Mind of a Killer

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘Do you think we should come back at night, when the building’s empty?’ whispered Lonsdale.

  ‘I doubt it’s ever empty. We’ve seen a huge number of people enter. But that works to our advantage. We shall claim we’re participants in a study if anyone challenges us.’

  The back door was locked, but a window was open. They climbed into a small room with a low ceiling and untidily stacked shelves. Lonsdale inched open the door and listened. Voices came from a room at one end of a corridor, while a flight of steps stood at the other. They headed for the stairs.

  At the top was a hall that led to the front door. When someone opened it, they saw the policeman outside. To their left was a large room that looked like a lecture theatre, while to the right were a series of doors. Lonsdale ducked back as one opened and a young couple walked by, the man twisting his hat nervously in his hands.

  ‘They look like subjects for the study,’ breathed Hulda. ‘Come on.’

  She and Lonsdale trailed the couple to a large room, well appointed with chairs and tables. Others were already there, drinking tea or reading the newspapers provided. Hulda sat and pulled Lonsdale down next to her, snatching up a paper and using it to hide their faces. He peered over the top. There were about fifteen people present, comprising a curious cross-section of society. He ducked behind the paper as a man in a white laboratory coat entered the room. He spoke to an elderly man, who nodded and followed him out.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘If someone asks who we are, it’ll be obvious we don’t belong.’

  ‘But we haven’t seen anything incriminating yet. Let’s try some more doors.’

  She linked her arm in his and marched back into the hallway, head held high. Her confidence was convincing, as no one asked where they were going. They reached the end of the hall and selected a door that led to a narrow corridor. Hulda tried one of the doors that led off it, but it was locked, as was the next one, and the next. Lonsdale took the opposite side, and they worked their way down. Then Lonsdale lurched suddenly into an office when a handle unexpectedly turned.

  Hulda pushed past him and tried the desk drawers before turning her attention to the cupboards.

  ‘They’re locked,’ she hissed in frustration. ‘Can you break into them?’

  ‘Are you mad? It’d be too noisy. We need to come back later. Let’s go before someone catches us.’

  ‘You’ve left it a little late for that,’ came a voice from behind them. Lonsdale and Hulda spun around to face a tall man, who smiled at them from the doorway, although there was neither amusement nor friendliness in the expression.

  He stepped into the room, followed closely by three hefty louts, who wore white laboratory coats that looked odd on their beefy frames. One held a lead tied to a growling Alsatian with yellow fangs and a mean look.

  ‘I have been expecting you, Lonsdale,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d understand when I sent the note to your brother’s house. And I knew you’d come. I assumed you’d be here too, Miss Friederichs. You do realize that you’ve put me in a most awkward position.’

  ‘We apologize,’ said Hulda, smiling ingratiatingly. ‘And now we’ll be on our way.’

  One of the thugs closed the door, while another stepped in front of her, and the dog obligingly growled.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said the man. ‘You’ll have to stay for a while – quite a while.’

  ‘Is that so?’ snarled Hulda. ‘And who are you, anyway?’

  ‘We dined together in Surrey,’ said Lonsdale. ‘His name is Francis Willoughby.’

  The tall man contrived to smile, although it was an expression that chilled Lonsdale, and reminded him of a crocodile he had once seen in Africa. He heartily wished he’d listened to Peters and left the Imperial Demographic Institute to the police, as he was sure of one thing: he and Hulda would not escape the place alive. And who would ever know what had happened to them? They had told no one what they planned to do, on the grounds that the police had ordered them to stay away. How reckless they had been!

  ‘Yes, when you met me, it was as Francis Willoughby,’ he said. ‘Although my name is Weeks: Professor Nathaniel Weeks. You won’t know of me yet, as my research is so far unavailable to the general public.’

  ‘Your research?’ said Hulda scathingly. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  ‘Work of vast importance, Miss Friederichs.’ Weeks looked back at Lonsdale. ‘As you’ve reasoned, I am investigating what the famous Mr Huxley has recently called “the struggle for existence in human society”. I prefer to think of it as “human Darwinism” – that is, man’s relation to Darwinian principles.’

