by Will Thomas
“A model prisoner, you say?” I repeated.
“Within bounds, of course. He has a macabre sense of humor, one must understand, and he happens to be one of the most dangerous inmates in this facility.”
“What is he in for?” Caleb asked.
“He drowned three consecutive wives after having them make their wills in his name,” Dr. Anderson replied, shaking his head. “They were drowned in a local bog, one by one. He could have escaped to the continent if he did not have a certain kind of mania. For some reason known only to him, he polished their shoes and left them displayed near the bogs where the bodies were discovered.”
“He’s mad,” Caleb muttered.
“That’s not a word we use here, Mr. Barker, but if we did it would have been apt. Here is the main office.”
He led us into a round room bisected by a long desk. Clerks were seated at tables behind the desk with their paperwork scattered before them.
“We have a couple of visitors here, Mr. Clement.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I must get back to my charges, gentlemen. Again, it was a pleasure to meet you.”
He shook my hand and went on his way.
“What can I do for you, sirs?” one of the clerks said.
“We are here to interview Henry Thayer Pritchard, regarding an ongoing enquiry.”
The clerk raised a brow as if something had finally broken through his blanket of boredom. “Pritchard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It was Dr. Pritchard who just led you here.”
Suddenly, I felt a tingling in my hand. I lifted it. A pin had been neatly inserted through the epidermal layer of my palm. Skewered through the top of the pin was a bottlenose fly. I cried out in surprise. All the clerks chuckled.
“You have to be careful, gentlemen,” Clement said. “The doctor likes to play his little tricks.”
I looked over my shoulder. As I expected, Caleb Barker was laughing harder than the rest.
Once the pin had been removed and I had washed my hands a dozen times, we learned that the number of people who had come to visit Dr. Pritchard were naught. According to his visiting sheet, he wasn’t popular outside of these walls. Women have opinions on men who drown their wives. It is an affront to all of them. Many of them must have drawn the line as far as their husbands visiting him were concerned, as well, or surely some journalist or novelist would have visited one of England’s most notorious multiple murderers.
Two guards led us to Pritchard’s cell half an hour later. He was seated in a chair in the center of the room and he had been chained to a link in the floor. The walls were lined with buttoned padding and there were mats at his feet. Everything was pristine, as if it had been freshly cleaned. However, the dark gray walls above the six-foot-high padding were covered in chalk marks. Mathematical formulas, anatomy lessons, poetry, sketches, snippets of Latin and German; all showed that Pritchard had received a classical education. He must have stood on a chair in order to reach the upper wall. The lettering stopped at nearly eight feet. Two feet in which to express one’s existence, even if it were a twisted one. Some of the art would shock any man at its depravity.
“Hello, gentlemen!” he hailed as we entered, as if we were boon companions. “How good to see you again.”
“That was a nice trick, Doctor,” I said.
“Did you like that? I’ve had that bottlenose fly in my pocket for simply ages, hoping to find just the right person to give it to. I’m so glad you came along.”
“I’m surprised your cell is so spare, Dr. Pritchard,” I said. “I assumed your status would have afforded you sumptuous furnishings. I’ve seen some cells that look like club rooms.”
“Yes,” he said, looking down sadly. “I had such a cell for a while. Unfortunately, I have a gift for making small weapons from just about anything. Even now they search my cell at night. But I am not cast down. Far from it. These furnishings chain me to the earth, but my soul flies to the heavens every night.”
“Nice drawings,” Caleb said, pointing at one with his thumb.
“Do you like them? I am absurdly proud of them. My cell is a tabula rasa every morning. I no longer require any stimulation to produce them. If anything, I must sketch quickly or lose a thought to the following one. All I need are a bit of chalk and an old rag and I am deeply content.”
“Very nice,” I said.
“So, what did you want to see me about, Mr.—”
“Llewelyn. I’ve come to ask you about Cyrus Barker.”
He smiled benignly at me. “Who? I’m afraid I can’t place the name.”
