Act Three, Part One
Mrs Richmond stood before them shivering from the cold. But what was the colonel's wife doing here?
"Come on," said Artie, stepping forward to wrap an arm around her and lead her from the chilly room. "Let's get you out of there before you catch your death of the cold." Jim went into the room as Artie came out, and as the two passed close by each other in the doorway, the half-frozen woman's hand reached for the cuff of her other wrist. But then Artie steered her to a gurney in the middle of the room, leaving Jim behind, and so the woman desisted.
Artie smiled at her comfortingly and chafed at her hands. "Why, your fingers are like so many icicles, Mrs Richmond!" Then his smile faded. She looked so blank! "But don't you recognize me, Mrs Richmond? I'm Mr Gordon." He nodded toward the cold room. "And that's Mr West in there. Remember us? We work for your husband."
"G-gordon," she repeated dully, chattering a bit. "West."
"Yes, that's right! My, the chill must have really gotten to you! It's a good thing we found you and got you out of there. But what are you doing here? We just saw you, what, a couple of hours ago back at your…" His voice trailed off, a puzzled look settling on his face, as the scene of Col Richmond informing them that Lily and the baby were missing flooded Artie's memory. He pictured clearly the colonel's wife sitting on the sofa in the hotel lobby, dabbing at her eyes. And now she was here? How had that come about?
"Did Dr Faustina kidnap you, Mrs Richmond?" he asked, just barely keeping the fury that was flooding through him out of his voice.
"D-doctor Faustina?" the woman echoed.
"Yes, this is her lab. How did you get here?"
"I…" she quavered. Her eyes flicked to something behind Artie, and he looked around.
Ah, here was Jim crossing from the cold room with a folded cloth over his arm. "There's nobody else in there," he said. "Only another one of these gurneys. It had this sheet on it, so I brought it out to put it over Mrs Richmond." He glanced at the wheeled table she was sitting on and saw another sheet. "Mm. This one will be better though, since it's not cold." Jim dropped the sheet from the cold room and unfurled the other sheet, then draped it around Mrs Richmond's shoulders. "There. That should help you warm up."
The woman eyed the two men standing side by side well within five feet of her, and her hand dropped toward the cuff of her left sleeve again.
But now the one who had said he was Mr Gordon stepped away. Mrs Richmond's hand froze in place as she watched him head over to one of the lab counters. "Be nice if there was some tea or coffee here in the lab," he called back to her. "That would warm you up in a hurry." He went to a cabinet and rummaged through the contents.
"How did you wind up here, Mrs Richmond?" the man who was still with her inquired. "Does the colonel know you're here?"
"I… I don't know," she replied. "I don't remember, Mr…" What had the other one called him? "Mr… West."
Jim's eyes sharpened as he took a good look at her. He'd never known Millicent Richmond to act so confused, nor her voice to be so lifeless and dull. He snugged the sheet more closely around her and said, "I'm going to help Artemus look for the coffee. You wait here."
By now Artie was hunkered down before one of the lab counters searching a storage area beneath it. He glanced up as Jim dropped to one knee at his side.
"Something's wrong, Artie," Jim said softly.
"I was thinking the same thing," Artie replied just as softly. He glanced back at the woman who was still sitting on the gurney where they'd left her. "Could just be that she's confused from the cold."
"Could be," Jim nodded. "Faustina had to work very quickly to be able to abduct her and bring her here so fast. It wasn't two hours ago that we saw Mrs Richmond at the hotel."
"Right. And it's not impossible that Madame Frankenstein drugged the poor lady to get her here. That could be muddling her mind as well."
"And affecting her speech," added Jim. "But the thing is, where is Col Richmond? Did Faustina kidnap him as well? And if she did, what did she do with… Artie!"
Artemus swung around at the urgency in his partner's voice to see Mrs Richmond creeping quietly towards them not more than five feet away. Her right hand was fumbling at the cuff of her left sleeve. What could she be doing, Artie began to wonder.
Jim didn't waste time wondering. He surged up from the floor, grabbed the woman's right wrist, and twisted it behind her. Struggling to keep her immobilized, he seized up her left arm and held it out from her body. "What is this? What are you trying to do?" he demanded.
Artie was on his feet now and caught Mrs Richmond's left hand, then ripped her sleeve open. "She's got something strapped here on her wrist, Jim! There's a button on it, and wires leading…" He shuddered. "Leading up under her skin!"
The agents' eyes met. "She's one of Faustina's walking bombs."
