The chophouse on the corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields is unusually busy for such a late hour. There’s a card-game under way in the corner, and amid the smell of sawdust and beer and tobacco-smoke, you can hear the clink of browns being laid as bets and a constant patter of gaming slang. So only the most curious customer, or those who have particular reasons of their own – as we do – would cast anything other than the briefest of glances in the direction of the stout black-suited man occupying the window seat, who is, to all appearances, a very commonplace sample of the human species. He’s taking his time over his coffee, this ordinary little man, and he drinks it very strong, but he seems on a second glance to be far more interested in what’s going on outside than what’s contained in his cup. His sharp little eyes have, in fact, scarcely left the windows of the large and darkened residence on the opposite side of the square, which is clearly visible from where he sits. Indeed the shop’s proximity to this house might explain his otherwise rather unaccountable choice of late-evening venue, since he must surely have a homely hearth and an equally homely wife, who keeps both his slippers and his supper warm and whose society he surely appreciates more than he does this noisy draughty corner. But then – he is gone. As sudden and unseen as he came. And if you look across the square now you will be too late to see what he saw – too late to observe that in all that tall forbidding facade, there was, just for a moment, a flicker of life.
Less than a minute later the same little man can be observed on the steps of that same house in the company of two young police constables who are – extraordinary though it sounds – in the process of taking a crowbar to the metal bolt nailed across the door. Once inside, the air in the great hall is thick with dark, but the little man is unperturbed – indeed, we can now see that he has a small bull’s-eye lantern with him, which he must surely have brought with this very purpose in mind. Leaving the two constables wheezing in his wake he takes the broad marble steps at a sharp pace, and comes to the door of Tulkinghorn’s chamber. And now it’s clear from the light reflecting up on to his face that he has not found what he expected. He stoops and inspects a pile of half-burned papers on the floor, reading a line here, and a word or two there, and then turns over the iron box to inspect the name emblazoned on the front. Then he lifts the lantern a little higher and looks about the room, throwing a pallid gleam on the blood-red walls. If there are clues that will tell him what has happened here, it will take a deductive genius to read them. But this, after all, is Mr Bucket of the Detective. And yet when he retraces his steps towards the stairs you can see that his expression is grave – graver, in fact, than we have ever yet seen it. In the last few days he has searched every inch of these chambers, and thought there was no secret in all this house of secrets that he had not laid bare. But there, it seems, he was wrong. For now, as he looks back down the way he came, he sees the pale outline of a door against the smooth plaster – the merest shadow of a shadow it is, and easily missed, but it is there.
Perhaps fifteen minutes have now passed since he saw the light in the window, and when he pushes open the hidden door and stands at the top of the stairs leading down to Tulkinghorn’s private museum there is no sound or movement below. He beckons to the constables – one of whom, we can now see, is none other than Sam Wheeler – and the three of them descend into the maze, the stout Bucket with his eagle eyes, and the others struck with wild surmise, as the arc of the lantern beam reveals shelf after shelf, and wall after crowded wall, one artefact after another emerging from the dark, sharp-edged in the glare and shimmering like the monstrous spectres in a travelling phantasmagoria. Mr Bucket is not a man easily or needlessly impressed, but he comprehends in a moment what a task it would have been to fashion this place. And likewise, even if he has neither the eye nor the mind for art, deception in all its forms is something of a speciality of his, and he perceives at once that whatever this place is, it is most certainly not what it first appears to be.
‘Look sharp now, my lads,’ he warns over his shoulder. ‘Don’t be breaking anything by your clumsiness, and mind you be watching where you put your feet.’
Knowing what we do about what has just happened here, it’s yet more agonizingly slow minutes before they reach the inner gallery, and turn the glower of the bull’s-eye on the wreck of Tulkinghorn’s treasured trove. Pieces of priceless antiquity lie in fragments about the floor and grind into red dust beneath their feet, and as the lantern beam swings round, the younger constable suddenly starts and cries out as a ghostly reflection of himself rears up before his eyes. Bucket stops and turns, but even as he does so Wheeler has reached the balustrade and seen what lies below.
‘Mr Bucket, sir – over here! Quick!’
