The asylum was moved from its Bishopsgate site, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, to more palatial buildings at Moorfields, designed by the noted polymath, Sir Robert Hooke. Bedlam became one of the sights of London, its inmates exhibited as if they were specimens in a human zoo, to be jeered at by the visitors, who paid well for the privilege.
It was common practice during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to visit Bedlam, as it was by then commonly known. Visitors paid good money to view the freaks of the ‘show of Bethlehem’, laughing at their unseemly sexual antics and spectating at outbreaks of violence among certain inmates, as if they were enjoying a boxing bout.
However, the hospital and its ‘unfortunates’, as the inmates were referred to, moved again to Bedlam’s current location at St George’s Fields in Southwark, a new building constructed in the classical style, after the Moorfields hospital fell into disrepair to the point that it was deemed unsafe for anyone, even the insane, to remain there. It was this incarnation of the hospital that Ulysses and Eliza now approached.
The dandy’s crown-authorised ID got the two of them past the doorman-drudge and into the office of one Professor Rufus Brundle, the hospital’s current director.
“A COCKROACH, YOU say? Yes, I know the man of whom you speak,” the professor said, regarding Ulysses over steepled fingers.
Eliza was staring at Ulysses too, in disbelief. “A bleeding cockroach?”
“Now, now, my dear,” Ulysses chided under his breath, barely opening his mouth and never once taking his eyes from the bespectacled man behind the desk, the size of which only seemed to emphasise how small he was. “You are here as an observer only. Let the professor speak.”
“The patient of which you speak was brought here ten days ago.”
“By whom?”
“An unmarked ambulance delivered the patient at around seven on the evening of the third.”
“How did you feel when you got to examine the patient for yourself?”
“The same as every other time.”
“Can you enlighten me further?”
“Surprise at first, of course, but not so much now. Pity, curiosity, a morbid fascination, a desire to understand what such an extreme physical change can do to a mind.”
“Who signed the admission papers?”
“The ambulance driver.”
Ulysses thoughts suddenly strayed from the Professor’s office to another office, hidden deep below the capital and a big man on the other side of a huge desk, but this one in scale with his imposing height, bearing and commanding presence.
“Where is the patient now?”
“With the others.”
“What others?”
“I THOUGHT YOU knew,” Professor Brundle said as he led them through the east wing of the hospital, Ulysses striding along the corridors after the scampering professor, Eliza trotting to keep up with him. “Aren’t you from the government?”
“How many of them are there?” Ulysses asked breathlessly, as he worked hard to keep up.
“Well, the patient of whom you speak was the twelfth to date.”
“They’ve been twelve cases like this?” Ulysses said, unable to hide his astonishment.
“Yes, from right across the capital. Although only ten, that I know of, have survived,” Professor Bundle threw him a confused look. “You are from Department Q, aren’t you?”
“Department Q? How do you know about that?”
“Because it is the Department that gave me my commission.”
They continued on through the next few galleries in an awkward silence until Ulysses dared ask, “Where are we going now?”
“To our – how shall I put this? – our ‘special wing’?”
“Really?”
“The hospital is arranged over four floors, divided into two wings, separating the male and female residents, but there is another wing where our...” Brundle paused, as if searching for the most tactful way of expressing himself. “Where our noisier inmates are housed.”
“And where is this ‘special’ wing?” Ulysses asked, as they continued at a brisk trot through the hospital, thinking that, at this pace, they’d soon being leaving again through the back door.
“It’s in the basement.”
Professor Brundle stopped at a painted iron door beside which stood a white-uniformed brawny orderly. He flashed his ID at the attendant and the shaven-headed man unlocked the door revealing a staircase descending into the musty depths.
As Ulysses passed the burly orderly, he noticed the baton tucked into the man’s trousers, and the knuckledusters he was distractedly playing with in one hand. He couldn’t help wondering whether all orderlies were so brutally equipped or whether it was just those set to guard Bedlam’s more ‘special’ patients.
“I should warn you,” Brundle said as he led the way down into the lantern-lit gloom, “that what you are about to see is not for the faint-hearted.” He addressed this last comment to Eliza in particular.
“What do you say, my dear?” Ulysses asked. “Would you prefer to wait for us here, or do you think your constitution is hardy enough to continue our little tour of this establishment?”
Eliza shot him a sarcastic smile. “What do you think?”
“Very well, but don’t say Professor Brundle didn’t warn you. Lead on, Professor, lead on.”
IT WAS THE smell of the place that unsettled Ulysses more than the green-lit darkness or the echoing drips of condensation or even the bare brick and stone walls of the basement galleries that made them seem more like a dungeon than a hospital wing.
It was a rancid, ammonia smell, like an abominable mix of urine and bile.
The basement was hot and humid and Ulysses could already feel his shirt clinging to his back. Eliza looked uncomfortable also, although whether that was down to the humidity or the nature or the place itself, he couldn’t be sure.
