Eleanor looked from one to the other of them, but she did not interrupt.
Drummond smiled. “He wouldn’t,” he agreed. “If there’s anything Tellman cannot bear, it is to arrest someone and then have to let him go. He’ll want evidence to hang him before he’ll commit himself. He’s a hard enemy, Pitt, but he’s a good friend.”
“I’m sure,” Pitt agreed equivocally.
“He’s also a natural leader,” Drummond went on, his eyes careful on Pitt’s face, his expression both apologetic and amused. “The other men will follow him, if you allow it.”
“Yes I know,” Pitt said dryly, thinking of le Grange.
Drummond’s smile widened, but he said nothing.
“May I offer you something, Mr. Pitt?” Eleanor asked. “It is too early for luncheon, but at least a glass of wine? Or lemonade, if you prefer?”
“Lemonade, thank you,” Pitt accepted gratefully. He had already made up his mind where his next visit would be, and anything to delay it, to fortify him a little, would be more than welcome. “I should enjoy it.”
When he left half an hour later he took a hansom over the river south across the Lambeth Bridge, past Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop of Canterbury had his official residence, and up the Lambeth Road to the huge, forbidding mass of the Bethlehem Lunatic Asylum, more usually known as Bedlam. He had been there before, more than once, and it brought back memories of fear, confusion and wrenching pity.
He alighted from the hansom, paid the driver and approached the main gates. He was greeted with caution, and only after showing his identification did he obtain entrance. He had to wait over a quarter of an hour in a dim office crowded with dark leather-bound books and smelling of dust and closed air before finally the superintendent sent for him and he was conducted to his rooms.
He was a short man with round eyes and muttonchop whiskers. A few strands of grayish hair covered the top of his head. He looked distinctly displeased.
“I have already informed your junior, Superintendent Pitt, that we have had no one escape from here,” he said stiffly without rising from his leather chair. “It does not happen. We have the most excellent system, and even if anyone did leave without permission, it would be known instantly. And if they were of a dangerous nature, it would naturally have been reported immediately to the proper authorities. I don’t know what else I can say to you. My efforts so far appear to have been a waste of time.” His nostrils pinched and his right hand rested on the large pile of papers on the desk beside him, presumably unattended to and waiting his perusal.
With difficulty Pitt reminded himself why he was here. To answer the man equally brusquely would defeat his purpose.
“I do not doubt you, Dr. Melchett,” he replied. “It is your advice I am here for.”
“Indeed?” Melchett said skeptically, at last waving to the other chair for Pitt to sit down. “Well that is not the impression your inspector left. Far from it. He implied very strongly that our methods here were lax and that either some dangerous lunatic had escaped, or else we had released someone who should have been kept here, and in shackles.”
“He has a rough tongue,” Pitt admitted, without the regret that perhaps he should have felt. He accepted the seat. “It was an obvious question to ask,” he went on. “Someone insane enough to cut off three people’s heads might well have passed through here at some time.”
Melchett rose to his feet, his cheeks pink.
“If he was deranged enough to decapitate three total strangers, Pitt, he would not have passed through here!” he said furiously. “I assure you, he would have remained! Just come with me.” He marched around the desk. “I should have taken that damn fool man of yours, but I seriously doubt he would have the wits to apprehend what he saw anyway. Just come along and look at it.” He went to the door and flung it open, leaving it swinging back on its hinges, and strode along the corridor, assuming that Pitt was behind him.
Pitt hated the place. He had hoped he would never be here again. Now he was following a deeply offended Melchett along these corridors with their long silences and sudden screams, the moaning and the sobs, the wild laughter, and then the silence again.
Melchett was far ahead. Pitt had to hurry to catch up with him. It even occurred to him not to, to turn around and go back out. But he did not. His feet increased their pace and Melchett was waiting for him at the door, holding it open.
“There!” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes round and angry.
Pitt walked past him into the long high-ceilinged room. Around the walls was a kind of narrow walkway slightly three feet above the floor, creating the impression of a wall full of people, most of them sitting on chairs or on the floor, many huddled over, hugging themselves, some rocking back and forth rhythmically, moaning and muttering unintelligibly, and it was along this that Melchett now led Pitt. Between them a man with matted hair picked at a scab on his leg till it bled. His arms were covered with similar wounds, some half healed, others obviously new. There were what looked like bite marks on his wrists and forearms. He did not even see Pitt standing close above him, so intent was he upon his own flesh.
A second stared into space, saliva running down his chin. A third reached up towards them, hands clasping at the air, throat straining, mind seeking words and failing to find them. A fourth sat with his wrists in leather-padded chains, banging against the restraint with sharp, jiggling movements as if he were sawing at something. He too was so absorbed in his pointless, painful task that he neither saw Pitt nor heard Melchett when he spoke.
“How many do you want to see?” Melchett asked quietly, his voice hard with a mixture of anger and offense. “We have scores, all much like this, all sad, unreachable by anything we know how to do. Do you think someone like this is your lunatic? Do you think we accidentally let one go, and he got hold of an ax and started decapitating people in Hyde Park?”
Pitt opened his mouth to deny it, but Melchett rushed on, his anger if anything increasing.
“Where are they, Pitt?” he demanded. “Living in the park somewhere? Where do they sleep? What do they eat? All your police swarming over the area, searching for clues, cannot find the poor devil?”
There was no answer. Looking at the fierce, pathetic, troubled souls all around him, beyond reason, beyond reach, the idea was ridiculous. If Tellman had come this far into Bedlam, he would have curbed his tongue before making such comments to Melchett, or anyone else.
