The Insanity of Murder

by Felicity Young

  Florence sneezed and pulled the thin blanket tighter across her shoulders. The head cold was a worry. She must have picked it up from the spluttering shop girl she’d shared a cell with at the magistrate’s court. How could they insert the feeding tube if her nose was blocked with mucous? Her panic ballooned again, ready to suffocate her. Probably shove it down my mouth, she thought. And if I am especially unlucky, like Emily Davison, the force-feeders will take a few teeth with them. Emily had false teeth now and they clicked whenever she spoke. Florence’s brow popped with perspiration. She wiped it off with the sleeve of her dress. Oh God, I must stop getting myself so carried away. What will be will be. Having one’s teeth knocked out, she attempted to console herself, would certainly be a war wound worth boasting about.

  But the hand-wringing wait for the force-feeding seemed so much worse this time around. Before, she had been imprisoned with other suffragettes and they had been able to jolly each other along, reinforcing their belief in the cause with poetry and stirring songs. How naïve they had been. No one had any idea what was in store for them then.

  A sound outside her cell door caused her heart to jolt, her body to tense. Was it the warden come to collect the night soil? Or was it the breakfast trolley? They’d taken her watch away with her clothes and she was having trouble keeping track of time. All she wore now was a sack-like prison dress covered in arrows; last time she had been allowed to keep her own clothes. But it was probably best that they had taken them away, she supposed. They’d probably be ruined by blood and vomit anyway.

  Her eyes traversed the small cell and came to rest upon the waste bucket. With great effort she moved towards it, leaning on the bolted-down table for support. She lifted the lid and quickly replaced it. The night soil trolley must have been and gone. Although the bucket was empty, the smell continued to linger through the small cell. She gagged and allowed herself a small sip of water from the tin cup on the table. The lip of the cup was uneven and crusty with dirt, as if it had never been washed.

  A cockroach peeped from underneath the tin plate containing last night’s supper of greasy mutton and floury potato. When the warden — a fresh-faced young woman with plump arms — had plonked the meal on the table, she’d said, ‘I’ll leave it for you then, miss. Maybe you’ll be tempted for a peck in the middle of the night.’

  Not likely. Florence picked up the plate and slotted it with difficulty through the ‘letter box’ of her cell door. When the breakfast trolley passed the plate would be replaced with a bowl of watery porridge and a crust of bread. Funny that I’m such an expert on prison food without ever having sampled a morsel of it.

  The sound of the rattling trolley grew closer. Florence returned to her bed — not much more than a suspended bench with a horsehair mattress — and curled herself up like a shrimp with her back to the door. With the clunk of a heavy key in the lock, the cell door groaned open. She heard the rattle of a trolley being nosed through. Florence curled further and tightened her arms across her chest.

  It wasn’t the breakfast trolley.

  Strong hands grabbed her. She refused to uncurl and it took three female prison wardens to manoeuvre her onto the only chair in the cell. They prised her limbs apart and tied her to the chair.

  A doctor stepped into her line of sight. His eyes were dark and bottomless and she could not help but notice their devilish glint. When he spoke, his voice was black velvet. ‘This is for your own good, Miss McCleland.’

  ‘I’ve brought you some lovely porridge, Miss McCleland,’ the warden with the plump arms from last night enticed her, somewhat desperately. ‘I’ve even put some sugar on it.’

  ‘I don’t want it, get it away from me!’ Florence screamed.

  Like a mirage in the desert, the scene before her shimmered through her tears. Surely, what she saw could not be real; surely she was misreading the doctor’s expression, the way he handled the tube. He smiled as he lifted it from a jug on the trolley, regarded it tenderly for a moment and then smothered it with lubricant, sliding it back and forth between his fingers.

  ‘I’ll get you for this, you sadistic bastard!’ Florence shouted at him. ‘They’ll let me go eventually, and when they do I’ll —’

  ‘Tut tut, language my dear. Tip her up,’ the doctor ordered the wardens. ‘If this hurts, Miss McCleland, it will be your own fault.’