“Here they are,” Brundle said, unlocking the last iron-barred gate. “Keep to the right hand wall and don’t – whatever you do – don’t put your hands through the bars.”
Taking a deep breath of the muggy air, Ulysses stepped over the threshold and entered the final stretch of passageway. Even though he had already come face to face with the human cockroach at the Daedalus Clinic, his mouth still dropped open in incredulous amazement. What he saw took him back to the moment when Wormwood’s zeppelin had crashed into the newly-reconstructed Crystal Palace and all that had followed.
But it was Eliza who vocalised how both of them felt as she saw Bedlam’s ‘special’ patients for the first time.
“Bloody hell! I think I’m going to be sick.” But, to her credit, Ulysses thought, she wasn’t.
“Your ‘man’, as it were, is in the first cell, here on the left.”
“Who is he?” Ulysses asked as he stared at the giant cockroach scuttling over the slimy bricks of the wall on the other side of the cell.
“Who is he?” Brundle repeated, sounding surprised. “For all intents and purposes what you see before you is a six-foot long cockroach.”
“Alright then, who was he?”
The professor opened the file he had brought with him. “Francis Bird, steam-velocipede manufacturer.”
“What about his mind? Sorry, its mind? Is that still human?”
“It’s hard to say. That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
Ulysses took another step along the passageway and recoiled as he came face to face with an enormous praying mantis. It watched him with its head cocked to one side, its long upper limbs moving with jerky, staccato movements as if it were conducting an orchestra.
“What about these others?” he asked, morbidly fascinated by the mutated inmates and yet, at the same time, feeling his gorge rise as he watched something that looked like an overgrown bluebottle vomit on a platter of mouldering fruit, before sucking up the resulting syrupy soup through its proboscis. “Do they have anything in common?”
Professor Brundle raised
his eyebrows at Ulysses and pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. “That praying mantis there was a wealthy banker until a week ago. Fifty-three years old. Wife, three children, lived in Kensington with a weekend bolt-hole somewhere in the Cotswolds. The fluke-worm in that tank over there was a chimney sweep from Deptford.
“There are men and women of all ages, all socio-economic backgrounds and ethnicity – Chinese, Irish, English, Polish. There’s even one – that weevil down there at the far end – that we suspect to have been a child of no more than ten when the change took place. And no two have regressed to the same biological antecedent.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Each of them is a different species, and not one of them is of the genus Homo sapiens anymore.”
Professor Brundle turned to him and suddenly Ulysses saw how fatigued and defeated he looked. “You ask if they have anything in common. The only thing they have in common is that they are all here and that they are all like this.”
“Fascinating,” Ulysses breathed, observing the cockroach again.
“The Department want me to find a connection and basically work out what’s going on.”
“And we shall, Professor,” Ulysses said, never once taking his eyes from the hypnotic dance of the cockroach. “Together, we shall.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Crucible
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” the Host began, rising from his chair. “I call this meeting of the Crucible to order.”
An expectant hush descended over the chamber as all eyes turned to the Host.
“Let me begin by thanking you all for coming, at such short notice.”
“Like we had any choice,” one man remarked, muttering loudly to himself. Several of the others shuffled uncomfortably within their chairs at the man’s disrespectful attitude. Many of them shot anxious glances at the imposing figures standing in the shadows behind the Host, as if hoping that this dissent wouldn’t put them all out of favour.
“You always have a choice, Mr Galsworthy.”
The unhappy Galsworthy glowered at the Host, but his angry frown was met with nothing less than a patient smile. The smile silenced him more effectively than any retort could have done.
The Host played the part of the civilised gentleman perfectly, from his slicked back black hair, exuding the strong smell of lacquer, to his smoking jacket. Every word that came from his lips was enunciated within an inch of its life, in his slightly shrill, patronising tone.
“Now, to business,” the Host announced, surveying those seated around the circular table.
There were thirteen places arranged around the table. Each of the society’s members – with two exceptions – sat at one, the Host occupying the thirteenth position. At the centre of the table stood a smouldering brazier, with the symbolic crucible being heated upon it suffusing the air with plumes of incense smoke.
Two of the seats at the table were unoccupied. As the Host took in each member in turn, his sparkling, jewel-like eyes lingered on those two empty spaces, his smiling expression heavy with meaning.
“Where are Mandrake and Seziermesser?” another of those present asked anxiously.
“I am sure you are all wondering why you have been asked to attend this meeting,” the Host said, ignoring the man’s question.
“Yes, why have we been summoned here like common criminals, made to feel like disobedient children?” Galsworthy asked, his dander up.
“Perhaps because that is precisely how the Alchemist feels some of you have been behaving.”
“I have never been spoken to like this in my life!” Galsworthy fumed, rising from his seat. “I will not sit here and be subjected to this!”
