A Deceptive Homecoming

by Anna Loan-Wilsey

  “Would it also be possible to search the asylum for Frank Hayward?” I asked.

  “That’s a good point. Yes, I’ll make sure we make every effort to rule out the possibility he’s here,” Officer Quick said as he escorted me back through the front door.

  “As I told Miss Davish, Dr. Hillman is with a patient,” the nurse explained to Officer Quick when he inquired after the doctor. The policeman dropped his arm and I pulled my hand away. He took a step closer to the nurse.

  “Unlike Miss Davish, I’m not asking to see Dr. Hillman.” He had an edge to his voice I hadn’t heard before. “I insist. Now take me to Dr. Hillman or I’ll find him myself.” The nurse glanced at me with wide eyes and grew pale. I sympathized with her. Like me on many occasions, she was performing the duties of her job, nothing more and nothing less. She didn’t deserve to be placed in this position. This is your fault, Dr. Hillman, I thought.

  “Nurse?” Officer Quick said when she hesitated.

  “You won’t get into trouble,” I said, guessing her concern. “You’re complying with the police’s request. That’s all.”

  “I won’t lose my job?” The nurse looked first at me and then at the policeman.

  “I’ll see to it personally that nothing you do to assist me will affect your position here.” She still seemed hesitant but finally nodded.

  “Then follow me.”

  She led us to Dr. Hillman’s office, but again it was unoccupied. She found a cabinet and retrieved a key. Then she led us down a series of stairs and through a tunnel door and I suddenly recognized where we were going. This was where I’d followed Dr. Hillman the day I got lost in the tunnels. I grew anxious, remembering the feeling of being trapped, as if I too were chained to the tunnel wall. I almost grabbed Officer Quick’s arm in an attempt not to get separated but stopped myself in time. Instead I focused on keeping the nurse no more than three paces ahead of me as we turned this way and that through the tunnels.

  I can see how I got lost, I thought.

  Eventually after several turns, we stopped at a plain gray door. The nurse unlocked the door and knocked. The policeman didn’t wait for an answer. He pushed past the nurse and opened the door. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to see what was behind the door. I imagined all kinds of horrors—sharp, shiny metal instruments, metal bowls filled with dark blood, patients strapped to tables as the doctor drilled holes in their heads—but the small room was almost empty. All that was inside the well-lit, whitewashed windowless room was a wooden armchair and a small side table covered with a few glass bottles partially full of liquid. A man sat in the chair, one arm bare up to his shoulder, as Dr. Hillman leaned over him. The doctor looked up with a start. He held a large syringe in his left hand. For all my bravado since I’d learned my father’s fate, it took everything I had not to collapse in a heap on the floor. Luckily I was still near the door and grabbed the doorjamb for support as the room spun out of control in front of me.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Dr. Hillman demanded. “Nurse, get these people out of here. Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a very sensitive procedure?”

  “Please stop what you’re doing, Dr. Hillman,” Officer Quick said.

  “Nurse, what’s going on?” the doctor asked.

  “That’s what I want to know,” Officer Quick said, before the nurse had a chance to respond.

  “And who are you?”

  “Police Officer Daniel Quick, and I have some questions I need you to answer.”

  “Not now, man. Not now.”

  “Yes, now.” The policeman walked over to the doctor and yanked the syringe from his grasp. “Please lead the way back to your office, Doctor.”

  “Damn it!” Dr. Hillman said under his breath.

  “Now, Doctor!”

  “Nurse, return this patient to his room and monitor him for the next two hours. Notify me immediately if there’s any change in his behavior,” Dr. Hillman said as the policeman took hold of him and led him past me and out the door. I glanced back once as the nurse began to unstrap the man in the chair before I pushed myself away from the doorjamb and rushed to catch up to the retreating figures of the policeman and doctor. I wasn’t going to be left down there again.

  CHAPTER 30

  “What were you administering as part of your experimental treatment, Dr. Hillman?” Officer Quick asked.

