The Bedlam Detective

by Stephen Gallagher

  Not one of the young men showed any sign of having understood, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d come upon some regiment of mutes or simpletons. He took three long strides and grabbed the wooden box from the soldier’s hands, and he called down to the boy with the bloodied sack on a stick.

  “Put that back wherever it was,” he said. “As close as you can manage it. Step out of there and don’t touch anything else.”

  At that moment he heard the engine of a motor truck, laboring hard, and turned to see the vehicle coming into sight at the other end of the clearing. It was the same truck that he’d seen collecting the boys from the station. At the wheel was its operator and beside him was the youngest soldier, the one who’d been sent down the hill, now returning to act as guide.

  The truck pulled into the clearing and stopped, and from around the back there was a crash as the tailgate dropped. A second later a figure swung into view, followed by another. One was the gray-headed sergeant, and the other, in a rather sharp tan overcoat, was the detective from the Sun Inn’s snug.

  Stephen Reed looked first at the bodies, and stopped. Some of the will seemed to go out of him, just for a moment, as if he’d absorbed a blow, and Sebastian saw the youth behind his authority. Serving officers quickly grew hardened and could view wasted adult life with little emotion. But a dead child was a grief to all the world.

  From the bodies, he looked up to Sebastian. He saw the box in Sebastian’s hands, and his face grew dark.

  Before Sebastian could speak, Stephen Reed was walking toward him. His expression was one of fury.

  “That man!” he said, and he pointed a finger. “Tampering with evidence! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Sebastian stood his ground. “In your absence, I was doing your job,” he said.

  Stephen Reed looked back at the army sergeant and said, “Arrest this man.”

  “You heard him, boy!” the sergeant said to the nearest of his squad. “What are you waiting for?”

  So they weren’t deaf after all. Having borne his abuse, here was their license to respond. The box was knocked from Sebastian’s hands and he was seized by the arms and collar and rushed toward the back of the waiting truck. He could hear Stephen Reed saying, “Sergeant, I need you to remove everyone from this place, now,” and he tried to call something back over his shoulder, but a sly punch in his side made it impossible to speak.

  He was shouted at and forcefully propelled into the back of the motor truck, where he just about managed not to land on the dirty floor but made it onto one of the side benches.

  Two of the boys climbed in after and sat, one with a rifle, to guard him. Sebastian’s last sight of the scene, as the truck made a bumping circle and returned to the lane, was of Stephen Reed crouching and gingerly starting to uncover the face of one of the dead girls.

  He took a deep breath and relaxed back against the side of the wagon, as much as he was able. The seat was hard and the track was rough, and every now and again he had to grab the slats to keep from being thrown around. The only light came from the open back and through vents cut into the canvas, making the wagon a moving box of musty shadows.

  The boy soldiers were watching him with dead eyes. Their manner had changed. They were no longer passive but had been given the upper hand.

  One said, “What do we do with him?”

  And the other, the one that he’d berated, shrugged and then blew air out through closed lips in a gesture that said, Don’t ask me.

  Sebastian said, “If there’s a police station, you take me there.”

  “You shut yer mouth,” the second one said.

  So Sebastian settled back for the rest of the grim ride, and closed his eyes and looked inward, where he saw again the uncompleted moment as the county detective reached to uncover a dead child’s face.

  Molly or Florence. He didn’t know which.

  Perhaps he should have stayed in his room. For he’d surely achieved nothing for anyone by leaving it.

  FIVE

  The motor truck stopped right by the Sun inn’s coachyard gate. In the absence of the parish constable, who was now out on a bicycle making house-to-house visits to all of Arnmouth’s holiday villas, Sebastian was placed in the charge of the cook.

  “What am I supposed to do with you?” she said.

  “Strictly speaking,” Sebastian said, “you ought to lock me up. Tempers were frayed up there and I’m supposed to be under arrest. Don’t fear, ma’am. It was a misunderstanding in the moment. And I’m not the most pressing thing for the authorities to deal with right now.”

  “Have they found the girls?”

  “I don’t think that’s for me to say.”

  “It’s something bad, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Did they drown?”

  “It’s worse than that.”

  She knew. Her hand flew to her mouth, and for a moment she looked drained and ill.

  Sebastian said, “I’m sorry. I gather it’s not the first time that children have come to grief?”

  But she left him then, too upset to say.

  AFTER ANOTHER fifteen minutes or so, a rocket was sent up from the harbor. It burst high above the town and came down in a shower of light, like an angel winged by grapeshot. It was the signal for all of the search parties to abandon their efforts, for whatever reason. It was to be a good two hours until Stephen Reed returned. In that time, Sebastian obeyed the letter of his arrest and did not leave the inn. He did, however, go up to his room.

  He could not settle, nor even think of returning to his reading. Sir Owain’s book would have to wait. He went through to the upstairs dining room and watched through various windows as the Specials gathered on the street and climbed into cars and wagons to be transported up to the site.

  Only the Sun Inn’s landlord wore the police uniform. The others wore volunteer armbands and apprehensive looks. Missing children were one thing, murdered children another. Those who’d willingly joined a search party now found themselves being shepherded up the hill to less welcome duties.