In a moment the inspector is by his side, looking down into the stone sarcophagus, and if his face was grave before, it is lined with apprehension now. Apprehension that only increases when he realizes that in this hall of mirrors and distortions even the staircases are an elaborate hoax. Every corner they turn leads nowhere, and there’s a note of panic even in Bucket’s normally unruffled manner by the time they discover the hidden steps and penetrate to the lower level. Bucket rushes to the plinth where the sarcophagus lies and lifts the lantern. In the bottom of the trough, face down in a layer of blood, is the body of a young man. There’s a deep gash on the back of his head, but he’s breathing – he’s alive. And when he stirs slightly and raises his head, we can see that it’s Charles, and Bucket can see that it’s Charles, and there’s a look on the older man’s face now that seems to spring not just from relief but a deep affection. Something that might also explain the gruffness of his voice when he calls to the constable and tells him to fetch a doctor and be quick about it.
‘There’s a reputable man lodging at Portugal Street, no more than a step from here,’ he calls after him, then turns to Charles. ‘Hold up, my lad,’ he says kindly. ‘Hold up. I will stay with you until the doctor comes. Now you grip tight to me, there now, and we shall see if we can sit you up. Because that’s what a strong lad like you will want to do, of that I’m sure.’
His plump arms go round the young man’s shoulders with an almost fatherly tenderness, and eventually, slowly, Charles is not only upright, but able, holding hard to Bucket’s hand, to climb out of the coffin and sit heavily on the ground. By some miracle there seems to be nothing more wrong with him than bruises and cuts. But his speech is slurring slightly, and Bucket begins to wonder whether the injury to his head isn’t rather worse than it appears.
‘Did you see him?’ demands Charles, his chest heaving as if he’s struggling to breathe. ‘Did you see that boy? Tulkinghorn’s boy. He was here. He must be here. There’s no other way out.’
Bucket nods. That much he has guessed already. And indeed it is not so very difficult to deduce that there has been a desperate struggle in this place, and that Charles did not hurl himself over the balustrade on the whim of the moment.
‘Take the bull’s-eye, Wheeler,’ he says, beckoning to him, ‘and have a good look hereabouts. We’re after a stable-lad. Small and lean and pale-haired he is, but don’t you be underestimating him for all that.’
‘There now,’ he says amiably to Charles, after Sam has gone. ‘There’s no need to fret yourself over that lad of Tulkinghorn’s. We will find him, and we will discover what is at the bottom of all this.’
‘I had it there,’ says Charles, his breathing a little easier now. ‘In my hand. In the box. The letters. What Tulkinghorn’s been doing. What they’ve all been doing. I was piecing it together. And then— and now—’
He strikes his hand against the floor, angry and impotent, tears starting in his eyes as they have not done since he was a little boy.
Bucket watches him for a moment. ‘Two heads are often better than one. That’s my experience. How’s about you tell me what you found?’
‘That’s the whole point. I didn’t find anything – there wasn’t enough time. There were some references to an address in Hampstead, and to money being sent there, but I don’t know why, or even what sort of place it was. That box I had, the papers related to a baronet – I saw him tonight. His arms are a black swan—’
‘I know him,’ interrupts Bucket quietly. ‘I know him.’
‘Whatever Tulkinghorn did for him, he appears to have done exactly the same for Cremorne, some time before. God knows what – those damn lawyers seem to practise to deceive – but I do remember a letter from Tulkinghorn that said something like “based both on my own experience and that of my clients over many years, I can confirm that the establishment in question is ideally suited to dealing with delicate cases such as yours”. But as to what that “delicate case” actually was, I am none the wiser. Though I do know that there is something vile at the bottom of all this. Vile, and far-reaching, and of long standing. There is no other explanation.’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ says Bucket, in that careful way of his. ‘And yet I agree there would be no call for any of this – no need to have Boscawen done away with, or employ a villain like Robbie Mann, if there were not more to it than we have yet discovered.’
‘The stable lad – is that his name? You know him?’
‘Aye,’ replies Bucket, ‘I’ve had my eye on Robbie Mann for a good while. Abandoned in the Whitechapel workhouse he was, by a mother no better than she should be. I first came upon him when he was taken on suspicion of setting fire to a warehouse, down at Essex Wharf.’
‘Like at the rag and bottle shop.’
Bucket nods. ‘And from what I heard, the exact same method was employed on both occasions. After all, even a lad can lay his hand to a flagon of camphene, and no questions asked.’ He sighs. ‘No more than ten years old, Mann was, when he first crossed my path.’
‘But if he’d committed arson—’
‘Oh, I knew it, and he knew it, and he knew I knew it. But I had no evidence. I’ve kept half an eye on him always from that time, knowing I was likely to pick up his trail again, if I looked sharp.’
‘Nothing as could be laid to his charge in a court of law. Petty pickpocketing mostly. Even if he do frequent inns like the Sol’s Arms that you and I both know to be the haunts of far rougher thieves.’ Bucket’s face darkens. ‘Though bad rumours have come to my ear in the last few months. Seems Mann’s natural cruelty has been sharpened of late by a vicious and most unnatural pleasure in inflicting pain.’
