‘Here we are,’ he said, joining them at the table. ‘Let me see… . In July 1880, a man was sent here from Warwick, under one of the usual restraining orders issued by the Home Office. The man is long dead, so I shall tell you his name. Robert Grant was an undertaker, who worked with an assistant, a young man called Thomas Cave. Grant became convinced that Cave was what he called at his trial “a limb of Satan”, bent on driving Grant’s soul from his body and into one of the corpses being prepared for burial.’
‘A classic symptom of dementia præcox, according to Heinrich Schule,’ said Sophia. ‘Do you think that was the case with Robert Grant?’
‘Possibly. There is much to ponder in Schule’s work. In Grant’s case I was content to diagnose epileptic insanity.’
‘What did Grant do to Thomas Cave?’
‘He stabbed him in the back with a pair of garden shears, prepared him for burial, and took him in the hearse to the local cemetery, where he buried him in a grave that had been freshly dug for someone else. His deed was discovered when a funeral cortège arrived at the cemetery the next day. It was a grotesque affair altogether.’
‘And how did this case affect Miss Arabella Cathcart?’ Antrobus asked. If he didn’t ask a question, these two doctors would talk about their dreadful mysteries until the sun went down.
‘As often in these cases, Mr Antrobus, Robert Grant could see nothing wrong in what he had done, and was proud to tell others of his exploit. Miss Cathcart lent a willing ear, and in the September of that year she began to recount the details of the crime as though she herself had committed it. The death of Thomas Cave became an idée fixe. She transferred Grant’s whole psychosis to her own mind and personality, so that it was she who had brought about the destruction of Thomas Cave, the “limb of Satan”, she who had been practising as an undertaker. Like Robert Grant, she was proud of what she thought she had done.’
Dr Critchley extracted a sheet of shorthand notes from Arabella Cathcart’s file.
‘Here, let me read you part of a conversation that I had with Miss Cathcart on 7 February 1882. “Cathcart: ‘I waited until Thomas Cave and I were alone in the embalming room, and stabbed him to death with a pair of scissors. I could hear the demon leaving him with a scream of rage. Although a woman, I found the physical strength to lift him into a coffin… .” And so it goes on. She had fallen into a very severe delusional spasm. She continued to believe in this delusion for three years, but after the twentieth application of the electrodes to the cortex it completely disappeared. From that time forward – June 1884 – she had no recollection of the business, and when I told her about it, and showed her my notes, she was dumbfounded.’
‘If she thought she was Robert Grant,’ said Antrobus, ‘what happened when she continued to meet the real Robert Grant?’
‘No, no, Mr Antrobus,’ said Dr Critchley, ‘you don’t understand. She had appropriated Grant’s crime, in all its detail, to herself. She was, all along, aware of her identity as Arabella Cathcart. Whenever she encountered Grant, she spoke to him of other things.’
‘You enter the dark chambers of the mind, Doctor,’ said Antrobus, ‘places which I, as a layman, would not dare to enter.’
‘All alienists do that, Mr Antrobus, because we hope to bring some light to those dark places of the mind. Miss Cathcart’s was a difficult case in many ways, and it was only this year that I was able to say that she was fully cured. That is a fact, Dr Jex-Blake. Miss Cathcart was cured at the expense of severe damage to her nervous system, involving some wasting of the upper limbs; but cured she is! She is now completely sane.’
Sophia Jex-Blake glanced at Antrobus. His eyes were shining, and some healthy colour had rushed into his cheeks. What was it in Critchley’s gloomy narrative that had caused this change in her friend?
‘You said that you are a layman, Mr Antrobus. I assumed that you were Miss Jex-Blake’s medical assistant.’
‘No, sir. I am a detective inspector in the Oxford City Police—’
‘Ah! And you suspected Miss Cathcart of murdering her cousin, because of her previous history. Well, I am quite certain that she did no such thing. Arabella Cathcart is as sane as you or I.’
Critchley’s words seemed to signal that the interview was over. But James Antrobus had one more question to ask.
