The Bedlam Detective

by Stephen Gallagher

  “We do.”

  Sebastian tore away the brown paper wrapping to reveal the Birtac camera.

  He said, “Then I think you’re the person I need. This was found at the scene. I’m told that it’s a moving-picture camera. I believe there may be exposed images in it. I would very much like to know what they are.”

  Sedgewick took the camera from him and turned it around in his hands. Over on the other side of the tent, people were beginning to enter for the next show.

  Sedgewick said, “Exposed film can be easily spoiled. Has anyone opened this?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I sincerely hope not.”

  Mindful of the paying customers, Sedgewick indicated for Sebastian to follow him. They made their way around to the projection booth, separated from the exhibition space by a fireproofed wall.

  In this cramped room, dominated by the projection apparatus and smelling of ozone and naphtha and nitrates, a young man was cranking a handle to rewind a film spool for the next show.

  Sedgewick introduced him as Will. Just Will. The young man was in white shirtsleeves and a buttoned-up waistcoat. Barely out of his teens, he had a wisp of a mustache and beard.

  It took Sebastian a moment to recognize him as the Second Lunatic from the short that he’d just seen. Sedgewick showed Will the Birtac camera and said, “Ever seen one of these? Don’t open it, there’s film inside.”

  Will took it and looked it over, much as the older man had. He shook his head.

  “It’s amateur’s kit. A new one on me, boss.”

  Sedgewick went on, “We’re doing a good deed for those poor little girls. Sort this gentleman out with whatever he needs.”

  Sebastian followed Will out of the Bioscope tent and into the part of the showground away from the public area. The growing noise of the crowd and the steady roar of the fairground organs seemed muted here; the noise of the steam traction engines did not. Sebastian had to duck through washing and avoid tripping on heavy cables as he followed Will through.

  Will looked back over his shoulder and said, “We don’t develop much film these days. My father made a deal with Gaumont. They give us raw stock, we make the scenes, and they develop it for free. For that Dad lets them sell our subjects outside the area. Watch yourself. The third step’s loose.”

  He was ascending to a door into a square-sided wagon that stood some yards apart from all the others. Despite the warning, Sebastian almost stumbled on the third step. Will switched on an electric light.

  There was a bench down one side of the wagon. Strips of moving picture film hung from clotheslines above it, all of differing lengths, stirring in the draft from the door like the tails of so many kites. Metal film cans were stacked high on every surface, and on the wall a large hand-painted notice warned of the dangers of sparks and naked flames.

  Will said, “This calls for the nuns’ drawers.”

  “The what?” Sebastian said.

  Will flushed slightly as he realized that he’d spoken without thinking. “Sorry,” he said.

  He reached under the bench and produced a black velvet bag with two sleeves. The camera went inside, and the bag was sealed. Will then put his hands in through the sleeves, which were elasticated for a light-tight fit around his forearms.

  He fiddled around inside the bag for a while. Sebastian heard the catch go, and the sound of the camera body coming open. Will made faces and stared off into nowhere as he explored the innards of the machine, like a blind man feeling his way around the works of a pocket watch.

  “Yep,” he said. “It’s amateur gauge.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Half the width of the film we use. Smaller film, smaller image, costs less money. Looks awful on a big screen but good enough in your living room.”

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  “Give me an hour.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Miss Bancroft,” sir Owain said. “Never was there a fairer sight on a bicycle.”

  “I didn’t think you’d recognize me.”

  “I barely did, you’ve so much changed. Quite the young city woman, now. Are you visiting your mother?”

  “I am. But I want to talk to you about Grace Eccles.”

  “Ah.”

  They were in one of the house’s galleries, long and vaulted and painted in a deep red. Sir Owain had been cataloguing when she arrived. The gallery contained his collections of seashells and geological specimens, stuffed birds under glass, and sculpture of a morbid character.

  Sir Owain was much changed from the man she remembered. He’d always been a figure of consequence in the area. A vigorous presence, he now seemed diminished. She was moved by his air of vulnerability.

  She said, “Grace is my oldest friend.”

  “Then perhaps,” Dr. Sibley said, “you might have some influence with her?”

  Even without Grace’s forewarning, it would have taken Evangeline less than two minutes to form a dislike of Dr. Ernest Hubert Sibley.

  She said, “To help you persuade her out of her home, do you mean? Quite the opposite. I’m here to ask you to leave her alone.”

  “Now, Evangeline,” Sir Owain broke in. “Nobody wants to force her to anything.”

  “However,” Dr. Sibley said firmly. Sir Owain fell silent.

  Dr. Sibley went on, “You may know that I’m responsible for ensuring that Sir Owain manages his affairs with visible competence. I can tell you there really is no question over Sir Owain’s health. There are doubters, but they have their own motives. It’s essential not to provide them with the means to do him damage. You do understand?”

  She didn’t understand. She said, “How does that concern Grace?”

  “Grace Eccles is living on land that was granted to her father. The lease expired when her father died.”

  “She inherited.”

  “She imagines that.”

  “Is it a matter of money? You must know she has none. I’ve seen how she lives. She can barely keep herself.”

