He thought of Maisie Willis and the violets, the long cold hours spent on the cab box, and the moment when he had realized the M.P. who had accosted him for a ride had fresh primroses in his buttonhole.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “It might be.”
“And it might not! Thomas,” she said, smiling now, “I want you to be doing what you enjoy and are best at. Anything else is too high a price to pay for a little more money, which we don’t need. We can meet our expenses, and that is enough. What would we do with more? What is more precious than being able to do what you want?”
“I’ve accepted it,” he said slowly.
“Then go back and tell him you have changed your mind. Please, Thomas.”
He did not argue, he simply held her very closely for a long time, happiness singing inside him, beating like the wings of a great bird.
Gracie picked up her bucket and, humming a little song to herself, went out the back door to empty it down the drain.
“Tell me about it,” Charlotte said presently. “How did you catch her—and who was she? Why did she do it? Why members of Parliament? Have you told Florence Ivory? Have you told Aunt Vespasia?”
“I haven’t told anyone; I thought you’d like to.”
“Oh yes—yes I would. I wish we had one of those telephones! Shall we go on the omnibus and tell her? Would you like a cup of tea first? Or are you hungry? What about luncheon?”
“Yes, yes, no, and it’s too early,” he replied.
“What?”
“Yes we’ll go and see Aunt Vespasia, yes I’d like a cup of tea, no I’m not hungry, and it’s too early for lunch. And your bread is rising.”
“Oh. Then put on the kettle. I’ll finish kneading the dough, and you can tell me who she was and how you caught her—and why she did it.” And she went to the sink, washed her hands, and began again to pummel the bread dough, sprinkling more flour on the board.
Pitt filled the kettle and put it on the stove as he was bidden, then began to recount the story of Royce’s offer and how they had carried it out. Of course she already knew about the abortive attempts with Micah Drummond.
“So it wasn’t blind,” she said when he finished. “I mean, she wasn’t after members of Parliament in general. She knew Royce—you said she called out his name.”
Pitt remembered the blaze of hatred in the woman’s voice, the triumph in the moment she recognized him and knew beyond doubt it was he. “I’ve got you at last,” she had said, and careless of the cab looming behind her, or Pitt leaping from it, she had lifted and swung the razor to kill. She was insane, a creature beyond the reach of reason, a destroyer—and yet there had been something very human in that hatred.
Charlotte’s voice cut into his thoughts.
“Do you think she was after Royce all the time, and mistook the others for him? They all lived on the south side of the river, they all walked home, as it was not far, and they all had fair or gray hair.”
“They were all Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the Home Secretary at some part in their careers. Except perhaps Royce himself—I don’t know about him,” he answered slowly. “I wonder what he was doing seventeen years ago.”
She split the dough and put it into three tins and left them to rise. “You do think so! Why? Why did she hate Royce so much? Because he put her into Bedlam?”
“Perhaps.” The faint dissatisfaction at the back of his mind was stronger, more like a prickle. It was Garnet Royce she had attacked, not Jasper, the doctor. Was that simply because he was the elder brother, the stronger, the one in whose house she had served? But what had turned melancholia over the death of her mistress into a homicidal mania such as he had seen on Westminster Bridge?
He finished his tea and stood up. “You go and tell Aunt Vespasia. I think I shall go back and talk to Drummond again.”
“About Elsie Draper?”
“Yes; yes I think so.”
All the way back to Bow Street he saw the newsboys carrying placards for extra editions. Headlines screamed WEST-MINSTER CUTTHROAT CAUGHT! PARLIAMENT SAFE AGAIN! MANIAC SHOT DEAD ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE! He bought a paper just before he went into the police station. Under the big black leader was an article on how the threat of anarchy had receded and law had prevailed once more, thanks to the skill and dedication of the Metropolitan Police and the daring of an unknown member of Parliament. The whole of the nation’s capital rejoiced in the return of order and safety to the streets.
