We drove back to the outskirts of London, to Rosebank Gardens, the hospital where the stretcher-bearer had claimed to be working when he enlisted using Robin Reid’s name. The front gate was not only closed, it was also locked, with a guard posted in the booth. He let us through without requiring our names or purpose for our visit. Alex suggested that meant the guard was there to keep people inside, not unscheduled visitors out.
It was a lovely sunny day, perfect for driving with the Vauxhall’s top down, and equally perfect for sitting in the garden or walking around the manicured lawn. Several patients dressed in loose-fitting clothes either sat and read or wandered about. Some used crutches or wheelchairs, or had visible scars. One man even wore a mask that covered half his face. Others appeared to have no physical injuries at all. Nurses in crisp white uniforms mingled with them, chatting or reading to the patients. All turned suddenly toward us as we drove up the gravel drive. One man fled back into the building, and another started to shout “Stop!” over and over. Two others began to rock back and forth. We apologized for upsetting them, but the kindest thing we could do was enter the building so the patients could no longer see us.
The manor house wasn’t as old or as grand as Laughton College, but it was impressive with a blush-pink climbing rose framing the entrance and blue campanula bobbing amongst the white daisies running the length of the facade. Rose beds added color to the vast green lawn, although there seemed to be no pattern to their locations on the estate. The house and garden could have been in the country, so peaceful was it. London felt like a world away.
We followed the sign to the office and spoke to the director’s assistant. He was unwilling to inform the director that we wished to see him, until Gabe mentioned we were consultants for Scotland Yard. As discussed in the motorcar, Alex remained in the outer office to question the assistant and any other staff while Gabe and I went through to the director’s office.
“This is a fine facility,” Gabe began as we sat after introductions. “One that’s much needed, in my opinion.”
The hands of Dr. McGowan, clasped on the desk in front of him, were smooth, the nails neatly trimmed. He’d taken the same precise care with his mustache, following the curves of his top lip. His gray hair was impressively thick for a man aged in his mid-fifties and slicked back with so much pomade that I doubted it would move even in a gale. “Thank you, Mr. Glass. We do our best for these troubled souls. Did you serve?”
Finally, someone who didn’t know Gabe’s story! “I did.” He nodded at the window that looked out to the lawn. One of the patients was visible as he sat on a chair, the scarred side of his face turned to the sun. “They seem well.”
Dr. McGowan turned to follow his gaze before smiling back at Gabe. “They’re some of our better patients who are making marvelous progress. They’ll likely be released soon.”
“There are others?”
“We’re currently home to fifty-eight returned soldiers, all of them London-based. Their relatives come to visit when they can, although they’re encouraged to make an appointment during visiting hours. Unscheduled visitors can upset some of the patients, as you noticed when you arrived.”
“Our apologies. If we’d known, we would have made an appointment.”
Dr. McGowan’s smile was forgiving.
“You only treat shell-shocked returned soldiers?” Gabe asked.
“Correct.”
“And before the war?”
“Our clinic has always been a place of recuperation for the mentally infirm. You say you’re searching for a missing man, Mr. Glass. How is he connected to Rosebank Gardens?”
“We’re looking for Robin Reid. Is the name familiar to you?”
“I’m afraid not. We have so many patients come and go, and I’ve worked here for many years. It’s impossible to remember them all.”
“How long have you worked here?”
He took a moment to calculate. “Thirty years. Goodness, I hadn’t realized it was that long.”
“Are you certain no one by that name has worked here or been a patient here? This would have been before the war, or in its early stages.”
Dr. McGowan shook his head. “I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell.”
I showed him the photograph of Robin, but he shook his head again.
“What about a man with a birthmark on his cheek here.” Gabe pointed to his face. “He was a tall, strong fellow with a Liverpudlian accent.”
“Oh, yes. I remember him. He was an orderly. Foster was his name. Bill Foster.” He frowned. “What does he have to do with your missing Robin Reid?”
“He enlisted as a stretcher-bearer in late ’14 using that name.”
Dr. McGowan sat back. “Good lord. How extraordinary. Why not his own name?”
