The Bedlam Detective (24 page)

They met between interviews in the doctors’ room, situated between the galleries for male and female patients. Sir James had co-opted the office as his own for the morning.

“Sebastian!” he said. “Don’t dawdle in the doorway. Time’s a-wasting. What can you tell me?”

Sir James Crichton-Browne had held the post of Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy for some thirty-six years, securing the job over fierce competition. Prior to that, he’d been the youngest-ever medical director of Wakefield’s West Riding Asylum. A broad-domed, silver-haired, bewhiskered Scot, he was something of a professional whirlwind. His intervention in any situation always guaranteed some form of action or change. But, like a whirlwind, he could leave considerable upset and disarray in his wake.

Sebastian said, “On the face of it, Sir Owain seems coherent and well cared for. His affairs are properly managed. No one that I spoke to gave anything but a good account of him.”

“What about this companion of his? Doctor Ernest Hubert Sibley. Is he sound?”

“He
is
a doctor,” Sebastian conceded. “After he qualified he spent a number of years in general practice in the provinces. His name disappears off the medical register for four years from 1888, but there’s no record of any disciplinary action.”

“Nor need there be. A man can drop off the register for any number of reasons. Changing address and not informing the General Medical Council, for one.”

“With that in mind, I checked to see if he might have spent those years in prison.”

“And?”

“You know I found nothing.”

“Doctor Sibley has written to me,” Sir James said, “forwarding these.” He moved the typed pages of Sebastian’s report aside, uncovering an assortment of handwritten notes. He slid these forward to place them within Sebastian’s reach.

“A letter from the parents of each dead child,” he said. “And one from the county’s chief constable. All thanking Sir Owain for his kindness and support in a difficult time.”

Testimonials. Of a kind. Out of politeness Sebastian picked up one or two and scanned them, but the words passed before his eyes and he took nothing in.

He said, “Are we to set these against our appeals from the families of his expedition’s members?”

“I promised them a full investigation, Sebastian. I didn’t promise the result that they wanted.”

“I should have made faster progress,” Sebastian said. “I fear I’ve been distracted.”

“How is Elisabeth?”

“Home, now,” Sebastian said, “and able to move around. She doesn’t complain but I can tell she’s still in discomfort.”

“When she starts to carp about it,” Sir James said, “you’ll know she’s on the mend.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We know that Sir Owain’s own wife and child accompanied him on his Amazonian jaunt and that neither returned. I’m in no doubt that what happened out there saw the beginning of his mental undoing.”

“I agree, sir.”

“Do you, now? Stick to the detective work and leave the diagnosis to me, Sebastian. I’m an old-school psychiatrist. I believe that life’s too short for psychoanalysis. But I can’t deny the value in a certain kind of therapy. If writing his book served some such purpose, then so be it. There may be comfort in blaming monsters for a grief one cannot bear. Though publication was clearly unwise.”

“I’ve one avenue still to pursue, sir.”

“Then pursue it until the end of the week. After that, we’ll have to move on.”

T
HAT NIGHT HE SAT WITH
E
LISABETH BEFORE THE FIRE IN
their rooms above the wardrobe maker’s, staring into the falling coals. Elisabeth wore a heavy dressing gown with a rug over her knees. Though allowed home, she was still fragile and her appetite was slow in returning. On the day of her return, Sebastian had carried her up the stairs from the street. Once he’d been able to sweep her up and spin with her, perfused with a joy of life and youth that defied gravity. But this time his knees ached, and they’d been aching ever since.

Elisabeth said, “Lucy came to call this afternoon.”

Lucy? Sebastian hunted through his memory for a few moments before he was able to place her among the Evelina’s staff.

“Good,” was all he could think of to say.

“I may have to appear as a witness. We all will.”

The maudlin Joseph Hewlett, despite his best efforts to take his own life, had fared better than the young nurse that he’d killed. The timely work of those present had managed to preserve him for justice.

Sebastian said, “You won’t have to face him if he pleads guilty. Don’t be swayed by gossip.”

“Gossip’s all I’m living for right now!” Elisabeth exclaimed, though not with ill temper. “I haven’t been out that door in three weeks.”

“Less than two.”

“See? I’m even losing track of the days. I’ll have to scratch a calendar on the wall. Like the Count of Monte Cristo.”

They both smiled. He saw that she was looking at the shabby jacket of this, his second-best set of clothes.

She said, “Frances couldn’t save your good suit?”

“She tried. The blood wouldn’t sponge out. I told her to burn it.”

“She could have taken it to the rag shop.”

“She did. No one here listens to me.”

There was a silence for a while. Some of the coals shifted and fell in a cokey shower, right at the heart of the fire where the heat was the whitest.

Elisabeth said, “Something’s troubling you.”

“What do you expect?” Sebastian said. “I want to see you well again.”

But she wouldn’t be deflected. “Besides that.”

Sebastian contemplated further evasion, and concluded that it would be a lesser drain on his energies to simply give her the story. He told her of the suspicions surrounding Sir Owain, of his own arrival and the events in Arnmouth, and of the arrest that had brought a premature end to official police interest in the case.

“What proof is there?” Elisabeth said when he’d concluded the tale. “Aside from your predecessor’s suspicions?”

“None,” he admitted. “It’s stupid to persist, I know.”

