she’d vowed not to do, wading among the low unfortunates of the world with her hands empty and curled at her sides, exactly like some monster in a fairy story, come to steal an eight-year-old child.