“That’s what we’re trying to discover. He died at Ypres in ’15 and Robin Reid’s parents were informed of the death. Their son went missing in 1894 and hadn’t been heard from since, but they accepted the War Office’s notification of his death on the battlefield. However, our investigation has uncovered that the man who died wasn’t this man.” Gabe pointed to the photograph. “He wasn’t Robin Reid. His military papers stated that he worked here as an orderly, and his commanding officer gave us the description we just gave you.”
“Of Bill Foster,” Dr. McGowan muttered. “Extraordinary.”
“Did you know he enlisted?”
“Not for certain, but we all assumed when he didn’t show up for work one day. He was very patriotic and wanted to sign up as soon as they asked for volunteers, even though he was a little older than most of the boys who enlisted at that time.”
“Was it unusual for him not to confide in anyone?”
“Not particularly. Foster kept to himself. Each to their own, as we say here at Rosebank.”
“Was Bill Foster here in the nineties?”
“He started a few years after me, so yes. I started in 1890 and I’d say he arrived in…” Dr. McGowan’s gaze drifted to the ceiling as he tried to remember. “…in ’93.”
“May we look at his employee file, please. Also, can you look for a file for a patient named Robin Reid.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Glass, but our files are confidential. Due to the highly sensitive nature of our work here, I cannot share that information without a court order.”
Given our investigation was unofficial, we wouldn’t be granted one.
“Foster wasn’t a patient,” Gabe pointed out. “He’s also deceased.”
“Even so…” Dr. McGowan’s thumbs parted before coming together again on the desk.
“Can you at least tell me how old Bill Foster would have been when he left here in ’14.”
“Let me think. He was relatively young when he started here in ’93, so my guess would be late thirties, early forties.” He smiled. “Again, I am sorry, but my priority is the well-being of my patients. Many would be horrified if their friends knew they were here, particularly in those days. There’s some understanding of mental infirmity now, but back then, there was dreadful stigma attached to anyone who came to a place like Rosebank.” He stood and put out his hand. “Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Glass.
Gabe shook it. I put out mine and Dr. McGowan shook it, too, but it was limp. He opened the door to the outer office where Alex was studying a photograph on the wall. We thanked the doctor and left.
“Any luck with the assistant?” Gabe asked Alex.
“No. He kept telling me he had no authority to answer questions about patients or staff.”
Alex slid into the driver’s seat and Gabe cranked the engine. “How did you fare with the director?” Alex asked once we were all seated.
We waited until we were driving away from Rosebank Gardens before telling Alex the name of the man impersonating Robin Reid. I scribbled notes on my notepad as Gabe spoke.
“We know Bill Foster worked there many years as an orderly, beginning in 1893. He would have been about Reid’s age.”
“A year before Robin went missing,” Alex said. “You think he was a patient here and that’s how they met?”
“I do. For some reason, Foster used Reid’s name, age and address on the enlistment form when he joined the army.” Gabe turned to me in the back seat. “Robin’s old school friend said he became nervous, so it’s conceivable that he was being treated for anxiety here. Remembering that Robin was a similar age to him, Foster took his identity many years later.”
It made sense, except for the dates. “Mr. Rutledge said Robin’s character changed in 1890 or ’91 which is years before Foster began working at Rosebank. They couldn’t have met.”
Alex agreed. “Rutledge couldn’t have been mistaken about the date by that much. He said Robin changed in the couple of years before they finished school, and they both left in ’93.”
“Also wouldn’t his father have mentioned his son’s anxiety was being treated at the hospital?” I asked.
“Maybe not, because of the stigma surrounding his so-called mental infirmity,” Gabe said darkly.
Alex changed gears, a deep frown scoring his forehead. “Is that what Dr. McGowan called shell shock?”
“Yes. As if the men are weak and all they need is exercise to build them up to the way they were before.”
Both Alex and Gabe had more experience with shell shock than me. Gabe’s friend, Stanley Greville, even suffered from it, although he wasn’t as bad as some men.
Alex was also thinking about Stanley. “That reminds me. I was looking at the photographs on the walls while I waited. There were five, all taken a year apart beginning in 1915. Stanley was in one of them.”
Gabe showed no surprise. “I didn’t realize he was at Rosebank, but I did know he spent some time in a facility for treatment.”
“Could we ask him if he has any insights into the place?”