Charles glances at him, then looks quickly away.
‘There was an incident with a poor half-starved cat I will not distress you with,’ continues the inspector, ‘but there was nothing then to suggest it would go further – no hint he would turn his malice on his fellow men. Or women.’
‘What I don’t understand is what could possibly have induced Tulkinghorn to employ such a blackguard?’
Mr Bucket waves his fat forefinger, which has lain quiet for much of the previous exchange. ‘Now that, my lad, is the pertinent question, if you don’t mind my saying so. For he knew, did Tulkinghorn, all about this lad. I told him so myself. It troubled me at the time, so it did, why he should want such a scoundrel in his service, but I could not work out the why of it. Now, it seems, we may be nearing our answer, and it may be the service Tulkinghorn had in mind had very little to do with the upkeep of his carriage.’
‘So you believe me? You actually believe me – even with no proof?’
Bucket sighs. ‘There was a time, my lad, when you’d not have needed to ask such a question. But recent events being what they are, you have become mistrustful, and I don’t rightly blame you. But you know me, and you should know that I could never condone anything crooked, and as to concealing it—’
Charles nods. There is a drilling ache in the side of his head and his vision is slightly blurred. ‘I’m sorry. I assumed that—’
‘That because I was assisting Tulkinghorn with one matter of a rather delicate nature, I must, of necessity, be doing the same with another, and worse. Nay, lad, all I have done, I have done for the other.’
He takes a deep breath. ‘And since all seems aright between us, I’ll tell you a thing I couldn’t tell you before. Though a brave lad like you will do me the justice of recalling that I tried to give you a hint on it, at the time. Suspicions I did have and that’s a fact, but they were of quite a different order. I knew about Cremorne and his friends, with their titles and their estates and their fine ways, but I believed their crimes to be crimes of greed. Greed and greed alone, mark you. And I had my reasons. There’s an old inspector friend of mine in the City New Police division who has been head over ears in a fraud case these three months now, and from what he told me – in confidence, mind – I was ready to lay a hundred pound that these men were mixed up in the very same business. So I bide my time, and I watch ’em. And when Tulkinghorn asks my help in identifying a mysterious woman seen one night by that young crossing-sweep, then naturally I accept, even if I wonder why such a minor matter should concern so mighty a man. But I told myself his motives were not my business, and my business was to fathom the fraud. But it seems all the while I was a long way off the mark, and the right direction was another way entirely.’
It’s the closest Bucket has ever come to admitting he’s wrong, but Charles scarcely notices. ‘I heard that there had been irregularities at Sir Julius’ bank, but as far as I could discover, his own associates lost larger sums than almost anyone else.’
‘Ah!’ says Bucket sharply, raising his portentous forefinger and tapping it against the side of his nose. ‘That was indeed what you were designed to think. And no doubt all sorts of pieces of paper can be brought for’ard to prove it. But from what I’ve been a-hearing, they have contrived very nicely to line their own pockets and all the money lost has made its way to their own private purses. And not before time, at least for some of ’em. That baronet you mentioned has so encumbered his estate by debts got by gaming, he inveigled an innocent young woman to marry him, merely to lay his hands on her fortune. A young woman who has now died not long since, and all unexpectedly.’
Charles frowns, as the memory returns to him. ‘A girl cruelly used, and cruelly wronged.’
Bucket turns to him with a question in his eyes, but it’s at that very moment that they hear the rush of footsteps and Wheeler returns with the lantern, alarmed and out of breath, to tell them that he has searched both gallery and house and of Robbie Mann there is no sign. Charles is on his feet before Sam has even finished.
‘And where do you think you’re going, my lad?’ says Bucket sharply.
‘God knows how that boy has managed to evade us, but if he has, there’s only one place now where we can hope for any answers – that address in Hampstead. We may be somewhat early for polite visiting hours, but to be frank, courtesy is the very least of my concerns.’
Bucket consults his pocket-watch, suddenly aware that the light seeping through from the hexagonal dome above them is not the sharp silver of moonshine, but the slow grey of a winter dawn.
When he looks up again at Charles, he sees that there is colour now in his cheeks even if the cut to his head is still bleeding. Now where, thinks the inspector impatiently, has that doctor got to?
‘Will you come with me?’ asks Charles, and there is possibly just the faintest hint of pleading in his voice.