  There was a telephone close by. It was across the way in the house of the preventative officer, the town’s own customs official, and was in constant use with people running back and forth with messages.

  After about an hour, activity began to center on a large building three doors down, separated from the customs house by a row of alms cottages. This building was tall and churchlike, with high windows and a bricked-up Gothic doorway. The entrance in use was to the side of it, and much less striking.

  Gaslights were lit inside, and all the doors were thrown open. After a while a cart arrived, bearing a number of well-used trestle tables. By now a crowd had gathered, and some lent a hand to carry them. Blackout curtains were raised at the windows to create a private space within.

  Throughout all this time, the light was fading; and at the point where the day was all but extinguished in the sky, a number of the Specials returned and moved everybody back. They set up a ring around the building, where they stood facing outward and looking uncomfortable at this implied confrontation with their neighbors. But the small crowd complied, as if they, too, had a role to play here, and wished only to be told what was proper.

  Where were the parents, Sebastian wondered? Not here and waiting on the pavement for news, that was for sure. But no one would ever envy them this day. In fact, Florence Bell’s mother was in their rented villa, and her father on his way up from London. The parents of Molly Button-childhood friend, now fixed in her childhood forever-would know nothing about anything until the next morning, when a telegram would reach them at their hotel in Aix-les-Bains.

  And now the light was gone. It was not so much like the fading of the day as the looming of a terrible shadow, rising from the woodland on the far side of the hill and inking out the sky.

  The wagons came then, down from the hill in a silent convoy. The one bearing the stretchers led, and the ring of volunteers opened to let it pass t
hrough. The bodies were taken into the hall and one of the Specials gave a hand to help the vicar, who’d made the journey with them, to climb down and follow after. He was elderly, and the climb was difficult for him. The girls were fully sheeted, but their small forms were unmistakable. Some of the women turned away. The men stared, bleakly.

  Boxes and bags were taken in, all the evidence collected from the scene. The local doctor arrived from the hill a few minutes later and followed the bodies into the hall.

  There was little to see after that. The doors were closed, the volunteers dispersed, the wagons all sent away. There was a general move toward the church. One man remained to guard the door of the hall.

  After a while, the church bell began to ring.

  SIX

  Stephen Reed entered the Sun inn’s ill-lit and deserted snug about half an hour later.

  He’d left papers and his briefcase on the map table. No one had been in to light the gas, and the only illumination came from the passageway behind the bar.

  He started to gather his few effects together, and then he seemed to lose heart. He kicked out the chair and sat, heavily.

  Sebastian said, startling the officer a little, “Is this your first murder?”

  Reed recovered himself. “No,” he said.

  “But your first with children.”

  He peered at Sebastian in the gloom. Sebastian moved forward, the better to be seen.

  “Sebastian Becker. I’m the special investigator for the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy.”

  “Oh?”

  “You had me arrested for trying to protect your evidence. What happened to the camera I was holding? Please tell me you didn’t let those boys interfere with it.”

  “That was a camera?” the detective said.

  “I believe so.”

  “It was like none I’ve ever seen.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Over in the assembly rooms, along with the bodies. Everything’s there.”

  “It’s a slim chance,” Sebastian suggested, “but the plate may carry an image from those girls’ last hour. Has anyone been stupid enough to open it?”

  Stephen Reed’s distraction fell away, and his sense of purpose seemed to return.

  “Oh, Lord,” he said. “I hope not.”

  He went out onto the street. A reasonably bright-looking child in a cadet’s uniform was passing, and Stephen Reed collared him. He sent him at a run with a message for the man on the door at the hall. Then he came back inside.

  “You’re not a policeman?” Stephen Reed said.

  “I used to be.”

  “But you work for the Lord Chancellor now.”

  “For his Visitor in Lunacy. Sir James Crichton-Browne.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sebastian took out the letters of authority that he always carried with him.

  “When the sanity of a man of property is questioned,” he said, handing the letters over, “it’s the Visitor’s duty to determine whether such a man is competent to manage his own affairs. Sometimes the mad can be devious in concealing their madness. I investigate those cases.”

  Stephen Reed looked at the papers.

  He said, “Insanity in our town? I’d say your investigation has implications for mine.”

  “If there is evidence to support such a notion, trust me to share it. There’s a telephone across the way. Call the Bethlem Hospital. They keep an office for me there. If you’re in any doubt as to my character, they will confirm what I’m telling you.”

  Stephen Reed handed the papers back to Sebastian.

  “I jumped to a hasty conclusion,” he said, while managing not to seem too unhappy about it.

  “No apology required,” Sebastian said, aware that none had been offered. He returned the papers to the inside of his coat. “Are they definitely the girls you were looking for?”

  “I believe so. But I can’t say for certain until we reach Mister Bell to arrange a formal identification. It’s not a thing I can ask of a mother.”

  “I heard say that Bell’s a judge in town.”

