Bethlehem Road (36 page)

“Elsie Draper?” the superintendent asked coldly. “I shall have to consult my records. What is it you wish to know? I assure you, when we released her she’d been calm and of good behavior for many years, nine or ten at least. She never gave the slightest indication of violence.” He bristled, preparing for battle. “We cannot keep people indefinitely, you know, not if there is no need. We do not have endless facilities!”

“What was her original complaint?”

“Complaint?” The man asked sharply, sensitive to any criticism.

“Why was she admitted?”

“Acute melancholia. She was a simple woman, from some country area, who had followed her mistress when she married. As I understand it, her mistress died—of scarlet fever. Elsie Draper became deranged with grief, and her master was obliged to have her committed. Very charitable of him, I think, in the circumstances, instead of merely turning her out.”

“Melancholia?”

“That is what I just said, Sergeant ... ?”

“Inspector Pitt.”

“Very well—Inspector! I don’t know what else you think I can tell you. We cared for her for seventeen years, during which time she gave no indication that she was homicidal. She was perfectly able to care for herself when we released her, and no longer in need of medical attention, nor had we reason to fear she would be a burden upon the rest of the community.”

Pitt did not argue; it was a moot point now, and this was not what he had come to find out.

“May I speak with those who attended her? And is there anyone among the other patients she spoke to? Someone who knew her?”

“I don’t know what you imagine you can learn! We can all be wise with hindsight, you know!”

“I am not looking for signs that she was homicidal,” Pitt said honestly. “I need to know other things: her reasons for acting as she did, or what she believed were her reasons.”

“I cannot see how they can possibly matter now.”

“I am not questioning your competence in your job, sir,” Pitt replied a little testily. “Please do not question the way I do mine. If I did not believe this was necessary, I should be at home with my family, sitting in my garden.”

The man’s face grew still more pinched. “Very well, if that is what you wish. Be so good as to follow me,” and he turned sharply on his heel and led the way down a chill stone corridor, up a flight of stairs, and along a further passageway to a door which opened into a large ward with ten beds in it. There were chairs beside the beds and set around at various places. It was Pitt’s first sight of the inside of a lunatic asylum, and his immediate feeling was one of relief. There were enamel jugs with flowers, and here and there a cushion or a blanket which was obviously not institutional. A bright yellow cloth half covered one of the small tables.

Then he looked at the people, the matron standing near the window, with the spring sun coming in through the bars and falling on her gray dress and white cap and apron. Her face was worn with tension and the sight of misery, her eyes flat. Her large hands were red-knuckled, and she had a key chain hanging from her belt.

To the left of her a woman of an age impossible to judge sat on the floor, knees hunched up to her chin, rocking back and forth ceaselessly, whispering to herself. Her hair hung over her face, matted and unkempt. Another woman with a blotchy skin and hair scraped back in a tight knot sat staring vacantly, oblivious of them all. She saw some vision of despair that excluded everything else, and when two others spoke to her she took no notice whatsoever.

Three elderly women sat at a table playing cards with vicious intensity, even though they put down a different card each time and called it always by the same name, the three of clubs.

Another sat with an old news journal, which she held upside down, and kept repeating to herself, “I can’t find it! I can’t find it! I can’t find it!”

“The Inspector wants to speak to someone who knew Elsie Draper,” the Superintendent said tersely. “If you can find someone I should be obliged, Matron.”

“In mercy’s sake, what for?” the matron asked crossly. “What good can it do now, I’d like to know!”

“Is there anyone?” Pitt asked, trying to force himself to smile and failing. The hopelessness of the place was creeping into his skin—the confusion, the desperate faces that stared at him, the flickers of knowledge that they were betrayed from within. “I need to know!” He meant to keep his voice level, but a frantic note betrayed his feelings.

The matron had already heard every horror that there was; little moved her, for she could no longer find the emotion to allow it to.

“Polly Tallboys,” she said patiently. “I suppose she might. Here—Polly! Come here and speak to the gentleman. No need to be afraid. He won’t hurt you. You just answer him properly.”

“I dint do it!” Polly was a small woman with pale eyes that drooped downward at the corners, and as she came forward obediently her fingers twisted the gray cotton of her dress. “Honest I dint!”