Bucket shakes his head and gets to his feet. ‘The man who was once master here is to be buried this afternoon, and I have an official appointment to attend, as well as reasons of my own that require my presence. But I know, and you know, that this may not end well, and that being the case you had better be accompanied. Sam here will go with you. And all things duly considered, you had better have this.’ He reaches into his pocket, and we can see now that he has had Charles’ gun about his person all this time. Something else he must have brought with him with an exact purpose in mind. They look at each other for a moment, then Charles gives a slight bow of his head and stows the pistol in his coat.
They make their way back to the entrance-hall and find, much to Bucket’s relief, that the doctor has finally arrived. It’s the same young surgeon who attended the crossing-sweeper, and he seems just as startled as Charles to see who his patient has turned out to be.
‘I knew you lodged nearby,’ says Bucket matter-of-factly, though in due course Woodcourt will wonder how, and indeed why, the inspector has furnished himself with this information. ‘I’m reluctant to let this lad go a-rushing hither and thither without the say-so of a medical man.’
‘I’m perfectly recovered now,’ says Charles quickly, motioning Sam to go out into the square and look for a cab, ‘and I don’t have time for this.’
‘I’m afraid I agree with this gentleman,’ says Woodcourt, eyeing the new blood seeping through the bandage round Charles’ hand. ‘That injury alone looks to me to need further attention. If you wish, I will come along with you and the constable, and examine it on the way.’
And so it is that the three of them are in a carriage before sun-up, rolling swiftly north under a heavy sky, where a haunted light glows in the east. The streets are almost empty, save here and there a ragged child huddled in a doorway, and a few coke fires still glowing on street corners, ringed by a shabby crowd of beggars, some smoking, some sleeping on the cold ground, and some already beginning the grim business of survival, picking over the heaps of rubbish for bones, rotting fruit, or oyster shells. Bucket, for his part, and for all his talk of obsequies to attend, and preparations to make, turns back into the house when the carriage has gone, and makes his way back to the hidden door and the gallery below. Alone now, as is his preference, there is no nook, no shelf, no compartment, no drawer he does not examine and inspect, keeping his own mental account of everything he finds, and a memorandum on occasion in a large black pocket-book. And then he leaves everything exactly as he found it, and goes back up the stairs to the clerk’s hall, and the desk, and the door to the street.
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’ direction, that Sam, 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 realizes 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 forward. ‘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 connection – not only between this place and Cremorne, but between this place and the baronet of the black swan.
He turns to the woman, 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,’ says Charles, moving slowly 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?’ demands Charles. He is by now barely three inches from the woman, and towers over her.
‘I do not know who you are, 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.’
They turn. The man who has just emerged from the office is tall, with a heavy grey beard and a large gold watch, rather showily displayed.
‘I am the owner of this institution. 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,’ says 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 quickly 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’ 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 realize 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 one another, 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 looks 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’ 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,’ says the woman, her voice 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.
‘We use the camisole, yes. In her own interests.’
‘And was it in Miss Adams’ interests,’ interrupts Charles, ‘to be debauched time and time again by her own uncle?’
Woodcourt turns to him, his face grey. ‘Please tell me that is not true.’
‘My God, Woodcourt, I wish I could. She’s in there. One of I don’t know how many other young women incarcerated here by Edward Tulkinghorn over the years, for the sordid convenience of men like Julius Cremorne. How many more are there like Clara Adams?’ he says to the woman, seizing her by her thin arm. ‘How many other girls here have wealthy so-called protectors who are “entitled to their privacy”? Answer me, damn you!’
The woman starts to splutter a reply, but a look from Woodcourt silences her and he opens the door and disappears inside.
And then – louder now – closer now – they hear again what first brought them here. The sound of a girl screaming, accompanied now by the drumming of fists. ‘Help me – please! If there’s someone out there, please help me!’
It’s coming from the room at the farthest end of the passage, but the door will not give, not even to Wheeler’s sturdy shoulder. But Sam is not defeated yet. He starts back along the corridor to where the woman in grey is still standing,
‘Do you ’ave the key to this door?’
Charles has rarely seen his old friend so determined, and something of this must have communicated itself to the woman, because she puts her hand in her apron pocket without another word and hands him a heavy key. A moment later the locked door is open and there’s a young woman half-fainting, half-collapsed in Charles’ arms.
‘You have to help me,’ she gasps. ‘It’s all my fault. She’s gone, and it’s all my fault.’
Her eyes are wild and her face is stained with tears, and Charles is about to call for Woodcourt when he realizes with a shock that she, too, is wearing a grey merino gown. He frowns, ‘Do you work here?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m not a patient – I’m one of the nurses. My name is Alice. Alice Carley.’
‘So what on earth are you doing locked in this room?’
