The bedlam cadaver, p.4
The Bedlam Cadaver, page 4
When Dr. Allen told her Sebiliah never reached Gresham, she needed it repeated. She was told again by the architect’s assistant, young Mr. Hunt, who looked as if he had come into fortune. Instead, apparently, Sebiliah was exchanged for another woman, a well-to-do sir’s daughter who lived in Bloomsbury Square.
The Matron still looked bemused, tutting loudly each time she thought of it.
Hannah Matthews sat with her parents. She shared their build, but had a more trusting face and a less careworn manner.
‘I shall start with you, Dr. Allen,’ Sir John announced. He sat in a chair, curling and uncurling his enormous fingers, his stick leaning beside him. ‘Were you here last night, when your suicide was collected?’
‘I had just arrived from my private asylum in Finsbury,’ Allen told him. ‘Mr. Langdale delivered the news of Sebiliah’s death to me there.’
Langdale, the tallest of the Basketmen, taciturn-seeming and with a drooping eyelid, assented this was so.
‘Why should you be fetched?’ Sir John asked Allen. ‘Is there need to call you, if you are elsewhere, whenever a patient dies here?’
Carter, the Steward, answered. ‘I knew a body was required at Gresham College. I wanted Dr. Allen’s say-so.’
‘We discussed it right here, did we not, Mr. Carter?’ Allen said. ‘I share this room with the Hospital’s Apothecary. Hence all the jars in the cabinet there. Mr. Lester worked in here last night, as did I. He shall vouch for me.’
‘I shall speak with him,’ Sir John said. ‘If you need vouching for. You never saw Sebiliah dead, then?’
‘I had no need to. Matron confirmed her death.’
‘You do not quite answer my question,’ Sir John said. ‘Did you see her dead, or no?’
Allen looked abashed. ‘I never did. I did not go upstairs at all. So not to where Sebiliah died, nor downstairs from where she was collected.’
‘This was definitely Sebiliah Barton, not Diana Cantley.’ Sir John looked around the room at all the other staff.
‘There is no doubt,’ Allen said. ‘Poor Hannah here found her.’
‘She was knitting. She used one of her needles,’ Hannah said faintly, reaching for her father’s hand.
‘Sebiliah found the jugular vein, you see.’ The Matron showed them on her own neck, a point just below the jaw.
‘You allow the patients to knit?’ Sir John looked astounded.
‘The women are encouraged to,’ the Matron replied.
‘An activity conducive to their calmness,’ Allen added.
‘Hardly conducive to hers,’ Sir John said. ‘It was lax of you.’
‘Over the past few weeks, she seemed serene,’ Allen said. ‘I never suspected her of intending self-harm.’
‘That was your mistake, then.’
‘It shall remain upon my conscience.’
Sir John was unconcerned by the Physician’s conscience. ‘So, you stayed in this office, where you arranged the delivery to Gresham College of your suicide, rather than bother yourself with seeing her.’
Allen raised his chin at the Justice. ‘My staff know their business. I sent a messenger to Mr. Hooke. Sebiliah’s father was a widower. He died not long after he brought her here. No other relatives, so far as we know. Nor visitors, apart from those who come from curiosity, and the staff who ministered to her needs.’
Harry, who was half leaning, half sitting against the windowsill, noticed Hannah glance at the two Basketmen, Jones and Langdale. They both stood in stonelike stillness, cousins of the statues over the Hospital’s gates, directing their eyes at the wall in front of them.
Sir John missed the look. ‘So she was yours to do with as you wished.’
‘Too many are, who die within Bethlehem.’ Dr. Allen looked wistfully into space, seeing an imaginary, better world. ‘I wish it were not so.’
‘Does it not make you queasy, giving over bodies for the cutting of them up?’
‘For the dead, my care is over,’ Allen said. ‘The Lord shall take them then. We who study anatomy must necessarily find bodies. By the law, we may dissect only criminals and lunatics.’
‘If so serene, why was Sebiliah still here?’ Harry asked him. ‘Your list must be long of people needing admission.’
‘She could not have coped with the world outside. Here, she led an ordered life, which gave her no worry.’
‘Perhaps she hid her torments, knowing you would relax your watching of her.’
‘I cannot refute you, Mr. Hunt. We are given only the external signs to show the workings of our patients’ minds. It is these we must interpret. Otherwise, how would we make our judgements upon their wellness? If not for aberrant behaviour, we would never know the insane from the sane. If Sebiliah’s equanimity had continued, we would have released her—properly so—to make way for another.’
Hannah shifted in her chair spiritlessly. ‘She was well, and getting better.’
‘Did you see Sebiliah use the needle?’ Harry asked her.