  “It’s not a matter of money. It’s a matter of good administration.”

  “Pardon me,” Evangeline said. “But that sounds heartless.”

  “It’s not heartless,” the doctor said, unhappy with the turn that this had taken; he seemed to be a man more used to giving instruction than to being met with argument. “It’s business. And an estate must be seen to be run in a businesslike manner.”

  “God forbid that we should value human decency over bookkeeping.”

  Sir Owain, who’d grown visibly uncomfortable, said to Evangeline, “But what would you have us do?”

  “Just let her be,” Evangeline said, and she gestured to include the gallery and all its works and the great labyrinth of the house beyond it. “You have all this, and she has so little. Why would you deprive her of it?”

  Dr. Sibley said, “I take it we needn’t look for help from you, then.”

  “To see my best friend rendered destitute? No. And if your main concern is to keep your employer from looking bad, victimizing a tenant seems hardly the way to do it.”

  That shut him up, for a moment.

  Sir Owain said, “Evangeline-you said it yourself. She is destitute. I had fears for her life last winter.”

  “With no home and no land for her horses, how would you expect her to live at all? Will you give her a job? Can you imagine Grace in service?”

  “The parish would support her,” Dr. Sibley said. “And Sir Owain has long been a great supporter of the parish.”

  “Then why not live and let live, and cut out the parish altogether?”

  The doctor opened his mouth, found himself lost for a reply, and closed it again.

  Then he tried a different tack. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I assumed that a friend would help a friend. Especially two people who have been through so much.” And he put a meaningful emphasis on that final phrase, as if he expected her to understand what he meant by it.

  “Grace and I have not met in years,” s
he said.

  He persisted. “But some experiences can leave a permanent mark. Do you not find? Sometimes help is required to move forward. If you wish, I can offer you a consultation.”

  She felt herself flush. She said, “You may be Sir Owain’s doctor, but you are not mine. So this is inappropriate.”

  His face didn’t move. But his eyes went cold, as if she’d slapped it.

  He made an as you wish gesture and withdrew from the discussion. He seated himself on a padded gallery bench and looked pointedly away, as Sir Owain inquired after her mother’s health and attempted to rescue the occasion to some degree.

  And when that was done, and Sir Owain escorted her toward the entrance hall, the doctor took his time before rising to follow.

  When he believed they were out of the doctor’s earshot, Sir Owain lowered his voice and said, “Forgive me for all this. My life is no longer my own.”

  She glanced back, to be certain they were not overheard.

  She said, “What’s brought you to this position?”

  “Sheer necessity,” Sir Owain said. “The Lord Chancellor will have my land and all my patents, and I a room with a lock on the door, if I am judged unfit. The Visitor’s man came. He suspects me of many things, none of which I’m guilty of. But those children who died. They haunt me now.”

  “Why?”

  “What if I could have prevented their suffering by speaking out when I had the chance? Instead of falling silent in my own best interests.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I saw such things on my travels. Secret creatures that I fear may have followed me home. Capable of incalculable harm. But when I published my account …”

  He said no more, because Dr. Sibley had caught up with them. They’d reached the steps outside the building.

  “It’s getting late, Evangeline,” Sir Owain said. “Perhaps you should wait, under the circumstances. I can have Thomas drive you back, when he returns.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I won’t stop for anyone.”

  “Or anything,” Sir Owain suggested pointedly.

  Dr. Sibley offered to steady her bicycle as she climbed astride it.

  As Sir Owain returned to the top of the steps, the doctor said to her in a low voice, “I do what I can. But perhaps now you can begin to understand.”

  She’d barely covered the first hundred yards before she was forced to concede, with some disquiet, that Sir Owain had been right about the hour. This had been an unplanned addition to her day, and she’d stayed out too long. The light had already faded to the point where the track was blending into the moor and the moor was blending into the sky.

  There was an electric lamp on the front of the bicycle’s basket. She stood up on the pedals so that she could reach over the handlebars to switch it on. It made no difference so she switched it off again, to save what remained of the battery until it might be more effective.

  She wondered about the possibility of stopping on the way back and asking to spend the night with Grace in her cottage. Grace surely wouldn’t say no. But given these recent events, what would her mother think if she didn’t return? The worst, for sure.

  Better to press on, and beat the fall of night. Evangeline tried to think more of her mother’s worry, in order to dwell less on her own. She’d no fear of breezy open daytime spaces. The moors after dark would be another matter.

  How far was it? Two miles? Three? Half an hour’s ride, perhaps, if she kept up a steady speed and didn’t coast. She’d surely have some level of visibility for half an hour. She might end the ride in deepening gloom, but by then there would be the town to aim for. She’d be like the fishing boats, making toward the harbor lights at the end of the day.

  When she passed Grace’s cottage, she didn’t slow. Then realized that she hadn’t even seen the turnoff until it had gone by. Looking down from the track she was able to make out the cottage roof by the gray smoke rising into the deeper gray of the sky, but no light escaped its shuttered windows.

