The Bedlam Detective

by Stephen Gallagher

  As Sebastian stepped down, the driver said, “You should know this is a waste of your time.”

  “How so?” Sebastian said, noting the presence of horses far off in the paddock, right down by the water.

  “Grace Eccles can be a bit wild. I’m telling you, she’s known for it.”

  The driver closed the car door behind him. Sebastian started toward the buildings alone.

  Before he’d taken more than a few strides, a young woman came out. She wore a full skirt and a man’s jacket buttoned up tight, and her hair was so long and unkempt that it seemed so by intent rather than neglect.

  Grace Eccles, he assumed. She had a rock in her hand.

  She said, “This is my house. You come no closer.”

  Sebastian stopped.

  “How close would be acceptable?” he said.

  “I prefer you fuck off and far away, sir, and here’s the proof of it.”

  He might have been shocked by her language, had she given him the chance to react. But she did not.

  It was a good throw, overarm and with force in it. And accurate, too. It would have laid him out flat if he hadn’t turned side-on and dodged it. It missed his head by a whisker. It missed the driver by more, but went on to smash through the Daimler’s side window like a marble fist.

  Whereupon the driver emitted a loud oath that was almost as foul as her own and scrambled to get back to the wheel of his vehicle. He crashed the gears in his haste to reverse up the track to a place of greater safety; and as the wheels spun and the Daimler slid around in its retreat, Sebastian remembered to look toward Grace Eccles in case there might be another rock coming.

  But she was watching the car’s departure with visible satisfaction.

  Sebastian said, “That was uncalled for.”

  “Whatever you say,” Grace Eccles replied. “How many motorcars can you muster? I’ve no end of stones.”

  With the aim of catching her unawares, Sebastian said, “I’m here on serious business. Two young girls were found dead on the estate yesterday.”

  She showed no particular reaction. She kept on looking at the car for a while, and then she looked at him.

  “What’s that to me?” she said.

  “I thought you might be concerned to hear it.”

  She did no more than shrug.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask.”

  Sebastian said, “What happened to you and Evangeline Bancroft? And why will no one speak of it?”

  “I know why you’re here,” she said, ignoring his question. “Tell him I don’t care who he sends. This was my father’s house, and now it’s mine. I’ve a piece of paper that a judge has looked at, and here I stay.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then where’s the point in you standing there and listening to me?”

  She turned her back on him, walked across the yard and into her house, and slammed the door.

  In that moment it was as if she’d walked out of the world completely; the house sat like a dead thing, abandoned and unlived in.

  Sebastian waited.

  Then he turned away and walked up the track to the car. The driver was beside it, pulling glass out of the door frame and examining his coachwork for further damage.

  As Sebastian drew close, the driver looked up angrily and said, “How stupid was that? As if I didn’t warn you.”

  “I know,” Sebastian said. “Forgive me. I never listen.”

  He swept broken glass from the leather seat, and they continued their journey. The remainder of it was undertaken in silence-or as close to silence as could be achieved, save for the noise of the car’s engine and the wind that whistled in through the broken window.

  The car might be damaged. But not so damaged, Sebastian thought, as the young woman who’d thrown the rock at it.

  Owain Lancaster had been born the son of a Welsh corn merchant. As a young man he’d been sent away to study the law in Manchester, but an interest in science and engineering had prevailed, particularly in its application to long-range artillery. He’d sold the rights to his first arms patent, an improved breech-sliding mechanism for field guns, for thirty pounds. After seeing how much money it made for its new title holders, he never signed away another.

  He’d risen to own foundries and factories and a shipyard, and had bought Arnside Hall and its estate from a bankrupt family some twenty-five years before. He’d meant it for a summer retreat and had spent a considerable amount on rebuilding the house and installing the most modern conveniences: ducted heating, electricity from its own plant, the first telephone in the county. Now he’d sold his London house and lived here all the time.

  Sir Owain’s entire life had been material proof of the value of science, a triumph of the rational. It had brought him a fortune, a fellowship in the Royal Society, and a reputation that, with a single publication, he’d managed to destroy almost overnight.

  Where insanity threatened a fortune, the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy was obliged to intercede. Distant relatives, alarmed at the endangerment of riches they might someday hope to share in, had written to the Lord Chancellor’s office raising questions over Sir Owain’s ability to manage his affairs. Their letter had been passed to Sir James, whose first move had been to send his man-Sebastian’s predecessor, now retired-to investigate and report.

  The drive ascended through farmland to grouse moor, and then from grouse moor to managed forest. Its last mile was up a narrowing valley, winding and switching until Arnside Hall came into view at the top of it.

  It was a strange building. Half doll’s house, half castle, perched atop an enormous rockery where a waterfall spilled down to a trout lake below. Sebastian looked up at it through the Daimler’s good window and felt something between a chill and a thrill. After selling off his business interests at loss-making prices, Sir Owain had retreated here to live off his patents. As the income from these began to decline, his inventions superseded by newer technologies, he’d let estate staff go and allowed the building and its grounds to deteriorate.

  Rich man’s retreat or madman’s hideaway?

  Soon, Sebastian hoped to know.