Allen did not wait for the Nurse’s reply. ‘You infer the hand of another?’
‘He does not,’ Sir John said. ‘We seek the facts of Diana Cantley’s murder—which yet we do not know. Mr. Hunt, we are not here about the melancholy woman.’
Ignoring the Justice, Matthews, the Porter, also spoke for his daughter. ‘Hannah found her already bleeding.’
Hannah put her face in her hands, trying not to sob. ‘I only happened to walk past…She died a minute after I got there. Then my mother came.’
‘At what time was this?’ Harry enquired, looking at Millicent Matthews rather than her daughter.
‘In the evening…just after nine,’ the Matron answered.
‘Only an hour before Crawley came to collect her. You know it for certain?’
‘The nine o’clock bell had sounded. We ring it so the patients know to go back to their rooms. The same bell clears the visitors.’
‘Who rang the bell last night?’
‘I did,’ the Steward, Carter, affirmed. ‘And promptly so.’
‘But the gathering of the patients, the taking them to their rooms, and the locking of all the doors must take some while.’
‘Not all are allowed the liberty of the galleries,’ Mrs. Matthews said. ‘About half of them, I’d say, at the moment.’
Her husband nodded his agreement. ‘Even so, it can take a half hour or more, if any are being difficult.’
‘Were there such difficulties last night?’ Harry asked him.
‘The usual pickle of getting lunatics into their rooms.’
‘Did you have many visitors that late?’
‘It was still busy, yes. They get under your feet, sometimes.’
‘So, the patients were returning to their rooms, and visitors were leaving.’
Sir John scowled. ‘Mr. Hunt, you are still distracted. We must know when Diana Cantley was exchanged for the Bedlam suicide.’
‘I think of Diana. You recall the cosmetics on her face? I think she came to Bethlehem as a visitor.’
Sir John rubbed his chin. ‘It would explain her presence here. But who did she come to see? Dr. Allen, were any of the visitors here last night people of quality?’
‘As I said, I remained in my office. Mr. Carter? Mr. Matthews?’
‘The day before, I think,’ Harry said. ‘Diana Cantley has been dead two days or more.’
The Porter and the Steward shrugged at one another. ‘A few during the day. Not any that evening, I can think of,’ Carter answered.
‘You cease to notice them after a while,’ Matthews said. ‘Unless they get in your way, or interfere with the patients.’
Sir John gave him a hard look. ‘Interfere?’
‘Sometimes the visitors cause them disquiet, to see how they respond. They insult them, or prod them, or push them.’
‘Or worse,’ Carter muttered.
‘We ask them then to leave,’ Millicent said, wringing her hands. The muscles on her forearms flexed impressively.
‘Our patients’ well-being is paramount,’ Allen said.
Harry gave him a sympathetic nod. ‘How did you know a body was wanted at Gresham?’
‘I attended Mr. Hooke’s New Philosophical Club, at the Angel and Crown the evening before last. I promised a body to him when one became available.’
‘How fortunate one was,’ Sir John said. ‘And so soon.’
‘It is not suspicious, Justice,’ Allen protested.
‘I find it so! As I find all you medicos and natural philosophers who desire dead bodies for your…undertakings.’
Sir John pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a loud sigh. Then he turned his attention to the one man in the room who had not yet spoken.
* * *
WILLIAM JONES WAS BROAD AND BIG-BELLIED, and his head was newly shaved. His full beard, uncombed and untidy, reached his sternum; when he spoke, it hid the movements of his mouth. His eyes were black and shrewd, with thick eyebrows arched over them constantly, as if he delivered the punchline to a joke.
‘You are one of the Basketmen,’ Sir John told him, although he knew.
Jones pulled at his earlobe. ‘Fetching and carrying, I do, the cleaning, and delivering of messages.’ He had a strong and expressive Welsh accent. ‘And the feeding of the patients. Cutting up their bread, their cheese, the like.’
‘The carrying you do includes the carrying of the dead,’ Sir John said.
‘When needs be, yes,’ Jones replied.
‘Mr. Matthews said you helped him bring the body down from the upstairs gallery.’
‘Helped him? I did not.’
Matthews was open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
The Justice regarded Jones hopefully. ‘But he said you helped him carry Sebiliah down the stairs.’
‘Lying, then, he was.’
Matthews looked murderously at him. Jones’s eyebrows raised further. ‘I did not help him, see. Carried her down, I did. On my own. Mr. Porter walked with me. I did not help him. Mr. Porter did not help me.’
‘Do not test me, Jones,’ Sir John growled.
Jones arched his eyebrows even higher.
‘You shall not laugh in my lockup, Jones. So, you brought the dead woman down the stairs from her room.’