Micah Drummond was startled to see Pitt back so soon, and on a spring day when he might have found gardening such a pleasure.
“What is it, Pitt?” There was a shadow of alarm in his face.
Pitt closed the door behind him. “First of all, sir,” he began, “I thank you for the promotion, but I would rather remain at my present rank, where I can go out on investigations myself, rather than supervise other men to do it. I think that is where my skill lies, and it is what I want to do.”
Drummond smiled. There was a certain ruefulness in his eyes, and a relief. Either he had been expecting something less pleasant, or else in part at least he understood.
“I am not surprised,” he said candidly. “And not entirely sorry. You would have made a good senior officer, but we should have lost a lot by taking you away from the streets. Secondhand judgment is never the same. I admire you for the choice; it is not easy to decline money, or status.”
Pitt found himself blushing. The admiration of a man he both liked and respected was a precious thing. He hated now to have to pursue the matter of Elsie Draper, instead of merely thanking Drummond and going out. But the question pressed on his mind, clamoring for an answer. He felt an incompleteness like hunger.
“Thank you, sir.” He let out his breath slowly. “Sir, I would like to find out more about Elsie Draper—the madwoman. Just before she struck at Royce she called him by name. She wasn’t killing at random; she hated him—personally. I’d like to know why.”
Drummond stood still, looking down at the empty space on his desk, the quill and inkstand set in dark Welsh slate, unostentatious.
“I wanted to know too,” he said. “I wondered if she were after Royce all the time, and she mistook the first three for him. I couldn’t find anything in common among them, except that they live on the south side of the river not far from Westminster Bridge, within walking distance, and they have a superficial physical resemblance. They have no special political opinions in common, but then a madwoman who has spent the last seventeen years in Bedlam would hardly care about such things. But I did inquire what Royce was doing seventeen years ago.”
“Yes?”
Drummond’s smile was tight, bleak. “He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary.” His eyes met Pitt’s.
“So they all held that office!” Pitt exclaimed. “Perhaps that is why they died. She was looking for Royce, and she still thought of him in connection with the office he held when she worked in his house. She must have asked around, and she found three other men living south of the river who had held that position before she got the right one! But why did she hate him so long and so passionately?”
“Because he had her committed to Bedlam!”
“For melancholia? Perhaps. But may I go to Bedlam and ask about her, to see what they know?”
“Yes. Yes, Pitt—and tell me what you find.”
The Bethlem Royal Hospital was in a huge old building on the Lambeth Road on the south side of the river, a block away from the Westminster Bridge Road where it curved up the hill away from the water and the Lambeth Palace Gardens, the official house of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England. Bedlam, as it was commonly known, was another world, shut in, as far from sweetness and ease as the nightmare is from the sleeper’s sane and healthful room, where flowers sit in a vase and the morning sunlight will presently stream through the curtains onto a solid floor.
Inside Bedlam was madness and despair. For centuries this hospital, whether within these w
alls or others, had been the last resort for those no human reason could reach. In earlier times they had been shackled night and day and tormented to exorcise them of devils. Those with a taste for such things had come by to watch them and taunt them for entertainment, as later generations might go to a carnival or a zoo, or a hanging.
Now treatment was more enlightened. Most of the restraining devices were gone, except for the most violent; but tortures of the mind still persisted, the terror and delusion, the misery, the endless imprisonment without hope.
Pitt had been in Newgate and Coldbath Fields, and for all the superintendent in his frock coat and the stewards and medical staff, the walls smelled the same and the air had a fetid taste. Pitt’s credentials were examined before he was permitted the slightest courtesy.
“Elsie Draper?” the superintendent asked coldly. “I shall have to consult my records. What is it you wish to know? I assure you, when we released her she’d been calm and of good behavior for many years, nine or ten at least. She never gave the slightest indication of violence.” He bristled, preparing for battle. “We cannot keep people indefinitely, you know, not if there is no need. We do not have endless facilities!”
