We found ourselves pitched ashore on a wharf used by all kind of commercial craft. There was no passenger terminal nor any facility for travellers. The island boat was for deliveries, not people. I had to hold on to Jane because she was unsteady on her feet without the use of her arms and the boards of the wharf were wet and slippery. Once on dry land we stood looking about, utterly lost on the fringe of the city. Seeing our helplessness, a passing sailor stopped and said, ‘If you take that street there you will find cabs passing to and fro, sir.’ I thanked him and we followed his advice. A cold wind blew off the river and the street itself was grey with slush. Sure enough, we saw a cab almost straight away. I made sure Jane’s cloak was wrapped tight around her so the straitjacket wasn’t visible and then hailed it and asked the driver to take us to the railroad depot.
Inside the cab I reached under Jane’s cloak and unfastened the straps of the straitjacket and she slipped it off. I rolled it up tight and opened the travelling bag and squeezed it inside with my own clothes. ‘We cannot risk leaving it in the cab,’ I whispered to her. ‘It would be noticed immediately by the next passenger and put us in the cab driver’s mind. We must take care not to leave a trail behind us that would be easy to follow.’
We reached the depot safely and made our way to the main concourse, where there was a large departure board with all the destinations displayed upon it together with the times of the morning’s trains.
‘We will head for St Louis,’ I said to Jane. ‘That should be far enough west to be beyond reach of anyone here.’
‘You would take me with you, sir?’ she said. ‘But why? You have helped me escape from that place and given up your post to do so. If you take me any further, you risk more trouble for assisting me.’
I knew she was right. Once the hue and cry was raised, they would be hunting for the two of us together and it would be harder to avoid notice. But the truth was I could not bear to give her up just yet. I had grown fond of her company after being alone inside my head for so long. And yet, even as I thought this, a shadow passed across me, that old familiar feeling that I had resolved to bury for good. There had been a quickening of the pulse and a sudden hunger in the pit of my stomach when I had my hands beneath her cloak undoing the straitjacket. I could almost have fainted at the touch of her long and slender neck. Was I quite sure I had not allowed my fingers to linger a moment longer than necessary there?
‘I will get you to St Louis, where you will be out of danger, and we will decide there what you can do afterwards. Now, let’s see when the next train is.’
We both looked up at the departure board.
‘Oh, it’s not for another hour,’ she said.
I looked at her and then back at the board. She was right. It was another hour. For a moment I did not know what to say. My head was in a spin and I could not think. I could feel the pulse racing in my brow. I looked around the concourse to see if there were any cops. I looked back at Jane Dove. She smiled back at me, innocence personified.
What a conceited fool I had been! All this time, all these long weeks, I had been in the presence of a great actress; she had upstaged me quite. I had not appreciated her artfulness until now, when she made her first, and only, mistake.
I tried not to appear flustered. I handed her the bag and said, ‘Look after this a moment, while I go and buy the tickets, and then we’ll take some refreshment.’
It was with a heavy heart that I walked over to the ticket booth. The words stuck in my throat when the clerk asked me what I wanted and I tried to speak and he had to ask me again. ‘A single ticket to St Louis,’ I said at last.
I pocketed the ticket and returned to Jane. ‘Let’s get something to drink,’ I said, and led her to a bar next to the depot. We found a table and she sat down at it. I asked her what she wanted and she said tea. I fetched it from the bar, along with a large glass of beer for myself. I had a sudden terrible thirst and also I needed Dutch courage for what I had to do.
Jane Dove sat and prattled happily, about what I hardly knew. I was only half listening, looking at her and thinking what a great shame it was and yet, at the same time, glad that I could give in to the old feeling with a clear conscience. She could not be left to tell everyone who I was and where I was going. Jack Wells had to remain dead. All this was whizzing through my mind when I realised she was asking me something.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Why, sir, I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I’ve said,’ she said, laughing. ‘I asked if you would fetch me some sugar, please.’
I went to the counter and asked the assistant, who gave me a small dish and a spoon. I returned to Jane and she stirred some into her tea. She took a sip.
‘That’s better. They gave us tea with no sugar at the hospital,’ she said.
I took a swig of beer. Her whole face glowed. The dark hollows in her cheeks were gone.
We finished our drinks in silence, each occupied with our own thoughts. I looked out at the station clock. There were still forty-five minutes to the train. Just then a train guard in his uniform sat down at the next table.
I indicated him with a nod of the head. ‘That man is a railroad detective,’ I whispered to Jane. ‘I don’t like the way he’s looking at us. I think we should go.’ Without giving her the chance to disagree, I picked up the bag, stood up and walked out, with her following.
Outside I said, ‘We should avoid the concourse, just in case. It’s best not to be visible until it’s time to board the train. We don’t want people noticing us and remembering where we went. Let’s find somewhere quiet.’
My heart was beating fast now and I could feel the sweat break on my brow. My head was swimming and I had to tell myself to get a grip. I had done this kind of thing so many times before; I must not let myself weaken now. I must not allow my demeanour to give me away.