  “We combine a series of electric therapy treatments with drug therapy, a mixture of compounds I developed myself. Some patients receive a placebo instead of the drugs, but they all receive some level of electric therapy. When I first read the work of Duchenne de Boulogne, I knew he was on to something. What I’m doing is very progressive. Very few asylums give these types of patients such advanced care.” The policeman nodded curtly, obviously unimpressed.

  “And was Levi Yardley given the experimental drugs or the placebo?”

  “The experimental drugs, but—”

  “And now the man is dead.”

  “I don’t like what you’re implying, Officer. You think there’s a connection between Mr. Yardley’s death and my therapeutic treatment?”

  “Not a connection, Doctor, a cause.”

  “What? You can’t possibly believe it was the treatment that killed him? He was responding quite well, as are many of my patients.”

  “Until he escaped,” I said, unable to remain silent any longer. “Why would he escape if you were truly alleviating his suffering?” The doctor ignored me.

  “I believe this treatment is going to revolutionize how we treat patients with nervous disorders,” he said.

  “Why did you lie about discharging him, if his treatment was going well?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind, Miss Davish,” the policeman said. “I’m not here about a possible breach in asylum rules or misconduct on the part of the doctor. I’m here to determine if the doctor played a role in Levi Yardley’s death.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But if I may make a suggestion?”

  “What is it?”

  “Please ask Dr. Hillman about the other patients assigned to the treatment protocol.”

  “I’ve already told you that I’ve seen vast improvements in most of my patients given the new treatment,” Dr. Hillman said.

  “What about the patients it didn’t help, Dr. Hillman?” I asked. “What about the patients assigned to the experimental treatment that died?”

  “Other patients died?” Officer Quick said, glancing at me but addressing his question at Dr. Hillman. “I hadn’t heard about these additional deaths.” I didn’t remind the policeman that the deaths were reason #5 on the list I’d shown him.

  Dr. Hillman scowled at me. “Of course whenever there’s a new treatment we’re not one hundred percent certain how it will affect every individual. Like I said, most of my patients have responded very favorably to the treatment, many of whom I’ve been able to discharge.”

  “But not everyone?” the policeman said.

  “No, unfortunately, not everyone. I’m still looking into the matter, but I’m not convinced that it was the treatment that precipitated the patients’ deaths. Each patient comes to us with a medical history that’s fraught with complications.”

  “How long have you been conducting your experiment, Dr. Hillman?” the policeman asked.

  “I’ve been using this particular mixture of drugs for the past several months.”

  “You experimented on my father, George Davish, didn’t you?” I said, suddenly realizing that I’d been right all along; Dr. Hillman had killed my father.

  “I’ve been conducting progressive treatment experiments for many years now, yes. And I’ve been successful in curing patients of all types of nervous diseases. Of course, I’ve varied the composition of the formula many times, trying to improve upon the treatment. When I treated George Davish, if I remember right, we used small doses of calomel in the formula. And I added the electric therapy sessions last year.”

  “And how many pa
tients have you treated during that time?” Officer Quick asked.

  “I’ve probably treated a thousand patients since I’ve been at the asylum.”

  “How many were given this particular concoction?”

  “Like I said, we started with this formula a few months ago, so maybe fifty? My nurse can give you the exact number.”

  “And they all give consent to be in your experiment?” the policeman asked. Dr. Hillman shifted in his chair.

  “Well, no. By the very nature of their disease, my patients are unfit to give consent. I’m responsible for their care. I’m the one who decides if they’re given the treatment or not.”

  The policeman nodded and jotted a few notes down in his notepad.

  “You don’t consult with their families?” I asked. Both men ignored me.

  Without looking up, Officer Quick asked, “How many, of the fifty patients you have treated with this new method, have died, Dr. Hillman?” When the doctor didn’t answer immediately, the policeman looked up. “How many, Dr. Hillman?”

  “I can’t say for certain; again, my nurse would have the records and could tell you a more precise number.”

  “An approximation will do for now, Doctor,” the policeman said.

  “I’d say nine.”

