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MARY FELT UTTERLY EXHAUSTED on the train ride up to Dillmont the next morning. The night hadn’t given her a single wink of sleep, for all her agonized worrying. She kept imagining Christena being dosed with some dreadful medication.
After her encounter with Merton Olcott the afternoon before, she hadn’t wasted a moment. She had rushed to the concierge’s desk, demanding to know if there was any way humanly possible to get to Dillmont that evening. The man behind the desk was sympathetic, but said that the last ferry had gone. And, in any event, there wouldn’t be a train from St. Ignace to Dillmont until morning.
It was only with a great deal of persuasion, over an early breakfast Wednesday, that she and Edmond had managed to keep Paul from joining them. He wanted to come along, he said, to prevent them from making an even bigger mess of things than they already had. But Mary pointed out that it would be hard to explain his presence at Westerholm. Who was he supposed to be?
No, she had insisted, it was best for him to stay on Mackinac and await their return Thursday morning. Besides, he was scheduled to shoot the woodland portrait of Judge Tolliver and his wife, who were leaving that afternoon to head back to Sault Ste. Marie.
Paul might not have agreed to stay, had Mary told him about her most recent encounter with Merton Olcott. But she had kept that unsettling story from both him and Edmond. What good would it do to tell them? The plan was already in motion to retrieve Christena, and that’s what they all needed to focus on right now.
As the train rattled along the rails through the woods, Mary and Edmond discussed how they would handle things once they arrived at Westerholm. Their plan was to walk in and simply ask for the release of Mabel Roy, to explain that Mr. Roy had undergone a change of heart about her detention in the asylum. Edmond would express regret at having taken up the time of the doctor and nurses for no good reason, and would tell them to keep the balance of the one hundred dollar payment, for their trouble.
Once they had reclaimed Christena, Mary would find out if she had located Agnes Olcott. If so, Mary would immediately telegraph Clara McColley, and let her take up the matter with the police. That would truly be the end of Mary’s case.
As she and Edmond trudged out of the Dillmont station onto the town’s dusty main street, Mary glanced around nervously. She had not seen Merton Olcott on the ferry or the train, but she figured he would be heading back to Dillmont, too.
Their first stop was Mrs. Wingate’s guesthouse, where they booked three rooms for that evening. The landlady agreed to drive them to Westerholm, though she boldly wondered why. But Mary and Edmond politely revealed nothing. In fact, they said very little on the ride out to the asylum. The situation was so grave that normal banter seemed not only pointless, but depressing. Nothing would be right until Christena was safely in hand.
Mrs. Wingate dropped them off just outside the arched gate with the big sign that said WESTERHOLM in flowing script. Mary lowered her veil, and she and Edmond walked onto the asylum grounds. After climbing the entrance stairs, they once again found Nurse Gillis seated behind the desk in the main lobby. She was helping an older lady, and didn’t seem to notice Mary and Edmond as they came inside.
“Now, Mrs. Nowak,” said the nurse, “you’re saying that your granddaughter, Miss Yates, will be coming to visit Mrs. Voelker tomorrow afternoon. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right,” replied the visitor. “Mrs. Voelker is an old friend of the family and took care of Sally when she was little. Sally is in teacher’s college, you know, but home for the summer. My granddaughter always makes a point to visit with dear Mrs. Voelker, even if the poor woman is not quite herself these days.”
Nurse Gillis nodded. “I’ll leave a note to let the attendants know that Miss Yates will be coming.”
As the old woman departed, Mary and Edmond stepped up to the desk. If the nurse was at all surprised to see them again so soon, her tone and manner didn’t betray it.
“Good morning,” she said, “and welcome back to Westerholm. How may we help you?”
Edmond took off his hat and held it in his hands. “Well, as you know, I left my wife with you two days ago, and I wish to talk to Dr. Applegate about her.”
The nurse looked from Edmond to Mary, then sniffed very subtly, as if still disapproving of the veiled hussy. “Dr. Applegate is not on duty today. I’ll go see if Superintendent Stanley has time to see you.” She left and returned a moment later, directing them to the superintendent’s office.
Dr. Stanley, a somber, professorial-looking man, greeted Edmond and Mary from behind his desk, and invited them to sit down. He apologized that Dr. Applegate was not there to discuss Mrs. Roy’s case. “But I have her records here and perhaps I could deal with any concerns you may have.”
