The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

by Lillian de la Torre

  The little woman’s eyes looked inward, and she spoke with a kind of horrid relish:

  “When I knew the people lay bound and gagged—”

  “How did you know?”

  “I heard the talk on the landing. I could not sleep for thinking of—I could not sleep, and the boys were drunk and loud. I opened the door and listened. I saw my opportunity. How I entered you know. The old women I finished neatly, with their own curtain cords. The young one—”

  “Yes, the young one?”

  “The young one I reserved for a more dreadful fate. It was I who shot the front-door bolt, intending to leave her locked in with murder, and see her hanged for it.”

  “Who could think she did it, when she lay bound?” I demanded.

  “Of course I did away with the bonds,” said the woman contemptuously.

  “Yet you killed her, how was that to your purpose?”

  “I meant only to stun her, but she got loose and fought me. I saw red. I killed her. Then I returned as I came.”

  “And when the people became alarmed and would break in,” Dr. Johnson supplied, “you saw it must be you, and no one else, to break the window and effect an entrance there, lest the broken window be observed by others, pointing directly at the folk from Mr. Grisley’s.”

  She made no answer, but turned to her master.

  “I did it for you, Edward.”

  With a blind gesture, Grisley turned away.

  “All for nothing, then.”

  Dining together the next day at the Mitre, we naturally turned our talk to the exciting hours we had spent in Bayfield Court the day before.

  BOSWELL: Were you not surprised, sir, when Katty Oliver confessed her guilt?

  JOHNSON: Not at all, sir, I knew it all along. What did she care if the door was battered in? Only the strongest of motives would suffice to set her on that precarious circuit she traversed. She must have known what would be found at the end of it. Nay, more, how did she know it was an easy way around the parapet, if she had not traversed it before?

  BOSWELL: Yet how eloquently you depicted the unhappy Grisley’s crime and his imminent fate.

  JOHNSON: Thus I put her to the torture, for I could see how much he meant to her; and when I turned the screw with talk of the horrors of hanging, she confessed to save him, as I foresaw she would.

  BOSWELL: What will become of her? Surely she’ll hang?

  JOHNSON: In the ordinary course, sir, yes. But I had the curiosity to enquire this morning, and by what I learn, she will not hang. It appears that, as Aunt Moll said, she was ever subject to fits, no doubt she committed her terrible crimes in an unnatural phrenzy. Well, sir, when she saw the cells last night she fell into a dead catalepsy and was carried insensible to Bedlam, where ’tis clear she belongs.

  BOSWELL: And Biddy, what of her?

  JOHNSON: The Sander brothers, that delivered over the old women bound to be murdered, have made good their escape, leaving Biddy to pay for their crime.

  BOSWELL: This seems unfair, sir.

  JOHNSON: Why, sir, receiving of stolen goods is a hanging offence, Miss Biddy cannot complain. But the Temple watchmen are not incorruptible, and the Temple watch-house is not impregnable. Moreover, Mr. Geegan, the son of an Irish Peer, has well-lined pockets. In short, sir, he has spirited away Miss Biddy, who knows whither. And so ends the affair of murder lock’d in.

  BOSWELL (boldly) Which I hope I may one day narrate at large when, as I mean to do, I record for posterity the exploits of Sam: Johnson, detector!

  [The hardest thing about writing this story was making it probable. I suppose this is because it actually happened. Real events don’t necessarily bother about probability.

  It happened, and I tell it as it happened, except of course for the intervention of Dr. Sam: Johnson. The solution is my own. In actual fact the Irish girl was hanged, which seems hard for only keeping watch and accepting a silver tankard, but such was justice in those inhuman days.

  In analyzing the “locked-room mystery” and its possible solutions, with singular prescience Dr. Johnson seems to have anticipated John Dickson Carr’s “locked-room lecture” in The Three Coffins; though the solution that detector Sam: Johnson arrives at is not among those considered by Carr.

  The classic “string trick” for bolting a door from outside, here explained by the watchman, was actually demonstrated at the Irish girl’s trial, when they brought the door into open court and performed the trick upon it to the amazement of all beholders. You may real all about it in George Borrow’s Celebrated Trials (New York: Payson & Clarke, Ltd., 1928) II, 536–571.

  Why, you may ask, do I write “Sam: Johnson?” Because that’s how he wrote it. So he signed himself. The colon in his day, as the period in ours, indicated an abbreviation. His full name was Samuel.]