‘Dr Critchley,’ he said, ‘am I right in thinking that you came across a similar case of delusional spasm earlier in your career? I refer to a young woman called Margaret Meadows—’
‘Yes, indeed, Mr Antrobus. I alluded to that case earlier. Fancy you knowing about that! It was when I was at Prenton Bridge Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Cheshire. Let me see, it would have been in 1880. Meadows’s case was similar to that of Miss Cathcart, but very much more obscure. She described a murder that she had committed, but it was proved to our satisfaction that she could not have done the deed that she described. We never determined whether she was describing an actual murder that she had witnessed, or whether the whole thing was an independently generated illusion, of the type Etmuller has described. She was still under treatment when I left Prenton Bridge later that year. The most challenging cases were waiting for me here at Frampton, including that of Miss Arabella Cathcart, so I never heard what happened to Margaret Meadows.’
‘I was told that she died soon after you had performed your electrical treatment on her brain.’
‘Indeed? Well, I’m surprised to hear that. I thought that she would have recovered sufficiently well to lead a tolerable life under constraint. But then, the path to success is strewn with earlier failures. It’s nearly fifteen years ago now, Mr Antrobus. Who told you about Meadows’s death?’
‘It was a retired wardress from Prenton Bridge, a Miss Probert. I’m sure that you will remember her.’
‘Joanna Probert? Yes, indeed. An excellent, dedicated woman. I rather fancied that she had died; I’m pleased to find out that I was wrong!’
Once they were settled into a first-class carriage on the train to Oxford, James Antrobus began to talk about delusional spasm.
‘That was a wild surmise on my part, Dr Jex-Blake. About Margaret Meadows having suffered from a persistent delusion. What I heard from Miss Probert when I visited Henning St Mary was that Margaret Meadows had confessed to her that she had murdered Vivien West. Miss Probert stated this as a fact. She spoke with great authority, and showed a remarkable memory for detail. I found her to be a very forceful woman.’
‘Your praise for this lady is clearly masking an inner doubt.’
‘It is, ma’am. That was why I asked Dr Critchley whether the case of Margaret Meadows had been a case of delusional spasm, like that of Miss Cathcart, and he answered in the affirmative. He said that Meadows had not committed the murder to which she apparently confessed on her deathbed. So who is telling the truth? DrCritchley, or Miss Probert?’
‘Excellent, Inspector! It is evident to me that you are no longer down in the dumps. Here is another thought for you to ponder. Miss Probert was a wardress at an asylum in Cheshire. Is it more than coincidence that she apparently lives in Henning St Mary, the fons et origo of the leading characters in this drama?’
‘By Jove, Miss Jex-Blake, I’d not thought of that! Yes, why was she there, in Henning? Miss Probert has some explaining to do… .’
‘She has. Sooner rather than later, we must pay a surprise visit to Henning St Mary, and beard the good wardress in her den. But it would be wise for us to visit that asylum in Cheshire first. I think that the truth of this whole mystery will lie there for us to discover.’
A greater contrast between Frampton House and Prenton Bridge Criminal Lunatic Asylum could not be imagined. Prenton comprised six forbidding four-storey ward blocks surrounded by flagged yards and high brick security walls. It had been built away from the main roads in the middle of a dense wood.
Sophia Jex-Blake and James Antrobus had given themselves a day’s respite before setting out once again by train to Chester, where they had changed to a smoky little engine pulling
one third-class carriage, that took them along a single-track line to the village of Prenton Bridge. They were received by Dr John Lucas, the Superintendent, a white-haired man in his late sixties, in his heavily-barred office in the first of the four blocks.
‘We currently have 217 inmates,’ he told them, ‘all of them dangerous criminal lunatics. I have sixty warders, ten of whom are female. We impose a number of therapies, including electric shock treatment, upon those inmates who could benefit from such treatment. Otherwise, it’s largely a case of guard and restrain.’
It had been agreed between the two of them that Inspector Antrobus should take the initiative on this occasion. Prenton Bridge was a government hospital, more formal and official than Frampton House.