“It’s not stupid. Not if a man’s life now depends on it.”

“A tinker,” he said.

He stared into the fire for a while and then Elisabeth said, “Is a tinker’s life worth less than any other man’s? I’ve never known you to speak like that before.”

He said, “I’m weary. That’s all. Grace Eccles wouldn’t talk to me and I’ve no power to compel her.”

“What about the other young woman?”

“She claims no memory.”

“Memories can be jogged.”

“I know. I should have been more open with her, but I wasn’t and I drove her off. She’s somewhere in London, but that’s all I know.”

“So you’ve looked.”

“I even asked the census office to check for me. Under the guise of official business.”

“What’s her name?”

“Evangeline May Bancroft. Not exceptional. But not so common either. For all I know she may have married and changed it.”

“Or she may simply have avoided the census.”

“The census takers are terriers. Few people escape their attention.”

“You can find her, Sebastian. You used to be able to find anyone. How will you feel if the tinker hangs and then it happens all over again?”

They sat in silence for a while.

Then he said, “She had one of those purple pins the suffragettes wear. I saw one on the costume of an actress at the film studio. She couldn’t tell me what it meant, but the wardrobe mistress did. Didn’t suffragettes boycott the census?”

“There may be some record at the Old Bailey,” Elisabeth said. “Those women get arrested all the time.”

T
HE MEETING ENDED EARLY
. S
EBASTIAN STOOD ON THE PAVEMENT
outside the Portman Rooms, and from there he watched the women coming out. He’d hesitated to enter, thinking that he’d be conspicuous, but now he saw that a small number of men had been in attendance. Evangeline Bancroft was one of the last to emerge, arm-in-arm with another young woman of around her own age. This second woman suddenly hesitated on the steps, as if remembering something; with an apology she disengaged herself and hurried back inside.

This left Evangeline alone in the lighted half circle at the foot of the entranceway steps. Seeing an opportunity as she waited for her companion’s return, Sebastian started toward her.

“Excuse me,” he called out, and as she spun around to face in his direction he was surprised to see her draw a short length of heavy chain from her bag.

“I suggest you pass on by,” she called back. “And don’t imagine I’m afraid of you.”

He stopped, with his hands raised.

“I can see as much,” he said. “You misunderstand. My name is Sebastian Becker. Surely you remember me?”

She peered at him suspiciously, and he moved more fully into the light.

“Mister Becker?” she said.

There followed a few moments of silence. Then the dull clink of the polished chain as Evangeline Bancroft gathered it up and returned it to her bag.

He said, “We parted on bad terms. You were right to criticize my honesty. I beg forgiveness. Will you give me a chance to explain myself and make amends?”

Her companion emerged at the same time as two others. After a brief exchange of words, Evangeline sent her off with them.

“We’ve learned the wisdom of watching out for each other’s safety,” Evangeline explained.

She consented to let him walk her to her train. The evening was clear and the pavements not too crowded, the stars overhead blotted out by the smoke of a million September stoves and fires.

She said, “How did you find me?”

“You were part of a suffragist demonstration in Downing Street six years ago.”

“I was never arrested.”

“No, but the police have a record of your name. I went to the address they had, but it was out of date.”

“That was a hostel for young women. I have my own rooms now.”

“I know. So I found you this way instead.”

She said, “I was new to life and London and full of anger then. It’s an incident that could damage me in my present position.”

“Not through me,” Sebastian promised. “I know you think I meant to draw you into a plan to gain control of Sir Owain’s fortune. But I can assure you, it’s not his wealth I’m interested in. You know they’re set to hang a tinker for this latest attack.”

“But he’s confessed.”

“He’ll say anything that he thinks will gain him favor with his interrogator.”

“Mother said he had the girls’ clothing on his cart.”

“That’s true. But not the clothes they were wearing.”

“How so?”

“I saw the clothes. They don’t match the description that Florence Bell’s mother gave before the search. I think that when the detectives showed her the evidence, she changed her story.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I’m not saying she lied. And I’m not saying the dresses don’t belong to the girls. But the rag-and-bone man had a peep show for the children. They’d bring him old clothes, and he’d let them look through the spy holes while he pulled a string to make the puppets dance. What if Florence and Molly had traded him their castoffs without telling Mrs. Bell? And Mrs. Bell, at the sight of them, was moved to correct her own memory?”

“If the tinker didn’t kill them, who did?”

“I believe it could be the same man responsible for your own misfortune,” Sebastian said.

T
HE BELOW-GROUND
buffet in the station concourse was open for tea, toast, or a three-shilling supper. Evangeline declined them all. She sat forward on the edge of her seat and did not unbutton her coat. The buffet was paneled in rich, polished wood, with stained glass in the concourse windows and electric light from bronze fittings. Their table was not in the best spot, but it was separated from the others and they would not be overheard.

Evangeline began, “Grace Eccles was my best friend. We didn’t choose each other, we just made a pair. Chalk and cheese. Mother didn’t approve. She was never a snob, but she’s always been proper.”

“What about your father?”

“My father died when I was very small. I don’t remember much about him at all. He was in the foreign service and they sent him out to India. He was supposed to send for us when he got settled, but a fever took him six weeks after the boat landed. Mother got a telegram to say he was dead. A week after that she got a letter from him, the last one he wrote. I’ll always remember that.”