“Very well then,” the Host said coolly, “remain standing.”
“Why, I’ve never been so insulted in all my life! I don’t know who you think you are, but I have had enough and I want out of this meeting and this damned society of yours!”
“Oh, not of mine, Mr Galsworthy, as well you know. I am merely the Alchemist’s eyes and ears at these meetings, and my companions” – he indicated the hulking creatures lurking in the shadows behind him – “are the instruments of his will.
“So sit down, Mr Galsworthy, and listen to what the Alchemist wants you to hear. And after that we can discuss your membership of the Crucible if you so wish.”
A rumbling growl came from out of the shadows behind the Host’s chair. Shoulders sagging, not daring to take his eyes off the things standing statue-like in the gloom behind the Host, Galsworthy sat.
“Someone has been careless.” The Host quickly scanned the room. It was as if he fully expected their guilt would betray them, whoever it was that had been ‘careless’.
“In what way ‘careless’?” another man asked.
“Every one of you here present has made use of the Proteus serum that has been so generously provided by the Alchemist.”
Some of those in attendance nodded in agreement.
“At a price,” Galsworthy muttered under his breath, unable to help himself.
“Of course at a price,” the Host railed, “but the Alchemist’s offer to each of you has been more than generous. The price you have had to pay has only ever been a fraction of the money each of you could make from your own enterprises. What the Proteus serum can help you achieve in your own specialised fields is priceless!”
“That is why each of us chose to join this secret society though, is it not?” It was Doctor Pandora Doppelganger who found the confidence to speak up now.
“I must correct you on that point, Doctor Doppelganger. None of you chose to join. You were all invited to join. You were chosen by the Alchemist that he might help each of you achieve all that you could only have dreamt of, without the aid of the Proteus serum.
“But, as I was saying, some of you have betrayed that trust and have acted carelessly.”
He pointed at the empty seat to his left. “First there was Mr Mandrake, hoist, we suspect, by his own petard. Then there was Herr Seziermesser, the over-reaching schemes of his and his accomplice Josiah Umbridge resulting in their mutually assured destruction.”
“I read about that in the paper. I thought Umbridge died in a house fire at his place up in Yorkshire,” a woman said, looking confused.
The Host gave her a withering look, as a parent might a naive child.
“Oh, I see,” the woman muttered, breaking eye contact with the Host in embarrassment.
“And as we step closer to the dawn of the twenty-first century, already this year we have people changing into insects all over the city. The unfortunate incident that occurred at the Daedalus Clinic has only served to highlight how big a problem this has become.”
Nobody said anything, but all shot uncertain glances at their fellow Crucible members.
“The Alchemist is unhappy with how some of you are using his serum. He is concerned that you risk discovery in pursuit of your individual passions. And if one of you is discovered, you endanger us all.
“The very anonymity of the Crucible is being threatened. One of you, present here today, has been careless and such haphazard practices cannot go unchecked.”
As he spoke, the Host’s eyes picked them all out in turn. He finished speaking, his eyes on the scientist Galsworthy.
“What? What is this? What are you saying? That I’m the one responsible for this current state of affairs?”
“I do not remember making any specific accusations, Mr Galsworthy.”
“Then why are you looking at me?”
“What is the matter? What is troubling you, Mr Galsworthy? A guilty conscience perhaps?”
“Look here. This has nothing to do with me, do you hear me, you pompous arse? Nothing! And I don’t see you accusing anyone else.”
“Correct, but then I am not accusing anyone, Mr Galsworthy. I am merely relaying the Alchemist’s concerns to you, that is all.”
“How do you know it’s not...” Galsworthy glanced at the faces of hi
s fellow confederates. “Her?” he said at last, finally settling on Doctor Doppelganger.
“How dare you?” the woman spat, the harshness of her words accentuated by her German accent. “I have never been so insulted! Do you have any idea what it is I even do?”
Galsworthy withered in the face of Doctor Doppelganger’s wrath.
“Experimental cloning, isn’t it, doctor?” the Host said calmly.
“How...? How do you know about that?”
“The same way I know that Madame Wong” – here the Host indicated the middle-aged Oriental woman sitting beside Galsworthy – “is using Proteus to cultivate a new strain of opium poppy, that will grow faster and yield even more of the Empire’s favourite recreational narcotic.”
Madame Wong gasped, looked like she was about to speak, as she threw suspicious glances around the table at the other Crucible members, and then thought better of it.
“And that Dr Gallowglass is using it to help him in his research into rare disorders of the blood. Just to pick a couple of examples at random.”
“That is top secret information,” Dr Gallowglass railed.
“Do not delude yourselves for a moment; the Alchemist knows about all your dirty little secrets. And in this matter, none of you is above suspicion, Doctor Doppelganger,” the Host said, suddenly turning to stare at the German doctor again. “And none of you has climbed so high that you cannot be brought crashing down into ignominy.”
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