A simpler explanation would be that it was the fabrication of a dislocated mind. I had rescued young Lilly Wu, but I was not at all sure that her testimony would tally with mine, or that the memory of a terrified six-year-old could be relied upon.
My other experiences suffered from a similar lack of corroborating evidence. To the dispassionate observer, there would have been many explanations that made more sense than the actual existence of alien beings or uncanny forces at work. High among these would be the suggestion that the one reporting them is touched in the head. If the stories had come from anyone else, I too should have expected some convincing evidence.
I did have one piece of hard evidence: a small, star-shaped green stone, set in a ring. The ring usually hung on a chain around my neck. Given my circumstances, I assumed it resided in a cardboard box with my other belongings. Even if I had it, though, I could hardly wave it at Dr Hamilton, insisting that it proved there were alien civilisations and expecting him to agree.
I punched the floor with enough force to wake myself up and make myself think harder. There were powers at work—there could be no doubt about it. There were dead bodies from deaths caused by unnatural means, which others had seen. Why, a whole roomful of people had witnessed the events at the séance in the Theosophical Society. Estelle de Vere, who was dedicated to fighting those things, was no figment but a flesh-and-blood woman who rented a room and went about in a chauffeur-driven car.
And yet… and yet… the thought kept repeating itself in my mind, over and over: it seemed so real.
I could not deny the fact that I had been captured indoors, not in an aeroplane at five thousand feet. Plainly, I had not been where I imagined myself to be, if “imagined” was the right word.
I needed somebody to make sense of it for me, but the sense was all too obvious. I was mad. I had a funny turn, or an episode, or whatever the medical term is. Under Ross’s influence, I was temporarily insane. It was a folie à deux.
But if it had been my imagination, and if I could really stray so far from reality without knowing it, I wondered how much of the rest of my life was similarly made up out of the whole cloth.
Miss De Vere had once said something about magic and psychology, and how magic was simply working on the cosmic mind as a psychologist works on the human mind. Was that another way of saying that magic was insanity? Ross had said that magic and madness were one.
I punched the floor again—all the time realising that this act did not make me look any saner to the outside world, nor did it reassure me of my own mental condition—disliking the way the picture was coming into focus. How exactly ought a sane and balanced man behave in this situation?
I felt like a bull at bay, surrounded by dancing, taunting shapes that sting and stay forever just out of reach.
If only I could talk to Ross… but what if I could? I could not see that he would have any better explanation of what had happened other than magic or madness. Double or quits: having two of us believing it did not really make it any more plausible.
The attendants were never exactly cruel, but they were often hurried and indifferent, and the effects are the same.
Why I am here? Why has Nye left me alive?
There were things I was dreading. My parents’ reaction, for one thing, and my brother’s—not just the disappointment, but the stigma. Having a madman in the family would be a permanent embarrassment. They would stop mentioning Uncle Harry to my little nephews. Uncle Harry had gone away and was not coming back.
I was crushed to think what they would say in the pub, and at the boxing gym, or in my rooming house. “Did you hear about Harry? What happened, what did he do? Oh, oh, that is strange.” It would be followed by a long, significant pause, and the speakers would wait to see if the other would say anything, in the wise, thoughtful way people always do. They’d say something such as, “He read a lot of those books, didn’t he?” Or “He was involved in some funny business, wasn’t he?”
People, myself included, want to make sense of things. We like to have a clear line of cause and effect laid out, so we can say, “Yes, that’s what happened.” We want that reassurance that overwork, nerves, or a touch of the sun can’t happen to us.
There would come the questions about whether there was any of it in the family, and people would get even wiser, shake their heads, and say what a pity it all is. And they would look at my little nephew and watch him very closely for signs.
At least matters with Sally at last were settled. She was a single woman with a small child to look after, and the last thing she needed was a liaison with… I could not form the words, even in my mind. I hoped she did not hear it in a cruel way. I had not heard from anyone since I had been interned, and she was the person I dreaded hearing from most. Not hearing was a good sign. She must have found out where I was pretty quickly and come to a decision on her own accord.
As for Miss De Vere and her organisation, the way they had treated Hooper was enough of an indication. In their view, succumbing to insanity was tainted. Ryan had never even asked me whether Gillespy might be sane after all, or if he might have been faking it. At some point, they might want to snuff me out for the sake of tidiness, but no more.
Arthur was my one hope. Arthur was wise in the ways of the world, and he knew more about the sort of things I got up to than anyone, even if he was never entirely on the side of believing me. Arthur would not write off a good man, especially not someone whom he had known from boyhood. He would appreciate that there were things going on, wheels within wheels.
If only there was a way to get a message out to him and beg for his aid, Arthur could pull strings.
In the end, though, I did not need to send for him. Vanstone opened the door one day, told me I had a visitor, and indicated with a jerk of the head that I was to follow. I found Miller waiting outside with him; I was still not so sane that one attendant would be enough.
