32

“Mr Lawrence... Mr Lawrence!”

Alice’s voice, combined with the heavy rapping on the front door, awoke Lawrence.

He glanced at the bedroom clock, 7.08 am, then went over to the front window and looked out: Bill Griffin along with two uniformed policemen and three men in suits and derbies he hadn’t seen before. Probably more file papers or something else they wanted from the house. Hadn’t they collected enough the past two days?

Lawrence opened the window and called out. “I’ll be down in a minute, gentlemen.”

Bill Griffin and one of the policemen looked up at him, but the others were distracted by Alice opening the front door.

It took Lawrence two minutes to freshen up and get dressed, by which time Alice had invited the men in and they were grouped in the hallway. One of the suited men stepped forward.

“Mr Lawrence Bidell?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Edward Hicks. I’m attached to United States Immigration Authorities. It is my duty to inform you that it appears the terms of your ward and care with Mr Jameson have been breached.”

Lawrence looked at Hicks, then at Griffin. “Is this some manner of joke?”

“No, it’s no joke,” Griffin said flatly. “These men are here to escort you to a secure establishment such as Bellevue where you’ll be taken care of.”

“I believe in this instance it will be Blackwell’s Island,” Hicks commented. He looked at one of the men behind him, who nodded. “That’s where it was agreed would be more suitable given his condition.”

Blackwell’s Island? Nineteen hundred inmates with another five thousand plus assorted convicts and patients spread between the adjoining penitentiary, almshouse and hospitals for smallpox and incurables. Lawrence recalled the statistics and the comparisons to London’s Bedlam, and was still lost in that contemplation as Griffin yanked his arms behind him and snapped on the handcuffs.

Lawrence half-turned, straining against the restraint. “This is outrageous.”

“That as may be,” Griffin said. “I suggest you take that up with your master. He’s the one who signed the papers that in order to maintain your ward he wouldn’t be involved with any criminal activity.”

Lawrence was hustled outside to the waiting police wagon. Two yards from the wagon a photographer had set up his camera on a tripod, and at his side was a reporter with his notebook.

The camera flashed as Lawrence approached. He was bundled into the back by the two uniformed men while Griffin hung back a moment to talk to the reporter.

The reporter was a twenty-seven year-old called Theobold Behrens, eager to rise up the ranks at the New York Post by attaching to a bold story.

So he’d been first on the scene when Jameson had been arrested and first to file a story. One story or two? Or a main feature with the second story riding on the same page in a side column?

He chewed at the end of his pencil for a moment as he deliberated. Then he started hitting the iron keys on his typewriter again.

Behrens’s first story in the Post had been picked up by Reuters in London.

Julius Reuter had switched from homing pigeons to telegraph some twenty years before and was one of the first to subscribe to the Trans-Atlantic wire established in 1890. American news stories were then fed to every major newspaper between London and Berlin.

One of those was a provincial newspaper in Guildford, Surrey. To a young reporter there, the name Finley Jameson attached to attacks on prostitutes struck an uncomfortable chord – though it took him most of the day searching through back issues to uncover why.

Reading the article, he could see why it had been picked up locally rather than by the London press. He headed up to the first floor to see his editor, taking the steps two at a time.

As the newspaper presses churned either side of the Atlantic, the engine churned on the small steamboat carrying Lawrence to Blackwell’s Island.

Only half a mile from the East River docks, its cluster of brown granite buildings with castle turret roofs made it look more like a fortress. An early morning mist shrouded the island as the steamboat approached, lending it an ominous, mysterious aura.

But there was little mystery in Lawrence’s mind. Images of Bedlam were still embedded in his mind as if it was only yesterday. He could practically picture every yawning scream and spasm-wracked body; the straitjackets and leather-strapped chairs, the cloths wedged between teeth and icy water thrown to break fits.

And as those images gripped him he started gently rocking back and forth in time with the churning rhythm of the steamboat’s engine.