The Bedlam Detective

No. Surely not. This was Southwark, after all.

The street door to their apartments was standing open. This was unusual, but not too remarkable. But when they ascended to the rented rooms, they found Robert alone, sitting at an empty table waiting to be fed.

“Robert?” Sebastian said. “Why was the door not closed?”

Robert looked past him, to Evangeline, noting her presence without seeming to acknowledge it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Frances must have left it that way.”

“Where is she?”

“I’m waiting for her to come back,” Robert said. “I haven’t had any dinner yet.”

“Excuse me for one moment,” Sebastian said to Evangeline, and went to look in Elisabeth’s bedroom. She was not there. He went back to find Evangeline trying to engage Robert in conversation, and Robert increasingly unhappy at this general air of growing disruption.

Sebastian said, “Robert, tell me what happened.”

“The nurse came to change Mother’s dressing,” Robert said. “Frances was up there with her. I heard them saying something and then Frances went out to get a cab. She ran all the way down the stairs. But it was ages before she could find one in the fog.”

“Did she say where they went?”

“Nobody said anything to me.”

“Was there anything else?”

Robert thought for a while.

Then he said, “Frances was crying.”

They all went to Guy’s together. They found Frances alone in the casualty waiting hall. She was alone on one of the hard benches, wiping her eyes.

Her news was not good.

THIRTY-EIGHT

While London suffered under fog, it was a crisp October day in the West Country. Driving a pony and trap borrowed from his father’s neighbor, and grateful that the pony was more experienced than he, Detective Stephen Reed made the long and lonely trek from Arnmouth to Arnside Hall at the heart of the Lancaster estate. Along the way he saw not one estate worker, nor any other living soul apart from a herd of deer that scattered away from the road as he passed by. He saw a male with broken antlers, another dragging a lame foot. Stephen Reed was no gamekeeper, but he knew neglect when he saw it.

At the Hall, he was met with silence. He tethered the pony by a water trough in the fancy courtyard and went to bang on the great iron knocker that adorned the entrance doors. It made a noise like gunfire in the yard; he imagined that it must sound like cannon fire within.

After half a minute, he banged again. Then he tried the handle out of curiosity, but the doors were locked. A minute or so after that, he heard the rattle of a key.

One door was opened and there stood Dr. Hubert Sibley, wincing at the daylight.

Stephen Reed said, “Housemaid’s day off?”

“We expect a call before a visit,” Dr. Sibley said.

“I’ll be sure to spread the word,” Stephen Reed said, and without waiting for an invitation he shouldered his way past the doctor and into the hallway.

It was gloomy within. Sir Owain was on the short balcony at the top of the Hall’s paneled staircase, looking down onto the entranceway. He seemed to hover there, like a nervous family pet; wary of visitors, but drawn by the novelty of a visit.

He called down, “Detective Reed. They told me you’d returned to other duties.”

Stephen Reed drew a folded copy of yesterday’s newspaper from inside his coat as the landowner descended the stairway. He said, “They’ve set a date to hang the tinker. Here. You can read about it.” He tossed the newspaper onto the nearest table.

As he arrived at the foot of the stairs, Sir Owain said, “What can I say? I offered myself as a defense witness. I was waiting for the call.”

“I know. But the man confessed and pleaded guilty. By now even he’s convinced that he did it.”

Sir Owain closed his fists and took a very deep breath, mastering a painful sense of upset.

He said, “No man was responsible. What would it take to make you believe me?”

“We know those children were not ‘torn by beasts,’ Sir Owain,” Stephen Reed said, with his patience growing thin. “They were disfigured with a billhook. Our police surgeon found the point of it in one of the bodies. It had broken off with the ferocity of the attack.”

“And this tinker-did he have such a billhook? If he did, were you able to fit the point to it? I suspect not. Beasts, I tell you.”

Stephen Reed considered whether to pursue the argument, and decided against it. The fact was, no, no billhook matching the point had been found, either among the tinker’s few possessions or anywhere else. But that was not the true issue, here. Arguing with a delusion simply gave it more substance in the eyes of the deluded.

Instead he said, “I take it the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor judged you sane enough to remain at large?”

It was Dr. Sibley who responded. He said, “We’ve had no formal decision yet, but I’m optimistic.”

With a glance at the doctor, Stephen Reed said, “So that’ll be your job safe, then.”

“Please,” Sir Owain said, moving between them and placing his hand on Stephen Reed’s arm. “There’s no need for this. Will you come with me?”

“Where?”

“There’s something I want you to see.”

Sir Owain led the way out into the grounds. Dr. Sibley followed behind. He locked the main door after them and brought along the keys. A hundred yards from the main building, reached by a graveled path, stood the estate’s private chapel. Built in stone, it was a perfect miniature of a church, complete with a porch and a bell tower. To one side of it was a small graveyard for dogs and favored servants.

The chapel was in good order. It was better than preserved; it had been fortified. There were bars on the stained-glass windows and a heavy new door with a lock that Dr. Sibley had to struggle to open.

“Please,” Sir Owain said, “come,” and he led the way inside.

The stone chapel was stone cold. The stained glass bathed its interior in the colors of blood, wine, and sap. Somewhere in a crypt under its floor lay generations of the family whose fading heritage had been bought out by the upstart industrialist. The upstart’s fortunes had faded in their turn, and rather more quickly; but in the chapel was further proof that not everything on the estate bore the marks of ruin.

There were no pews. In their place in the middle of the floor stood a mighty cast-iron vault of a tomb, black and polished. It resembled something that Houdini might lock himself up in, more strongbox than sepulchre.

“I designed this for my own remains,” Sir Owain said. “I built it to be proof against beasts. Would a man go to this trouble over a mere figment of his own imagination?”

Stephen Reed walked around it. “I’ve seen bank safes less substantial,” he said. The tomb was wider than the chapel’s doorway, and stood on feet like lions’ claws. Each dark panel bore moldings of urns and draped material. Sir Owain must have had the plates cast and brought in separately, and then assembled on-site.

Sir Owain said, “I have a genuine fear of desecration. I ask you again, Detective. Would I go to such lengths as these for no reason at all?”

“I really don’t know. All this can prove is the strength of your beliefs, not the truth of what you believe in. But that’s a lot of iron to protect mere human remains. If a man’s life is over, why fear for the flesh?”

“I can’t preserve my life. But I have seen what can happen to the flesh, as you call it. I would like to preserve my dignity when my life is done.”

“Anyone would think you planned on going soon.”

“After all that I’ve lost,” Sir Owain said, “I am counting my steps toward the day.” He placed his hand on the