The Chelsea Strangler

by Susanna GREGORY

  Martha smiled wanly. ‘Which means we all have alibis. Of course, there is also money missing. Thirty pounds, according to Mrs Bonney.’

  ‘Martha Thrush,’ came a booming voice. It was Wiseman, his bulk filling the doorway. ‘You seem familiar. Are you any relation to the Thrushes of Southwark? They are patients of mine, a family of tanners. They all have big red noses.’

  ‘No,’ stammered Martha. ‘None of my family have big noses, red or any other colour.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Wiseman. ‘They owe me money from their last consultation, and you could have paid on their behalf. I shall never have it if they catch the plague, so time is of the essence.’

  ‘Jeffrey and I tried to collect outstanding fees, too,’ sighed Hart. ‘In London. But it was simply too dangerous, so we decided to leave it until the plague is over.’

  ‘Although I doubt the rogues will remember the debt,’ said Bannister gloomily. ‘They will have forgotten us, as is the way with most rich folk.’

  Wiseman agreed, and the three of them began an indignant discussion on the matter, each eager to relate tales of wealthy clients’ fiscal transgressions. While they outraged each other with their experiences, Chaloner went to Hart’s viol. He sat on the chair and bowed a scale. Its tone was rich and mellow, so he began to play a dance, although he was painfully aware that his performance was mechanical and wholly devoid of expression.

  ‘That is nice,’ came Martha’s shy voice at his side. ‘But I think the strings need replacing.’

  ‘You like music?’ Chaloner was unwilling to admit that the problem might lie with him.

  Martha nodded. ‘Dr Franklin says that it is the best medicine available, and thinks that everyone should learn an instrument. Will you join me in a duet?’

  ‘All right,’ said Chaloner reluctantly, hoping he would not disgrace himself.

  ‘It will have to be an easy one, though,’ she said apologetically. ‘Dowland?’

  She began a soulful piece he had never much liked, which she did with a fierce concentration and a good many mistakes. He noticed that she had unusually large hands, and wondered why her tutors had not suggested the harpsichord or the virginals instead, where a large span was useful.

  ‘Come now!’ cried Hart, his shrill voice cutting through a particularly painful section. ‘Why these dismal airs?’

  ‘Because it was my brother’s favourite song,’ said Martha with a flash of defiance.

  ‘Then he was a sad soul, and it is a pity he was not happier,’ said Hart firmly, removing the bow from her and setting it down. ‘Shall we continue our dancing lesson now?’

  Out in the hall, Mrs Bonney and Dr Franklin were waiting for Chaloner. Both looked tired, harried and anxious, and made no attempt to hide the fact that they resented his arrival – they would have preferred to deal with Gorges’ problems themselves.

  ‘You must be gentle when you speak to our patients, Chaloner,’ warned the physician sternly. ‘Some are in very delicate health, and we cannot have them distressed.’

  ‘I told you: he will be the soul of discretion,’ promised Wiseman. ‘Now where is Parker? I want to talk to him about Dorothy.’

  ‘He is unavailable,’ said Franklin, exchanging a quick and very furtive look with Mrs Bonney. ‘He is … running an important trial with coffee grounds.’

  The cagily worded reply caused understanding to blossom in Chaloner’s mind. ‘Has he been experimenting on himself?’

  ‘Of course!’ exclaimed Wiseman. ‘You are a genius, Chaloner! That would explain the eccentric behaviour in a normally rational man, along with the shaking hands, the restlessness and the irritability. What has he been doing, Franklin? Drinking large quantities of coffee?’

  There was a moment when Chaloner thought that Franklin would deny it, but then the physician gave a resigned sigh.

  ‘Yes, and eating raw beans. We have tried to stop him, but he is so excited about the possibility of a permanent cure that he will not listen.’

  ‘I never experiment on myself,’ declared Wiseman fervently. ‘That is what patients are for.’

  ‘He does that, too,’ confided Mrs Bonney unhappily. ‘But he is a fine medicus, and has healed many ladies who have been deemed past medical help by his colleagues, so we turn a blind eye.’