  ‘Why have you been following us around?’ demanded Hulda, not at all worried by the situation in which she found herself. Lonsdale admired her audacity and courage. ‘I remember you buying collar studs at Salmon and Eden.’

  ‘An excellent memory, although “following us around” is overstating matters. I watched you once or twice, but not for long – I am a busy man. But I am impressed with your memory, Miss Friederichs – when I met Lonsdale in Surrey, he couldn’t place me at all. But to return to your question: you are of interest because you’ve presented problems for my work.’

  ‘What work?’ asked Lonsdale. ‘You mean … murdering people for their brains?’

  ‘I needed them,’ replied Weeks simply. ‘My team and I have tested and studied hundreds of people for intelligence, decision-making, moral and social behaviour, emotions, and more. We’ve studied lawyers, dockers, physicians, Members of Parliament, beggars, vicars, clerks, railwaymen, scientists, shopkeepers, naval officers and ratings, even reporters. But it didn’t go far enough.’

  ‘So you decided you needed their cerebra as well,’ surmised Lonsdale.

  ‘Quite,’ said Weeks. ‘I have seventy representative samples in jars downstairs, if you’d care to see?’

  Seventy! Lonsdale was appalled.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said quickly, lest Hulda accepted. ‘You claim the government supports your research, but it would never condone murder.’

  Weeks smirked like a mischievous child. ‘Obviously, we don’t tell them everything about the project. But there’s nothing more terrifying to a politician than civil unrest, which is what they fear we’ll have if our population continues to expand at its present rate. They grasped my promise of a solution with desperate hands.’

  ‘You told them you could solve overpopulation and inherent civil unrest?’

  Weeks nodded. ‘Galton’s reputation is such that when I claimed he was collaborating with me, I gained instant credibility. But I have more genius in my little finger than he has ever had in that great thick skull of his. I would never work with that boring, pompous old man.’

  ‘So you lied to the government about him?’

  ‘I massaged the truth a little, but the ends justify the means. Galton’s not only unable to see a practical way forward, he’s inexplicably squeamish. I’ve developed the pragmatic solution that was beyond him. I’m providing valuable information on human behaviour and thought, not at an individual level, but on an entire population. In order to control demographic growth, we first need to understand it. How can you hope to comprehend such a complex organ as the cerebrum without matching test results with physiology?’

  ‘But—’ began Hulda.

  Weeks overrode her. ‘It’s obvious that a lawyer and a flower girl think differently, yet no one knows why. I will.’

  ‘But the nature of your work means you can never tell anyone,’ argued Lonsdale. ‘What’s the point of it?’

  ‘Oh, I shall tell them,’ said Weeks. ‘And then I will be hailed as the greatest scientist who ever lived. Greater even than Darwin. I have many supporters; men who realize that the laws of evolution have been the laws of the jungle – cunning, brutishness, ruthlessness – and they have rewarded the wicked and punished the righteous. There are many who feel this is horrifying, and that something must be done.’

  ‘Men
like Wilson of the Zoological Gardens?’ asked Lonsdale.

  ‘Why, yes – Wilson is with us.’

  ‘And Superintendent Ramsey?’

  Weeks threw his head back and laughed. ‘He’d be the last man I’d include in my coterie. He lacks intelligence, courage, or freedom of thought.’

  Lonsdale was about to ask more, but there was a knock on the door. A man in a white coat entered.

  ‘Inspector Peters is here. Dr Sorenson feels you should be the one to talk to him.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Hancock,’ said Weeks. ‘I’ll go and meet him now. My guests will have to wait in my office until I’ve finished.’

  Lonsdale and Hulda were bundled out into the hall, but any hopes of escape were quickly quashed by the three louts, who took their arms and marched them upstairs.

  Weeks’s office was a beautiful, wood-panelled room. One wall was filled to the ceiling with books; another was dominated by three large, well-spaced windows, which Lonsdale noted were nailed shut. On the wall behind the fine walnut desk were certificates of Weeks’s various degrees and qualifications, as well as a letter, all in specially constructed frames. Their guards left them there and shut the door behind them. Lonsdale dropped to his knees and looked through the keyhole. They were outside with the dog, and he sensed there was nothing they would like more than the chance to pummel him if he tried to escape. But he and Hulda had one advantage: they still had their guns. Hulda read his mind.