Gabe thought about it then shook his head. “Stanley doesn’t like discussing the months immediately after he demobbed.”
“We don’t have to ask anything personal, just some general questions. If he shows signs of distress, we’ll stop.”
Gabe’s thumb tapped his thigh, over and over, before he seemed to become aware of it and stopping. He checked the time on his pocket watch. “It’s only seven past four, so all right. We’ll call on him before he starts work.”
“He found work?” Alex asked.
“He stacks shelves in a pharmacy. Evenings are quieter, which he prefers. Shame he didn’t return to his studies, but at least it gets him out of the house and gives him an income.”
“Can we not call on him at eight minutes past four?” I teased.
He flashed a grin at me over his shoulder. “Sorry. I know it’s an annoying habit.”
“Not at all. I find it interesting.”
Gabe arched his brows at Alex. “Do you hear that? Interesting. Not annoying.”
Alex kept his gaze on the road ahead as he navigated the narrower London roads with their heavier traffic. “She hasn’t known you very long. Give it a few months more and she’ll be rolling her eyes along with the rest of us when you get pedantic about the time.”
Gabe turned to face the front and humphed. “My mother’s known me a long time and she doesn’t find it annoying.”
We should have stopped to telephone Stanley Greville and ask if we could call on him. Like the patients at Rosebank Gardens, he didn’t like surprise visits. At least we weren’t strangers, however, and after his initial hesitation upon seeing us on his doorstep, he widened the door and invited us inside. He rushed around his small flat, picking up books and organizing loose notes into stacks. He closed a journal he’d been reading and dusted cigarette ash off one of the armchairs positioned by the grate.
“Please, Sylvia, have a seat.”
I would have declined, since there weren’t enough chairs for everyone, but he seemed so earnest for me to be comfortable. I said no to tea, however, even though I was parched. He only had a small kettle on a portable stove and two cups that I could see, both in need of washing along with the pile of plates and a bowl.
Gabe picked up the journal Stanley had set aside on the desk and flipped to a page with the corner turned down, marking his position. “Blood as a carrier for disease? Interesting.”
“It’s all related.” Stanley picked up a tin of cigarettes and offered one to Gabe.
He declined. “Glad to see you’re taking an interest.” At Stanley’s frown, he held up the journal. “Juan and I have been worried about you.” Juan Martinez was another friend from the regiment Gabe and Stanley had served with. “You missed our last two gatherings and you haven’t returned telephone calls.”
“I’ve been busy with work, reading.” Stanley indicated the journal. “I’ll be at the next one. Tuesday?”
Gabe nodded. He returned the journal to the desk and sat on the edge. “We have some questions about the hospital you spent some time in after the war.”
Stanley lit his cigarette with a shaking hand.
Alex glanced at Gabe. “You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to.”
“Or if you’d rather speak to Gabe alone, Alex and I can leave,” I added.
Stanley drew deeply on the cigarette and blew out the smoke away from us. His hand still shook, but he tried to hide it by brushing his cheek and chin, then plugging the cigarette back into his mouth again. It was hard for me to imagine the man he’d once been, before these nervous habits took over, and without the sallow skin and bloodshot eyes. It was obvious he slept poorly and worried constantly. Perhaps he ought to check himself back into Rosebank.
“You don’t have to leave,” he said. “There’s not much to say about that place. The nurses are nice, and some of the doctors. Others consider us to be…weak of mind.”
“We just came from there,” Gabe said. “Alex saw you in one of the photographs.”
Stanley’s gaze slid to Alex then back to the cigarette, wedged between his fingers so firmly it was getting squashed. “I was a patient for about six months after coming home. I still go once a month, as an outpatient.”
“You must find the treatment helps if you keep going back.”
“Some of it is helpful. As I said, the nurses are nice. I like talking to them, that’s why I still visit. They listen, although I can see they don’t really understand. At least they pretend to.”
“The doctors didn’t?”
“They had their theories and never deviated from their treatments, even ones that didn’t work.”
“Ones they’ve used for a long time?”
Stanley shrugged. “Why do you want to know all this anyway? Are you investigating a magical crime? Or a book one?” He nodded at me.
“We’re looking for a man who disappeared years ago. He’s connected to Sylvia’s mother, and we hope finding him will help us find out more about Sylvia’s family.”