“What was her original complaint?”
“Complaint?” The man asked sharply, sensitive to any criticism.
“Why was she admitted?”
“Acute melancholia. She was a simple woman, from some country area, who had followed her mistress when she married. As I understand it, her mistress died—of scarlet fever. Elsie Draper became deranged with grief, and her master was obliged to have her committed. Very charitable of him, I think, in the circumstances, instead of merely turning her out.”
“Melancholia?”
“That is what I just said, Sergeant ... ?”
“Inspector Pitt.”
“Very well—Inspector! I don’t know what else you think I can tell you. We cared for her for seventeen years, during which time she gave no indication that she was homicidal. She was perfectly able to care for herself when we released her, and no longer in need of medical attention, nor had we reason to fear she would be a burden upon the rest of the community.”
Pitt did not argue; it was a moot point now, and this was not what he had come to find out.
“May I speak with those who attended her? And is there anyone among the other patients she spoke to? Someone who knew her?”
“I don’t know what you imagine you can learn! We can all be wise with hindsight, you know!”
“I am not looking for signs that she was homicidal,” Pitt said honestly. “I need to know other things: her reasons for acting as she did, or what she believed were her reasons.”
“I cannot see how they can possibly matter now.”
“I am not questioning your competence in your job, sir,” Pitt replied a little testily. “Please do not question the way I do mine. If I did not believe this was necessary, I should be at home with my family, sitting in my garden.”
The man’s face grew still more pinched. “Very well, if that is what you wish. Be so good as to follow me,” and he turned sharply on his heel and led the way down a chill stone corridor, up a flight of stairs, and along a further passageway to a door which opened into a large ward with ten beds in it. There were chairs beside the beds and set around at various places. It was Pitt’s first sight of the inside of a lunatic asylum, and his immediate feeling was one of relief. There were enamel jugs with flowers, and here and there a cushion or a blanket which was obviously not institutional. A bright yellow cloth half covered one of the small tables.
Then he looked at the people, the matron standing near the window, with the spring sun coming in through the bars and falling on her gray dress and white cap and apron. Her face was worn with tension and the sight of misery, her eyes flat. Her large hands were red-knuckled, and she had a key chain hanging from her belt.
To the left of her a woman of an age impossible to judge sat on the floor, knees hunched up to her chin, rocking back and forth ceaselessly, whispering to herself. Her hair hung over her face, matted and unkempt. Another woman with a blotchy skin and hair scraped back in a tight knot sat staring vacantly, oblivious of them all. She saw some vision of despair that excluded everything else, and when two others spoke to her she took no notice whatsoever.
Three elderly women sat at a table playing cards with vicious intensity, even though they put down a different card each time and called it always by the same name, the three of clubs.
Another sat with an old news journal, which she held upside down, and kept repeating to herself, “I can’t find it! I can’t find it! I can’t find it!”
“The Inspector wants to speak to someone who knew Elsie Draper,” the Superintendent said tersely. “If you can find someone I should be obliged, Matron.”
“In mercy’s sake, what for?” the matron asked crossly. “What good can it do now, I’d like to know!”
“Is there anyone?” Pitt asked, trying to force himself to smile and failing. The hopelessness of the place was creeping into his skin—the confusion, the desperate faces that stared at him, the flickers of knowledge that they were betrayed from within. “I need to know!” He meant to keep his voice level, but a frantic note betrayed his feelings.
The matron had already heard every horror that there was; little moved her, for she could no longer find the emotion to allow it to.
“Polly Tallboys,” she said patiently. “I suppose she might. Here—Polly! Come here and speak to the gentleman. No need to be afraid. He won’t hurt you. You just answer him properly.”
“I dint do it!” Polly was a small woman with pale eyes that drooped downward at the corners, and as she came forward obediently her fingers twisted the gray cotton of her dress. “Honest I dint!”