“Well,” Edmond replied, “I’ve been thinking it over quite a lot and I realized that whatever Mabel’s problems, it might be best to take her back home to Ishpeming and try to deal with them there. Fact is, I just feel a bit guilty about dumping her into this place. Not that there’s anything wrong with Westerholm. But I miss the old girl. And I’d like to have her back. Of course, you folks can keep the unused part of the payment I made.”
The doctor’s expression grew grave. Mary suddenly felt uneasy.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Roy,” he said, “it’s not that simple.”
Mary’s stomach turned in knots. This was not what she expected.
“What do you mean?” Edmond snapped. “I understood it was my decision as Mabel’s husband to place her in here. And now, as her husband, I require that she be released to me.”
Dr. Stanley gave him a practiced look of concern, mixed with a bit of studied regret. “Normally we would abide by the husband’s wishes. But when a patient exhibits violent behavior, we prefer to keep her under watch for a time. Mrs. Roy, I’m afraid, may be a danger to others, as well as to herself.”
“I don’t understand,” Edmond continued, his voice quivering with a real anger that mirrored what Mary was feeling.
The doctor took a deep breath, as if preparing for an unpleasant task.
“Yesterday, on her first full day at Westerholm, Mrs. Roy was seen by one of the attendants stealing a piece of jewelry, a little emerald bracelet, that belonged to another patient.”
Mary couldn’t believe her ears. Never, ever would Christena do such a thing. Why would she, when she had money enough to buy all the emerald bracelets she wanted?
“Ridiculous,” Edmond spat. “Chris... I mean Mabel would never steal anything!”
With the cool detachment of a skilled alienist, Dr. Stanley made his voice go even calmer in the face of Edmond’s anger. “She was confronted by Willis Flugum, the attendant who witnessed the theft, and asked to produce whatever might be in her pocket. She refused. He attempted to remove the item, to display the evidence of her transgression, and she assaulted him. He ended up with several scratches on his face.”
Mary felt a fury rise inside her. This little gambit had clearly been concocted by Olcott in cahoots with his friend Flugum. They had a good notion of what Mary and her companions were up to, and they needed to put Christena out of action—before she could expose Olcott’s deceit.
If there were any scratches on Flugum’s face, they were probably self-inflicted. Or Christena might have been defending herself. But it would have been difficult for her to convince anyone of her innocence. Mary didn’t want to imagine what her aunt must be feeling right now. Would she ever be able to forgive Mary for making such a muddle of things?
Edmond finally seemed to have found his voice again. “Now, see here,” he protested. “I’m not leaving without my wife.”
“Don’t worry about Mrs. Roy,” the doctor said with maddening equanimity. “We find that solitary confinement is a very effective therapy. It allows the patient to consider her behavior in an environment with no external stimuli. So we have placed her in a locked room. I shouldn’t think it would take more than a week for your wife to come around, Mr. Roy. And you’ll thank us in the end.”
Edmond gave Mary a desperate look, as if asking for guidance, but she merely stood and nodded toward the door. Much as she wanted to reveal Olcott and Flugum’s treachery to the doctor, she couldn’t very well make that accusation without confessing to her own and Edmond’s duplicity in the affair.
For the time being, Merton Olcott, it seemed, had the upper hand. But Mary MacDougall had no intention of leaving Dillmont again without Christena at her side. And she had a fair notion of what she needed to do to make that happen.
* * *
“THANK HEAVENS PAUL didn’t come,” Edmond muttered as they left the building. “He would have socked that sawbones silly, and tore down every wall in the place to find Christena.”
“Don’t think I didn’t consider it myself,” Mary huffed, as she marched double-quick back toward town.
“Well, we can agree that it’s finally time to call the police.” By now, Edmond was almost trotting to keep up with her, even with his longer legs. “It might take a day or two, but they’ll get this disaster cleared up and fetch her out of there.”
Mary stopped dead in her tracks and pivoted to face him. She had put the man through so much. But she needed to ask him for one more very big favor.
“I understand how you feel, Edmond,” she said. “But they have Tena in a locked room. By tomorrow she could be drugged out of her mind.” She gave him a pleading look. “I am begging you to indulge me one last time.”
Edmond gave a desolate laugh, as if he expected as much. “What are we going to do then? What’s the plan?”
“As you may recall,” Mary said, “a certain Miss Sally Yates is scheduled to visit her grandmother’s friend, Mrs. Voelker, tomorrow.”
“Yes, I remember the old lady in the lobby telling that to the nurse. But I don’t see how Sally Yates is going to be much help to us.”
“Ah, but she is. Because Miss Yates is going to arrive early. Tonight, in fact. Just after supper. And she will look very much like Miss Mary MacDougall.”
