The Solitary House (41 page)

In the cab meanwhile the noise of hooves on the wet stones does not permit much by way of conversation, and even if that were not so, none of them seems particularly inclined to talk. Though it’s clear, from the glances he casts in Charles’s direction, that Sam Wheeler for one, would very much like to know where it is they’re going, and what he should be expecting when they get there. Charles, by contrast, is sunk in thoughts of his own, and Woodcourt watches him thoughtfully as he unwinds the stained cloth and re-dresses the wounded hand. The sleet is just starting to fall when the carriage slows to a walk at the entrance to a long tree-lined drive off one of the main roads leading out of London. There is a little lodge house,
and there are two iron gates, but they already stand open and the lodge-keeper waves them through. A few moments later they come to a stop in front of a large redbrick porch, and Charles springs down without waiting for the driver, looking a good deal more confident than he actually feels. The bell is answered almost immediately, and by a woman. Thin, middle-aged, and wearing a white apron over a plain grey merino gown. When she sees Charles her face falls, and he realises she was expecting someone else entirely. Which goes some way to explaining her promptness, and—perhaps—the open gates.

“Oh,” she says, her mouth falling into sour folds, “I thought you were the doctor.”

Woodcourt steps down from the carriage. “I’m a doctor, madam. May I be of assistance?”

“We have our own medical attendant. Your presence is not needed here.”

“In that case,” says Charles, “I would like to see the proprietor. My name is Maddox.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He is very pre-occupied at present, and can see no-one. One of our patients is unwell.”

Charles and Woodcourt exchange a glance.

“What sort of establishment is this?” asks Woodcourt, his dark eyes grave.

The woman looks at him narrowly. “I’m not sure that is any concern of yours.”

Wheeler takes a step forwards. “This is a police matter, madam. I’m sure you wouldn’t be wishing to impede our enquiries, now, would you?”

She sniffs, clearly unimpressed by either his uniform or his tone. “It is a private lunatic asylum. And if that is all, I have better things to do than—”

The door is closing, but Charles has his foot against it, and the next minute he’s pushed past her into the empty hall. There’s a large refectory on one side with a smaller office opposite, and straight ahead of him a heavy carved staircase that branches left and right to the two
wings of the house. And then at last the pieces shift, slide together, and form—finally—a pattern. This is the
service
Tulkinghorn provided for Cremorne and his associates and all those other clients over the years—this is the
establishment
that is so suitable for handling
delicate cases
. And if that is so, there must be a link—a connexion—not only between this place and Cremorne, but between this place and the baronet of the black swan.

He turns to the woman in grey, only a few paces behind him now. “Do you know a man named Sir Percival Glyde? Does he pay for the upkeep of a patient here?”

“I am not at liberty to divulge—”

“You’d be advised to answer the gentleman,” says Wheeler quickly. “It’ll go better for you in the end.”

“I’m sure you know exactly who I’m talking about.” Charles is moving towards her. “Between forty-five and fifty, I should say, with dark hair starting to thin and an extremely distinctive scar on the back of his hand.”

She flushes; there is a line of bright colour now on her thin cheekbones. “We did have a patient here whose treatment was paid for by Sir Percival—”

“
Did
have?”

“Anne Catherick”—she hesitates—“is no longer with us.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” asks Charles. He is by now barely three inches from the woman, and towers over her.

“I do not know who you are, sir, and I am equally unacquainted with whatever it is that gives you the right to behave in such an unmannerly and intimidating manner towards my staff.”

When they turn to see who has spoken, they find a man has emerged from the office. He is tall, with a heavy grey beard and a large gold watch, rather showily displayed.

“I am the owner of The Solitary House. As you have already been
informed, one of our patients is very ill, and that being the case I must ask you to leave the premises at once.”

“I’ll leave,” replies Charles, “when I have some answers, and not before.”

“Very well,” says the man, smiling in a very unpleasant way, “what is it you wish to know?”

