Slade ducked. He rammed his fist into the policeman’s stomach. The policeman grunted and doubled over. Slade wrested the club from his hand, then smote him on his head. He fell, unconscious. While Slade hurried Alexander to the door, the other police fired their pistols. Gunshots erupted behind Slade. Bullets struck walls, shattered windows. Slade and Alexander tumbled outside, into the blizzard.
Peter and Fyodor were waiting. “Hurry!” they cried. Supporting Alexander, whose leg was hurt, they led Slade through the maze of alleys. Behind them, rapid footsteps broke the snow and screams blared as the police pursued other men who’d escaped from the cafe. More gunshots exploded. Slade and his group tumbled down a flight of icy stairs to the cellar of a tavern. They crouched, coatless and shivering, until the night was quiet.
“Thank you,” Alexander said to Slade. “If not for you, I would be dead now.”
The other men nodded. The suspicion in their eyes had given way to respect. Peter said, “You may be a stranger in town, but you are our comrade.”
As Slade shook hands with his new friends, he felt a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. He liked these men, and he sympathized with their cause, but he was duty-bound to exploit them. He regretted that the friendships he cultivated in the course of his work often turned out badly, for both sides.
5
I felt better after making the decision to return to Bedlam, but I couldn’t go alone, and I knew Dr. Forbes would be unwilling to escort me. During breakfast at Number 76 Gloucester Terrace the next morning, I told George Smith what had happened the previous day and tried to press him into service. He said, “I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I think Dr. Forbes is right. You must have made a mistake. It would be best to forget the whole business.”
“Surely, Miss Bronte, you wouldn’t drag George into it?” his mother was quick to object. “Not on his Saturday off.” She sounded as much aggrieved because I dared make work for him as appalled that I’d gotten mixed up in sordid doings.
I said, “I am afraid that until I discover the true identity of the lunatic, I won’t be able to concentrate on my writing.”
This was sheer blackmail. Mrs. Smith bit back a retort: she knew how much the fortunes of Smith, Elder and Company depended on me. George protested that another trip to Bedlam would only worsen my state of mind, but in the end he capitulated.
While we drove through London, rain began to fall. We hurried up the steps of Bedlam, got drenched in the downpour, and paid our admission fees. As I hurried George through the wards, I noticed matrons and attendants standing in huddles, conversing in low, nervous voices. Patients roved, more agitated than they’d been the day before. Upon reaching the door to the criminal lunatics’ wing, we found a uniformed police constable standing guard.
“What’s going on?” George asked.
The constable was young, as fresh-faced as a farm boy, and clearly distressed. “There’s been a murder.”
The word struck a mighty throb of alarm through me. My fears for Slade surged higher.
“Who’s been killed?” George asked.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” the constable said. When I threw myself at the door, he held me off. “Sorry, mum, you can’t go in there.”
George read the name on the constable’s badge and said, “Look here, Constable Ryan-I’m George Smith of Smith, Elder and Company, and the police commissioner is a friend of mine.” It was true; George had many friends in many places. “Let me in, or the next time I see him, I’ll mention that you were uncooperative.”
Constable Ryan hesitated, torn between his duty and his fear that George could put him in bad odor with his superior. He opened the door and stood aside.
“I’ll see what’s happened,” George told me. “You stay here.”
“No! I’m going with you!”
I spoke with such determination that his will gave way to mine. Together we entered the criminal lunatics’ wing. The stench and the inmates’ howls greeted us.
“Good Lord,” George muttered.
Blind instinct guided my steps through the dungeon. As I broke into a run, I chastised myself for allowing Dr. Forbes to rush me away from Bedlam yesterday, and for my doubt that the lunatic was Slade. Was he dead? Might I have saved him? Winded and panting, I arrived at the cell in which I’d seen Slade. Voices issued from the open door. Inside, two police constables were milling around, examining the table with the straps, the weird apparatus. Two more, and a man who wore a black raincoat, stood gazing down at something at their feet. I perceived an odor at once sweet and salty, metallic and raw.
The odor of blood.
It seemed to leap through my nostrils and claw at some deep, vulnerable place in me. The blood was wet and fresh and shockingly red, pooled on the floor, smeared where feet had skidded in it. A frantic cry burst from me: “Slade! No!”
The men turned. As they stared at me, they shifted position, and I saw what they’d been looking at. Two men lay on the floor. They were dressed in plain cotton trousers and smocks. One was crumpled on his side. A gory halo of blood surrounded his head. The other man sprawled on his back, arms flung out. From his left eye protruded a slim glass cylinder equipped with a plunger, such as the one I’d seen used by the foreigner yesterday. Its needle had penetrated deep into the man’s brain.
I experienced an onslaught of relief, confusion, and astonishment.
Neither dead man was Slade.
I fell into the arms of George Smith. He beheld the scene inside the room and said, “Good Lord!” He turned me so that my face was against his chest and I could see no more.
I managed not to faint; my adventures of 1848 had given me a reserve of stamina. But I was so breathless that I couldn’t walk. George carried me out of the lunatics’ wing, shouting for help. I was put in a wheelchair and conveyed to a chamber used for conferences. A doctor administered smelling salts. A matron fetched me a cup of hot tea. I drank the tea and revived somewhat. George sat at the table with me; he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
“That was the most awful sight I’ve ever seen. I’m just glad it wasn’t your friend who was murdered.” He paused, then said, “Who exactly is this John Slade?”
I hadn’t told him that Slade was a spy for the Crown. None but a few privileged persons were supposed to know. “He’s a clergyman from Canterbury.” That was a false identity Slade had once used. It would have to do.
“How did you come to know him?”
I’d been sworn to secrecy about the circumstances under which I’d known Slade. “We had a mutual acquaintance.” It was Isabel White, the woman whose murder had launched me on my adventure of 1848.
George stroked his chin; he seemed to debate with himself on the wisdom of pursuing the subject. “May I ask exactly how well you know Mr. Slade?”
He didn’t want to hear that Slade had been my suitor, I could tell. He most certainly didn’t want his company’s famous authoress to have romantic connections with a mental patient. What an ado the newspapers would make about that! And I couldn’t tell him anything of what had passed between Slade and me.
“Mr. Slade is a good friend, but no more,” I settled for saying.
George scrutinized me closely, and I averted my eyes from the suspicion in his. Fortunately, we were interrupted by the arrival of the man in the black raincoat and a middle-aged woman dressed in a gray frock, a white apron, and a white cap. She had a prim mouth, sharp eyes and nose, and cheeks as rosy, mottled, and hard as crabapples.
“I’m Henrietta Hunter, matron of Bethlem Hospital,” she said. “Are you feeling better?”
I said I was. The black-coated man said, “Good, because I want a few words with you.” His high, stooped shoulders, black garments, and long face gave him the look of a vulture. His greenish eyes flicked over me as if I were a carcass he was wondering whether to eat. “I’m Detective Inspector Hart, from the Metropolitan