I led her to the end of the row of tracks. The last one proved to be a siding. At the end of it stood a train shed. Its roof sagged and the windows in the side were broken. It looked derelict and unused. My legs were wobbly and I could hear the catch in my throat as I said, ‘Let’s stroll down there, where we’ll be out of sight. We can head back just before the train leaves.’
There was nobody about. The platform came to a dead end, but we were still too much in the open. ‘Down here,’ I said, indicating a length of rusted track that was obviously no longer in use. At its end stood the derelict shed. ‘We can hide in there.’
She looked at me warily. ‘I’m not sure we should, sir. Something about it scares me. It looks so abandoned and bleak.’
I stepped onto the track and began to walk along the middle. I felt unsteady and there was a tremor in my voice, try as I might to sound confident. ‘Nonsense. You’ll be perfectly safe. You’re with me.’
I had the bag in one hand and took hold of her hand with the other. She made no attempt to move and I had to pull her along so that she stumbled after me. Inside the shed there was the smell of rotten wood. The light through the cracked and dusty windows was dim. There was an old locomotive, bronzed with rust, and bits of abandoned rolling stock. I felt suddenly faint.
I let go Jane’s hand and took out my handkerchief and wiped the sweat off my brow. Jane stood watching me, her eyes full of suspicion. I took a step toward her. She backed off.
‘Come now, Jane, don’t be silly. It’s only me. I thought we were friends.’ I took another step forward.
She took another back. ‘Sir, please, you are frightening me.’
I looked at her long white neck. I remembered Caroline Adams’s neck, the crunch of the bones; I remembered all those other pale necks, all those dead chickens. And then, unaccountably, there were suddenly two Jane Doves before me, no three, no more, whirling around me, my head spinning like a top.
‘I have to admit you had me, Jane. You suckered me completely, right up until today. Then you made your only mistake.’
The silence was broken by the distant sound of a train whistle.
She nodded. ‘You mean the departure board?’
I smiled.
‘Sir, it wasn’t a mistake.’
I took another step toward her, but this time she stood her ground. All at once the earth beneath seemed to tip and I thought it was an earthquake, but it wasn’t the earth that was moving, it was me.
I doubled over and was sick. I sank to my knees.
‘I wanted to see what you would do. To see if you would show yourself as your newspaper self. Oh, sir, what an evil man you are.’
‘You should not have tried to outmanoeuvre me, Jane. You are about to find out just how evil. This damned fever will not stop me.’
‘Sir, it’s not a fever. It is all the sleeping powder I found in the bag while you were fetching the sugar. I put it in your beer, sir. Do you think I would follow you to such a lonely place as this otherwise?’
I stared at her. She was looking at me as you might a dying dog. I fell face down at her feet. She stepped over me and picked up the bag. I heard her undoing the clasp. She began tugging at me and turned me over on my back. I could not move a muscle.
‘Now, sir, in which pocket did you put the ticket? It was only one ticket, wasn’t it? You were not going to waste money on a ticket you would not use.’
I tried to speak, but no sound would come. My eyes were growing heavy and I struggled to keep them open. I watched as she tucked the ticket inside the top of her dress. She bent over the bag but my eyes were blurred and I could only just make out her shape. I felt her hands on me, pulling at me, and then nothing, everything was black.
I had one of those dreams where you know all along you are in a dream and yet you cannot leave. I was in the henhouse at my uncle’s farm. I was sitting on the floor with my back against a post, unable to move. I was watching Jane Dove. She was walking among the birds and every so often she would pick one up and twist its neck. She had such wonderful technique that I was full of admiration and I wanted to applaud. Except I could not move my hands. My arms were completely numb. And then I heard a man’s voice and felt a hand upon my shoulder, shaking me. It was a great struggle to open my eyes, so heavily lidded were they. In the end I got them open and saw two policemen standing over me. I tried to scramble to my feet, but my arms were pinned. I looked down at myself and saw the straitjacket.
‘It’s exactly as the note said,’ I heard one of the policemen say, ‘lying here in a straitjacket.’
‘I’m not sure it’s him, though, the Wells fella,’ said his colleague. ‘I remember the posters of him.’
‘Ah, don’t you be so certain of that. Take away the beard and he’d look different.’
‘I am … I am John Shepherd,’ I said, ‘Doctor John Shepherd. ‘I – I’ve been tied up like this by a patient. Now, take this thing off me, would you?’
The first policeman shook his head. ‘Oh, no, sir, I don’t think we can do that. I think we need to take you down to the precinct house and see what the captain has to say about all this.’
They bent down and grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me to my feet. ‘I’ll willingly come with you,’ I said, ‘if you’ll only take this thing off me. I’m not a lunatic.’
‘That’s as maybe, sir, but if you don’t mind, I think we’ll leave things as they are for the time being. It will save getting the handcuffs out.’
They began to drag me off. My head seemed to explode with the sudden scream of a train whistle, although then again, maybe it wasn’t that at all, maybe it was me.