Pitt moved away from the matron and sat down on one of the chairs, motioning Polly to do the same.

“I know that,” he said agreeably. “Of course you didn’t. I believe you.”

“You do?” She was incredulous, uncertain what to do next.

“Sit down, Polly, please. I need your help.”

“Mine?”

“Yes, please. You knew Elsie, didn’t you? You were friends?”

“Elsie? Yeah, I knew Elsie. She’s gorn ’ome.”

“Yes, that’s right.” The elemental truth of the words wrenched his heart. “Elsie used to be in service, didn’t she.” He made it a statement, not a question; perhaps questions were more than she could handle. “Did she ever tell you anything about that?”

“Oh yeah!” Polly’s vacant face lit up for a moment. “Lady’s maid, she were—ever so grand. Said ’er mistress were the best lady in the world.” Slowly the light faded from her eyes; tears filled them, spilling down her pallid cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them away.

Pitt took his handkerchief and leaned forward to dry her tears. It was a pointless gesture—she kept on crying—but he felt better for it. Somehow it made her seem more like a woman, less a thing broken and shut away.

“She died, Elsie’s mistress, a long time ago,” he prompted. “Elsie was very sad.”

Polly nodded very slowly. “Starved, poor soul; starved to death, for Jesus’ sake.”

Pitt was startled. Perhaps this had been an idiotic idea, coming to Bedlam for an answer when he did not even know what the question was, and asking lunatics.

“Starved?” he repeated. “I thought she died of scarlet fever.”

“Starved.” She said the word carefully, but her voice sounded empty, as if she did not know what it meant.

“Is that what Elsie said?”

“That’s what Elsie said. For Jesus.”

“Did she say why?” It was a wildly optimistic question. What could this poor creature know, and what could it mean, having come from Elsie Draper’s jumbled mind?

“For Jesus,” Polly repeated, looking at him with clear, shallow eyes.

“How was it for Jesus?” Was it even worth asking?

Polly blinked. Pitt waited, trying to smile at her.

Her attention wandered.

“How was it for Jesus, this starving?” he prompted her.

“The church,” she said with a sudden return of interest. “The church in an ’all on Bethlehem Road. She knew it were true, an’ ’e wou’nt let ’er go. That’s wot Elsie said. Foreign, they was. ’E seen God—an’ Jesus.”

“Who had, Polly?”

“I dunno.”

“What were they called?”

“She never said. Least, I never ’eard.”

“But they met in a hall in Bethlehem Road? Are you sure?”

She made a momentous effort at thought, brow furrowed, fingers clenched in her lap. “No,” she said at last. “I dunno.”

He reached out and touched her gently. “Never mind. You’ve helped very much. Thank you, Polly.”

She smiled warily, then some part of her grasped that he was pleased, and the smile widened. “Oppression—that’s wot Elsie said. Oppression ... wickedness—terrible wickedness.” She searched his face to see if he understood.

“Thank you, Polly. Now I must go and find out about what you have told me. I’m going to Bethlehem Road. Goodbye Polly.”

She nodded. “Good-bye, Mr... .” She tried to think what to call him and failed.

“Thomas Pitt,” he told her.

“Good-bye, Thomas Pitt,” she echoed.

He thanked the matron, and a junior warder showed him out, unlocking the doors and locking them behind him. He left Bethlem Royal Hospital and went out into the sun with a feeling of pity so deep he wanted to run, to leave not only the great building but all memory of it behind. And yet his feet clung leadenly to the damp pavements; the individual faces were too sharp in his mind to be left behind like anonymous facts.

He walked to Bethlehem Road; it took him less than fifteen minutes. He did not want to find Royce but to see if he could find anyone who knew of the religious order that had met in a hall seventeen years ago. Someone there might remember Mrs. Royce and know something about her. He had no idea what he could find. He had nothing but a simple-minded woman’s recollection of a lunatic’s rambling obsessions.

There was still a small hall in the road, and according to the board outside it was open to hire by the public. He noted the name and address of the caretaker, and within another ten minutes he was sitting in a small cold front parlor opposite a stocky, elderly man with pince-nez on his nose and a large pocket handkerchief in his hand against the sneezing which frequently overtook him.