“What happened to this woman Anne Catherick?”

The man spreads his hands. “Before I answer that, you should know that this establishment is one of the most highly regarded of its kind in London, if not in England.”

Charles glances at Woodcourt, but the doctor is intent only on the proprietor’s face.

“No expense is spared on the treatment provided here, which conforms to that recommended by acknowledged experts working in the fields of hysteria, imbecility, epilepsy, and other such predominantly female maladies.”

The doctor frowns slightly, but says nothing.

“You must also understand,” the man continues, “that Anne Catherick was an extremely disturbed young woman. Had been so, indeed, from a very early age. In the course of time the symptoms of her mental affliction became so severe and so alarming that there was no alternative but to place her under full medical supervision. Her mother having rendered faithful service to Sir Percival’s family for many years, he was generous enough to defray the expense of her daughter’s treatment here, thereby avoiding the necessity of admitting the girl into a public asylum.”

“Not that she was grateful, the conniving little minx,” snaps the woman. Her employer glances at her quickly, then looks away.

“What do you mean,
conniving
?” says Charles, trying to divine what message it is that has just passed between them.

The man shakes his head. “It was most regrettable, most regrettable. Especially for an establishment as punctilious as this has always been on such matters. Miss Catherick contrived to ingratiate herself
with one of the nurses here—a girl, I may say, who had been with us only a few months—and escaped one night from the grounds. It was some time before she could be traced and returned here for further treatment, during which interval Sir Percival was unstinting in his efforts to assist in retrieving the unhappy child. But by the time she was eventually found, her condition had markedly deteriorated. Indeed, you might scarcely have believed her to be the same person.”

Charles sees another look pass between the man and the woman; there is something here, something they are concealing from him, but what can it be?

And just then—as he stands there, looking from one to the other—there is a sound from upstairs. Somewhere a long way away, over their heads, a woman is screaming. Charles looks at Woodcourt, and the two of them race up the stairs with Wheeler at their heels, only to find themselves confronted by a long dark corridor, its line of windows curtained against the light. Door after door stand before them, all closed. Charles nods to Woodcourt and he moves swiftly to the rooms at the farther end of the passage, while Charles turns to the door in front of him and reaches for the handle.

He thought he knew what he was going to find. He’s seen the worst of London’s squalor in his time, the darkest of its many darknesses, but he has seen nothing—nothing—that compares to this.

The room is no more than ten feet square; there is no fire in the tiny hearth and the barest of blankets on the iron bedstead. And in the corner, muttering incoherently, there is an old woman cowering away from him on the filthy floor, her night-dress yellow with old urine and an empty bird cage gripped in her gaunt and crooked fingers.
The next room is an exact copy of the first, only here Charles finds a young man with wild disordered hair and ink-stained hands, surrounded by a great quantity of textbooks, their pages bristling with snippets of paper. He does not even look up when Charles enters—does not even notice he’s there—so engrossed is he in turning frenetically from one book to another, and making tiny notes in a minute illegible hand. Charles can hardly bear to look at him—it’s like some obscene parody—a terrifying and insane mirror image of himself that touches a deep and buried fear that even now he will never discuss, and which haunts him like a figure seen only in a dream, advancing towards him down a long colonnade; now in shadow, now in light, now invisible, now half seen, now a stranger, now with the face of one he once loved.

He turns away, sick at soul, and finds Wheeler has gone before him and is already standing staring in the neighbouring doorway. And it’s soon clear why. The golden-haired girl who stands looking listlessly out of the window is as beautiful as a Botticelli Madonna, but what stops Charles’s breath and freezes his heart is the short rose taffeta dress she wears, and the sight—all innocent as it seems—of an old rag-doll lying on the chair.

“Sir Julius bloody Cremorne is only interested in little girls—or those of us as can pass ourselves off as such. Same type every time. Always blondes. And the younger the better. Ribbons, ringlets, pink dress, the whole friggin’ farrago. He even gave me a bloody doll to hold while he was on top of me …”

At that moment the young woman turns and sees him, and shrinks back in terror against the wall. “Don’t touch me! You mustn’t touch me!”