He blew smoke into the air. “Sounds intriguing.”
Gabe told him about Robin Reid’s disappearance and the orderly taking his identity when he enlisted.
Stanley stared at Gabe, smoke billowing from his nostrils. “He signed up before conscription? Idiot.”
“Do either of those names mean anything to you?” Gabe asked.
Stanley shook his head. “Before my time there.”
“True, but we wondered if you’d heard of them.”
He shook his head again.
I showed him Robin Reid’s photograph but there was no recognition in his eyes.
“If he was a patient there, then he had a psychological problem. That’s the term they use nowadays. Even before the war, Rosebank only took in those who weren’t altogether in their right mind.” He tapped his forehead with the fingers that held his cigarette. “It’s a smaller version of Bedlam, for people with money, or it used to be, so I heard, before the military took it over and threw the former patients out. I don’t think there were many left by then anyway, so the war probably saved the clinic from closing its doors forever. Did you ask the director if he knew either man? He’s been there for years and might remember.”
“He remembered Foster but not Reid,” Gabe said. “He wouldn’t give us any personal information about Foster and refused to check if Reid was a former patient.”
“I’m not surprised. McGowan wants the patients to feel safe. He’d tell us that no one will know we were there unless we wanted them to know. It was comforting, in a way. It was another form of shutting out the world. I needed that, in the beginning. Others still do.” He folded one arm over his chest and placed the cigarette to his lips before removing it again without inhaling. “How badly do you want to see those records?”
Gabe and Alex exchanged glances. “Badly,” Alex said at the same time that Gabe said, “It depends.”
Stanley placed his cigarette on a tin plate then joined Gabe at the desk. “I saw the records office once. It’s located on the first floor, in the western end of the building.” He withdrew a piece of paper and pencil from the top drawer.
Gabe, Alex and I crowded close as Stanley sketched a crude map of the house at Rosebank Gardens, complete with stairs, sleeping quarters, nurses’ stations, and an X to mark the storeroom where the files were kept.
“It’ll be locked,” he warned. “I’m not sure who’ll have keys.”
“Don’t worry about keys,” Alex said with a sardonic tilt of his lips.
Gabe clapped Alex on the shoulder and squeezed, hard. Alex winced. “Thank you, Stanley,” Gabe said. “We won’t be breaking in. That would be illegal.”
Stanley looked disappointed.
We thanked him and filed out of his flat. He saw Gabe take the sketch and tuck it into his pocket, but if anyone asked, he could claim we never mentioned breaking into the filing room at Rosebank Gardens, and it wouldn’t be a lie.
Willie refused to listen when I told everyone after dinner that I didn’t want them to break into the hospital. She dismissed me with a click of her tongue and a roll of her eyes and continued to give orders to Gabe and Alex with the officiousness of a military general.
“I’m serious,” I said, more firmly. “This is my investigation into my family, and I refuse to put anyone in danger because of it.”
She rolled her eyes again. “No one will be in danger. The patients will all be asleep.”
“They might have staff on night duty. We could be arrested if we’re found breaking and entering.”
“Why do you think I stay friends with Cyclops? It ain’t for his charm. It’s so he can get us out of sticky situations.”
Gabe cleared his throat. “May I point out that you’re the only one here who has been arrested. No one else has needed him to get them out of sticky situations.”
Alex smirked. “Except for that one summer when we decided to swim in the Serpentine in the middle of the night.”
“Is it illegal to swim in the Serpentine?” I asked.
Alex opened his mouth, but Gabe cut him off. “Getting back to the break-in. Willie, it’s Sylvia’s decision and we will abide by it.”
She smiled ever-so-sweetly at him, turned to me, and said, “Gabe was arrested for public drunkenness and nudity, not swimming.”
Gabe glared at her.
I pressed my lips together to smother my smile, and tried to focus on the task at hand, not on a youthful Gabe cavorting naked in the lake at Hyde Park. “There will be no breaking into the hospital. Not when we haven’t explored all other options.”
“Like what?” Willie asked.
“Like questioning Bernard Reid again. Based on Mr. Rutledge’s evidence of Robin’s behavioral change, it’s likely Robin underwent some sort of treatment that changed him around 1891. We should ask him about that, as well as why he never responded to Mr. Rutledge’s letters. Also, does he know anyone named Bill Foster?”