  ‘See what we can find out, Lonsdale,’ she whispered. ‘Then we’ll shove the evidence in our pockets and shoot our way out. Now hurry! I don’t think Weeks will be long.’

  Lonsdale quickly began to browse through the papers on Weeks’s desk. After only a few moments, he gestured to Hulda.

  ‘This looks like a master ledger,’ he said. ‘There are hundreds of pages of statistics and test results. Some tables note where the subject lives, whether he has completed his tests, and there are other columns that I don’t understand.’

  Hulda scanned the entries. ‘Norma Johnson, Adele Johnson, Frederick Kempster, Edmund Corlett, William Byers, Teresa Godley, John Poole, Patrick Donovan …’

  ‘And a lot more we’ve never heard of,’ said Lonsdale. ‘What’s this column – “Collected”? There’s just one letter for each entry: B, C, M, P or T …’

  ‘There’s a B next to the Johnson sisters and one next to Poole. Don’t you see, Lonsdale? B is for Baycroft. Next to Kempster there is a P – Pawley. It records who collected the cerebra – which means there are far more people taking them than we ever imagined.’

  ‘There probably are seventy entries with letters in that column,’ said Lonsdale. ‘But what about the rest? I assume they’re still alive, but for how long?’

  ‘We don’t need cerebra from everyone,’ said Weeks sourly from the door, making them jump with the stealth of his entry. ‘But I must say that you are behaving more like a reporter and less like a gentleman, Lonsdale – going through the papers on a fellow’s desk.’

  Lonsdale did not bother to point out that his antics were a lot more gentlemanly than murder.

  ‘As long as we’re discussing what we’ve found, why is “Francis Willoughby” on the diploma from Oxford?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? I was born Francis Nathaniel Willoughby, but I later adopted my mother’s maiden name – Weeks. These days, my father knows no more about me than he does the Mountains of the Moon. But I’ve kept a close watch on him, because I’ll inherit his fortune when he dies.’

  ‘So you didn’t meet me out of concern for his health?’

  ‘I would never have any concern for that vile old bastard. His valet is secretly in my employ, so I was familiar with your correspondence, and he was given a note expressing your regrets that you couldn’t accept his invitation, as your research had shown that William died in a foolish accident. He might come to believe it in time, although he’s right to be suspicious, of course. Meanwhile, I was able to persuade you that the business in France had no bearing on your cases.’

  ‘But it actually did? You mean William was murdered?’

  ‘Of course. His cerebrum is downstairs with the others. You see? I have fooled you every step of the way. You have been so out of your depth – I could even tell that you would come back from our meeting and write to Dr Quayle to see if he would support my version of events or my father’s. I couldn’t allow him to tell you the truth, so I had his butler bribed to forward the letter to me when it arrived – Quayle never saw it.’

  ‘But he would have confirmed your father’s story?’

  ‘Certainly – but he never had the opportunity, because I am prepared for every eventuality. You need the cool, calculating mind of a scientist to carry out an audacious plan like mine.’

  ‘So it’s true that you stole your brother’s brain!’ breathed Hulda, appalled.

  ‘My half-brother,’ corrected Weeks. ‘And I wouldn’t say stole, Miss Friederichs. After all, I was next of kin, and he was dead. Morgan had seen to that. A little too enthusiastic about that kind of thing is Morgan, but he is conscientious.’

  ‘Why kill William?’ asked Lonsdale.

  ‘Well, if you must know, he was a problem. I gave him a job here, but he wasn’t really suitable – not enough courage in his convictions. He wanted to leave, but that was impossible. He knew we’d never let him go – not with the secrets he was familiar with – so he tried to run.’

  ‘And he’s just one of the people you’ve had butchered?’ asked Hulda coldly.

  ‘Not “butchered”, Miss Friederichs. All our subjects are treated with surgical care. Baycroft worked in the kitchens at Newgate, where he became proficient with the heads of sheep and pigs. That expertise first drew my attention to him while I was gathering data there. My other collectors, I trained myself. All are skilled in the delicate processes required.’