  The chair was pulled almost backwards. The doctor leaned over her, dangling the tube in front of her face, continuing to regard her with that unnerving look in his eye. She jerked her head around, making it impossible for him to penetrate her nostril. A coarse hand clamped itself across her forehead; another steadied her chin. Florence was pinned and paralysed. The doctor moved closer with the tube. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek, smell his breakfast coffee, see a vein pulsing at his temple — it was all so horribly intimate.

  He smoothed the hair from her eyes.

  ‘Your skin is so fine, my dear. I will do my best not to damage it. You are as beautiful as you are stubborn.’

  Florence fell silent. She stared at him for a moment, mesmerised.

  The plump young warden broke the eerie silence. ‘Doctor, I think we should get on with it.’

  The doctor shook his head like one emerging from a trance. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  He steadied the hand holding the tube against the side of her face and moved the tip of the tube towards her nostril. The fatty odour of the goose grease made her gag.

  ‘None of that, now.’ The doctor exaggerated a flinch. One of the other wardens, not the sympathetic plump one, giggled at his theatrics. ‘We haven’t even started yet.’

  I’ll give you something to giggle about, Florence thought as she hoiked at the phlegm in the back of her throat. She would use this cold of hers to her advantage. She’d show them that she had not yet lost her control. And this is what it was about, after all. Control.

  The doctor put his face towards hers once more. Florence spat. The bolus of phlegm caught him on the end of his hooked nose and dripped onto his lips. He bellowed, pulled away for just a moment and then struck back, landing a stunning blow across the side of Florence’s head.

  ‘You filthy little bitch!’ he cried, dabbing at his nose and mouth with a handkerchief.

  The inside of Florence’s mouth welled and she spat again, this time engulfing those around her in a fine red mist. Her captors leapt back with screams of disgust. The sudden loss of restraint caused the chair to pitch forward, taking Florence with it, headfirst to the flagged floor.

  Through the fog in her mind she thought she heard the cell door open followed by a cacophony of panicking voices. And then she heard nothing more at all.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pike and Singh stepped from the Yard just as their intended bus eased itself into the Embankment traffic.

  ‘Quick, Singh,’ Pike said to his companion, pointing to the departing bus with his cane. Singh sprinted after the slow-moving vehicle and swung aboard, flashing his police pass at the disgruntled conductor. The vehicle stopped and motorcars honked. Pike lifted his hat to the driver to thank him for waiting. The conductor wound two tickets out of his machine and handed them to Singh.

  The weather was mild so they climbed the steps and sat on the top deck. Pike, almost collapsing onto the bench street, accepted Singh’s offered cigarette and inhaled deeply, then took the ticket Singh handed him for the Chelsea Hospital stop. From there they would walk to Mr Francis Hislop’s salubrious Chelsea Manor Street address.

  ‘The Act has been passed, sir? Singh asked as the bus finally managed to nudge itself into the traffic.

  Pike nodded as he blew out smoke. ‘Passed in the nick of time for Miss Florence McCleland. They might have failed with their forced-feeding attempt but they succeeded in knocking her out quite badly. She’s been sent home for her sister to look after.’

  ‘It was fortunate that she avoided the prison hospital. They say conditions there are worse than the cells.’
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  ‘They were about to take her there when I arrived and put a stop to it. Had to wave a copy of the Act under their noses.’

  Pike neglected to say how horrified he had been to see Florence’s emaciated form laid out on the cell bed with a female prison warden stooped over her, wiping the blood from her ashen face. Or how he had discreetly followed the ambulance in a taxicab to Bloomsbury in order to see Florence safely handed into Dody’s care. It had been a race to get back to the Yard to meet up with Singh, hence their almost missing the bus.

  A little boy in polished boots and knee breeches stared from where he sat on the other side of the aisle, legs swinging. Pike frowned and shook his finger at the boy. The boy reacted by pulling his cloth cap over his eyes so he could still peep through at the turbaned foreigner who looked like he’d just survived ten rounds with Jack Johnson.

  Oblivious, Singh began to hum a music hall ditty.

  Riding on top of an omnibus,

  It’s pleasant and it just suits me;

  Take it day or night, you’ll experience delight,

  And some very, very funny sights you’ll see.