  THE BEDLAM BAM

  “To find my Tom o’ Bedlam ten thousand miles I’ll travel,” chanted the ballad-singer in a thin rusty screech, lustily seconded by the wail of the dirt-encrusted baby in her shawl.

  “Mad Maudlin goes with dirty toes to save her shoes from gravel.

  Yet will I sing bonny mad boys, Bedlam boys are bonny.

  They still go bare and live by air …”

  All along the fence that separated Bedlam Hospital from the tree-lined walks of Moorfields, ill-printed broadsides fluttered in the breeze, loudly urged upon the public by a cacophony of ballad-sellers. As I flinched at the din, a hand plucked my sleeve, and a voice twittered:

  “Poor Tom o’ Bedlam! Tom’s a-cold!”

  I turned to view a tatterdemalion figure, out at elbow and knee, out at toe and heel, out at breech, with spiky hair on end and claw-like hand extended. As I fumbled for a copper, my wise companion restrained me.

  “Let be, Mr. Boswell, the man’s a fraud. No Bedlamite has leave to beg these days; they are all withinside. Come along.”

  Leaving the mock madman to mutter a dispirited curse, we passed through Bedlam gate and approached the noble edifice, so like a palace without, so grim within—as I, a visitor from North Britain, was soon to learn.

  Behold us then mounting the step to the entrance pavilion. If “great wits are sure to madness near allied,” as the poet has it, then what shall be said of that ill-assorted pair?—Dr. Sam: Johnson, the Great Cham of Literature, portly of mien and rugged of countenance, with myself, his young friend and chronicler, James Boswell, advocate, of Scotland, swarthy of complection and low of stature beside him. Believing London to be the full tide of human existence, he had carried me, that day in May 1768, to see one of the city’s strangest sights, Bedlam Hospital, the abode of the frantick and the melancholy mad.

  Entering the pavilion, we beheld before us the Penny Gates, attended by a burly porter in blue coat and cap, wearing with importance a silver badge almost as wide as a plate, and holding his silver-tipped staff of office. Beside the flesh and blood figure stood two painted wooden effigies holdings jugs, representing gypsies, a he and a she. Though the woman was ugly, we put our pennies into her jug, and heard them rattle down; whereupon the porter passed us in, and we ascended to the upper gallery.

  As we came out on the landing, our senses were assailed by a rank stench and a babel of noise, a hum of many voices talking, with an accompaniment of screech and howl that stood my hair on end.

  A second blue-gowned attendant passed us through the iron bars of the barrier, and we stood in the long gallery of the men’s ward. Around us milled madmen and their visitors in a dense throng, the while vendors shouldered their way through the crush dispensing nuts, fruits, and cheesecakes, and tap-boys rushed pots of beer, though contraband, to the thirsty, whether mad or sane.

  Along the side gallery, tall windows let in the north light. Opposite them were ranged the madmen’s cells, each with its heavy door pierced with a little barred Judas window. Some doors were shut; but more were open to afford the inmates air. I peeped in the first one with a shudder. A small, unglazed window high up admitted a shaft of sunlight and a bla
st of cold spring air. For furnishings, there was only a wooden bed-stead piled with straw, and a wooden bowl to eat from; unless you counted a heavy iron chain with a neck loop, stapled to the wall. No one was chained there, however; the fortunate occupants had “the liberty of the corridor,” and perhaps stood at my elbow.

  Others were not so fortunate. As we strolled forward, we saw through the open doors many a wretch in fetters, chained to the wall, and many a hopeless mope drearily staring.

  “Here in Bedlam,” remarked my philosophical friend, “tho’ secluded from the world, yet we may see the world in microcosm. Here’s Pride—”

  I looked where he pointed. Through the open door of the next cell, I perceived one who in his disordered intellect imagined himself to be, perhaps, the Great Mogul. He sat on straw as on a throne, he wore his fetters like adornments, and his countenance bore the most ineffable look of self-satisfaction and consequence. For a crown he wore his chamber pot.

  “A pride scarce justified,” said I with a smile.

  “For mortal man, pride is never justified. Here’s Anger—”

  The sound of blows rang through the corridor. In the neighbouring cell, a red-faced lunatick was furiously beating the straw on his pallet.

  “What do you, friend?” enquired a stander-by.