‘Dr Lucas,’ Antrobus began, ‘I am going to ask you to cast your mind back fourteen years, to 1880. In that year you received a patient here, a woman called Margaret Meadows. She had been found guilty of mutilation and murder—’
‘Yes, indeed, Inspector, Margaret Meadows. I remember her well. She was brought here on the strength of a warrant from one of the Masters in Lunacy, and was placed in the hands of a gentleman who was my junior colleague at the time, Dr Samuel Critchley, who moved that year into private practice in Oxfordshire. Critchley, as I think you know, now has a European reputation as a practitioner of convulsive therapy.’
‘Did Margaret Meadows prove to be a difficult subject?’ asked Dr Jex-Blake. ‘Mr Antrobus and I both know Dr Critchley; he recalled that Meadows was subject to delusional spasm.’
‘She was. She had to be supervised constantly, because in addition to her delusional complex, she was physically violent. Dr Critchley undertook to treat her by subjecting her exposed brain to electric invasion. We had no generator in those days, and Critchley employed banks of Leyden jars to produce the necessary shocks.’
‘Do you think he was prone to take risks, Dr Lucas? I’m speaking as one physician to another.’
‘He did take risks, yes, but in my view they were necessary risks. He was – is – a brilliant man, Dr Jex-Blake, with many successes to his name. He and I were dealing with criminal lunatics of the most debased sort.’
Dr Lucas got up from the chair in which he had been sitting, and began to pace round his office. Something, some memory perhaps, had disturbed his equanimity.
‘It was a tragic affair altogether, the case of Margaret Meadows. I will admit to you now that it should never have happened.’
Antrobus recalled the words of Miss Probert in her account of Margaret Meadows’s treatment at Prenton Bridge. The therapy had been very successful; unfortunately, the patient had died within six hours. There had been a kind of smug satisfaction in her words. At least Dr Lucas saw the affair as tragic, something that should never have happened.
‘Meadows was in the custodial charge of my senior Wardress, Joanna Probert, an extremely competent woman, who exercised a vigilant watch over Meadows at all times. But there: one cannot always anticipate the outcome of these situations.’
Dr Lucas sighed, and shook his head sadly. ‘Such tragedies occur only rarely, I am glad to say, but when they do happen, they leave their mark for many years afterwards.’
‘I believe she is buried here, in Prenton?’ said Antrobus. He recalled Miss Probert’s mild indignation at the idea of a criminal lunatic being buried in the churchyard of Henning St Mary.
‘Yes. Let me take you out into the grounds. You may as well see her melancholy resting place.’
They followed Dr Lucas across a bleak yard to a brick wall containing a door which had been strengthened with steel plates. An attendant warder unlocked the door, and they passed out into an overgrown clearing among the trees. They could both see low headstones half concealed by tall grass.
‘Here we are,’ said Lucas, parting the grass in a section of the field set slightly apart from the other graves. Together they read the inscription on the stone.
In Memory of Joanna Probert, Wardress,
Died 11th August 1880,
Aged 35 years.
“O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong; Judge thou my cause.”
‘I don’t understand,’ said Antrobus. ‘Miss Probert is lying in that grave? I have seen that Biblical text quite recently on another headstone. It was at the grave of a young woman who had been murdered.’ He contrived to keep his voice steady. There was a tremor in his voice as he recalled being shown the grave of Vivien West at Henning St Mary. ‘Are you saying that Miss Probert was murdered?’
James Antrobus’s question rang out like an accusation. Dr Lucas seemed taken aback.
‘Yes, poor Joanna was indeed murdered. But I assumed you knew that… . Have we been talking at cross-purposes? It was her wish to be buried here,’ he continued, ‘because she had lived at Prenton Bridge for so many years. She had no family, you know. But it’s getting chilly out here in this desolate place. Let us go back into the house. Poor Miss Probert! I have never forgotten her.’
13
Our Lady of Refuge
‘Tell us what happened to Miss Probert,’ said Antrobus. ‘You say she was murdered. Was her murderer ever caught and punished?’
He saw the doctor blush with evident embarrassment, which was what he hoped would be his reaction. Something reprehensible had been covered up in this secluded haven for lunatics, and this was the moment to demand the truth.