She looks at him, and then away, the tears falling.
‘I told Hester what had happened. But they made me do it – Mr Jarvis and that woman Darby. They made me do it.’
She’s becoming frantic, and Charles is relieved to see Woodcourt emerge into the corridor a few moments later and come quickly towards them. The doctor kneels by the sobbing girl. ‘I examined Miss Adams,’ he tells Charles in a low voice. ‘And your suspicions are, I am sad to say, entirely correct. I would not wish to see a sister of mine so knowing on such intimate subjects. Or any woman I hoped to marry,’ and here the shade passes across his face that Charles has seen once before.
‘And I’m afraid that is not even the worst of it,’ continues the doctor. ‘Miss Adams is with child, and it will not be her first.’
He has kept his tone low, but Alice Carley hears him all the same.
‘Not Clara! Oh, please, not Clara! You must believe me – I never knew it was Clara!’
‘I am a doctor,’ says Woodcourt gently. ‘There’s no need to be afraid. Just tell us what happened.’
He passes a hand over her forehead, and she is immediately calmer and more composed.
She takes a deep breath. ‘I swear I never knew Clara had had a baby, sir. But if she did, it won’t have been the only brought into the world in this place. There was another child born here not two months ago.’
Charles and Woodcourt exchange a glance. ‘I’ve seen no nursery,’ says the doctor, ‘heard no cry.’
Alice looks at him pleadingly. ‘They told me it was born dead. And you could tell, sir – there was no way the poor mite could have lived long – so tiny and twisted – with such an odd unnatural look about it. All the same—’
She stops, and bites her lip.
‘Go on,’ urges the doctor quietly. ‘Tell us from the beginning.’
She drops her eyes and shakes her head sadly. ‘One day in October, Mr Jarvis summoned me to his office, and told me that one of the patients had given birth to a stillborn. I didn’t know, then, whose baby it was – they’d kept Hester close for weeks, telling us she was ill and letting no one near her. And you’ve seen the shapeless gowns they make them wear – it was no wonder none of us knew. Mr Jarvis said he had no idea how it could have happened – that she must have “consorted” with young Mr Cawston, but I couldn’t see how that could be – none of the patients are allowed alone together without one of the nurses – never. And what would he have seen in such a queer misshapen little thing anyway? Mr Jarvis said it was all very regrettable—’
‘A favourite word of his, it seems,’ interrupts Charles bitterly.
‘– but they needed to dispose of the body. Discreetly, he said. Because above all else it was vital that they prevented a public scandal. I said I wanted nothing to do with it and we should summon the police, but Mr Jarvis made it very clear that I either went along with what he demanded, or I would lose my position. What else could I do?’ she pleads, looking from one to the other. ‘My whole family relies on me, now Pa is gone. Even with my wages, it’s barely enough to cover the rent.’
‘A fact of which Mr Jarvis is no doubt fully aware,’ says Charles. ‘So what did he ask you to do?’
‘He sat me down by the fire and started to tell me about a graveyard he knew near St Giles Circus. I remember the look on his face as he was talking, and thinking I must be in some horrible nightmare. He said this place was somewhere a child like this might be buried in consecrated ground without anyone even noticing – a place where plenty of young women got rid of babies they didn’t want. I was revolted at the very idea of it, but Mr Jarvis looked stern at me then and said I would lose my post – like that other girl who let Anne Catherick escape. So I told myself that if the babe really was dead when it was born, there could be little real harm. Especially if he was right and it was consecrated ground.’ She looks at Woodcourt, the tears starting again. ‘But that was before they gave me the baby. That woman had wrapped it in a blanket so I couldn’t see it, but I couldn’t help myself. I knew then that they’d lied to me. I’m a nurse – I know the signs. I saw the bruises, and when I touched its little face I could feel its wee nose was broken. Someone had smothered her – poor lamb – and they hadn’t even done it with a gentle hand.’
Her voice catches with a sob. ‘I couldn’t bear to see her after that, so I put my handkerchief over her little face, and swaddled her properly, like a baby should be swaddled. And held her for a moment against my heart, like a baby should be held.’
Tenderness, thinks Charles, remembering how that word had forced itself on his mind in the burial-ground, as he stood over the tiny body rotting in its shallow grave, the scrap of white cloth still wound about its neck, and wondered how any woman could have shown such gentle care, and yet done such a terrible thing. He couldn’t understand it then, but he can understand it now. That child was Hester’s child, and the woman who buried it, this woman.