"You… are… both within… five feet of me," the woman grunted. "I… must… press…"
Abruptly she wrenched her left arm from Artie's grasp, then whirled and threw Jim over her shoulder. Both hands now free, she scrabbled for the button on the strap around her wrist, then glanced up to see whether the men were close enough.
Artie was, both hands stretched out towards her as he said soothingly, "Now, now. You don't want to do that. Just put your hands up, Mrs… er… Whoever-you-are. Up, and spread well apart, that is."
She took a step closer to him even as he took a step back. Where was the other one though? She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced in the direction of the gurney on which she had been sitting.
Suddenly West popped up from behind the gurney. Shoving the wheeled table ahead of him like a battering ram, he raced towards her. The leading edge of the table slammed into the fake Mrs Richmond, sending her sprawling through the open door behind her and into the chill of the cold room again.
Jim leapt for the door, Artie on his heels. Together they flung the door closed and secured the latch.
"I think we're done here, Artie."
"I think so too." With a nod toward the cold room door, Artie added, "I hope our fair hostess will forgive us for taking French leave, but, uh… Let's get out of here!"
They charged for the stairs.
…
Within the cold room the walking bomb stood to her feet. The gurney that had thrust her into the room stood between her and the door, and she swatted it away, sending it clattering into a wall. She stalked to the door and tried the latch.
Locked. She lifted her right hand and slammed the whole length of her forearm against the door, trying to get free, determined to follow through on Dr Faustina's orders and reach the two men. The door shuddered but held firm.
Again she slammed her right arm against the door, but again the door only jounced without opening. And now she lifted her left hand as well to slam both forearms against the door. There was a small click as the button on her left wrist came into contact with the door, followed immediately by
FOOM!
The door was open now. Indeed, there was nothing left of the door, nor of much of the lab beyond it.
But then there was now nothing left of the woman who wasn't Mrs Richmond either.
…
Two men spilled from the back door of the townhouse and went charging down the stairs. They were nearly to the ground when a muffled roar from within shook the whole house, sending them tumbling.
"So much for the fake Mrs Richmond," said Jim, bounding right back up to his feet.
"Yeah," said Artie as he clambered up as well, then knocked the dust from his clothes. "But what I wanna know," he added with a growl, "is who locked that door? I thought we'd never get out of that kitchen!"
"Had to have been Faustina."
Artie stopped slapping at his pants. "Then you think they were still in the house when we got here? We just missed them?" He didn't wait for Jim's answer but went racing down the alley for their carriage. "Maybe we can catch up!"
Just short of the carriage, however, both men froze in their tracks at the sight of a body lying on the ground. The cabbie!
His mouth agape, Artie turned a look of horror Jim's way, then dashed on to the carriage. "Lily!" he cried. "Lily!"
But there was no answer.
Jim checked the cabbie's pulse, then rolled him over and helped him sit up. The man groaned and cradled his throbbing noggin in his hands. "Oh, my head!"
"What happened?" Jim was asking just as Artie trotted back over. "She's gone!" he exclaimed. "There's no sign of Lily. Where'd she go?"
The cabbie looked up at him, then winced and dropped his head again, obviously wished he hadn't moved that much.
Artie hunkered down beside the man and urgently peppered him with his questions again.
The cabbie closed his eyes. "They took her," he said.
"Who took her?"
"Some people; I don't know who they were. They came out of the house you went into. One of them, a lady, had a basket and was talking to it. Then your lady — Lily, was it? — she started hollering and jumped from the cab, yelling for the other woman to give her back her baby. She grabbed for the basket." He paused, catching his breath.
"And they took her?"
He nodded, then winced again. "Yes sir. One of them was a big guy with a limp. He grabbed her and stuffed her into another carriage. It was parked right down there, behind some bushes. I didn't even notice it until he was putting her into it. She was yelling something fierce, you know?
"So I jumped down from my cab to go help her. Only…" He touched his head gingerly. "…I guess I wasn't much help. Big guy knocked me right out. Holy Moses, but he packed a punch! Wouldn't be surprised if he had a horseshoe hidden inside that glove of his!"
The agents exchanged a glance. "Any idea where they went?"
"Sorry, no. I wasn't noticing anything by then." He pawed at himself, then added, "Well, they didn't run me over, so I guess they went that way." He pointed toward the far end of the alley.
"Come on," said Jim. He and Artie pulled the man to his feet and loaded him inside his own carriage.
"Hey, what're you doing?" yelped the cabbie as Jim vaulted into the outside seat.
Artie settled into the interior opposite the cabbie. "What, do you feel up to driving?"