  Nine? I gasped at the pronouncement. I’d no idea there were that many. I’d been shocked by the two patients who shared Levi Yardley’s room.

  “That’s almost twenty percent, Dr. Hillman,” Officer Quick said, his voice calm and steady. “Does that seem like a reasonable mortality rate to you?”

  “Yes, it does.” Dr. Hillman squared his shoulders. “That’s what it takes to develop techniques that cure patients.” The policeman raised an eyebrow but said nothing to counter his argument. He jotted down a few more notes.

  “To be clear, it’s your assertion that Levi Yardley was benefiting from the therapeutic treatment he was receiving as a result of being assigned to your experiment?”

  “Yes, until like the lady said, he escaped,” the doctor conceded. The policeman looked at me as if challenging me to question the doctor’s claim. I knew better than to say what I wanted to. Officer Quick directed his attention back to the doctor.

  “And that’s the last time you saw Mr. Yardley?” the policeman said. Dr. Hillman hesitated.

  “Yes,” he finally said. “I never saw Mr. Yardley again.” The policeman nodded and started to put his notepad away.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Hillman. I will contact you if I have any further questions.” The doctor nodded, his lips pinched tight, but he said nothing more. “Good day,” the policeman said, with a tip of his hat. “Miss Davish, come with me.”

  “No,” I said, pointing to the doctor, who was already reading something on his desk, trying to pretend we’d left. “He’s lying.” Dr. Hillman looked up at me, his eyes wide with fear.

  “What are you talking about, Miss Davish?” Officer Quick said.

  “That wasn’t the last time Dr. Hillman saw Levi Yardley. The day Levi Yardley died Dr. Hillman confronted Mr. Yardley in town.”

  “How did you know that?” Dr. Hillman asked before he realized his mistake. “I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Someone recognized you,” I said, stretching the truth. Emily Upchurch had recognized Levi Yardley from the photograph, but it was I who had extrapolated her description of the man with him as being Dr. Hillman. I made a guess and I was right.

  “Care to explain, Dr. Hillman? And this time give me the truth,” Officer Quick said, sternly. Dr. Hillman sighed.

  “Everything I said was true, everything except that I did see Levi Yardley again after he’d left the asylum.”

  “Tell me about the encounter with Levi Yardley,” the policeman said.

  Dr. Hillman cast an irritated glance toward me. As I’d done many times with an unpleasant employer, I hid my own feelings behind the blank expression on my face. If he knew what I thought of him, he might never reveal the truth.

  “After Yardley left the asylum, the orderlies were having no luck in finding him. Eventually I took it upon myself to track him down. He hadn’t completed the treatment and wasn’t fit for mixing back into the city’s population. I found him wandering down the middle of Charles Street, downtown. I tried to lure the man into my buggy. I explained to him that for his own safety he needed to come back to the asylum. But Yardley was defiant: shouting, picking up stones from the road and throwing them at me, kicking horse dung at me. He was incapable of rational behavior. All the more reason that he should return to the asylum.”

  “And then what happened, Doctor?” Officer Quick said. Dr. Hillman picked up the photograph of his two sons and studied it. “Doctor?”

  The doctor replaced the photograph and looked at the policeman. “It was imperative that he come back, you see. He wasn’t finished with his treatment. He wasn’t cured.”

  Dr. Hillman settled himself behind his desk and began sorting through the papers and files tossed about on top.

  “Yes, and then what did you do?”

  “I did what anyone in my position would do. I attempted to apprehend him and return him to the asylum. But I failed. Now really, Mr. Quick, I must get back to my patients.”

  “We’re not finished yet. Please tell me exactly what you did after Mr. Yardley resisted your attempts to return him to the asylum.”

