A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(82)

Holmes frowned again and momentarily stopped pacing. “What I found . . . was another thing that I cannot account for. All three of them had traces of . . . well, I would call it ‘soil’ under other circumstances . . . on the hems and other parts of their outer clothing, and on their gloves, as if they had all fallen to their hands and knees at some point. I assume this was during their captivity because I cannot imagine girls like these wearing dirty gloves. It is like no ‘soil’ I have ever taken a sample of, certainly no soil in London, and . . . soil, even in its wintry, frozen state, is still alive with insect eggs, spores, pollen, organic material, microscopic life. There was organic matter I could not identify, but this ‘soil’ was utterly sterile. I couldn’t even grow microbes from it.”

John Watson blinked. “Is that even possible?”

“Until this moment, I would have said no,” Holmes replied. “So once again, I am reduced to . . . conceding to the possibility that magic was involved.”

“You are aware, good sir, of the theory of other worlds that lie alongside ours?” Puck spoke up for the first time, riveting Holmes’ attention on him. “That would be an explanation for the soil. If these young women had been flung through a door into a world parallel in time and space to ours. A sterile world from which life has been purged. . . .”

“Are you suggesting that a passageway from our world to that was opened up, and these women were thrust through it? To—suffer whatever it was that turned them into mindless dolls, then be thrust back into our world?” Holmes demanded. “Once, perhaps, but six times?”

“I am suggesting that, yes,” Puck agreed. “But I suggest also that it was by the agency of someone living in this world, and that it was done for some purpose we have not yet divined. Hence, six victims so far.”

Holmes ran a hand through his hair, absently. “It sounds uncommonly as if you are describing a deal with the Devil.”

“The Devil, no. A devil of sorts, perhaps. . . .” Puck shrugged. “It would take a great deal of effort to open such a doorway; even more effort than it takes to abduct six young women right off the open streets. Taken all together, it is clear that the perpetrator had enough to gain to make all this effort worth his while. You seldom make a misstep when you follow a path suggested by greed and gain.”

“But what would this—putative devil have to gain?” Holmes demanded. “What could induce it to agree to this bargain?”

“Presumably whatever it took that now means these young women are mindless.” Puck cocked his head to one side. “They once had something. Now they don’t. You may call that thing whatever you wish.”

Holmes growled a little, then shrugged himself.

“I am already accepting that someone opened a magical hole in the universe,” he admitted, begrudgingly. “I might as well accept that something purloined—what? Their souls?”

“It’s enough to use for a premise, Holmes,” Mary Watson pointed out. “You can always discard whatever parts of it you discover don’t match the facts, but it does give us a place to start. A few moments ago we didn’t even have that.”

Well, that’s not entirely true, Nan thought, because that is the premise that the rest of us had been operating on. But it was good that now Holmes was at least willing to consider it.

“The student becomes the master,” Holmes replied, with a dry chuckle. “You are right to remind me of my own method. Very well then. What do we have?”

“Battersea,” said Nan. “Every single one of these girls has been found in Battersea. That can’t be a coincidence. The perpetrator must be doing his work there, or on the outskirts of it.”

“And he is clever enough to have taken his victims from places quite distant from it.” Holmes regarded a map they had attached to one of the bookcases, with red marks indicating roughly where the girls were from and blue where they had been found. “I suggest that the reason the three were found together in the park is that the park is the most public place in the borough that is also the most deserted on a winter evening. He had three to dispose of at once. For some reason, he wants them found. I cannot otherwise account for all three of them being taken to that spot, and a bonfire being set to draw attention to the very place where they were left standing.”

“The other three showed signs that they had walked for quite some time before being discovered,” John Watson observed. “Their clothing and boots were caked with snow—and they kept walking when accosted until they were physically stopped. They probably could have kept walking for hours.”

“So we can assume the first three were—wound up and let go in the direction of discovery, like clockwork toys,” Holmes agreed. “If he had not wanted them found, the Thames borders Battersea, and it would have been simple to point them in the direction of the shore and order them to walk.” He clasped his hands behind his back and pondered. Nan suspected that if he had been at home in his flat, there would have been more bullets decorating the area above the mantle. “We cannot search every blasted room, house, and flat in Battersea, however.”

“I have had a search out for traces of magic where I know no magician lives,” Puck said. “I can narrow that search to Battersea, and it does not require physically searching each dwelling to look for such things.”