Hines hesitated, and almost determined to turn around and walk away. Then he reminded himself that his editor was not the most tolerant of men even at the best of times, and would be unlikely to greet his failure to deliver the story with anything akin to the kindly understanding it merited.
So there was nothing else for it, he decided — he would just have to force himself to join the queue.
Standing right by the door was a weedy man in a tattered overcoat. He had been assigned to collect the money, and as the hooligans drew level with him, he looked down at the dog with misgivings.
‘Yer can’t take that h’animal in there,’ he said.
‘But ‘e wants ter see the show,’ the hooligan protested. ‘I promised I’d bring ‘im to see it if ‘e won ‘is last fight — an’ ‘e did.’
‘Tore the uvver dog’s froat right out of ‘im,’ one his friends added, in support of the statement. ‘Bit open ‘is ‘ead, an’ gobbled down ‘is eyes.’
‘I can’t ‘elp wot you promised,’ the money-collector told him. ‘You can go in, but the dog ‘as to stay outside.’
One of the other hooligans reached down to his belt, which was held together by a buckle far larger — and far sharper — than any buckle designed merely to hold a belt together ever needed to be. A second hooligan raised his arm high in the air, to show the money-collector just how stiff it had been made by the iron bar he had concealed up his sleeve.
‘Tell yer wot,’ said the dog-owner, ‘why don’t I pay yer for Butch’s ticket, just like ‘e was any uvver customer.’
The money-collector had been shown the stick of violence, and then offered the carrot of compromise. Wisely choosing to accept the carrot, he held out his hand, and the hooligan dropped two copper coins into it.
Hines, who had stepped as far back as the crush behind him would allow him to, found that he was experiencing emotions which were a mixture of disappointment and relief.
On the one hand, he told himself, if the hooligans had beaten up the collector it would have made good copy for his story.
On the other, it was undoubtedly true that that kind of brutality is always best observed from a very great distance.
Chapter Eighteen
Admit it! This is not quite what you expected to find when you first decided to pay us a visit, now is it, Inspector?’ asked the governor of Bethlehem Hospital as he glanced out of the window of his office at a number of the hospital’s inmates, who were playing a spirited game of cricket in the grounds. ‘No, indeed, it isn’t what I expected to find at all,’ Blackstone admitted freely.
From the road outside, the hospital, with its impressive central dome and tall Ionic pillars, had looked more like a library or a university college than a lunatic asylum. And inside, too, it had failed to live up to the conventional images of a madhouse. There were no screaming women tearing at their own hair and clothes, no demented men banging their heads against the walls until the blood ran. Instead, the lunatics were quiet, clean and well-dressed.
‘It is our policy to admit only those lunatics who are curable,’ the governor explained, ‘and if we are wrong in our assessment of them — if, after a year, they are still not cured — then it is our strict rule that they must be transferred to some other institution.’
‘How can you tell if they’ve actually been cured or not?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ the governor said, slightly disdainfully.
‘Not to me,’ Blackstone said. ‘But then, I’m not a doctor, you see. I’m only a simple bobby.’
The governor smiled condescendingly. ‘Of course you are,’ he agreed. ‘I should have realized that. Let me explain it to you, then. Those inmates whom we decide to release into the world again have become demonstrably much calmer and more rational during the time they have spent at Bethlehem than they were when they were admitted. And what is that an indication of, I ask you, if it is not an indication that they are cured?’
It might be an indication that they’ve learned that if they play the game by your rules, you’ll let them out, Blackstone thought.
‘So you assumed that Thaddeus George was curable when he was admitted?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘But you were wrong?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘Then why is he still here’? I thought you said that you discharged your failures after a year.’
‘We do not consider it our failure that they are not cured, we consider it theirs,’ the governor said severely. ‘We give them every opportunity to regain their sanity, and if they fail to take advantage of it, it is either because they are too lazy, or because the madness has taken too firm a grip of them.’
‘But whether it was Thaddeus George’s failure or yours, he still hasn’t been discharged,’ Blackstone pointed out.
The governor had begun to look very slightly uncomfortable about the way the conversation was going.
‘You are quite right,’ he agreed. ‘He has not been cured, yet neither has he been discharged. That is because it was decided to make a special exception in Mr George’s case.’
‘And why was that?’
‘Because a great friend of this hospital — a great patron of this hospital — asked us to make that exception.’
‘Who was he?’
The governor chuckled. ‘I’m afraid that I cannot reveal his name to just anyone. Suffice it to say that he is an important man who has wielded considerable power for good.’
‘So it was Lord Bixendale, was it?’ Blackstone asked.
The governor blinked. ‘I have already told you that I am not at liberty to reveal his name,’ he said.
‘Can I see Mr George now?’ Blackstone said.
‘I am still in two minds as to whether to allow the interview to proceed,’ the governor said.
‘Then you want to watch your step,’ Blackstone warned him.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You want to watch your step — because if you’re in two minds about it, you run a fair chance of getting locked up in here yourself.’