  THIRTEEN

  Originally, the house had been a lodge. It had been expanded by more than one architect into something of a visual mishmash, its roofline a forest of chimneys and gables of different designs. It had bowed windows and Gothic windows and a bit of Tudor half-timbering thrown in here and there, with the final entry into the main courtyard being achieved through an archway that could have been lifted intact from a cathedral apse.

  The courtyard itself was like the setting for an opera, with windows, outlooks, and balconies at every level and of every imaginable character. Here, with a carriage turn before it, was the main door of the house.

  On the steps to the main doors, Sir Owain Lancaster waited to meet the car. As before, he was not alone. Behind him, lurking in the background like a diffident Iago, came Dr. Hubert Sibley.

  The car stopped before the entranceway. The driver exchanged a few words with his employer, presumably to account for the damage to his vehicle, before returning to it and opening the door for Sebastian to step out.

  Sir Owain did not offer his hand.

  He said, “Permit me a grim smile at the irony of my position. I hold honors from three universities. My patents have amassed fortunes and my factories supply the armies of the world. But my fate and future happiness now lie in the hands of the watchdog to the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy.”

  “There’s nothing about my presence that should make you feel threatened,” Sebastian said. “My function here is only to observe and advise.”

  “And yet my liberty will depend on the advice that you give.”

  “Think less of it as a matter of liberty, and more a matter of your well-being.”

  “It’s very hard not to think about liberty when you face the prospect of losing it.”

  With the pl
easantries dispensed with, Sir Owain led the way inside.

  The entrance hallway had a stone-flagged floor with a rug on it and light oak paneling on its walls. A wide stairway led to a gallery above.

  On the short walk to Sir Owain’s study they passed a long glass case containing a scale model of a warship, the original of which had been built in one of Sir Owain’s yards. The air inside the house was colder than the air outside and had a musty odor. Sebastian saw no sign of any staff.

  Sir Owain’s study was dominated by a large kneehole desk with a captain’s chair behind it. On the desk were a typewriting machine and a binocular microscope in brass. There was a wall of books, with a set of green baize steps for reaching the upper shelves.

  Sebastian said, “Do you understand why it’s necessary for me to be here?”

  Inviting Sebastian to sit while seating himself in the captain’s chair, Sir Owain said, “I understand that any man with the taint of madness and a fortune is fair game for the Masters of Lunacy. As little as fifty pounds a year or a thousand in the bank will get their attention.”

  “You merely need to convince Sir James that you are competent to remain in charge of your own affairs.”

  “Convince him? Or convince you?”

  Sebastian waited.

  Sir Owain went on, “Given that I must, I believe that I can. Doctor Sibley, here, is my constant companion and the guarantor of my sanity.”

  By now, Dr. Hubert Sibley had joined Sir Owain behind the desk. He remained standing, more like a valet than a medical man.

  Sebastian looked at Sir Owain again and said, “So do you consider yourself insane?”

  “No,” Sir Owain said. “But I can understand why others might. Is that in itself not some kind of proof?”

  Dr. Sibley then spoke up and said, “I have prepared you a full report of my observations and a fair copy of Sir Owain’s treatment diary.”

  Sir Owain looked at him, and Sibley nodded. Then Sir Owain opened a desk drawer and took out a folder of typewritten papers, tied with a ribbon. He placed the folder on the desk and slid it toward Sebastian.

  “My life is in these pages,” he said. “There is no part of it that is not subject to Doctor Sibley’s supervision. Whether it’s my health or my business or the management of the estate.”

  “No part of it at all?”

  “None.”

  Sebastian was finding that Sibley’s presence made him vaguely uncomfortable. Not so much a man, more a slimy shadow. Hanging around in the corner like an undertaker’s mute.

  He looked at the man and said, “Where are you living, Doctor?”

  “I live here at the Hall,” Sibley replied, “with Sir Owain. Constant companion means exactly that.”

  “I can’t help observing that to ensure Sir Owain’s liberty you seem to have given up your own.”

  “I am well rewarded. The work is light and the life is pleasant. I believe you’ll find that our arrangement is the equal of any more oppressive or restrictive regime, and offers a humane and enlightened alternative.”

  “In other words … as long as you’re steering Sir Owain and whispering in his ear, I should recommend against any form of asylum.”

  “Sir Owain is not mad,” Dr. Sibley said.

  “What is he, then?”

  Sir Owain spoke up for himself. “I speak my mind, I say what I see, and for reasons of their own some choose to call me mad because of it. The mere whiff of the word around a rich man brings the Masters of Lunacy running. Lawyers and parasites with no other interest than to get control of a man’s fortune and squander it. They are a plague, and it’s the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor who moves ahead of them and marks the foreheads of the doomed.”

  At that point he realized that Sibley was giving him a warning look.

  “Is one possible opinion,” Sir Owain amended.

  “You can hold whatever opinion you wish,” Sebastian said, and he reached for the folder on the desk. “Believe me. I have a duty to be impartial, and my employer is a fair man. I will read this report. I shall pass along the treatment diary for someone more medically qualified to assess. And I shall establish whether this live-in arrangement is a genuine form of care or a deliberate ploy to stave off the appropriate legal process.”