  “I beat him for his cruelty!”

  “Whom do you beat, sir?”

  “The Butcher Duke of Cumberland. Take that! And that!”

  “Madmen have long memories,” remarked my friend with pity. “The cruelties of the ’45 are gone by these twenty years.”

  The noise had stirred up the menagerie. Pandemonium burst forth. Those who were fettered clanked their chains. Those who were locked in shook the bars. Some howled like wolves. Keepers banging on doors added to the hollobaloo. My friend shuddered.

  “God keep us out of such a place!”

  “Amen!” said I.

  The tumult abated, and we walked on through the throng. A little way along, my friend greeted an acquaintance:

  “What, Lawyer Trevelyan, your servant, sir. Miss Cicely, yours. Be acquainted with my young friend Mr. Boswell, the Scotch lawyer, who visits London to see the sights with me.”

  As I bowed I took their measure. The lawyer was tall and sturdy, with little shrewd eyes in a long closed-up face. The girl was small and slim, modestly attired in dove grey. At her slender waist, in the old-fashioned way, she wore a dainty seamstress’ hussif with a business-like pair of scissors suspended on a ribband. Her quiet face was gently framed by a cap and lappets of lawn. Meeting her candid amber gaze, I was glad I had adorned my person in my gold-laced scarlet coat.

  “How do you go on, Mr. Trevelyan? And how does the good man, your uncle Silas, the Turkey merchant?”

  “On his account, Dr. Johnson, we are come hither.”

  “What, is he confined here?”

  “Alas, yes. Yonder he stands.”

  I looked where he pointed. The elder Mr. Trevelyan was a wiry small personage, clad in respectable black. He had a thin countenance, his own white hair to his shoulders, bright black eyes, and a risible look. With a half smile, he listened to the tirade of a distrest fellow inmate, giving now and then a quick nod.

  “He has no look of insanity,” observed my friend.

  “Perhaps not, sir. But the prank that brought him hither was not sane. You shall hear. Being touched with Mr. Wesley’s enthusiasm—”

  “Mr. Wesley is a good man.”

  “I do not deny it, sir. But my uncle has more zeal than prudence. He abandons his enterprises, and goes about to do good to the poor, in prisons and work-houses and I know not where.”

  “Call you this lunacy?”

  “No, sir. Stay, you shall hear the story. Of a Sunday, sir, he gets up into the pulpit at St. Giles, just as the congregation is assembled. He wears a pair of large muslin wings to his shoulders, and ‘Follow me, good people!’ he cries. ‘Follow me to Heaven!’ Whereupon with jerks of his hands he flaps his wings, crows loudly, and prepares to launch himself from the lectern. But the beadle, a man of prompt address, pulls him back, and so he is hustled hither without more ado, and here he must stay lest he do himself a mischief. But never fret, Cicely, I have his affairs well in hand, by power of attorney and so on.”

  But Cicely had gone impulsively to the old gentleman.

  “How do you, uncle?”

  “Why, my dear, very well. Reflect (smiling) ’tis only in Bedlam a man may speak his mind about kings and prelates without hindrance. And where else can a man find so many opportunities for comforting the afflicted?”

  “Yet, dear uncle, it distresses me to see you among them.”

  “Be comforted, Cicely. ’Tis only a little while, and I shall be enlarged, I promise you. Your cousin Ned will see to it.”

  A wise wink accompanied this assurance. Cousin Ned sighed.

  “All in good time, Cicely.”

  Since Cicely seemed minded to canvass the subject further, we bowed and retired. The morning was drawing to a close. I was glad to leave the whole scene of madness, and return to the world of the sane.

  Nor would I willingly have renewed my visit so soon, had not the dove-grey girl come to us in distress and urgently carried us thither to visit her uncle.

  What a change was there! Two weeks before, we had seen him fully cloathed and quite composed. Now as we peeped through the Judas windows, we beheld him lying on straw in the chilly cell, his shirt in tatters, his white locks tangled, shackled and manacled to the floor.

  “A violent case,” said the burly mad-keeper. “I dare not unlock the door.”

  He dared after all, but only upon receipt of a considerable bribe, and upon condition that he stand by the door with staff in hand.

  In a trice Miss Cicely was kneeling by her uncle’s side, putting her own cloak about him.

  “Alas, how do you, uncle?”