It must have been a Sunday, visiting day. Segregation inmates were not normally entitled to visits, so someone must have been bending the rules. My first thought was of Arthur, and he was there in the day room, sitting at one of the tables set out for visitors. He was dressed for a funeral and looked unusually sober. “Wotcher, Stubbsy,” he said, greeting me with a handshake. “How are you keeping?”
I felt a tremor in my lip. Seeing an old friend in this blighted place was like rain on a parched field. I felt myself choking, and maybe I would have burst into tears if I had not been able to reply, with equal gruffness, “Can’t complain. And yourself?”
“You know,” he said, sitting down. “The usual.” Arthur was a night owl, with business that was transacted in the hours of darkness. It seemed odd to see him in daytime and not firing off orders to the usual crowd of assistants and cronies that surrounded him. In that place and in that light, he looked not exactly worn out, but mortally tired.
“I’ve really dropped myself in it this time,” I said. “You certainly are a sight for sore eyes. I was beginning to give up hope.”
“Never give up hope, Stubbsy,” he said in a kindly tone of the sort you would use for a sick relative, certainly not the hearty way you would speak to an old comrade.
“You were right to warn me about this place,” I said. “I thought I was almost to cracking the case I was telling you about when… this happened.”
“Well now, don’t you worry too much about the case,” he said. “We can sort all that out in due course. I hope they’re feeding you properly?”
“Barely. It’s like being on a diet. I’ll be down to my fighting weight in no time.” I patted my flat stomach. I dropped my voice, checking that Vanstone was not eavesdropping. “Like I told you earlier, there is something going on here.”
“You’re off the case now, Stubbsy,” he told me, not lowering his voice in return. “You know what they say about when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole. You stop digging. Do you get my drift?”
It was never profitable to argue with Arthur Renville
, and his mind was made up. I spread my hands flat on the table in front of me. “I see,” I said.
“You get a lot of leeway with me, Stubbsy, you know that,” he said. “I have a great deal of faith in you, and that’s not something I would say about just anyone. And nobody understands better than I some of the things you’ve been through.” He was speaking slowly and patiently, without a trace of the irritation that often overcame him. “But Stubbsy, I warned you. I specifically warned you, didn’t I?”
“You did warn me,” I said.
“What are we going to do with you?” he asked, and the note of sorrow in his voice cut deeper than his anger.
“Help me,” I said.
“Even if I was to open that door with a golden key, what good would it do? You’d dive straight back into trouble, and you’d be back here within a week, wouldn’t you?” I began to reply, but Arthur raised a hand to forestall me. “I’ve helped you time and again, and look where it’s got me. No, I don’t mean it like that, Stubbsy. Of course I’ll help you, but you’ve got to understand that there’s a lot on my plate. I can’t drop it all every time one of my friends gets himself into trouble, especially if he starts making a habit of it. So, what you have to do is keep quiet here, keep your nose clean, put your feet up, and concentrate on getting better. Then, we’ll see what we can do for you.”
It was an offer of help of sorts, albeit a vague one with no particular timescale attached.
“Thank you,” I said.
“There’s a lot more going on in the world than your own little problem, believe you me,” he said, sounding almost peevish. “But escapes from madhouses and dead doctors are downright irregular. I can’t make head nor tail of it, and I don’t think I want to.”
“What are you going to tell people?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“You’re here, and you’re in good health. You’re the same old Stubbsy, not a raving madman.”
He left it at that, but people could draw their own conclusions. They might decide I had suffered a bout of nerves, or a funny turn, or whatever people chose to call the temporary version of insanity which you get better from. What he was not saying was that I did not belong inside and needed to be released.
Arthur was offering me something very different from Dr Hamilton’s position. If I showed no further symptoms, I would be considered sane, at least provisionally. I might even be released in due course, whatever that meant.
“Thank you, Arthur,” I said. “That would mean a lot to me.”
“I was worried sick,” he said. “I thought I’d find you strapped into a straightjacket and seeing demons.”
Arthur relaxed a little after that. He brought me up to date with goings-on in the local community, and with the dealings associated with his latest consignment for disposal, which had been a vast quantity of plush toys. The story of Arthur going around trying to get people to buy teddy bears had been about the lightest moment of the discussion.
He left me a paper bag of grapes. They were big and juicy, and I ate them greedily, popping them in my mouth and spitting the seeds out into my palm. I would have appreciated something more substantial, such as a pork pie or two, but nobody ever seemed to bring those. When I was an attendant, we had been warned that well-meaning family members might smuggle things in for the inmates. Even the most harmless object might be flattened out and sharpened to make a knife for an inmate to do mischief to himself or to some enemy.
Arthur had been about my last hope. If he had given up on me, which he more or less had, then I could not expect any help from the outside world. Arthur had warehoused me: like an inconvenient consignment which could not be sold, I had been securely stashed away out of sight, so he could get on with other things until the situation improved. If it ever did.
With no prospect of help, I was thrown back entirely on my inner resources.
Unfortunately, even your inner resources can turn against you.
If you get up, you get hit again. That was something you learned quickly in the boxing game. Sometimes, it’s better to lie there and not try to fight against unequal odds. Knowing when you’ve lost is the only way to prevent being beaten and seriously injured.