  “Very well.” Dr. Hillman glanced at his pocket watch before snapping it closed again. “I watched him and followed him when he wandered down the street, waiting for an opportunity to apprehend him. Finally, my chance came when he found an inactive warehouse, clambered up on the delivery dock, and nodded off to sleep. The man was unwell and exhausted. I left my buggy in the street, approached the dock, and before he could be fully aroused, grabbed him. I pulled his arms behind his back. He attempted to free himself but exhausted and weak as he was, I managed to fit him with a mitt restraint that at first seemed to subdue him. I pulled him down from the dock and directed him by the shoulders into my runabout. After seating him, I retrieved my bag and administered a calming agent to the patient. I then climbed up, took the reins, and cracked the whip. It must’ve been the sound of the whip, but Mr. Yardley immediately grew agitated and began thrashing his body violently about.”

  “What do you mean ‘thrash about’?” Officer Quick asked.

  “Flailing his legs, head, and torso about with abandon. He was having a fit of some sort.” The policeman merely nodded. I wanted to shout, “Of course he was having a fit, you’ve been experimenting on the man,” but I remained silent.

  “He wasn’t simply trying to escape from the runabout?”

  “No, he was definitely in the throes of a seizure.”

  “Have you seen this in any of your other patients?”

  “Yes, but it’s uncommon.” Dr. Hillman furrowed his brow quizzically when he caught me glaring at him. Did he truly have no idea how much I disliked him or did he simply not care?

  Officer Quick frowned, and said, “Please continue, Doctor.” The doctor purposefully avoided my gaze.

  “As I was saying, the patient was thrashing uncontrollably about in his seat. With the reins in one hand, I tried to hold him down with the other. In my haste to get the patient back to the asylum, I urged the horse to a run. But then we took a corner too fast and I needed both of my hands to control the horse. In that instant, Mr. Yardley thrashed sideways and was flung from the runabout. I couldn’t stop in time. He flew through the air, and without the use of his hands, smashed face-first on the side of the road. The sickening crack as he hit the edge of the curb was enough to tell me he was dead. I confirmed that that was indeed the case when I examined the body.”

  “You examined him and then you left him there?” I couldn’t stay silent another moment. “And what about the mitt?” Asa Upchurch never mentioned finding him wearing a restraint.

  “I removed it. The mitt is property of the asylum.”

  “But he w
as under your care at the asylum. How could you leave him there?”

  Dr. Hillman ignored me. I suspected that Asa Upchurch interrupted him and he panicked. “If that’s all, Officer, I must get back to my patients.”

  “I think you need to come with me, Dr. Hillman,” Officer Quick said.

  “But it was an accident. It’s a tragedy, but I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Then why did you lie? Why didn’t you inform the police?” I said.

  “It will be up to a jury to decide whether it was an accident or manslaughter, Doctor, but either way Miss Davish is right. You should’ve notified the police immediately.”

  “I felt it was an internal affair. I don’t have time to spend idling about with the police, then or now. My experiment is at a critical stage and I must get back to my patients.”

  “Not today, Doctor. You’re coming with me,” Officer Quick said, grabbing the doctor’s arm and forcing him to his feet.

  “This is completely unacceptable,” Dr. Hillman shouted. “Let me go. What about my patients? Let me go! Nurse!”

  I followed the two into the hallway and down the stairs as they navigated past the many gawking and curious patients, nurses, and doctors who had heard the commotion. Demanding to be released, Dr. Hillman struggled in the strong policeman’s grasp until they were out the door. I stopped next to Nurse Simmons.

  With no little amount of vindication for my father, and the countless victims like him, I said, “You can close down the progressive treatment ward, Nurse. Dr. Hillman won’t be experimenting on anyone again.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “Oh no.” I groaned under my breath when I arrived back at the hotel. First the arrest of Asa Upchurch and Dr. Hillman, and now this.

  “Well, there’s my girl!” Nate Boone jumped up from the cushioned bench lining the lobby wall.

  I was exhausted and I wanted nothing more than to go to my room, consult the train timetables for my departure, and then write Walter and Sir Arthur telling them when to expect me. But despite successfully uncovering the embezzler at school, the truth behind the “incidents,” and revealing Levi Yardley’s killer, I felt disgruntled. I still didn’t know what had happened to Frank Hayward. How I could leave without knowing Mr. Hayward’s fate? I hated loose ends.