“Cyrus Barker, the man who committed you here.”
“Mr.—I’m sorry, I have had several types of therapies. I vaguely remember them now. Water and electricity and batteries in jars. Anyway, I’m afraid some portions of my brain, my history, for example, have gone missing, as if they had fallen down a hole. I am told I killed three women, though I cannot recall doing so. I cannot even place their faces. Of course, it was terrible what I did, and I accept the fact that I committed those acts, but for whatever reason, I am as much in the dark as anyone else.”
“You remember nothing?”
“I do not. As far as I’m concerned, I awaken here every morning as if freshly born and have spent the duration of my life here in this cell. Sometimes I chafe at the restraint, but I am not mistreated. As I said, the warden has embraced a new type of therapy that I find much more pleasant. I have heard tales of the outside world and let me assure you, sir, I have no interest in going there. It must be a perfectly wretched place.”
“It has its moments,” I said.
“I am sheltered here, fed, clothed, left alone as I desire, and have freedom to think. I miss tobacco, I must admit. The guards tell me I am a danger with a box of lucifers, and apparently I jammed the stem of a pipe down a fellow inmate’s throat. Of course, I don’t recall doing it, which only makes it that much worse that I lost that pipe. It was one of my favorites, a straight-stemmed briar. It smoked sweet every time. I’m on my best behavior, hoping they will return it.”
“Putting that pin through my hand was not exactly good behavior,” I said.
He grinned. “I didn’t say it was good behavior, merely the best behavior for me. I am an evil man.”
“Are you?”
“So the doctors tell me. I seduced a wealthy widow, convinced her to marry me, forced her to sign away her fortune over to me, and then drowned her in a bog. Then I moved to another location far away and began the process all over again. Depraved, sir. I don’t recall anything beyond what my doctors tell me, but only a depraved, evil man could do such things. It is best that I am here, but having my pipe would make it all the better. Oh, and slippers. I had slippers once. Opera slippers. They were so pretty.”
He was quite pathetic, this man with half his brain erased, living only in the present, hoping merely to enjoy a pipeful and a pair of slippers. These places are hard for the casual visitor, as I have said before. One isn’t prepared for the stories and encounters, or the tragedy on each face.
I turned to Caleb. He’d pushed his hat back on his head and was looking distinctly uncomfortable. I didn’t blame him.
“So you remember nothing of Mr. Barker?” I asked.
“Mr. Barker? Is this man here not Mr. Barker?”
“No, I meant Mr. Cyrus Barker.”
Pritchard’s eyes moved back and forth, trying to remember the Guv, the man who locked him away here, but not succeeding.
“Would you call the orderly? I want to lie down now.”
“Dr. Pritchard, I assure you—”
“The orderly!” he shouted. “I want to lie down, please!”
“I’ll get him,” Caleb drawled, as if dealing with a petulant child. He took himself off on his bowed limbs.
Pritchard put his face into his hands and sat for perhaps a full minute.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he finally said. “I am subject to fits of temper, a r
esult of my treatment. I am embarrassed by my behavior.”
“Not at all,” I replied. “So, you recall nothing of my employer, Cyrus Barker? Nothing at all?”
“I remember nothing earlier than the electric therapy that I had six months ago. At least, I think it was six months ago. I’m not very good with time these days. Things seem to get away from me when one day is the same as another.”
He said nothing for a moment and then his face went slack. His eyes half closed in their sockets and his jaw became loose. Slowly he sagged forward like a marionette when its strings have been loosed. I jumped as he fell forward and hit the flagstones with a thump.
“Orderly! Orderly, come quickly!” I called.
The response was not immediate. I rolled Pritchard onto his back. His mouth was bleeding where he’d bitten his tongue, but he had not swallowed it, which would have been far more dangerous. I called his name once or twice but received no response. Eventually, Caleb and the orderly entered and immediately began to lift him. I saw froth at the corners of his mouth. The orderly listened to his heartbeat.