‘I thought you knew,’ said Lucas. They had regained his study, and the doctor had motioned to them to sit down. He looked more than merely preoccupied. ‘It happened on 11 August, 1880. It was a hot, sultry day, and we had sedated most of the inmates, who were resting in their cells or bedrooms. Joanna – Miss Probert – was in the dispensary, checking over the chemists’ receipts. I was in here. Later – after it happened – one of the male attendants told me that he had seen Margaret Meadows walking into the dispensary, and heard her greeting Miss Probert.’
‘Why was she not in a cell? The woman was clearly a danger to others.’
‘Meadows was making excellent progress, Miss Jex-Blake, and we had allowed her a certain measure of freedom. After half an hour, I went out into the passage and along to the dispensary. Miss Probert was lying on the floor. Her—’ Lucas stopped speaking, and held his head in his hands. Antrobus finished his sentence for him.
‘Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.’
Dr Lucas, pale as a sheet, rose from his chair.
‘How did you know that?’ he whispered. Antrobus ignored the question.
‘What happened to Margaret Meadows?’
‘She had fled the scene of her crime, and nothing was seen of her from that moment onwards. She had escaped from the house. The knife that she had used – a common kitchen knife – was found where she had thrown it on the carriage-drive. How she got out of the house I never discovered.’
Antrobus looked at Dr Lucas with growing distaste. Once rid of his murderous patient, he had done nothing. Did these people think that they had no civic duties? He felt a sullen throbbing in his left lung, and his throat filled with blood. Damn this consumption! Would he ever be free of it? He swallowed, but the throbbing continued. He saw that Dr Jex-Blake was observing him with what he would have described as ‘clinical interest’. She had tended him in bad times before, and never made a fuss.
‘Did you report Miss Probert’s death to the police?’ he managed to say.
‘I … What? Meadows was a certified lunatic. I agonized over having her sought out and charged with murder. She was never seen again. The deed had been done, and nothing could bring Joanna Probert back to life.’
‘Listen, Dr Lucas,’ said Antrobus, arching his back to relieve the throbbing. ‘What you did was, at the least, criminal negligence, and at the most, the condoning of a homicide. You allowed a dangerous madwoman to roam free. Did you even consider what further vile deeds she may have gone on to commit?’
‘She disappeared entirely,’ faltered Dr Lucas. ‘She was never seen again.’
‘Then let me te
ll you about a woman whom I met on Wednesday 12 September. She lives in a little Herefordshire town called Henning St Mary. This lady told me that her name was Probert, and that she had once been head wardress here, at Prenton Bridge—’
‘But that’s impossible!’
‘Not if you take into account delusional spasm, or mania, or whatever you alienists choose to call it. This woman told me that she was Miss Probert, and that she had had particular charge of a lunatic woman called Margaret Meadows. Meadows had been subjected to electrical treatment, and had shown much improvement. However, she soon entered into a physical decline, and the ward physician told her, Probert, that Meadows would die within six hours.’
‘But this is nonsense! There was no physical decline!’
‘Clearly not, sir. But let me finish. My Miss Probert said that Meadows sent for her, and confessed to the murder of a girl called Vivien West eight years earlier. She had been consumed with jealousy, because a man called Michael Sanders had rejected her overtures. She hated Vivien West, who loved Michael Sanders, and had cut the girl’s throat from ear to ear. Now, sir, to whom do you think I was speaking that Wednesday, in Henning St Mary?’
‘Your Miss Probert – what did she look like?’
‘She was a very impressive woman, strongly built, and with grey hair. She was well dressed, and well spoken. She walked with the aid of a stout stick, and leaned forward heavily on her right side. I wondered whether she might have suffered a stroke—’
‘No, no,’ cried Dr Lucas, wringing his hands, ‘the stick, and the right-side lunge are the results of electro-convulsive therapy. Allowing for differences brought on by ageing, you have described Margaret Meadows.’
Antrobus rose to his feet. He would leave the contrite doctor to his own devices for a while. It was necessary for him now to bring Dr Jeremy Oakshott back into focus.
‘Dr Lucas,’ he began, but was stopped by an agonizing stab of pain in his left lung. At the same time, he felt the upward rush of a pulmonary haemorrhage. He had just time to see Sophia Jex-Blake rise from her chair before he lost consciousness.
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