  ‘I hope he has not been practising on Dorothy,’ said Wiseman dangerously. ‘Bannister and Hart have just informed me that she is an abysmal dancer, but she was once very light on her feet, so if Parker has done something to change her…’

  ‘She might have been nimble years ago, Wiseman,’ said Franklin kindly, ‘but she is older now. Even if she were not deranged, she would have trouble gambolling about as she did in her youth.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Wiseman indignantly. ‘She is still in her prime, just like me.’

  After a short and rather awkward silence, Mrs Bonney offered Chaloner a tour of the premises, to which the surgeon tagged along uninvited. Gorges was a large house in the shape of an irregular E, with Dutch gables and Tudor chimneys. Most of the upstairs rooms were small, which suited a foundation that cared for twenty patients, and allowed a privacy impractical in other asylums. Downstairs, there was a large refectory, the ballroom, and a clean, airy kitchen. The gardens were prettily organised, and were visible through most of the windows.

  Parker and Franklin lived in the village, but the rest of the staff had been allocated rooms on site. These ranged from the pleasant garret occupied by Bannister and Hart, which had been decorated with homemade cushions – although an expensive French clock and a jewelled box were hints that they would have pampered themselves more if they had earned better pay – to the lofts above the stables, where the nursing staff slept. Mrs Bonney had a small but cosy chamber at the back of the house, placed so she could rise quickly if there was a problem during the night.

  Suddenly, the peace was broken by the sound of clashing cymbals, followed by the bray of a trumpet and a lot of loud laughter. Chaloner assumed it was the inmates, but was curtly informed that Gorges’ guests were more genteel, and that the racket emanated from nearby Buckingham House.

  ‘Courtiers,’ said Mrs Bonney darkly. ‘Here to escape the plague.’

  ‘What did you think of Underhill and Kole?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Were they good governors?’

  ‘Yes, on the whole,’ she replied. ‘Mr Underhill was always reading, so was able to converse on many subjects, which was a delight to our more learned patients.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But he swore horribly when he thought no one was listening – like a street urchin. It made me wonder if he was telling the truth when he claimed to be heir to a large country estate.’

  ‘I see,’ said Chaloner, thinking it was not his place to enlighten her.

  ‘Mr Kole was an odd fellow, though,’ she went on. ‘He liked to visit us at night, and once I caught him peering through the residents’ keyholes.’

  ‘Not Dorothy’s, I hope,’ said Wiseman, ready to be angry.

  ‘No – the younger ones,’ replied Mrs Bonney. ‘Martha and Nancy. He said he was just checking they were safely inside, but there was something about the way his eyes glistened … it made me uncomfortable, to be frank, so I told him not to do it again.’

  It was distasteful, and Chaloner was glad he had destroyed the sketches he had found.

  ‘He was very short of money after losing the College,’ she continued. ‘So I am afraid he was my first suspect when things started to disappear. However, I actually had my eyes on him when my plate went missing and when Dr Franklin lost his father’s watch. Thus I can tell you with absolute certainty that he was not the thief.’

  ‘What about Underhill?’ asked Chaloner.

  ‘He was away in London for several of the thefts, so no. Besides, Mrs Young’s thimble disappeared yesterday, by which time both he and Mr Kole were dead.’

  While they had been speaking, Mrs Bonney had been opening doors, to show Chaloner the residents’ rooms. All were clean, neat and cheerful. T
hen they reached the top floor, where the more serious cases were kept, including those who required constant supervision.

  ‘Such as Dorothy,’ said Mrs Bonney. ‘A nurse sits with her day and night.’

  ‘They are genuinely insane, rather than temporarily unwell?’ asked Chaloner. When Mrs Bonney nodded, he asked, ‘Then could one have escaped to strangle Nancy, Underhill and Kole?’

  ‘No,’ the housekeeper replied firmly. ‘We are very careful about security. And even if one had contrived to get out, she would not have gone to Clarendon House, throttled Underhill and then come back again. They might be mad, but they are not stupid.’

  Dorothy Wiseman’s room contained a bed, a table and two chairs, all of which had been bolted to the floor, and a robust iron-bound chest that was too heavy for her to lift and toss about. There was a large window with stone mullions, which afforded splendid views of Gorges’ orchard and the grounds of Buckingham House. A burly nurse nodded a greeting, then took the opportunity to slip into the corridor to smoke.