"Uh… no."
"Then Jim will. Dropping our esteemed cabbie off at the hospital?"
Jim nodded and shook out the reins.
"And after that," Artie muttered to himself, "we'll go get a little help from the one, er, person who might just be able to sift out our two needles from this haystack called San Francisco — my TARDIS Rosalind."
…
"Give me my daughter, you inhuman fiend!" said Lily, and not for the first time either, as the carriage barreled along through the night.
Dr Faustina, holding upon her lap the basket in which the infant lay fussing, turned and regarded the angry woman dispassionately. "She is no longer your daughter but mine," she informed Lily.
"Yours!" Lily fumed. "She most certainly is not!"
Faustina laughed. "You are hardly in a position, my dear Mrs Gordon, to make any demands of me. The child is mine, and I shall rear her to be the very image of me. However," she added as the baby cut loose with a particularly insistent howl, "as recent events have proven to me the value of hiring a wet nurse, you may serve me as such." She held forth the basket.
"Wet nurse! I am not a we…!" Lily started heatedly, then realized she was getting what she wanted, if in a limited fashion. Quickly, before Faustina could change her mind, Lily caught the baby up in her arms. "Oh, you poor darling!" she crooned and tucked her daughter close to feed her. Suzie, finding herself at last in her favorite place of all, settled down and began to nurse.
"Finally!" exclaimed Faustina. "Our ears are no longer assaulted by her screams."
"Suzie's a smart little girl," Lily riposted, "and knows who her own Mama is!"
"Hmph. Well, that will change, that will change. She won't need a wet nurse forever. And in the meantime, you are not to call her Suzie! She has a new name now, a far more suitable name." With a small smile upon her face, Dr Faustina proclaimed, "Her name is now… Scientia."
"Ski what?" Lily scoffed. "Scientia? That's not a proper name for a child! Everyone will make fun of her."
"Oh, and a plebeian name such as Suzie is an improvement?" Faustina waved a hand in dismissal. "I've no doubt but every third girl in America is named Suzie. A dime a dozen, as the saying goes! Scientia, on the other hand, is unique, and a name to live up to!"
Lily's lips set into a firm line. "Suzie isn't that common a name, and is a perfectly lovely one. In addition to which, it means 'lily' — she was named for me." She cuddled the baby close and peered into her face. There had to be some way to get out of here, now that she had Suzie in her arms again!
"By the way," Lily asked at length, trying to keep her voice as nonchalant as possible, "where are we going?"
Dr Faustina lifted her chin and announced, "Our mission here in San Francisco is now completed. We lured your husband and his partner here, and now we have disposed of them."
Lily's eyes narrowed. "Disposed…"
"Oh yes. It took us two tries, but after they met what was waiting for them in the basement lab, I've no doubt but they've… What is it you actors say? Shuffled off this mortal coil?" She smirked as horror filled Lily's eyes.
"What did you do?" whispered Lily.
Now a proud smile suffused Faustina's face. "Left them a little going-away present in the form of your Mrs Richmond, with orders to press a small button once the men were quite near her."
"Mrs Richmond!"
"Oh, not the real one, but one of my, ah, patients bearing Mrs Richmond's features, and with a fine little bomb within her chest. They'll never have survived the blast," she proclaimed.
But then her eyes narrowed as she saw Lily smile. "You know something," she accused.
"Do I?" Lily countered.
Faustina's face hardened. "You and those accursed agents survived the bomb that I secreted within the baby doll, and now you presume that they have survived my latest bomb as well. But how?"
Now it was Lily who lifted her head proudly. "Jim spotted your deception, and he and Artemus raced me from the train. And to protect us all, they used one of my husband's inventions: a blast cloak."
"A… a what?"
"A blast cloak," Lily repeated. "It's something Artemus made a while back to protect him and Jim from bombs. Once they knew this case involved a mad bomber…" and she raked the doctor with a caustic glance, "…no doubt they made sure to carry the blast cloaks with them."
Faustina leaned forward, her eyes glittering with keen interest. "And how, pray tell, does such a thing as a blast cloak work?"
Lily laughed. "Oh, I'm sure I don't know! Artie makes all sorts of things, but I never know how they work."
"No?" said Faustina. Abruptly she snatched the baby from Lily's arms and held the squirming infant where Lily couldn't reach her. "You will tell me how the blast cloaks work, and you will tell me at once!"
In the hands of the evil mad scientist who wanted to give her a preposterous name, little Suzie instantly began to protest at the top of her healthy young lungs.
