Sebastian’s avoidance of his basement office had little connection with the lunatics in residence. The “furious and mischievous, and those who have no regard to cleanliness” were now accommodated elsewhere. But the room made available to the Visitor’s man, as a favor to his employer, shook when trains passed under and stank when the heat came on. The blame lay with the Bakerloo Tube and the boxes containing unclaimed effects of long-dead patients, stacked floor-to-ceiling against the rear wall and filling almost half of the room. While the owners might be long gone, their odor survived them in their goods.
For this reason, Sebastian called by only when required to, or when his employer was on the premises. Several of the Bethlem patients were on Sir James’s list, their estates taken under the control of the Lord Chancellor’s department. It was entirely possible that Sir Owain might end up here, or somewhere like it, if investigation showed his reason to be compromised and his affairs incompetently handled.
They met between interviews in the doctors’ room, situated between the galleries for male and female patients. Sir James had co-opted the office as his own for the morning.
“Sebastian!” he said. “Don’t dawdle in the doorway. Time’s a-wasting. What can you tell me?”
Sir James Crichton-Browne had held the post of Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy for some thirty-six years, securing the job over fierce competition. Prior to that, he’d been the youngest-ever medical director of Wakefield’s West Riding Asylum. A broad-domed, silver-haired, bewhiskered Scot, he was something of a professional whirlwind. His intervention in any situation always guaranteed some form of action or change. But, like a whirlwind, he could leave considerable upset and disarray in his wake.
Sebastian said, “On the face of it, Sir Owain seems coherent and well cared for. His affairs are properly managed. No one that I spoke to gave anything but a good account of him.”
“What about this companion of his? Doctor Ernest Hubert Sibley. Is he sound?”
“He
“Nor need there be. A man can drop off the register for any number of reasons. Changing address and not informing the General Medical Council, for one.”
“With that in mind, I checked to see if he might have spent those years in prison.”
“And?”
“You know I found nothing.”
“Doctor Sibley has written to me,” Sir James said, “forwarding these.” He moved the typed pages of Sebastian’s report aside, uncovering an assortment of handwritten notes. He slid these forward to place them within Sebastian’s reach.
“A letter from the parents of each dead child,” he said. “And one from the county’s chief constable. All thanking Sir Owain for his kindness and support in a difficult time.”
Testimonials. Of a kind. Out of politeness Sebastian picked up one or two and scanned them, but the words passed before his eyes and he took nothing in.
He said, “Are we to set these against our appeals from the families of his expedition’s members?”
“I promised them a full investigation, Sebastian. I didn’t promise the result that they wanted.”
“I should have made faster progress,” Sebastian said. “I fear I’ve been distracted.”
“How is Elisabeth?”
“Home, now,” Sebastian said, “and able to move around. She doesn’t complain but I can tell she’s still in discomfort.”
“When she starts to carp about it,” Sir James said, “you’ll know she’s on the mend.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We know that Sir Owain’s own wife and child accompanied him on his Amazonian jaunt and that neither returned. I’m in no doubt that what happened out there saw the beginning of his mental undoing.”
“I agree, sir.”
“Do you, now? Stick to the detective work and leave the diagnosis to me, Sebastian. I’m an old-school psychiatrist. I believe that life’s too short for psychoanalysis. But I can’t deny the value in a certain kind of therapy. If writing his book served some such purpose, then so be it. There may be comfort in blaming monsters for a grief one cannot bear. Though publication was clearly unwise.”
“I’ve one avenue still to pursue, sir.”
“Then pursue it until the end of the week. After that, we’ll have to move on.”
THIRTY-TWO
That night he sat with Elisabeth before the fire in their rooms above the wardrobe maker’s, staring into the falling coals. Elisabeth wore a heavy dressing gown with a rug over her knees. Though allowed home, she was still fragile and her appetite was slow in returning. On the day of her return, Sebastian had carried her up the stairs from the street. Once he’d been able to sweep her up and spin with her, perfused with a joy of life and youth that defied gravity. But this time his knees ached, and they’d been aching ever since.
Elisabeth said, “Lucy came to call this afternoon.”
Lucy? Sebastian hunted through his memory for a few moments before he was able to place her among the Evelina’s staff.
“Good,” was all he could think of to say.
“I may have to appear as a witness. We all will.”
The maudlin Joseph Hewlett, despite his best efforts to take his own life, had fared better than the young nurse that he’d killed. The timely work of those present had managed to preserve him for justice.
Sebastian said, “You won’t have to face him if he pleads guilty. Don’t be swayed by gossip.”
“Gossip’s all I’m living for right now!” Elisabeth exclaimed, though not with ill temper. “I haven’t been out that door in three weeks.”
“Less than two.”
“See? I’m even losing track of the days. I’ll have to scratch a calendar on the wall. Like the Count of Monte Cristo.”
They both smiled. He saw that she was looking at the shabby jacket of this, his second-best set of clothes.
She said, “Frances couldn’t save your good suit?”
“She tried. The blood wouldn’t sponge out. I told her to burn it.”
“She could have taken it to the rag shop.”
“She did. No one here listens to me.”
There was a silence for a while. Some of the coals shifted and fell in a cokey shower, right at the heart of the fire where the heat was the whitest.
Elisabeth said, “Something’s troubling you.”
“What do you expect?” Sebastian said. “I want to see you well again.”
But she wouldn’t be deflected. “Besides that.”
Sebastian contemplated further evasion, and concluded that it would be a lesser drain on his energies to simply give her the story. He told her of the suspicions surrounding Sir Owain, of his own arrival and the events in Arnmouth, and of the arrest that had brought a premature end to official police interest in the case.
“What proof is there?” Elisabeth said when he’d concluded the tale. “Aside from your predecessor’s suspicions?”
“None,” he admitted. “It’s stupid to persist, I know.”
“It’s not stupid. Not if a man’s life now depends on it.”
“A tinker,” he said.
He stared into the fire for a while and then Elisabeth said, “Is a tinker’s life worth less than any other man’s? I’ve never known you to speak like that before.”
He said, “I’m weary. That’s all. Grace Eccles wouldn’t talk to me and I’ve no power to compel her.”
“What about the other young woman?”