The governor smiled wanly. ‘It might help if you were to give me a reason for seeking the interview.’
‘And I would be more than willing to do so, if it were left up to me,’ Blackstone lied.
He looked around, as if checking to see whether anyone was listening.
‘But, you see,’ he continued, in a much lower voice, ‘I am not here merely as a policeman.’
‘No?’
‘No. I am also acting as agent for a man of considerable importance in the government.’
‘Ah, then that is an entirely different matter, Inspector. Might I perhaps enquire who… ?’
Blackstone wagged his finger in front of him to cut the other man off.
‘But unfortunately, I find myself trapped in a similar dilemma to your own,’ he said.
‘And what dilemma might that be?’
‘That, for reasons I can’t even begin to go into, I am not at liberty to reveal his name.’
* * *
In many ways, Thaddeus George bore a strong resemblance to the sketches that Marcus Leighton, the artist to the police, had drawn. The same nose, the same eyes, the same wrinkled skin. But the strength and determination hinted at in the sketches were both absent from the face of the man who was sitting opposite Blackstone now.
‘When they first locked me up in this dreadful place, I raged and stormed throughout my every waking hour,’ George said. ‘But, in the end, I realized — as all condemned men must sooner or later realize — that such actions were pointless, and that my fate was sealed.’
‘Do you know why they locked you up in here, Mr George?’ Blackstone asked.
George smiled, showing a little of the spirit he must once have had. ‘Of course I know why,’ he said. ‘They did it for the best of all possible reasons because I am an incurable lunatic.’
‘Or perhaps it was because you were in somebody e
lse’s way?’ Blackstone suggested.
‘Or perhaps it was because I was in somebody else’s way,’ George agreed. ‘I was once a relatively rich man, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t know that,’ Blackstone said.
‘Oh yes. I took the modest fortune I had acquired in my business dealings and put it all into the theatre which now bears my name. But it took more than just my money to establish that theatre as a going concern, you know.’
‘I’m sure it must have.’
‘God, how I worked at it! While my podgy, spoiled son was whoring his way around the bars and brothels of Central London, I was devoting eighteen or nineteen hours a day to my theatre. And eventually, it paid off! In the eighties and the early nineties, the George was easily one of the most successful theatres in the whole of the West End.’
‘So what went wrong?’
George shrugged. ‘Every theatre, however well-run, always has its ups and downs. It’s in the nature of the game. You put on a production which all your instinct and experience tells you will be a huge success, and — for reasons no one can ever satisfactorily explain — it’s a complete flop. And that one flop can not only wipe out the gains from three or four previous successes, but it can also make the public wary of coming to see your next production, however good that might turn out to be.’ He smiled again. ‘It is much easier to roll a rock down a hill than it is to push it back up to the top again.’
‘It must be very discouraging when that happens,’ Blackstone said sympathetically.
Thaddeus George shrugged. ‘As I said, it is in the nature of the game. The trick is to prepare for such an eventuality. And I had! There was plenty of cash in the reserve fund to see us through our hard times — or so I thought.’
‘But when you really needed it, you discovered that it wasn’t there any longer?’
‘When I really needed it, I discovered that my worthless son had already frittered it away. And so I was faced with two alternatives. I could take on backers — but it was my theatre, and I was not prepared to compromise it — or we would have to learn to cut our cloth more sparingly for a while. The second of the two alternatives would not have been easy, but we would certainly have survived. Unfortunately, cutting the cloth sparingly is not my son’s style at all, and he had other ideas.’
‘He wanted you to take on the backers,’ Blackstone said. ‘And one backer in particular — Lord Bixendale.’
‘Indeed. But Bixendale’s assistance came with a price. He wished his paramour to be elevated to the position of leading actress.’
‘And why did you object to that, Mr George? Is Charlotte Devaraux such a bad actress?’
‘No. She is rather a good actress, as a matter of fact, and no doubt I would have promoted her myself, in time. But that is not the point.’
‘Then what is?’
‘As I’ve already told you, Inspector, it was my theatre. Mine! I was not about to take direction from a man whose artistic sensibilities were guided solely by the stirrings within his nether regions.’
‘And so your son had you committed, in order that the deal could go through?’
‘Judas Iscariot would have been a better son to me than Sebastian has turned out to be.’
‘Have you ever thought of taking your revenge?’
‘I have thought of little else.’
‘Have you done anything about it?’
‘What could I do, locked up in this place’? As an incurable, I am not allowed to have visitors.’
‘None at all?’
‘You are the first man from outside Bedlam that I have spoken to since the day I was admitted. I am not permitted to write or receive letters either. It might, I suppose, be possible to smuggle letters out, but that would require paying a bribe, and I have no money.’
‘Do you have a brother?’ Blackstone asked. ‘One who is of roughly the same age as you arc, and might possibly be mistaken for you?’
‘No, I come from a small family, and have no brothers. I had a sister, but she is long dead.’
‘A cousin who might resemble you, perhaps?’
‘None that I know of.’