  “A barrister. Florence was his daughter and Molly her best friend. Molly’s parents are abroad. Bell won’t be here until morning and I can tell you, that will not be an easy hour of any man’s life. Their faces have been disfigured.”

  “Do you have children of your own?”

  “Not even married. Which does not make it any less hard to look upon.”

  Sebastian said, “It’ll go well with your superintendent if you can offer a theory.”

  “I know,” Stephen Reed said. “Some clothing is missing. I’m thinking this may be a crime of child-stripping gone too far. These were well-dressed girls. Except …”

  “What?”

  Stephen Reed shook his head, fully aware that his theory was not a good one. He seemed about to say as much when his young messenger reappeared in the doorway. The boy seemed reluctant to cross the threshold into licensed premises.

  “Well?” Stephen Reed said.

  “Your man on the door says to tell you that someone’s in there looking at the girls.”

  Stephen Reed was shocked. “He was to open the room to no one,” he said, and the boy could do no more than look helpless.

  “He says it’s Sir Owain, sir.”

  Stephen Reed set off for the hall, with Sebastian following close behind.

  SEVEN

  There was now a motor vehicle on the street outside the hall, a landaulet tourer with a silent chauffeur seated in the open behind its wheel. The chauffeur was gloved and muffled against the elements. There was no one in the passenger cab behind him. Stephen Reed went past the vehicle and bore down on his man at the door.

  “I said to let nobody in,” Stephen Reed said.

  “I know,” the man said, “but it’s Sir Owain, sir. How was I supposed to stop him?”

  “Nobody means nobody!”

  Sebastian followed Stephen Reed inside.

  The construction of the public assembly rooms was honest and un-fussy. The floors were of scrubbed bare planks, the walls of painted boards. A large public chamber with seats and a stage and open rafters stood dark and empty. They passed along a corridor beside it to a suite of rooms behind the stage.

  A second volunteer watchman sat on a chair in the corridor. He rose as Stephen Reed was approaching and began to give a halting explanation of his conduct.

  But before the man could say much of anything, the detective said, “I’ll be speaking to you later,” and swept on by. Following a few paces behind, Sebastian was able to see the special constable’s unhappy expression as he sank back to his seat.

  One of the rooms was a scullery. It had tiled walls and a sloping floor with a drain at its center. Its windows were small and high with frosted glass and metal bars. It was into this room that the two girls had been brought to spend their first night as objects of mourning and evidence of murder.

  They lay much as they’d lain in the woods, side by side, only now on folding tables, and covered by shrouds. Someone had placed a single flower on each.

  Two men were in the room with them.

  One man stood back and played no part. In the soft, unsteady glow of gaslight the older of the two had raised a corner of one of the shrouds and was looking on the face beneath. In the time since the bodies had been brought in, a small amount of blood had risen through the fine linen and now marked the positions of the features and the girls’ extremities.

  “Sir,” Stephen Reed said, “this is a criminal investigation. I have to ask you to leave.”

  Without dropping the material, the man looked up. He was somewhere past his sixtieth year. His eyes were almost without color, his hair sparse and white. Sebastian could see that, at least until recent years, he’d been a man of some vigor. He still had the frame of one, but now an older man’s flesh hung on it. The same slight air of misfit could be seen in his starched collar and heavy tweed suit. The suit was-had been-of the most expensive weigh
t and cut. A suit fit for a gentleman of the shires.

  “And you are …?” he said.

  “Detective Sergeant Stephen Reed. I’m the officer in charge of this case.”

  The man holding up the shroud gave a sweet smile. Which Sebastian found unsettling, given the circumstances.

  “Albert Reed’s boy?”

  “Sir,” the young man said, testily.

  “No harm done, Sergeant Reed,” Sir Owain said. “We’re men of science. And these girls were found on my land.”

  During this exchange Sebastian was eyeing the second man, standing over against the wall. This man was some ten years younger. An educated professional, by the look of him. He stood with arms folded, his expression betraying no emotion. But his gaze flicked from his companion to the detective, and back again. As if ready to step in with a word or more, should anything more than a word be needed.

  Stephen Reed said, “I know who you are, sir. But for the moment this is not a public place and you should not have entered it.”

  “Your policemen let me in.”

  “They were at fault in doing so. Please replace the sheet as you found it.”

  The corner of the shroud was lowered with the greatest delicacy.

  “You don’t want to hear my theory, then,” Sir Owain said.

  “I need to hear anything that will help me to find those responsible. But please.”

  Stephen Reed gestured toward the door. The second man had unfolded his arms and now stepped forward from the wall to murmur something into his companion’s ear. Sebastian was unable to pick up what was said, but it had the air of a gentle suggestion.

  At that, the older man nodded. He didn’t so much lead the way out as move ahead and allow himself to be steered. Sebastian followed, and Stephen Reed stayed behind for a moment to check the room and then lower the gas.

  In Stephen Reed’s position, Sebastian would have been happy to hear any theory, too. This was no incident of child-stripping. That had been a common crime once, taking advantage of a child’s size and weakness to steal and sell its clothing. But even then it had rarely ended in death, except incidentally as a result of exposure.