Arthur thought of Bram. Their relationship, for all of its trust and goodwill, was not exactly that which Emily described. He said nothing, and Emily continued her strange monologue.
“At least I still have my Janet. This man, this detestable creature, whoever he may be, hasn’t gotten to her yet.”
The kettle crowed, and Emily stood up to prepare the tea. She returned in a few moments with three empty cups, which she laid before her guests along with a steaming pot. She allowed it to steep while she spoke.
“We formed our own group, the four of us. Mrs. Fawcett is daft, and practically a Tory to boot. People like her are not going to win our suffrage. She is weak and fearful, and she is beholden to the society in which we live for her purse, as well as for her husband. She thinks no more highly of England’s women than does the stodgiest old antisuffragist.” Emily again smiled bitterly. “Like you! For Fawcett, and for her useless union, our fight is merely one of politics. Can you imagine the shortsightedness? And so we formed a rival organization. We were not by any stretch the first to do so, mind you. You’d be surprised how many splinter groups exist on the margins of Millicent’s minions. Those girls from Manchester-you’ll be hearing about them soon, I’ll promise you that!”
Arthur hadn’t any clue as to who these Manchester girls were, but he saw no use in interrupting the flow of her thoughts.
Emily poured three cups of tea, though Arthur had not asked for any. He sipped politely out of habit. When it occurred to him that he was accidentally taking tea with a woman who had nearly murdered him, he felt foolish and returned his cup to the table.
“We named ourselves the Morrigan, after the Irish goddess. She’s the goddess of war, and of prophecy. She could assume different forms as well-sometimes she took the shape of an eel, sometimes a wolf, but our favorite was the crow with three heads. We adopted the crow as our emblem and had it painted permanently onto our skin to prove our devotion to the cause. We had such plans as would have sent the kingdom into shock. We were to launch a campaign of pamphlets this fall. We hired a printer and tried out arrangements for our emblem. It took ages. He was most helpful, that printer-he never even charged us for his many hours of work. But pamphlets would not save the country, we knew that. We were prepared for more, if need be. They would be followed by bombs. And if the bombs failed to rouse the public’s attention to the cause of England’s women… well, then we were prepared to build bigger bombs if it were required. I’d have liked to see the NUWSS do that!”
“You would have bombed London?” said Arthur. “You would have turned your own homeland into a battlefield over legislative politics?”
“There is a war under way in London whether we join it or not!” said Emily forcefully.
She banged her palm down on the table, splashing tea onto the saucers. Bram raised his cup and took a gentle sip.
“England is changing. The Morrigan is not a cause of that change; she is an effect. Have you been to Whitechapel, Dr. Doyle? Have you seen the depredations there? A hundred thousand ladies enslaved as whores. Have you been to Westminster? Another hundred thousand enslaved as chars. The women of England have but three choices in this age. We toil with our hands, we toil with our cunts, or we marry rich and toil with our very hearts. Which would you choose?”
She became more animated as she spoke, the anger again building inside her. Arthur gripped on to the cushions of the couch, afraid and unsure as to where this all was headed.
“I’ve read your speeches, you know. I’ve read what you said in Edinburgh. We all have. And I’ve read your stories. I’ve read your Sherlock Holmes. Your London died with him, dropped off a cliff and drowned in a pool of frothy water. The Morrigan was to see the deed through.”
The girl stared off into the distance, as if at some imaginary horizon. Arthur felt himself to be in the presence of villainy. This was the kind of rage which tore down civilizations.
“You attempted to murder me over a speech?” Arthur asked, as calmly as he could.
“No, no, of course not,” she said. “I told you. I never meant to hurt you. I needed your help.”
“My help?”
“We never set our bombs. We never even distributed our pamphlets. The NUWSS reigns still as the sole and impotent voice of suffrage in London. Before we could see our plans to fruition, Sally was murdered. And then Anna. I saw that article in the paper, the one I sent you, and I knew it was her. ‘Morgan Nemain.’ Ha! It was a little joke between us that Anna used for her pseudonym. ‘Morgan,’ for the Morrigan, and ‘Nemain’-that’s the name of one of the Morrigan’s spirits, in the myth. She was the funny one, Anna was…
“Janet, my dear Janet, was so distraught she gave it up. She went away to live with her uncle in Leeds. I wrote to her about my plans. How I would carry on the Morrigan myself. She never even wrote me back.”
Arthur saw something new on Emily’s young countenance. A great sadness had entered her cheeks, reddening her face and wetting her clear green eyes. “Even dearest Janet left me! This killer took everything, don’t you see? He wrenched from my breast every last soul on whose love I depended. I had no one left to turn to. Except for you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Arthur.
“I’ve read all of your stories. The plots are so good, I can’t imagine how you do it. And that Holmes! He is a bitter hater of womankind, but he is also a true genius. Everything seems to come to him so easily, have you noticed that? ‘Elementary,’ he says; he figures it all out with barely any effort. I’d never be able to find out who killed Sally and Anna on my own. But Holmes could. You could. I believed in you, Dr. Doyle. I believed that you were noble and good, that you were the equal of your creation. And I was right. It worked. My Lord, it worked… ‘ The Crooked Man,’ that was my favorite story. Isn’t it everyone’s? That’s where he says ‘elementary’ to his friend Watson. I put that in the letter to get your attention, to excite your curiosity. And I can see that it did.”
“You wanted me to investigate the murders of your friends?” said Arthur, incredulous. It was too fantastical to be believed. This girl was either mad or brilliant. Arthur was unsure of which possibility he found more comforting.
“Well, who else could?” she said reasonably. “The Yard didn’t care a whit for my friends. They thought Sally was a cheap harlot, and when Anna’s family told them that their daughter had vanished, they spent a few days asking around and then let it go. They never even found her body. To make matters worse, if I told the Yard the truth about our group, they’d have been rather more keen on arresting me than on arresting the murderer of my friends. I thought about sending you money and asking for your assistance, but all of my meager funds have gone toward the bombs. I realized I did have one trick up my sleeve.” She gestured to the far table and the long stick of dynamite. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, true, but how many might you be able to catch with a quarter pound of dynamite?” Emily smiled. Arthur did not.
He rose to his feet, standing tall before her like St. Peter at the gates of heaven.
“Miss Davison,” he began, “you are a common criminal. You are a thug and a villain, and I will see you punished. Your murdered friends have my sympathies, but you will not. I shall go to Scotland Yard and inform them that it was you who placed a letter bomb in the mail, with me as its recipient. I share your despair at the treatment of young women in Whitechapel; perhaps you can inform me, when you arrive, as to the condition of the ladies at Newgate Prison.”
“But, Dr. Doyle!” said Emily as she burst up from her chair. “I realize that I behaved uncharitably toward you. I can understand your anger. But I was desperate. Have you no compassion? Sally and Anna are dead! Murdered! You’re not going to find out who killed them?”