There was the sound of heavy footfalls, advancing rapidly down the corridor outside.
Blackstone checked his pocket watch. ‘They said I could only have ten minutes in your company, and they’re obviously going to stick to it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ Thaddeus George replied. ‘I feel stronger for our ten minutes together than I have in the whole two years I have been in here, and memories of it may well give me the strength to struggle through another two years.’
‘I hope that won’t be necessary,’ Blackstone said fiercely. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think it will be very easy to get you out of here — in fact, it might turn out to be completely bloody impossible — but I’m certainly going to try my damnedest.’
A tear appeared in the old man’s eye. ‘Why would you do that for me?’ he asked.
‘Because injustice makes me angry,’ Blackstone told him. ‘And I’m very angry now!’
* * *
Waxwork figures were a common feature of many of the penny sideshows, and this one proved to be no exception to the rule. Once the customers had handed over their money to the man outside, they were ushered into a room where there were a dozen or more of them.
The effigies were crude representations at best, and that the viewers identified three of the figures as being the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary was due more to the names that had been pinned on them than it was to any actual physical resemblance.
‘Waste ‘o time, this,’ said the hooligan with the dog. ‘We don’t want to see waxworks of old blokes like them. Why can’t they make some of naked women wiv big nellies?’
‘The wax figures in the vestibule were both a travesty of art, and an affront to the dignity of those eminent men whom they claimed to portray,’ Talbot Hines composed in his head.
Huh! he thought. That might be true enough, but it wasn’t a line to set the blood racing, now was it?
He hoped that once they were inside the second room, he would find something much more interesting — and preferably much more shocking — to write about. And if he did not, then perhaps he would be wise to follow his editor’s veiled hint and make something shocking or interesting happen.
‘Is there any way that Mr Thaddeus George could escape from here?’ Blackstone asked the governor of Bethlehem Hospital, once he’d been escorted back to the man’s office.
‘Escape’? From here’? There is absolutely no possibility at all,’ the governor replied with no hesitation.
‘And you’re quite sure about that, are you?’ Blackstone pressed.
‘Surely, the proof positive of my assertion is that Thaddeus George is still here.’
‘But might it be possible for him to escape for a few hours, and then return without his absence being noticed?’
‘Most definitely not. This asylum, as you will have noticed yourself, has high walls that even a fit young man would find difficult to scale. Besides, Mr George is locked up at night-time, and in the daytime we check up on him once every two hours, in accordance with Lord Bix… in accordance with the routine we have decided most appropriate to a lunatic like him.’
So there was simply no way that Thaddeus George could have commissioned the knife, nor bribed the telephone operator.
But Blackstone had pretty much dismissed both those things as possibilities within a couple of minutes of starting to talk to the old man. Thaddeus George was an honest, decent person. He would never have participated in a murder plot, however angry he had been.
‘Is there any chance that Mr George will ever be released from here?’ he asked.
‘None at all, I’m afraid,’ the governor said, without even a trace of regret discernible in his voice. ‘This asylum will be his home until he dies.’
Some home! Blackstone thought.
; ‘But surely, there must exist a procedure through which the cases of those committed can be re-examined,’ he said.
‘Well, yes, there is,’ the governor admitted, somewhat reluctantly.
‘And what does it involve?’
‘The normal procedure is to petition the Lunacy Commission for a fresh hearing. If that hearing is granted — which is by no means always the case — then the alleged lunatic’s friends and lawyers will have the opportunity to persuade the Commission that there is an argument to be made for his release.’
‘So it doesn’t have to be a life sentence after all?’
The governor frowned his displeasure. ‘This is not a prison, and we do not think in terms of sentences.’
‘Locked up for life is locked up for life, whatever way you care to describe it,’ Blackstone said.
‘Furthermore, if, in this general discussion, you are thinking specifically of Mr Thaddeus George’s case, I must tell you that Mr Sebastian George, his closest living relative, has thus far shown no inclination to place an appeal. And even if he did… ’ The governor pulled himself up short, and began to take a sudden interest in fiddling with his watch-chain.
‘Even if he did?’ Blackstone prompted.
‘Nothing. Since Sebastian George will place no appeal, that is the end of the matter.’
‘But even if he did, Lord Bixendale — who no doubt has many friends on the Lunacy Commission — would ensure that the appeal had no chance of being successful?’ Blackstone suggested.
The governor stopped playing with his watch-chain, and made an ostentatious show of consulting the pocket watch itself.
‘You would not tell me which government minister you are representing,’ the governor said, ‘but whoever he is, I feel he can have no complaint about the amount of my time I have made available to you, Inspector Blackstone. And now, if you will excuse me, I must return to my normal duties.’
‘You may think Lord Bixendale has influence, but he’s got about as much as a babe in arms when compared to the influence my principal wields,’ Blackstone said stonily. ‘And I feel it only fair to warn you that he will be greatly displeased by the way in which you have handled this whole affair.’
Blackstone and the Stage of Death (The Blackstone Detective series Book 5) Page 15