The Bedlam Detective (11 page)

Sir Owain looked again at the doctor, who now was looking at the floor as if to show that any response was Sir Owain’s, and Sir Owain’s alone.

Sebastian went on, “Just between us. In this room. Do you still hold it to be the truth? Or is it, as so many say, a miscalculated hoax that has caused the loss of your position and earned you the scorn of your peers?”

Dr. Sibley could keep his silence no longer.

“This is unfair,” he said.

“I know it, Doctor Sibley,” Sebastian said. “It’s not a choice that I’d care to be faced with. Stick to my story and be deemed insane, or abandon it and stand revealed as a fraud.”

“And whatever I answer,” Sir Owain said, “you’ll have the option of calling it a response that I learned for the occasion, to achieve an end.”

“And so we go round and round.”

“If a man can feign sanity to perfection, is he not therefore sane?”

“Why did you view the bodies of those dead girls?”

The abrupt change of tack threw Sir Owain for a moment, as Sebastian had meant it to.

He floundered for a moment and then said, “They were found on my land. And I wished to offer my help.”

“Ah, yes. Your theory. Torn by beasts.” From the deep pocket inside his coat, Sebastian took his copy of Sir Owain’s book and searched for the page that he’d located and marked. “You must be aware that the exact same phrase occurs here in your mendacious memoir.”

“It’s but a phrase, Mister Becker,” Sir Owain said. “You saw the condition of those children. Tell me that the wording is anything other than accurate.”

Sebastian regarded him for a few moments.

Then he closed the book.

“Please call your car for me,” he said, and rose to his feet.

Sir Owain seemed bewildered.

“Is that it?” he said. “What happens now?”

“I’ll be in the area for a day or two. Making my inquiries. You’ll hear from me again.”

“When will we know the decision?”

“That, I cannot say. The decision won’t be mine to make.”

H
E DECLINED
a tour of the house. He’d seen a sufficient number of great houses to know that the gentry were equally indifferent to magnificence and squalor, and that their homes were no guide to anything. He’d once reported on a marquis who kept a pig in his dining room, and Sir James had been happy to sign him off.

As the car was once more drawing up in front of the building, Sir Owain said, “Who will pay for my broken window glass?”

Sebastian said, “I think you will.”

“You speak sharply to me,” Sir Owain complained. “In a way I do not believe I deserve. But how can I respond in kind to a man who has power over my liberty?”

“If I seem sharp, sir, then I apologize. I do not mean to be. You can be assured that my only interest is in the facts behind the matter.”

“Then,” Sir Owain said, phrasing his courtesy in such a way as to leave no doubt that he was sorely aggrieved by the obligation, “I should support your discovery of the facts in full. My car and driver are at your disposal during your stay. Wherever you may wish to go. Just telephone the house and I’ll send them out.”

T
HE OFFER OF THE CAR HAD BEEN MADE WITHIN THE DRIVER’S
earshot, and he remained sullen and silent at his wheel throughout the return journey. The vehicle had been swept clear of broken glass during the interview, but the window was still open to the elements.

Sebastian looked through the pages in the folder. They were the work of a careful typist, but not a trained one.

After the car had dropped him off on Arnmouth’s main street, Sebastian went into the first tearoom that he saw. Over lunch he studied the restaurant’s copy of the
Daily Mail
, scanning it for any details of Sir James’s address to the British Association.

There was no mention of the murders in the early edition. The rest of the news was much as usual—a new terrorist outrage in the Middle East, a ban on infected cattle movements in Wales. Army maneuvers continued in Cambridgeshire, mirroring those of the Kaiser’s forces in Switzerland. If the shadowplay were ever to turn into real conflict, those boy soldiers from yesterday would probably be sent to join it. Meanwhile, the
Mail
saw German spies behind everything. The newspaper’s estimate of their numbers regularly exceeded the total of German nationals in Britain.

Sebastian folded the paper and laid it down. Someone on another table asked for it, and he passed it over.

He looked out the window. Take away the shadow that hung over it, and this was a nice little town. Not exactly the kind of place that he and Elisabeth had dreamed of, but somewhere they might settle for. If they had the money. And didn’t have Robert’s needs to consider.

After checking the time by his pocket watch, he paid his bill and went outside. He walked up the street to the preventative officer’s house, where he showed his credentials and begged the use of the telephone.

D
ESPITE THE
fact that they’d agreed a time for the call, it took almost half an hour for the staff to locate Sir James in his Dundee hotel. Without any preamble, Sir James said, “So what do you make of our mad Sir Owain?”

“It’s a rum setup,” Sebastian said. “He’s dismissed most of the staff and the estate’s going to ruin.”

“I could commit him for that alone.”

“Except that his doctor now claims to be managing his affairs as well as his treatment. They’ve given me the books to look over. But, Sir James, I have to tell you that there have been other developments.”

“Of what kind?”

“Two more bodies were found on Sir Owain’s land yesterday.”

“Bodies?”

“Definitely murdered this time, no question about it.”

Sebastian explained further, including mention of Sir Owain’s appearance at the temporary mortuary and his assertion that the victims had been “torn by beasts.”

“One is the child of a prominent barrister,” he concluded, “so I imagine we’ll get to hear more about it. Sir Owain showed no sign of any guilt, only concern. I made little headway with Grace Eccles, but I’m hoping to track down Evangeline Bancroft. In the meantime I’d like to confirm the credentials of Doctor Ernest Hubert Sibley.”