  ‘If Baycroft was useful to you, then why did you have him killed?’ asked Lonsdale.

  ‘Because he was becoming mentally unstable,’ explained Weeks. ‘He dreamed you were going to drown him – rather like Morgan ultimately did. His irrational fears led him to engage in progressively riskier behaviour. For example, he tried to have you killed – telling Pawley that I wanted him to do it. I didn’t mind the concept, but I hadn’t approved the action. So he had to go.’

  ‘I don’t understand how you could have taken seventy cerebra with no one noticing,’ said Hulda. ‘It would be impossible.’

  Weeks looked smug. ‘We conceal our work in a variety of ways: fires, explosions, a quarry landslide, and of course train accidents.’

  Lonsdale looked at Weeks and thought he and Baycroft had a lot in common – both were happy to discuss their monstrous acts and expected to be congratulated on their efficiency.

  ‘You took a lot of trouble over Donovan,’ he said. ‘It was almost impossible to tell he had been strangled. One of your collectors killed him, took his brain, then ran into the street yelling that the house was on fire. Then he ran back inside, sealed off the front door with the chest, and locked the back door on the way out to ensure the body was incinerated, leading to the assumption that the fire was caused by a blocked chimney.’

  ‘That was me, actually,’ said Weeks. ‘I couldn’t trust Baycroft to imitate Donovan well enough. I was extremely convincing, despite being much taller than my subject.’

  ‘You weren’t as good as you think. One of Donovan’s neighbours heard the difference in your voice – she thought it meant Donovan was drunk. And your cool, calculating scientific mind missed the detail that his chimney had been swept the previous week.’

  ‘I wondered why you visited his sweep,’ said Weeks. ‘He’ll be one of my subjects, by the way. He’s perfect – an old man slipping ever more deeply into debt. It’ll be assumed he couldn’t pay the rent and fled his creditors.’

  ‘Why kill the music-hall entertainer, Yeats?’ asked Lonsdale. ‘He seems a little high-profile.’

  ‘And so he was. He was killed in a street
robbery – nothing to do with us. But as he’d been part of the study, it seemed a shame to waste a good cerebrum.’

  ‘Where does Cath Walker fit in?’ asked Lonsdale.

  ‘Her job was to entice subjects to come here.’

  ‘You mean poor people, so desperate for money that they’d do anything for a bed for the night?’ asked Hulda. ‘Or men, thinking of sex? And, in so doing, signing their death warrants?’

  ‘Let’s not be emotive, Miss Friederichs. You can’t allow the scientific process to be hampered by sentimentality. Walker was a whore. She just whored for me in a different way. Then she brought me Greaves, and he was very useful.’

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Lonsdale. ‘Dispose of bodies in the river?’

  ‘Exactly! He was a bargeman, who knew where to drop corpses. But then he asked for more money, and said Walker was trying to persuade him to go to the press with the “whole story”. As if they understood the whole story.’

  ‘She must’ve realized she wouldn’t be allowed to live once the study ended,’ said Lonsdale. ‘She probably thought telling me was her last hope. If her story were to be publicized, you’d be arrested, and she might escape. But I imagine when Greaves betrayed her to you, you thanked him for his loyalty, and then slipped arsenic into whatever you gave him to drink.’

  ‘Finest French brandy,’ said Weeks. ‘I reckoned he’d be dead before you arrived at Regent’s Park, and my timing was, as usual, impeccable.’

  Lonsdale could see through the window that Leonard and Peters were bickering on the street below. He glanced at the three thugs outside the office, and noticed the fingers of one of them twitching in anticipation of violence. It was time for him and Hulda to pull out their guns and put an end to the horrible affair. But there was one thing more that he wanted to know, and he was certain this would be his only chance to ask it.

  ‘Why did you try to kill my brother?’

  ‘Try? If I’d wanted Jack dead, he would be dead. It was Otherington’s cerebrum that I wanted, so I sent one of my collectors for it. It was only later that I realized he had been wearing Jack’s coat and that such a misunderstanding would lead you a merry dance. Which it did! I also knew how you would respond to my note. You are predictable.’