  Pike smiled to himself. None of the sights he viewed were as amusing as those in the song but they proved to be a pleasant distraction from the last few harrowing hours. The late afternoon river traffic flowed with organised chaos, almost as busy as the road, he noticed. Just before they turned away from it, a steam ferry pulled up at one of the embankment wharves and disgorged a throng of dark-suited office workers from the other side of the river, making their way home to their respectable lower-middle-class dwellings in areas such as Holborne, West Hoxton and Portland Town.

  The bus turned into The Mall, stately corridor to the Palace, and they found themselves looking down upon a squad of Household Cavalry giving their mounts their last exercise for the day. The horsemen wheeled onto the cantering track of St James’s Park and thundered off, spewing almost as much dust as the bus did greasy fumes. Pike met Singh’s eyes. The ex-cavalrymen both knew where each would prefer to be.

  They skirted the Palace, drove through Belgravia then Lower Sloane Street, finally ending their journey at the Royal Chelsea Hospital where three scarlet-jacketed pensioners sat at the bus stop. The old men did not rise to board, but continued to sit as if passing the time. One was missing a leg, the other an arm, and the third —, if his vacant stare was anything to go by —, was probably blind.

  ‘There but for the grace of God,’ Singh muttered after they walked past, heading towards Christ Church Street.

  They came to a two-storey detached house set back from the street road behind freshly painted pillared gates. As soon as they commenced their walk and started down the garden path, Pike sensed there was something not quite right about the place. The garden, evidently once opulent, was overgrown, the gaps in the expensive new paving stones beneath their feet already springing weeds. The fresh paintwork of the house suggested recent work, yet the front steps needed a good scrub. Spider webs hung like miniature hammocks above their heads on the front porch.

  They were asked to wait on the doorstep by an untidy maid who disappeared to enquire if her master, Mr Francis Hislop, was at home. After a wait of several minutes, a man of late middle age greeted Pike with an expression of haughty indignation. His scowl lifted slightly when he examined Pike’s warrant card, obviously relieved to be dealing with a policeman of rank rather than a common bobby.

  ‘What’s this about then?’ the solicitor asked.

  Pike reached into his pocket for the photograph, covering the mutilated mouth of the woman in the same way he had with the clerk at Bethlem.

  ‘Good God,’ Hislop exclaimed after barely a second glance.

  ‘Do you know this woman, sir?’ Pike asked.

  Hislop ran his finger under the pointed tips of his collar. ‘What happened to her? Why are you covering up her mouth?’

  ‘Do you know this woman?’ Pike repeated with emphasis.

  Ignoring Pike’s his question, Hislop stepped from the porch and strode a few paces down the garden path where he paused to look through the railings of the front fence. Pike followed his gaze. A nanny walked past with two small charges and a fluffy dog, a clatter of pigeons rising into the sky above their heads. A baker’s van had paused at a smaller house opposite. Other than that the street was still.

  ‘You’d better come in.’ Hislop turned his back to the street and addressed Pike. ‘Your lackey can wait outside.’

  ‘My constable has had a tiring day, Mr Hislop. I wonder if your cook might provide him with a cup of tea?’ Pike asked.

  Hislop pulled an expression of distaste. ‘Oh, very well, follow the signs to the tradesman’s entrance down the steps. Tell Cook I sent you.’

  Singh met Pike’s eye then made his way to the kitchen around the side of the house. He did not need to be told to find out as much as he could about Hislop from his servants.

  Pike was invited no further in than the hall of the well-proportioned house. A chandelier shone above his head dripping with dulled crystal dangles. Hunting scenes hung haphazardly on the fresh paintwork. A wide bannister with intricate spindles twisted its way towards the upper storey. The runner on the stairs needed a good sweep.

  ‘Let me have another look at that photograph. Thank you. I can’t even see the blasted thing in this damned light.’ Hislop placed the photograph under the light of the chandelier and looked at the photograph in its entirety.

  ‘Good God, it is her.’ His shoulders dropped and his stern expression softened with apparent relief. ‘Yes, I do know her. Come, join me in my study,’ he ordered. ‘I need a drink.’