My string of questions built quite a case for my refusal to break into the hospital, one Willie couldn’t argue with. So, she pouted instead.
I’d thought about it all the way through Mrs. Ling’s multi-course meal and, in the end, I couldn’t justify it. The only time I’d broken the law was when Willie and I entered Lady Stanhope’s house one night and stole a book. It had been a terrifying experience. Immediately afterwards, I’d felt exhilarated, and more alive than ever. It wasn’t until later that I thought through the consequences, and how awful it would have been to be caught.
Willie acquiesced regarding breaking into the hospital, but brought up another, equally contentious issue. “We should speak to Thurlow.”
At least this time, I didn’t have to be the negative one. Gabe gave an emphatic shake of his head. “Definitely not. He tried to kill us after the card game.”
“You tried to cheat. I’d want to kill you too if you tried to cheat me.”
For once, Alex was on her side. “We can’t dismiss Robin’s connection to Thurlow at the time of his disappearance as inconsequential. We know Thurlow is unscrupulous. We know Robin owed him money. Put the two facts together and it spells danger.”
“If Robin owed money to Thurlow, why didn’t Thurlow try to get it from the Reids when Robin couldn’t pay? There’s no ransom demand, no contact at all. Bernard Reid wouldn’t have held that information back from us when he brought up Thurlow’s name.”
“Perhaps Thurlow went too far when he roughed Robin up in an attempt to get his money back, and Robin died, so no ransom demand was sent. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
It was a sobering thought, and only made Gabe reiterate his reluctance to question Thurlow. “He’s too dangerous, particularly now that he knows us, and doesn’t trust us. We wouldn’t even be able to get close to him.”
“True. It could only work if we sent someone he doesn’t know. Someone with experience in dealing with people like him, and is cool under pressure.”
The door to the drawing room opened and Murray entered, carrying a tray with a cup of tea for me. I’d asked for one after dinner finished as I didn’t feel like a brandy. The others had refrained from pouring themselves drinks out of politeness while I waited.
Murray’s arrival had Gabe and Alex exchanging knowing glances, although I couldn’t tell whether they decided the policeman-turned-footman should be sent to question Thurlow or not. Willie hadn’t noticed, nor had she considered Murray for the task. She was deep in thought when she asked him to pour her a bourbon.
The glare he gave her suggested she could have poured it herself, since the drinks trolley was in the room. He poured it anyway and bowed as he handed it to her. “Your bourbon, my lady.”
She frowned at him a moment before rolling her eyes. “All right, there ain’t no need to call me that. Your snide tone made your point well enough.”
Bristow entered and stood to one side near the door. “Are you in to see Lady Stanhope, sir?”
Alex and Gabe sighed.
Willie pulled a face. “What does she want?”
“Nothing from you, Lady Farnsworth,” Lady Stanhope quipped as she swept into the drawing room. “Good evening, everyone. You there, I’d like a brandy.”
Murray stiffened and didn’t move. Bristow poured the brandy instead and handed it to Lady Stanhope, who’d seated herself on the sofa between Gabe and me.
She took a large sip, draining half the glass. “Now, Gabriel,” she began, lowering the glass to her lap. “I have called on the newspaper that printed that article claiming you’re hiding your magic.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.” Gabe’s tone was far milder than the one I would have employed in his place.
“That’s what I told the journalist when he accused you of sending me. I decided not to tell you my plan to call on him, so you wouldn’t feel obliged to stop me. I was determined to get to the root of his information, and I knew you’d be reluctant to confront him over it. Besides, it looks better if the one confronting him has no personal attachment to you.”
She lifted her glass in salute, apparently to congratulate herself, and finished her brandy. She held the empty glass out and Murray stepped forward. Instead of refilling it, he placed the glass on the drinks trolley and stood there, hands behind his back. “I’d like another,” she demanded.
Murray didn’t move and Bristow had left.
Alex sat forward. “Did the journalist tell you where his information came from?”
Willie made a scoffing sound. “No journalist worth his salt is going to divulge that.”
Lady Stanhope’s smile was wicked. “I made him divulge it. You’ll never guess who his source was.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Hobson.”