“Is he often like this?” I asked. “He was all energy when we met him, then he grew maudlin, then his mind seemed to shut itself down.”
“He goes through cycles like this, sir,” the man said. “Two or three times a day. Chances are by dinner he won’t remember you were here.”
“How long has he been this way?”
“Close on half a year, sir. Maybe more.”
“Has he had electric therapy?”
“Yes. Dr. Cannon prescribed it. Not a pretty sight. A bucket of water, then a jolt from a battery to terminals in a cap on his head.”
“That sounds barbaric,” I observed.
“I assure you, Dr. Cannon is a pioneer in his field,” he said.
“How long do his lucid moments last?”
“An hour or so. You came at the right time.”
“And his low moments?”
“Sometimes all day. Mostly two or three hours.”
“You don’t think his damage was a result of the doctor’s experiments?”
The man shrugged. “I dunno, but this chap used to kill women and now he can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
Half an hour later we left Burberry Asylum. It felt good to be out of that oppressive and depressive atmosphere, even if we were being led by a guard and could not speak freely.
At the gate, we signed a piece of paper identifying ourselves again, and finally left the horror behind us. I knew I would have nightmares that evening, and I was correct.
“So, no visitors, then,” I said to Caleb once we were free.
“No, and it seems obvious they keep very close records of the comings and goings.”
“Let’s find a public house. I need a drink.”
“One? I think I need about five.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A few hours later we were back in Craig’s Court. I was in the room where we kept bits of clothing and oddments, in case we needed to disguise ourselves. We were going to the East End to find Jack Hobson. Caleb Barker poured some flakes of tobacco into a rolling paper, ran his tongue along the edge, and twisted it. He stuffed it under one end of his mustache and lit the end with a vesta. He pondered it for a moment, removed a flake from his tongue, and then considered himself satisfied.
“Mr. Llewelyn, I can almost hear the gears clanking in your head. You’ve been silent since we returned, which is about as unnatural as feathers on a camel. I reckon you’ve either run out of things to do, in which case, I’ll be off, or you have something that doesn’t satisfy you and are trying to minimize the risk. Which is it?”
“The latter,” I admitted.
“Everything looks straightforward to me except the Hobson brothers. There are six of them, and probably more of the gang, as well.”
“It would take Scotland Yard to rush them all at once, and even then a few would escape. Neither of us can walk in and ask to join the gang, and above all we can’t mention your brother’s name. I don’t see a reasonable solution.”
Caleb was busy trying to blow one smoke ring through a larger one. He was not successful. Nettled, he looked at me.
“Perhaps there isn’t one. Just because you reason something doesn’t mean there is a solution. Look at cats. There’s no reasoning about cats. They serve practically no purpose, but they’re everywhere.”
I tried to take in the opinion but it only gave me a headache. “Do you have a point?”
“I do. You’re thinking too much. You’re stuffing your head with too many solutions and chances that won’t pan out. Let’s just go and see. We’re seasoned. We’ll figure out what to do when we get there.”
I looked at him and shook my head. “Your plan, then, is to have no plan at all. We walk into a pub or stable filled with gang members, most of them armed, and decide what to do on the spur of the moment. No planning, no consideration of the dangers.”
He frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Yep.”
“I suspect you cut a broad swath wherever you go and you’re not usually there to pick up the pieces afterward.”
“I’ve got too many things to do on this earth and too few hours to cram them into. What do you think?”
“I think your plan is the equivalent of jumping into a pool of water without knowing the depth.”
“Are you ready?”
“This evening would be best, after dinner, when things are happening there. Let me change into something appropriate for the East End and we’ll have a decent meal before visiting Hobson’s territory.”
“I’ll need a few drinks before we meet the Hobson brothers. You don’t want to go into this kind of thing cold sober.”
“Caleb,” I said. “Just once I’d like to hear you say something that makes me feel encouraged instead of worried.”