  The eyes he turned upon her were clear and sane.

  “Why, very well, dear love,” he said, “I have learned what I came here to learn, and more too,” he added wryly.

  “What have you learned, uncle?”

  “I have learned how the poor madmen here are abused, aye and beaten too, when their poor addled wits make them obstreperous. That staff (nodding towards the blue-coat by the door) is not only for shew.”

  “Alack, uncle, have you been beaten?”

  “Beaten? Aye, and blistered, physicked, drenched with cold water, denied my books, deprived of pen, ink, and paper. And all for a transport of justifiable anger.”

  “Anger at what?” enquired Dr. Johnson.

  “At my nephew.”

  “Why, uncle, what has Ned done?”

  “Ned has cozened me. You must know, Dr. Johnson, I am as well in my wits as you are—save for my ill judgement in trusting Ned. You see, sir, Mr. Wesley and his followers are barred from visiting Newgate Gaol—lest they corrupt the inmates, I suppose—and from Bedlam Hospital, lest they make them mad. Well, sir, being determined to know how matters went on behind these doors when they are closed, I resolved to make myself an inmate. I gave Ned—more fool me—my power of attorney and a letter that should enlarge me when I so desired, and by enacting a little comedy, with muslin wings, I got myself brought hither; in full confidence that Ned would see me released when I chose.”

  “Well, sir?”

  “Well, sir, when I gave Ned the word to produce my letter and release me, this Judas Iscariot looks me in the eye, and says he, ‘What letter? The poor man is raving.’ All came clear in a flash. Ned has no intention of enlarging me. Why should he, when he has my power of attorney, and may make ducks and drakes of my fortune at his pleasure? Nay, he is my heir. What are my chances, think you, of coming out of here alive? Do you wonder I was ready to throttle the scoundrel? But they pulled me from him, and I have been chained down ever since. The keepers are bribed, I suppose. To my expostulations they turn a deaf ear. If not for Cicely, my plight need never have been known.”

  “Alack, D
r. Johnson,” cried Cicely, “now what’s to be done?”

  “Have no fear, my dear. When next the Governors of the hospital meet, they shall hear the story, and he’ll be released, I warrant you.”

  That very Saturday at nine of the lock we presented ourselves in the Court Room of the hospital. This handsome chamber is located abovestairs in the central pavilion, a gracious room with large windows overlooking Moorfields, a ceiling of carven plaster, and painted coats of arms about the walls.

  Here sat the Governors, a stately set of men in full wigs and wide-skirted coats. My eye picked out Dr. John Monro, head surgeon, a formidable figure with bushy eyebrows, a belligerent snub nose, a short upper lip over prominent dog-teeth, a vinous complection, and a bulldog cast of countenance; for upon his say-so, in the end, depended our friend’s freedom or incarceration.

  Four of us came to speak for him that morning: James Boswell, lawyer, Dr. Johnson, his friend, and Miss Cicely, his kinswoman. To strengthen our ranks, we brought a medical man, Dr. Robert Levet, Dr. Johnson’s old friend, who for twenty years had dwelt in his house and attended him at need. He was a little fellow of grotesque and uncouth appearance, his knobby countenance half concealed by a bushy wig. He wore a voluminous rusty black coat, and old-fashioned square-toed shoes to his feet. Thus ceremoniously attired, he came with us to speak as a physician in support of Mr. Silas Trevelyan’s sanity.

  Then they brought him in, and my heart misgave me. Gaunt, ragged, in chains, with his white hair on end—was this man sane? At his benevolent greeting to us, however, and his respectful bow to the committee assembled, I took heart again. As the blue-coated warders ranged themselves beside him, for fear of some disorderly outbreak, the gentlemen seated along the dais scanned him intently, and he looked serenely back.

  Footsteps hurrying up the stair announced yet another participant, and nephew Edward Trevelyan appeared precipitately in the wide doorway—heir, attorney, and nearest of kin to the supposed madman, all in one.

  The proceedings began. Dr. Johnson was eloquent, Dr. Levet earnest and scientifick, Miss Cicely modest and low-spoken. I was furnished forth with legal instances. Our one difficulty was in explaining how, if he was sane, our friend had gotten himself into Bedlam in the first place. We dared not say, in effect, “He came in voluntarily, as a spy.” We skirted the subject, and concentrated upon his present state of restored sanity.