  Dorothy herself was wearing a long white shift. Her feet were bare, and her thick hair tumbled around her shoulders in a raven mat, although attempts had been made to brush it. She was still a striking woman, and Chaloner was sorry that she had been reduced to such circumstances – and sorry that Wiseman should have lost his beloved spouse to an insidious brain-rot.

  She regarded her husband blankly, before dropping to all fours and crawling into a corner, where she began to chew a wooden doll. The gnawing grew more frenzied as Wiseman approached, but ended abruptly when she gave the figurine a savage twist that ripped its head from its body. She flung both bits at the chest, where Chaloner saw that several other toys had suffered a similar fate.

  ‘The batman, the batman,’ she chanted. ‘Lights and trouble. Oil and water.’

  ‘She seems much better,’ declared Wiseman, while Chaloner wondered how this poor creature had managed to write the letter he had seen. ‘I told you dancing lessons would help.’

  ‘She is calmer, certainly,’ acknowledged Mrs Bonney carefully. ‘However, I am not sure I would say she is better.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Wiseman held out his hand. ‘Come, love. Show us how well you can jig.’

  He hauled Dorothy to her feet and began a gavotte that brought a smile to her ravaged features, at which point she began to cavort wildly. To Chaloner, her movements were uncoordinated and awkward, but Wiseman, whose lumbering was almost as bad, grinned in delight.

  ‘There,’ he said, when she eventually pulled away and went to stare out of the window. ‘She has the tread of a fairy, just like me. The King himself has remarked on my lightness of foot.’

  ‘Has he?’ asked Mrs Bonney doubtfully, while Chaloner struggled not to smirk.

  ‘Now, dearest,’ said Wiseman, turning back to Dorothy. ‘Tell Chaloner about the woman who died. You called Nancy the “property of your absent one”, because she was wife to Tom Janaway, who has not visited you since.’

  ‘The batman, the batman,’ raved Dorothy. ‘He stalks, he watches. Look!’

  She pointed to the wall behind Chaloner, who turned to see that an inexpertly executed painting of an anatomy lesson had been daubed there. A man in red stood over a flayed corpse, hands raised as he pontificated to a group of mesmerised disciples. The entrails had been drawn in loving detail, as had the teacher, but the artist had evidently run out of steam by the time he had come to the audience, because they had been very carelessly depicted.

  ‘A little something I created for her,’ explained Wiseman modestly. ‘To remind her of me. She always liked my drawings, and this represents some of my best work.’

  Chaloner regarded him aghast. ‘But the other patients have pictures of flowers and birds. I cannot imagine a grisly image like this will soothe a troubled mind.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ declared Wiseman, although Mrs Bonney shot the spy a grateful look. ‘Who is the medicus here, you or me?’

  Chaloner knew it was an argument he would not win, so he did not waste his time trying. He examined the painting more closely, and saw that one of the admiring spectators had been given a distinctly sinister leer.

  ‘Who is that?’ he asked.

  Wiseman shrugged. ‘Dorothy added him herself. He must be a member of staff.’

  ‘No, he is not,’ countered Mrs Bonney. ‘I would never employ anyone who looks like him – he would frighten the residents.’

  ‘He flies in the garden,’ jabbered Dorothy, stabbing a bony finger through the window. ‘And Death walks at his side.’

  ‘She means the spectre,’ whispered Mrs Bonney. ‘She has seen it several times.’

  Chaloner regarded the image thoughtfully. ‘Could this be John Sutcliffe?’

  ‘The nephew of the old Dean?’ Mrs Bonney peered at it. ‘It might, I suppose, although it is not a very flattering portrait of the poor man. I always considered him rather handsome.’

  ‘Look,’ hissed Dorothy, pointing again. ‘Down in the garden.’

  Chaloner went to stand next to her. Directly below was a sculpture of Neptune. Someone had given him a halo of daisies, and his customary trident had been replaced with a long feather, both of which rendered his noble pose faintly ridiculous.

  ‘I did not want her looking at an implement with sharp prongs every day,’ explained Wiseman. ‘So I ordered it adapted. Now, we had better—’

  He stopped speaking abruptly when Dorothy wheeled away, her eyes fixed on Chaloner. The spy was momentarily bemused, but then realised that her mad gaze was glued on the dagger in his belt. He shifted positions, so she could not see it, at which point she made a lunge for Wiseman’s hat, in which was a large decorative pin. She had grabbed the ornament before the surgeon could stop her. An expression of savage glee filled her face as she cradled her winnings to her bosom.