Barker’s brother finally wafted a smaller smoke ring through a larger one.
“Never give up hope,” he said.
The Guv doesn’t care for elaborate disguises. I donned a ragged jacket and a leather peaked cap, changed my striped trousers for a sooty and oversize pair, and laced some out-at-heel shoes on my feet.
I looked in the mirror. I was a disaster. After tying a decayed neckerchief around my neck and smearing a little coal on my chin, I was ready to go.
* * *
East Ferry Road is hard by the East India Docks and the rancid public house the gang frequented was called the Clove Hitch. If I called it unpresentable, it would be a compliment. It needed a wipe round with a rag soaked in kerosene. I slouched in behind Caleb and ordered a beer. I took a sip and shuddered.
“Strychnine and Thames sewage,” I pronounced, after spitting it on the filthy floor.
“Oy!” a harridan behind the bar called.
I pointed a thumb at her over my shoulder. “Whose bag is this?”
A chair scraped in the back of the room, drawing attention to a dozen or more men ringed around a large table. One, obviously the leader, sauntered forward. He was tall, about five and thirty, and unshaven save at the sides of his head, below the donkey fringe he wore. He had a silver ring in one ear, a pugnacious jaw, and bleared eyes from a diet of the aforementioned beer.
“What’s your name, larrikin?” he demanded.
“Snuff,” I told him.
“And what’s your business here?”
“Showing this Yank around the East End,” I said, nodding at Caleb.
“Oh, and what brings him here?”
“He’s scouting a patch, I think.”
The men sitting behind Hobson had been muttering and jesting, but suddenly the room went silent.
“Hunting a patch? Here?” Hobson growled.
“Just showing him about,” I answered. “Didn’t come here especially. Thirsty work trodding the streets of London Town, so we stopped. I’m not so thirsty after tasting this swill.”
“You look familiar,” he said.
“I remember you from when I was with Hooligan�
��s gang. Did six months with him before he died. Went to Liverpool after that.”
He grunted as if he accepted my story but reserved the right to change his mind.
“Can he talk, this American of yours?” Hobson asked.
“’Course he can talk.”
“Make him talk, then. He’s making me jumpy.”
Caleb had been leaning over the bar, nursing his villainous beer, and as all eyes in the room turned to him, he hooked the side of his suit jacket behind the holstered pistol. A dozen chairs squeaked on the sawdust.
“Afternoon, gents,” he said. “Beautiful day.”
“What’s your name, stranger?”
“Sir, you are awfully concerned with people’s names for a man in your line of work.”
“Name. Name!”
“Touchy fella. Driscoll. Diamond Joe Driscoll.”
“What’s this about a patch?” Hobson pressed, coming close enough so they were nearly nose to nose.
“I was looking to open a saloon and a faro parlor in London. Maybe more than one.”
“And you thought you’d come here, did you?”
“Mr.… Sorry. You wanted my name, but you never offered yours.”
“Hobson. Jack Hobson.”
“Mr. Hobson, there is money to be made north of the Thames. If you want some of it, you might consider letting us go about our business. However, we could use a gentleman of your talents. There may be a local gang who would want some spondulix for the privilege of opening on their patch.”
Although I was standing behind Caleb with my head down, I was watching the gang. Half of them were standing, the others sitting, but all were watching us carefully, waiting for the nod from their leader to attack like so many hounds. Surveying the room, my eyes lit on a scuffed bit of planking on the floor. I whispered into Caleb’s ear and he nodded and went on his way.
“You’ve got some brass ones if you think you can swan in here with your schemes without some sort of payment. If you choose to stay, if we let you, those payments will have to be regular.”
Caleb shrugged. “Well, Mr. Hobson, we haven’t decided yet where the first faro parlor will settle, but how about this? I challenge you to a friendly game of arm wrestling, and we lose, I’ll buy everyone in this house a drink. Not beer. A proper drink, if you have enough whiskey here.”