  Dr. Sibley said, “How can we convince you?”

  “Don’t try to convince me. Just conduct yourselves as you normally would. Sir Owain.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been reading your book.”

  A new and subtle tension seemed to enter the room.

  “As have many,” Sir Owain said with care.

  “A well-wrought piece of fiction,” Sebastian suggested, and waited to see Sir Owain’s response.

  Sir Owain could not help it. He looked at his doctor. His doctor said nothing, but the implication hung there. I can’t prompt you. Be careful.

  “If you say so,” Sir Owain said.

  “What do you say, Sir Owain?” Sebastian pressed. “Do you still insist on it as an honest account of your Amazon adventure? Is it a faithful memorial to those who failed to return?”

  Sir Owain looked again at the doctor, who now was looking at the floor as if to show that any response was Sir Owain’s, and Sir Owain’s alone.

  Sebastian went on, “Just between us. In this room. Do you still hold it to be the truth? Or is it, as so many say, a miscalculated hoax that has caused the loss of your position and earned you the scorn of your peers?”

  Dr. Sibley could keep his silence no longer.

  “This is unfair,” he said.

  “I know it, Doctor Sibley,” Sebastian said. “It’s not a choice that I’d care to be faced with. Stick to my story and be deemed insane, or abandon it and stand revealed as a fraud.”

  “And whatever I answer,” Sir Owain said, “you’ll have the option of calling it a response that I learned for the occasion, to achieve an end.”

  “And so we go round and round.”

  “If a man can feign sanity to perfection, is he not therefore sane?”

  “Why did you view the bodies of those dead girls?”

  The abrupt change of tack threw Sir Owain for a moment, as Sebastian had meant it to.

  He floundered for a moment and then said, “They were found on my land. And I wished to offer my help.”

  “Ah, yes. Your theory. Torn by beasts.” From the deep pocket inside his coat, Sebastian took his copy of Sir Owain’s book and searched for the page that he’d located and marked. “You must be aware that the exact same phrase occurs here in your mendacious memoir.”

  “It’s but a phrase, Mister Becker,” Sir Owain said. “You saw the condition of those children. Tell me that the wording is anything other than accurate.”

  Sebastian regarded him for a few moments.

  Then he closed the book.

  “Please call your car for me,” he said, and rose to his feet.

  Sir Owain seemed bewildered.

  “Is that it?” he said. “What happens now?”

  “I’ll be in the area for a day or two. Making my inquiries. You’ll hear from me again.”

  “When will we know the decision?”

  “That, I cannot say. The decision won’t be mine to make.”

  He declined a tour of the house. He’d seen a sufficient number of great houses to know that the gentry were equally indifferent to magnificence and squalor, and that their homes were no guide to anything. He’d once reported on a marquis who kept a pig in his dining room, and Sir James had been happy to sign him off.

  As the car was once more drawing up in front of the building, Sir Owain said, “Who will pay for my broken window glass?”

  Sebastian said, “I think you will.”

  “You speak sharply to me,” Sir Owain complained. “In a way I do not believe I deserve. But how can I respond in kind to a man who has power over my liberty?”

  “If I seem sharp, sir, then I apologize. I do not mean to be. You can be assured that my only interest is in
the facts behind the matter.”

  “Then,” Sir Owain said, phrasing his courtesy in such a way as to leave no doubt that he was sorely aggrieved by the obligation, “I should support your discovery of the facts in full. My car and driver are at your disposal during your stay. Wherever you may wish to go. Just telephone the house and I’ll send them out.”

  FOURTEEN

  The offer of the car had been made within the driver’s earshot, and he remained sullen and silent at his wheel throughout the return journey. The vehicle had been swept clear of broken glass during the interview, but the window was still open to the elements.

  Sebastian looked through the pages in the folder. They were the work of a careful typist, but not a trained one.

  After the car had dropped him off on Arnmouth’s main street, Sebastian went into the first tearoom that he saw. Over lunch he studied the restaurant’s copy of the Daily Mail, scanning it for any details of Sir James’s address to the British Association.

  There was no mention of the murders in the early edition. The rest of the news was much as usual-a new terrorist outrage in the Middle East, a ban on infected cattle movements in Wales. Army maneuvers continued in Cambridgeshire, mirroring those of the Kaiser’s forces in Switzerland. If the shadowplay were ever to turn into real conflict, those boy soldiers from yesterday would probably be sent to join it. Meanwhile, the Mail saw German spies behind everything. The newspaper’s estimate of their numbers regularly exceeded the total of German nationals in Britain.

  Sebastian folded the paper and laid it down. Someone on another table asked for it, and he passed it over.

  He looked out the window. Take away the shadow that hung over it, and this was a nice little town. Not exactly the kind of place that he and Elisabeth had dreamed of, but somewhere they might settle for. If they had the money. And didn’t have Robert’s needs to consider.

  After checking the time by his pocket watch, he paid his bill and went outside. He walked up the street to the preventative officer’s house, where he showed his credentials and begged the use of the telephone.