  By day the house’s isolation had seemed romantic, almost poetic. But at night, simply unwise. A late visitor might cause a panic; she imagined being Grace, inside her home and hearing a sudden banging at the door. How brave Grace must be, to live so far out here alone, where no cry would be heard, and with no help at hand. If she was not brave, then she was foolish. Or perhaps simply desperate-as Grace herself had pointed out, her choices were limited.

  Evangeline rose in the saddle as her wheels jolted over a rock. She dropped back hard, but did not slow. It was easy to imagine that something was behind her, breathing on her back, its presence growing as she pedaled. She might have a rational mind, but no one has a rational soul. Whatever dogged her, it did not go away, but kept a distance as if biding its time.

  NINETEEN

  The Daimler was nowhere to be seen. Sebastian wandered the field among grazing horses and factory trucks that had been pressed into service for workers’ outings, thinking that perhaps Sir Owain’s man had moved the car to a safer spot. But he had a growing suspicion that he’d moved it rather more.

  He stopped a couple of people and asked them. No one had seen the man or the car.

  He went back to the lower field and wandered the fairground for a while, keeping an eye open for the driver. Alone at the fair, he felt awkward.

  It was a long time since he’d attended such a thing for his own pleasure. The freaks, the puppet shows, the hurdy-gurdy men. A father’s role was to take along his family, and to stand back and draw his satisfaction from their amusement. He was too old to be a target for the flirtatious groups of factory girls, too respectable-looking to be hailed and challenged as he passed the boxing booth. The pitchmen on the stalls called over his head, to less sober and more likely-looking marks. He felt, to all intents and purposes, like an invisible man.

  He passed the freak show a couple of times, and on the third pass he paid the money and went inside. Everyone was crowded in shoulder-to-shoulder: the nervous, the curious, the callow, and the near-hysterical. They shuffled around slowly under the harsh electric bulbs, following a course from entrance to exit. At the front of the show was a “six-legged calf,” actually an animal with bifurcated forelegs that could not support its weight. It crawled about its stall on callused knees, trying to reach a few scraps of hay that had fallen from its feeding trough. Around the corner was the fat lady, seated on a stool and knitting to pass the time. She was large, but not so large as to be worth paying to see. Then there was the usual Fiji Mermaid in a glass case, half dead monkey, half dried fish, the two halves stitched together by a taxidermist’s needle.

  Last of all, in a partitioned area at the back, forbidden to children and costing an extra penny, there were the Seven Freaks of Nature. Their signage was freshly painted, so the smell of glue size mingled with the lingering odor of formaldehyde. Some balked at the extra charge, but most paid up and went through the bead curtain to see what was there.

  The specimens of human tissue included a pair of lungs, one from a city dweller and the other belonging to a country person. The city dweller’s lung was gray and mottled, rather like a bad green cheese. The countryman’s lung was drained and lifeless but comparatively pink. There was a preserved half of a brain. A human uterus. A child’s healthy heart, white as folded silk as it hung there in the preserving fluid.

  Among the severed heads and flayed torsos and part-dissected limbs, Sebastian found his friends from the train. They now bore the name Lusus Naturae, The Human Monster, but were otherwise as before; their heads merged in some fantastical lovers’ kiss, their arms around each other in a fearful embrace. Unable to function in life, earning their keep in death.

  He stood before their jar for a while, until pressure from the crowd behind him moved him on. As he emerged back into the fairground, he saw Will pushing through on some urgent-seeming errand with a case of lightbulbs, and managed to catch his eye.

  “Your film’s done, it’s drying now,” the y
oung man said. “If you can stick it out until the last show, we can put your pictures on the big screen afterward.”

  “I may as well,” Sebastian said. “My driver appears to have abandoned me.”

  When the last comedy ended and the audience left, Sebastian stayed behind. All through the program of subjects, his heart had been hammering. Now he realized why. It had nothing to do with the show that he’d seen. It was for the show yet to come. Not an involuntary excitement, but an involuntary dread.

  No one appeared for a while, and he wondered if they’d forgotten him. The lights on the show front were extinguished, one set after another.

  But then Will arrived, carrying a heavy metal spool with not very much film on it. Sebastian followed him into the projection booth, where he watched as the young man loaded the spool onto the projector arm and threaded up the film. Sedgewick joined them before the operation was done, along with a couple of others, sideshow workers drawn by curiosity at the mention of the dead girls’ moving pictures.

  “Close the doors,” Sedgewick said to them, “and put a chair across.”

  The tent was secured and made private. According to Will, the Birtac was an amateur’s camera designed with a double function. With the addition of a suitable lamp housing, it could be converted into a projector to show the images it had taken.

  But with no such accessory available to them, Will had made do with a carnival hand’s ingenuity. He had exposed the half-width camera negative onto normal-sized film stock to produce an oddly proportioned, but viewable, positive image. At least, this was how he told it to Sebastian. Who still failed to understand until he saw the first, running-up-to-speed, flickering image on the big screen.

  One entire side of the screen was blank while on the other, two near-identical images appeared. One above, one below-until Will put his hand before the projecting lens in a crude mask, leaving just one bright image in a quarter of the screen.

  It was a garden scene.

  “Are those the girls?” Sedgewick said.

  “I believe they are,” Sebastian said.