Alice Carley wipes her eyes. ‘That night they sent me into town in the carriage. I had to get out somewhere near Oxford Street and walk the rest of the way on foot, but Mr Jarvis said I had nothing to fear – that no one would remark a young woman carrying a child. They’d told me where I had to go, but I lost my way in the dark and had to ask a crossing-sweep. I wouldn’t have found the place without him, though I wish to heaven I’d never laid eyes on it.’ She shudders. ‘I will never forget the horror of that graveyard – never forget trying to open the grave with nothing but a little trowel, in the stench of all those decaying bodies.’
‘Corpse gas,’ says Woodcourt. ‘You were fortunate not to become seriously ill.’
‘You must believe me, sir, that I did everything I could to give the child a decent burial, but no one could have borne staying in that terrible place long. I was half out of my mind with fear. The fog had come down, and as soon as I’d closed the gate behind me I was sure that someone was following me – I could hear noises and the sound of footsteps. And a few moments later I felt a hand on my shoulder and my heart froze. And when I turned and saw this huge man looming over me, I nearly lost my senses – I thought I was about to be garrotted – or worse. And what would happen to my brother and sister then?’
She takes a deep breath. ‘But then the man said he wasn’t going to hurt me – that he just wanted to talk to me. I was so terrified I could scarcely hear what he was saying, but I eventually made out that his sister used to have my position here, and that exactly the same thing had happened to her. Mr Jarvis told her the same things he’d told me, and she’d buried three babies in that unspeakable place before being dismissed without a penny, for allowing Anne Catherick to escape.’
‘William Boscawen,’ says Charles quickly. ‘Was that the man’s name?’
Alice nods. ‘He said that after she was dismissed, his sister planned to blackmail Mr Jarvis by threatening to tell all she knew, but that was the last he ever heard from her. It was months later that he found out she’d been killed. That’s when he came to London to find out the truth. He started to get very angry then – he said he’d discovered what was really going on at the asylum, and he was going to confront the guilty men with the evidence of their sin.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
Alice takes out her handkerchief and holds it to her mouth. ‘It sickens me even to think of it, sir – how anyone could—’
Woodcourt puts his hand on her shoulder. ‘Take your time. We have a policeman here with us. You have nothing to fear now. Just tell us what Mr Boscawen said.’
She looks up at his face and seems to gain courage. ‘He told me he’d dug open the grave where the babies were buried and – and – cut the hands away from the corpses. He said he was going to send them one by one to the men who’d fathered them. To punish them for what they’d done.’
Charles stares at her, understanding at last the riddle of the letters, and the terrible menace the last one had contained. Julius Cremorne had opened that package to find the decomposing hand of his own bastard child; a child born of incest and rape, a child he had instructed Jarvis to do away with. Small wonder he went as white as death when he saw it; small wonder he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
Alice glances up at him fearfully, mistaking his grim expression for disapproval. ‘I told that man Boscawen I didn’t want to hear any more about it – that I had to go – that the carriage was waiting for me. Then as I ran down the passageway I heard him calling to me that he would write to me and explain, but I never heard from him again.’
The tears well and spill again. ‘I don’t think poor Hester even knew she was with child – how could she, an innocent like her? Half the time she seems scarcely more than a child herself, playing make-believe that she’s the housekeeper here and that I’m her maid, not her nurse. You’d never think this place was a lunatic asylum, to hear the way she talks of it, but we none of us have the heart to disenchant her. And then she was so weak for so long after she had the baby it made my heart bleed, just to look at her, and in the end I felt so wretched about what I’d done I made up my mind to tell her the truth – tell her what had really happened. So I went to her early this morning and told her that she’d had a baby – that that was the real reason why she’d been so sick. I said I’d made sure it was given a Christian burial, and that it was in a Better Place now, but then the poor girl started crying and crying and talking wildly about her mother leaving her behind and how she would never do that to her baby, and then she said she wanted to see it and however much I said that was impossible she would not leave it be. It takes her that way sometimes, poor little thing, but I can usually calm her with a dose of opiates – it always seems kinder to me than that dreadful camisole Miss Darby insists on. But in my haste to fetch the medicine bottle I must have left the door unlocked, and when I got back the room was empty, and Hester had vanished.’
‘And that’s why Jarvis locked you in here.’
She nods. ‘And because I wouldn’t tell him where she had gone.’
‘But how in God’s name could you possibly know?’
‘It’s not so very difficult to guess, sir. Hester has never left this place once in the ten years she’s been here. Where else would she go? She’s gone to see her baby,’ she says softly. ‘She’s gone to Tom-All-Alone’s.’
Charles gets to his feet, knowing now what he must do next and wondering for the first time what has happened to Wheeler. A question quickly answered when they get to the landing and see Sam coming up the stairs towards them.