“How can I help you, Mr. Pitt?” he said, and sneezed hard.

“Were you caretaker of the Bethlehem Road Hall seventeen years ago, Mr. Plunkett?”

“I was, sir, I was. Is there some trouble about it?”

“None that I know of. Did you lease the hall to a religious organization on a regular basis?”

“I did, sir; most assuredly. Eccentric people. Very strange beliefs, they had. Didn’t baptize children, because they said children came into the world pure from God, and weren’t capable of sin until they were eight years old. Can’t agree with that, certainly I can’t. Man is born in sin. Had my own children baptized when they were two months old, like a Christian should. But they were always civil and sober people, modestly dressed, and worked hard and helped each other.”

“Are they still meeting here?”

“Oh no sir. Don’t know where they all went to, I’m sure I don’t. They got less and less, about five years ago, then the last of ’em disappeared.”

“Do you remember a Mrs. Royce, some seventeen years ago?”

“Mrs. Royce? No sir, no I don’t. There were a few young ladies. Handsome and nicely mannered they were, but they’ve all gone now. I don’t know where, I’m sure. Maybe got married and settled down to a decent life—forgot all that nonsense.”

Pitt could not give up now.

“Do you remember anyone at all from seventeen years ago? It is important, Mr. Plunkett.”

“Bless you, sir. If I can recall anything you are more than welcome to it. What was this Lady Royce like?”

“I am afraid I don’t know. She died about that time, of scarlet fever, I think.”

“Oh—oh my goodness! I wonder if that was the friend of Miss Forrester? Lizzie Forrester. Her friend died, poor soul.”

Pitt kept the excitement out of his voice. It was only a thread, perhaps nothing—it might break in his hands.

“Where can I find Lizzie Forrester?”

“Bless you, I don’t know, sir. But I think her parents still live on Tower Street. Number twenty-three, as I recall. But someone’d tell you, if you were to go there and ask.”

“Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Plunkett!” Pitt rose, shook the man’s hand, and took his leave.

He did not even think of eating. He passed a public house, and the smell of fresh-baked pies did not even tempt him, so eager was he to find Lizzie Forrester and learn another side of the truth, something of the past of Elsie Draper which had sewn in her mind the seeds of such madness.

Tower Street was not hard to find: a couple questions of passersby and he was on the doorstep of number 23. It was a neat tradesman’s-class front door, with a brass knocker in the shape of a horse’s head. Pitt lifted it and let it fall. He stepped back and waited several minutes before a clean and dowdy maid answered it, not unlike the woman who did the heavy work in his own home.

“Yes sir?” she said in surprise.

“Good afternoon. Is this the home of Mr. or Mrs. Forrester?”

“Yes sir, it is.”

“I am Inspector Pitt, from the Bow Street Police Station.” He saw her face blanch and was instantly sorry for his clumsiness. “There’s been no accident, ma’am, and no crime that concerns this household. It is just that someone here may once have been acquainted with a lady we would like to know more about—in order to understand events that have no connection with this family.”

She was still highly dubious. Respectable people did not have the police in their houses—for any reason.

He tried again. “She was a very distinguished lady, the lady we wish to learn more about, but she died many years ago; therefore we cannot ask her.”

“Well—well you’d better come in, an’ I’ll ask. You stay there!” She pointed to a spot on the hall floor on the worn red Turkey carpet next to the stand for sticks and umbrellas and the potted aspidistra. Pitt obeyed dutifully, waiting while she whisked away along the linoleum corridor past the stairs and the polished banisters, the samplers which read
THE EYE OF GOD IS UPON YOU
and
THERE’s NO PLACE LIKE HOME
, and a picture of Queen Victoria. He heard the servant rap on a door, then the latch open and close. Somewhere in the back parlor his person and his errand were being described.

It was fully five minutes before a middle-aged couple appeared, dressed in neat and well-worn clothes, he with a watch chain across his middle and she with a lace fichu at her neck pinned with a nice piece of Whitby jet.

“Mr. Forrester, sir?” Pitt inquired politely.

“Indeed. Jonas Forrester, at your service. This is Mrs. Forrester. What may we do for you? Martha says you are inquiring about a lady who died some time ago.”

“I believe she was a friend of your daughter Elizabeth.”