“Stay with it,” Sir James said. “It’s no easy matter to take a knight of the realm out of circulation. So let’s hold off calling his doctor a quack until we can back it up with proof.”

A
S HE
left the customs house and crossed the street, Sebastian was startled to hear his name being shouted from nowhere.

“Mister Becker!”

He looked all around. Then he looked up. Stephen Reed, the young detective, had opened a second-floor window above the photographer’s studio in order to call to him.

“Yes?”

“Have you a moment? Can you come up?”

The studio was at the top of the house, combining attic space and a large skylight. It was reached by a gloomy staircase through the photographer’s living quarters. His private rooms were screened off by a red velvet curtain with braid and tassels, like the dressing on a Punch and Judy booth. Sebastian ascended through the chemical odors of the photographer’s trade, musty and unnatural, and the boiled-cabbage fragrance of his midday meal, even less appetizing.

Stephen Reed was waiting at the top of the stairs.

Sebastian said, “Did you pass on my suspicions to your superiors?”

“I did,” Stephen Reed said, “and the rebuke was even sharper than I expected. My handling of the search has been roundly criticized and I’ve been demoted to evidence duties.”

“I’m sorry. I’d hoped you might get a better hearing.”

“I know. I blame no one. For what it’s worth, I still think that your theory should be investigated before it’s dismissed.”

“Strictly speaking, Mister Reed, it’s more hypothesis than theory. It’ll be a theory when I can offer some hard facts in support of it.”

The studio itself was a bright room with a square of heavy carpet on the floor. Potted plants and chairs stood before a canvas drop with a painted seascape on it. Just showing behind the backdrop was a rack of dressing-up clothes that included cloaks and Pierrot costumes.

“Mister William Phillips,” Stephen Reed said, by way of introduction to the resort’s resident photographer. Billy Phillips was a small man, in a baggy linen jacket with a wing-collared shirt and a bow tie.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything with this,” Billy Phillips said, indicating the object of his frustration with a wave of his hand. Under the skylight stood the photographer’s retouching table. On the table stood the camera from the murder scene. “It’s a Birtac,” he added, as if that explained it.

“What’s one of those?” Sebastian said.

“A moving-picture camera,” Stephen Reed said. “Of a kind that’s designed for amateur use, apparently.”

“It doesn’t expose to plates,” Phillips said. “And plates are all I do. I’m not sure what it uses. For moving pictures there’s almost as many film types as there are devices. All I know is, it’ll be on a long roll and I’ve no way of handling anything of that length. I could try to rig something up in the bathtub, but I can’t guarantee I won’t ruin it. I don’t even want to risk opening the case.”

Sebastian said, “Where does the camera’s owner send his films?”

“That’s almost certainly the father. I’m not allowed to speak to him.”

The photographer said, “There’s a footage counter. See? It’s been run about fifteen feet into the roll.”

“What does that mean?”

“That something has been captured onto the film.”

“But we can’t know what it is yet,” Stephen Reed said, and he looked at Sebastian. “Unless you’ve any other ideas, I’ll have to return it to the evidence store.”

They walked out together with the camera parceled up in brown paper, to disguise it from view. The coroner, a local solicitor, had set a date for an inquest, and members of the national press had been arriving on the morning trains. A journalist and a photographer from the
Daily Mirror
had made the journey in a two-seater roadster. Hungry for story, they’d need little encouragement to speculation.

As soon as they were alone, Stephen Reed said, “I didn’t only stop you about the camera. I checked, and there’s a police file on Evangeline and Grace.”

“Can you get hold of it?”

“I already have. I called Records last night and it came over this morning. I tell you, I had no idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were not simply lost on the moors for a few hours, as we children were told. They suffered an ordeal, and had no memory of it.”

“Memory or no memory, Grace Eccles is a damaged and defensive young woman.”

“I knew Evangeline better.”

“Well enough to approach her on such a subject?”

“We’re not children now. I’d hope to engage her in a professional manner.”

Sebastian said, “Then I’d better set my office to tracking her down.”

“There’s no need for that,” Stephen Reed said. “We can ask at the library.”

“They have London directories there?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Stephen Reed said. “But Evangeline’s mother is the librarian.”

S
EBASTIAN WAITED OUTSIDE
. I
T SEEMED WISER
. A
LTHOUGH
Lydia Bancroft hadn’t shown him any actual hostility, he’d given her good reason to be cool toward him. How was he to have known that the subject of his insensitive inquiry—as she must have seen it—was actually the librarian’s own grown-up daughter?

He stood at the bottom of the street, looking out across the harbor. There wasn’t much to the harbor itself; a sea wall, some fishermen’s huts, a low tidal jetty with its pilings hung with weed. The sea was a way out, the sound of its rollers like a distant train. Where the river estuary spilled across the sand, the masts of beached sailboats pointed this way and that.

After only a few minutes, he heard the faint sound of a latch and the opening of a door. He turned and looked back up the street, expecting to see Stephen Reed emerging from the library. Instead he saw a young woman in a short-waisted coat and a full traveling skirt. Her hair was up, with a hat pinned in place. She looked back as she emerged; Stephen Reed was right behind her, a small traveling bag in his hand, drawing the library door closed after them. As he stepped out to join the young woman, Stephen Reed gestured down the street, in Sebastian’s direction. She looked his way and seemed suddenly confused. As they moved toward Sebastian, Stephen Reed was explaining something.