‘No sign, Mr Maddox,’ he reports, reverting, no doubt unconsciously, to the courtesy Charles was entitled to when he still had rank in the Detective.
‘What do you mean?’ asks Charles, with a jolt of alarm.
‘Given what that young woman was saying, I thought we ought to make sure that bastard Jarvis didn’t give us the slip, but I’ve searched all the rooms downstairs and I can’t find him anywhere.’
Charles follows him quickly downstairs, where they find the woman in the hall, berating another young woman clad in grey.
‘Where’s Jarvis?’ interrupts Charles, forcing her round to look at him.
‘Mr Jarvis had to step out a moment.’
‘This is a police investigation, madam, and he has serious allegations to answer.’
‘He may be a constable,’ she snaps, pointing at Wheeler as if he were a species of insect, ‘but you, as far as I can tell, have no official standing whatsoever. If you had I am sure we would have heard about it long before now. And Mr Jarvis has been charged with no crime – has, indeed, committed no crime. He is perfectly free to come and go as he sees fit and you have no right to detain him.’
At that moment there’s the sound of wheels on the sweep, but by the time they emerge on to the front step the carriage is already turning down the drive and gathering speed.
Woodcourt turns to Charles with a look of disgust. ‘No doubt he is endeavouring to “retrieve” Hester just as he did Anne Catherick. But this time, thank God, he has no idea where the poor girl has gone. You will be able to reach her long before he does.’
Charles looks round; something about this sudden departure is making him uneasy. And then he catches sight of the woman’s frosty face and sees the look that’s now upon it.
‘She heard it all,’ he says to Woodcourt. ‘She was listening to every word we said – she knows where Hester went, and now Jarvis has gone after her.’
He calls to Wheeler to have the cab brought round, and fast, and he’s already stepping into it when Woodcourt catches his arm and offers to go with him. ‘She will be distraught and very possibly in need of medical attention—’
‘I’ve had some training, myself. Not much, but enough. I know what to do. And your presence is more urgently required here until more help arrives.’
It’s clear from Woodcourt’s face that he cannot argue with that conclusion, but he is not done yet. ‘At least,’ he says, his hand still on Charles’ arm, ‘at the very least, take Miss Carley with you. Imagine yourself in this young girl’s position – she has just made a terrible discovery, then finds a man pursuing her she has never seen, in a huge and dangerous city she does not know. She is weak already, and I dare not speculate as to the consequences of further distress so soon after her confinement.’
Charles nods and the doctor goes quickly back inside, returning almost at once with the nurse, enveloped in a blanket clearly taken from one of the beds upstairs.
‘She is willing to go with you, though Heaven knows she could do with hot tea and a few hours’ sleep.’
‘I am quite well,’ insists Alice. ‘The only thing that matters is that we find Hester and take her somewhere safe.’
‘I pray to heaven we can,’ replies Charles, climbing up to the box beside the driver and telling him to make all speed towards London, with a crown at stake if he can catch the carriage ahead of them.
As they clatter towards town, Charles stops every coach and vehicle coming towards them, picking up the trace of Jarvis each time but finding him ever just too far ahead, ever maintaining his crucial advantage before them, until they reach a crossroads where four roads meet and have to make a choice: the road to Finchley, the road to the West End, and the road to London. The driver draws up – they can reach their destination by two of these ways, but which is best – which did Jarvis choose? Charles sits hesitating a moment, before noticing a young man on a small stool at the side of the road, sketching the sun rising over the city and the steeples and house-tops lifting through the mist in the slanting rays. Charles jumps down and strides towards him, asking if a carriage has passed this way.
‘The driver was in a green greatcoat, and the man inside had a thick grey beard.’
‘And a rather large watch, I believe,’ says the young man. ‘Yes, I saw him. He has some fifteen minutes’ advantage of you. But I sent him the wrong way.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand—’
‘He asked about the young woman. She passed this way too, something over an hour ago. A strange little creature in a long dark cloak, but I could see she had only a nightgown on underneath. She asked me the way to Tom-All-Alone’s. I told her that polluted graveyard was no place for a young girl, but she began to weep in a piteous fashion, saying I had no right to suspect her and it was the fault of others that she was alone here in such strange circumstances, and something more I did not understand about a “guardian”. She became so agitated then, all the while shrinking from me as if I might molest her, that I agreed, much against my better judgement, to find her a cab and give her the money to pay for it. Not before time, I think. She seemed ready to drop with fatigue.’
And not just fatigue, thinks Charles, attempting to press several shillings into the young man’s hand.