  Celebration or commiseration, Pike wondered, perplexed. The man did not even seem shocked by the state of the woman’s mouth. He followed Hislop into a room off the hall with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all in need of a good wipe, and found himself guided by the arm towards a grandmother chair.

  The place had an unusual smell about it, Pike thought, the unlikely combination of dust and money.

  The greasy glass of Madeira was not offered, but more like pressed into Pike’s grip. Hislop helped himself to a drink and then occupied a large grandfather chair with scarlet upholstery. He sat forward, leaning towards Pike, legs splayed, smothering the small glass in his two large hands.

  ‘When did it happen?’ he demanded.

  ‘First, please tell me who she is, sir.’

  ‘My former wife, Cynthia.’

  ‘Her body was found last week in the public conveniences at Waterloo Station,’ he said.

  ‘By whom?’

  Pike said nothing, took a sip from his glass and placed it on an inlaid side table. He relaxed back into his chair and crossed his legs, fixing Hislop with an impassive look intended to remind him who was asking the questions. The man was a bully, and Pike abhorred bullies.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much of a blessed relief that woman’s death is to me, Chief Inspector.’

  That much was obvious, Pike thought to himself.

  Hislop must have read his expression correctly, for he quickly backtracked. ‘The relief is not for my sake, of course, but for her own. She was a very disturbed woman, a sufferer of all kinds of mental agonies. The news in itself is sad, but a blessing. She is at peace now.’

  ‘Where did she reside after she left Bethlem Hospital?’ Pike asked.

  ‘She came home for a short while but proved impossible to deal with. When I could bear it no more I had her sent to a rest home in Surrey. That was where she was committed originally, when she first became ill, about ten years ago. She responded well to the treatment there.’

  Pike tensed. ‘Can you give me the name of the institution, please?’

  ‘The Elysium Rest Home for Gentlewomen — the best I could afford.’ Hislop paused. ‘Wait a minute! Those asses are still sending me monthly bills! How long had she been missing, do you know, Sergeant?’

  Buoyed by his discovery of the link between Lady Mary and Cynthia, Pike allowed the m
an’s meanness to wash over him. ‘It looked like she had been living on the street for some time. You may be assured to know that an investigation into the home is currently being discreetly undertaken.’

  ‘Good. I want my money back.’ Hislop became distracted, sliding his gaze towards the window, beyond the garden to the road. A taxi chugged up outside the house. Someone climbed out and paid the driver. A tangle of greenery obscured Pike’s view and he failed to make the visitor out.

  ‘When did you last see your wife, Mr Hislop?’ Pike asked as he heard a key turning in a lock and then the slam of the heavy front door.

  ‘I repeat — former wife. A couple of years ago perhaps.’

  The study door flew open and a fair-haired, rouged young woman of about twenty-five years entered, breathing heavily — the daughter, Pike assumed. She wore a Liberty-print silk dress and a deep-crowned straw hat with a stuffed sea bird attached to its black ribbon. The increasing rarity of this kind of fine-plumed wild bird made Pike wonder when the fashion accessory would be banned in England as it was now in America.

  Hiding his distaste, Pike climbed to his feet.

  The woman’s gloved hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp of surprise. ‘I’m so sorry, Francis, I thought you were alone.’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Gloria. Gloria, this is Chief Inspector Pike, and this, Chief Inspector, is my wife, Mrs Gloria Hislop.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘There, there my darling, it’s all right now, you’ve been having a nightmare.’ Dody put the oil lamp on the bedside table and smoothed her sister’s silky dark hair. ‘You are in your own bed and you are at home. You are no longer in that dreadful prison.’

  Dody’s mind flew back in time to when her sister, eight years her junior, was a child. On the rare occasion Dody was home for the school holidays, she had happily taken on mothering responsibilities when their own mother was attending literary salons or political meetings. As a child, Florence had been subject to night terrors, especially after reading the Grimm fairy tales before bed. Tickling her face thus had been the most effective way of getting her back to sleep. Now, Florence shook her head from side to side, avoiding Dody’s touch. The adult Florence was proving to be not as compliant as the child — and why should she be? Her nightmares were based on reality, not fairy stories.