Pitt moved away from the matron and sat down on one of the chairs, motioning Polly to do the same.
“I know that,” he said agreeably. “Of course you didn’t. I believe you.”
“You do?” She was incredulous, uncertain what to do next.
“Sit down, Polly, please. I need your help.”
“Mine?”
“Yes, please. You knew Elsie, didn’t you? You were friends?”
“Elsie? Yeah, I knew Elsie. She’s gorn ’ome.”
“Yes, that’s right.” The elemental truth of the words wrenched his heart. “Elsie used to be in service, didn’t she.” He made it a statement, not a question; perhaps questions were more than she could handle. “Did she ever tell you anything about that?”
“Oh yeah!” Polly’s vacant face lit up for a moment. “Lady’s maid, she were—ever so grand. Said ’er mistress were the best lady in the world.” Slowly the light faded from her eyes; tears filled them, spilling down her pallid cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them away.
Pitt took his handkerchief and leaned forward to dry her tears. It was a pointless gesture—she kept on crying—but he felt better for it. Somehow it made her seem more like a woman, less a thing broken and shut away.
“She died, Elsie’s mistress, a long time ago,” he prompted. “Elsie was very sad.”
Polly nodded very slowly. “Starved, poor soul; starved to death, for Jesus’ sake.”
Pitt was startled. Perhaps this had been an idiotic idea, coming to Bedlam for an answer when he did not even know what the question was, and asking lunatics.
“Starved?” he repeated. “I thought she died of scarlet fever.”
“Starved.” She said the word carefully, but her voice sounded empty, as if she did not know what it meant.
“Is that what Elsie said?”
“That’s what Elsie said. For Jesus.”
“Did she say why?” It was a wildly optimistic question. What could this poor creature know, and what could it mean, having come from Elsie Draper’s jumbled mind?
“For Jesus,” Polly repeated, looking at him with clear, shallow eyes.
“How was it for Jesus?” Was it even worth asking?
Polly
blinked. Pitt waited, trying to smile at her.
Her attention wandered.
“How was it for Jesus, this starving?” he prompted her.
“The church,” she said with a sudden return of interest. “The church in an ’all on Bethlehem Road. She knew it were true, an’ ’e wou’nt let ’er go. That’s wot Elsie said. Foreign, they was. ’E seen God—an’ Jesus.”
“Who had, Polly?”
“I dunno.”
“What were they called?”
“She never said. Least, I never ’eard.”
“But they met in a hall in Bethlehem Road? Are you sure?”
She made a momentous effort at thought, brow furrowed, fingers clenched in her lap. “No,” she said at last. “I dunno.”
He reached out and touched her gently. “Never mind. You’ve helped very much. Thank you, Polly.”
She smiled warily, then some part of her grasped that he was pleased, and the smile widened. “Oppression—that’s wot Elsie said. Oppression ... wickedness—terrible wickedness.” She searched his face to see if he understood.
“Thank you, Polly. Now I must go and find out about what you have told me. I’m going to Bethlehem Road. Goodbye Polly.”
She nodded. “Good-bye, Mr... .” She tried to think what to call him and failed.
“Thomas Pitt,” he told her.
“Good-bye, Thomas Pitt,” she echoed.
He thanked the matron, and a junior warder showed him out, unlocking the doors and locking them behind him. He left Bethlem Royal Hospital and went out into the sun with a feeling of pity so deep he wanted to run, to leave not only the great building but all memory of it behind. And yet his feet clung leadenly to the damp pavements; the individual faces were too sharp in his mind to be left behind like anonymous facts.
He walked to Bethlehem Road; it took him less than fifteen minutes. He did not want to find Royce but to see if he could find anyone who knew of the religious order that had met in a hall seventeen years ago. Someone there might remember Mrs. Royce and know something about her. He had no idea what he could find. He had nothing but a simple-minded woman’s recollection of a lunatic’s rambling obsessions.
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