When despair spoke to me, it used Ryan’s voice. I had been pushing it away, day after day, but I could only sweep so much under the rug. The accumulated mass is enough to take on a life of its own. I would not accept despair. I would not admit it as a part of me, but it spoke from outside of me.
“It’s all up, Stubbs,” said Ryan.
Oddly enough, I knew better than to look around for where the voice was coming from. Some part of me knew that it was from no external source. I did not reply.
“Face it. Things are only going to get worse,” he said. “You can stay here and wait for it to start playing with you. Because that’s what it’s going to do, isn’t it? It’s playing with you.”
Cats play with mice sometimes; I don’t know if tigers do the same.
“Nye will have some therapy arranged for you,” he said. “Think you’ll enjoy that? That’s unless La Belle Dame sans Merci finds a way to finish you off first,” he said. “You’re only alive because she can’t reach you. That’s a pretty unsavoury way to go, too.”
There was something especially demeaning about being assassinated by my own side because I was a liability. It spoke of weakness.
After a long pause, Ryan’s voice spoke again, more quietly but with more of an edge. “And those are the more attractive options, if you think about it. What do you think you’ll be like after a few years in here? You’re already losing weight and condition. You’ll get weaker and more addled every day. Better do something while you still can.”
“Do something?” I spoke involuntarily. I had not meant to reply.
“It’s over,” he said, voice grating. “You’ve failed. Failed me, failed on your mission, failed your friends. What’s Arthur Renville telling everyone who said you were a wild man who didn’t deserve his support? You’ve failed your family. Failed your fiancée, too. You know, she really believed in you. Until then.”
“I tried,” I said, almost in a whisper.
“You failed yourself. You’re not the big hero.” Ryan sounded regretful and resigned. “Best thing you can do now is bring the curtain down. Do it on your own terms. That’s the one thing you can do. Cheat the predator of its prey. Let TDS know you’re still in control of your actions.” They were all the thoughts I had been blocking out, not daring to think. Ryan spat them at me.
“Or, are you going to keep failing?” he asked. “You’ve only one thing left to do, Stubbs. Are you man enough to do it?”
I did not answer, and he did not stop.
Others who were there died, but only when they reached a final level of despair. Perhaps the game was that the victim had to be driven to death or suicide. In the Bible story, the devil was given the power to torment Job in every way, but not actually to kill him. He kept tempting Job to curse God and die, but Job held firm. I thought then what a fool Job was.
Suicide is the coward’s way out, they say, though it must take a deal of courage to go through with it. Especially when you lack a convenient rope or razor. Ryan had suggestions, but nothing easy.
They say the darkest hour is before the dawn. For me, the daybreak came after a long and harrowing night of little sleep, when the cart with the squeaky wheel proclaimed the arrival of breakfast porridge and a cup of stewed tea. But the man with the tray was not one I expected to see.
It is always difficult when you encounter someone in an unfamiliar setting. The man sitting opposite on the bus might look terribly familiar but is impossible to place, until you realise that it’s the baker, looking so different without his white hat and apron. No wonder, then, especially in my insomnia-benumbed state, that I gaped at the man with the pinched, ferrety face.
“Hello, Stubbs,” he said. It clicked at last. He was a member of the loose-knit pack of criminals run by Elsie Granger out of the Knig
hts Head pub in Norwood New Town. The last time I had seen him was after he and his cohorts had kidnapped Sally. It was strictly a business matter with no personal animosity, and Sally had even dropped around afterwards to chat with Elsie. I was hardly on good terms with the man, but even so, it was good to see a familiar face.
“Smith,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Working,” Smith said. “What’s it bloody look like?”
He passed me a tray. Then, he surprised me by closing the door and offering me a cigarette before lighting one of his own. “Got the job because I was Ambulance Corps in the war,” he said. Smith’s legs, warped by rickets early in life, would have kept him out of the fighting units. “Spent six months with shell-shock cases, so this is all grist to the mill.”
“How did you get a reference?” I could not hide my incredulity, but Smith was not insulted.
“That was your old lady’s doing,” he said, and it took me a moment to realise he meant Sally. “She knew a doctor from when she was on the streets—he does all the girls. She threatened to call down the law on him if he didn’t give me a glowing reference. Blow me if he didn’t do it.”
It was moving too much too quickly. Sally had blackmailed a doctor into helping Smith get a job at the asylum. Why did a natural layabout like him want to work here, anyway? Could it be something to do with me? There was a painful flutter in my chest. Hope was stirring.
“Getting you out’s a tall order, though,” Smith went on. “They’ve put on new locks with double keys, and all sorts of checks and procedure so one attendant can’t just waltz out anymore the way you did. That’s your doing, that is. Your name is dirt with the other screws. You’ve given them a ton of extra work.” He exhaled smoke. Smoking was prohibited in there, but that was the least of it.
“Thank you,” was all I could think to say.
Master of Chaos (The Harry Stubbs Adventures Book 4) Page 20