‘That is not necessary, sir,’ he says, pulling away. ‘It was little enough of a service after all, and I can tell you mean her only kindness. That other gentleman said the same, but there was something about him that made me doubt it. Not least the fact that he called her a cripple, and a freak, and various other terms I am too humane to repeat. That and the look of the groom he had with him made me uneasy, so I sent them on the other road, telling them she was still on foot.’
Charles’ heart turns to iron in his breast. ‘This groom – what did he look like?’
‘He was little more than a boy, in fact, but the strangest-looking boy I ever saw in such a—’
‘Sandy hair – a long dark coat?’
‘And a bad bruise to the side of his face. Indeed I am surprised his master allowed him in public in such a state—’
But Charles is already running towards the cab. He climbs back up, urging the driver to a gallop and cursing himself for not realizing that Mann would have made for the asylum just as he did, and imploring a God he does not really believe in that they will find this wretched girl before he does. It’s not long before they’re descending fast into narrow streets and gloomy overhanging thoroughfares where the morning has not yet penetrated and the street-lamps still cast their sickly yellow.
Perhaps it’s the fall he took, perhaps the chill of the exposed seat, but his vision starts to blur again and his mind begins to play tricks with him. The few people they pass in the streets seem hardly alive, and as they raise faces to him that seem now as blank and eyeless as in a long-repressed nightmare, the kaleidoscope pieces of the case start to shift and mingle with his own haunted memories – his mother gagged and bound, her eyes streaming and imploring, her bare feet kicking against the two women struggling to carry her away. The stifled incoherent screams that even now are inextricable from the cool impersonal voice of the doctor ensuring his father that he had made the right decision, that the institution was a model of its kind, and that Mrs Maddox would be treated kindly there and given the time she needed to reconcile herself at last to the loss of her daughter. He never knew how much his father had believed of this; all he did know for sure was that he never saw his mother again. And that all of it – from the beginning – was his fault, and there was nothing he could ever do that that would put it right.
With the clocks striking nine they come to a halt by the grimy side-street where we followed him once before. As Charles swings down to the ground into the steam from the horses, he hears the sound of hooves and turns to see a carriage disappearing towards St Giles, and knows with a hopeless certainty that despite their haste – despite the young man’s help – they were still too slow: Jarvis has got here before them. He hastens Alice Carley from the carriage and the two of them begin down the alley towards the covered way. He thought once before how apt this place was for ambush, and as they approach the bend before the tunnel he can just make out a slumped figure lying face down at the side of the path. But it’s only when Alice Carley gasps and shrinks back against his side that he recognizes who it is. The cape and the tall silk hat mark him out as a gentleman; the greying beard identifies him as Alexander Jarvis. But the heavy gold watch is long gone. Charles kneels by the man’s head and sees at once that all the talk of garrotting in this part of town is not just the hype of an over-heated press. There’s a deep weal around Jarvis’ neck and he is struggling to draw breath.
‘What happened?’ says Charles, taking him roughly by the collar. ‘Where’s Mann?’
‘We were set upon,’ he gasps. ‘Thieves – four of them. I felt the rope around my neck and hands dragging me down. I called to Mann to help me. But he just laughed.’ He chokes, coughing spittles of red over his white stock. ‘He just laughed in my face and left me here in the filth.’
‘So where is he now?’
Jarvis lifts a heavy hand and points. ‘He went ahead. After the girl.’
Charles gets to his feet and covers the final yards to the tunnel with his heart hammering at his bones. Up ahead, where the lamp is still burning over the iron gate, one slight figure is bending over another, lying prone on the wet ground. Charles takes out his gun, but his eyes are dim and he cannot make out his target. He starts towards them again, and even as the images lurch and separate before his eyes he thinks he sees the low glint of a blade – thinks he sees an arm raised – and he knows he cannot make it in time – knows there is only one thing he can do—
He lifts the pistol and shoots into the air.
The recoil has his boots slithering on the greasy cobbles and he slips to his knees. Then all at once he senses Alice Carley come up behind him, and though he cries out to stop her she gives a cry of horror and runs forward to the gate. When he gets to his feet and staggers after her he sees, alone, lying on the step, the twisted body of a young girl, one hand clutched around the iron bars, the skirts of her white nightgown stained dark red. And Alice Carley is already weeping as she takes the girl’s head in her lap and cradles it there, rocking to and fro, the tears running down her cheeks.
Charles stoops down, and puts his arm about Alice’s shoulders. And then, with the gentlest of gentle hands, he puts the long dank hair aside and touches Hester’s cold scarred face.