“I won’t hurt you,” says Charles quickly, retreating backwards. “I want to help you, if I can. If you’ll let me.”

Her eyes widen. “I don’t believe you. Uncle Julius says men are not to be trusted. Especially young men. He says I must always be on my guard because I am so beautiful.” She tilts her head and twists one of her ringlets about her finger. “Do
you
think I’m beautiful?”

“Very beautiful. But I hope you will realise that you
can
trust me, whatever your uncle says.”

She smiles at him coquettishly, all her fear apparently gone. “I will have to introduce you next time he comes. I will tell him you are my new beau and we will make him
very
jealous. It is no more than he deserves, for not coming to visit me for a whole
week
.”

“Does he come often, then?”

“Oh yes, very often,” she replies carelessly. “He says he cannot bear to be without me. Because he loves me dearly and no-one will ever treasure me as he does. It is our special secret, and I must never tell anyone. Not even my closest friend.”

“Does she live here too?”

“Oh yes. We used to have rooms next to each other, until I became ill.” Her face clouds and she dandles the doll a moment before flinging it on the bed. “Such a long time it was, that I was sick. But Uncle Julius says we may be allowed to see each other once again, when she is well. And if I am very good.”

“Is your friend sick too?”

The young woman nods vigorously. “But they tell me she is getting better and I will see her very soon.”

There is a noise in the passage and the woman in grey appears, labouring a little from the effort of climbing the stairs.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” she begins in an irate tone, dragging Charles out of the room and shutting the door behind him. “Don’t you know that these patients are extremely susceptible to disturbance or commotion of any kind? Storming unannounced into their private rooms in this way may have serious consequences for their course of treatment.”

“Treatment?
Treatment?
Do you call leaving an old woman in her own filth treatment? Do you call what you’re letting happen to that girl
treatment
?”

The woman glares at him. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”

“This girl—who put her here? It was Sir Julius Cremorne, wasn’t it?”

“Miss Adams is Sir Julius’s niece, certainly, though what business that is—”

“And he visits her. Spends time with her. In this room—behind a locked door.”

The woman gives him a venomous look. “She is his ward. He is entitled to privacy.”

“And is he entitled to have her dress like a nine-year-old child?”

“Clara Adams came to us when she was around that age. Do not be fooled by her charming appearance—when she first arrived here her language was most unseemly and her conduct decidedly inappropriate in one so young. We have—by dint of patience and the careful application of suitable remedies—brought her to a state of comparative calmness. It comforts her to wear such clothes, and we see no harm in it.”

“And do you see no
harm
in practising a barbaric form of brain surgery that has left its hapless victim little short of cataleptic and scarcely able to walk or talk?”

It’s the young doctor; he’s coming towards them down the corridor, his handsome face as angry as Charles has ever seen it. He gestures back the way he’s come, his hand trembling with suppressed fury. “There’s a young girl along the hall here who still bears the scars of that out-moded procedure. And another chained to her bed and strapped into a strait-jacket.”

“I can assure you”—the woman’s voice is rising—“that Miss Augusta had been subject for years to debilitating seizures of the most alarming kind. We were assured by the doctor that trepanation was perfectly safe, and had been carried out with great success on many similar cases, and I am pleased to say she has not had a single attack
since that time. The operation was, therefore”—this with a pointed look at the doctor—“a
complete success
. As for Miss Caroline—well, I am afraid it is well nigh impossible to induce her to demonstrate the self-control fitting to one of her sex without resorting to such restraints. Without them she will refuse her medicines, or conceal them from the staff, and become so unruly as to be a constant disturbance to the other patients, tearing her clothes and laughing immoderately, while at other times descending into fits of sulkiness that last for days on end.”

“So you manacle her in a strait-jacket,” says the doctor grimly.