  ‘Oh, no!’ gulped Mrs Bonney. ‘Everyone out! Now!’

  She was away in a flash, leaving Chaloner and Wiseman alone with a woman whose crazed grin suggested that she intended to do some serious harm.

  ‘Dorothy!’ barked Wiseman. ‘Put that down at—’

  The rest of the sentence was lost in Dorothy’s howl as she swooped towards him. Wiseman was a powerful man, but even he was hard-pressed to keep the flailing point away from his eyes. Chaloner rushed to his assistance, and it took the combined strength of both to prise it from her fingers. All the while Dorothy wailed and screeched so loudly that Chaloner felt his ears ring.

  ‘Hold her tightly,’ called Mrs Bonney from the safety of the door. ‘The nurse is fetching a soporific from Dr Franklin.’

  The medicine arrived very fast, but even that short interlude allowed Dorothy to bite, scratch, kick, punch and butt. It was akin to holding a wild animal, a task rendered even more difficult as neither man had any desire to hurt her. It was not easy to make her drink Franklin’s potion, either, and more ended up on them than inside her. Then, as suddenly as she had run amok, Dorothy relaxed. She smiled sweetly, so that Chaloner had a glimpse of the woman she might have been.

  ‘Forgive me, Richard,’ she said softly. ‘It is the batman’s fault. I shall sleep now.’

  She closed her eyes, and after a few moments, her breathing grew slow and even.

  ‘Lord!’ muttered Chaloner, once they were outside and the door was locked again. He looked at Franklin. ‘What do you usually do when she has this kind of episode?’

  ‘Summon a lot of help,’ replied the physician frankly. ‘But they do not happen very often, because we keep sharp implements away from her – it is the sight of naked steel that puts her in a frenzy. Perhaps her marriage to a surgeon-anatomist is what pushed her over the edge.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ declared Wiseman indignantly.

  While Wiseman discussed Dorothy’s care with Franklin, Chaloner spoke to her keeper. It was tempting to believe that Dorothy – or someone like her – was the killer, especially as Underhill’s report had raised the possibility that the spectre might be a woman, but it quickly became clear
that this was impossible. All the less stable inmates were under constant and very strict supervision.

  ‘They have to be,’ the nurse assured Chaloner earnestly, ‘or people would never send their wealthy kinswomen to be cured here, and Gorges would founder.’

  It was a good point, and the more he spoke to her, the more certain Chaloner became that she was a reliable and conscientious worker, who would never risk her livelihood or her charges’ well-being by letting them escape. He would have to look elsewhere for his culprit.

  ‘Would you like to see my room?’ He turned to see young Martha standing behind him. She pointed to the chamber next to Dorothy’s. ‘It is there. Nancy’s is at the end – her things are still in it, because Mrs Bonney says it would be disrespectful to move them just yet.’

  ‘Why up here?’ asked Chaloner. ‘With the mad … with the ladies who need to be locked in?’

  ‘Because you can see for miles,’ smiled Martha. ‘Come and look.’

  She opened the door to a room that was flooded with sunshine. It should have been sweltering, but the windows were open, and it was high enough to catch a breeze. It was decorated with pretty paintings and French furniture, and Chaloner saw an elegant walnut cabinet identical to the one in Clarendon House – which meant it was expensive. Thus Martha was no ordinary patient, and definitely not related to the tanners of Southwark.

  When she felt he had complimented her domain and its knick-knacks with sufficient enthusiasm, Martha led the way to Nancy’s chamber, which was smaller and more basic, as was appropriate for someone who had boarded free of charge. It was on the corner, so had two sets of windows, rather than the single ones in the others. The first boasted a splendid view north, all the way to the marshes, while the second – like Dorothy’s and Martha’s – overlooked Gorges’ garden, Buckingham House and the rectory, where the distant figure of Wilkinson could be seen tending his compost.

  Martha giggled when she saw where Chaloner was looking. ‘He is obsessed by those middens – he is a very peculiar man. Perhaps he should be in Gorges.’

  Chaloner did not think she would enjoy his company if he were. ‘Did Nancy spend much time up here?’