‘Yes, Justice. Over my back.’
‘An undignified way to treat a body.’
‘The quickest way. A stretcher’s more awkward on the stairs.’
‘Where did you take her then?’
‘Down the stairs. To the room for the bodies.’
‘The mortuary, you mean. Was Matthews still with you?’
‘Walking by me, he was. Not helping.’
‘You left her there. In the mortuary?’
‘The room for the bodies, yes, Justice.’
Sir John puffed out his cheeks. ‘Definitely Sebiliah?’
‘No doubt.’
‘There, on her own?’
‘No, Justice.’
There was a pause. ‘Well, continue, man! At some time, the two women were exchanged. This may have been the occasion.’
‘Other people with her, there was, Justice.’
‘Who?’ Sir John demanded. ‘Who were these people?’
‘They was dead people with her, Justice.’
‘Fenn, we’ll take this pudding with us.’
‘You asked. I answered, Justice.’
Dr. Allen pointed an admonishing finger at the Basketman. ‘You are being obtuse, Mr. Jones, as well you know. Help the Justice, so he may be on his way.’
Jones looked barely contrite.
‘It was both of you who handed her body to Mr. Hooke’s boy,’ Sir John said.
‘Put her on the cart, I did, Justice,’ Jones answered. ‘Stayed by the door, Mr. Porter did. Opened the gate, I did. Locked it after, I did.’
A silence making him think he could bring the matter to a close, Allen lifted himself from his chair.
Harry disappointed him. ‘Was any paper signed for Sebiliah’s conveyance?’
Sir John’s face brightened as the Physician slumped back down. ‘You would have a bond, Dr. Allen, to admit a patient, and a certificate of recovery to release one. A similar paper, surely, must cover their deaths.’
‘I have not yet prepared the note,’ Allen said, looking disquieted.
Sir John guessed why Allen had neglected to do so. ‘Given the nature of many of your patients, suicide must happen here often.’
‘Even so, we do not care to broadcast such news.’
‘Especially so, since you gave her the knitting needle.’
‘We can’t watch all the lunatics all the time,’ Millicent Matthews complained.
‘We cannot,’ agreed her husband. ‘The mad are ten times as many as the staff.’
‘I am surprised you class them apart,’ Sir John said, eyeballing Jones.
‘Did you see Thomas Crawley leave with her?’ Harry asked the Welshman.
Jones thought for a second. ‘No. Closed the gate, I did. Heard him move off, mind. The horse. Its hooves. On the ground.’
‘You saw Mr. and Mrs. Matthews wrap her in the sheet,’ Sir John asked him, in his telling way.
‘Mrs. Matron undressed her and washed her. Sent us pair out, thinking it more proper, like.’
‘You do not quite answer my question,’ Sir John said, exasperated. ‘Did you see it?’
‘The last of it, I saw.’
‘It was Sebiliah inside the sheet. You saw her.’
‘Yes. Saw her face.’
‘Why did she need to be undressed, Mrs. Matthews?’ Harry asked.
‘For her clothes, sir,’ Millicent answered. ‘They belong to the Hospital. And I washed her because of all the blood.’
‘There must have been a lot of it, if she pierced the jugular vein.’ Harry spoke softly, showing her a sympathy lacking from the Justice.
‘The sheet’s the Hospital’s, too,’ she said. ‘I’ll send a gallery maid for it.’
Sir John stamped his boots on the uncarpeted floor. ‘You worry about a sheet! Mr. Jones, I ask you this: Did you put another woman on the cart?’
‘I cannot rightly say.’
‘It is a simple matter of yes or no!’
‘Not simple, is it? Not simple.’
‘Yes? Or no?’ Sir John was almost shouting again.
‘I cannot say,’ Jones repeated. ‘By then, she was wrapped inside a sheet.’ Even under the beard, his smirk was evident.
Sir John turned to the Marshalman. ‘Place the manacles on him, Fenn.’
‘Please, Justice,’ Allen said. ‘Jones has a manner. It is his Welsh way. We have told you all we can.’
‘It was Sebiliah put on the cart,’ Matthews insisted. ‘Or else, let God blind me! If someone else arrived at Gresham College, we are not the cause.’
Sir John examined each of the Bethlehem staff in the room. Physician. Porter. Matron. Nurse. Steward. Basketmen—especially William Jones, who stood imperviously behind his beard.
He sighed wearily and leaned sideways to pick up his stick.
‘Show me where she died, then take me through the whole of her last journey, before the cart.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE WOMEN’S GALLERY
Dr. Allen led them to the Hospital’s western pavilion. At the foot of the stairs leading up to the women’s gallery, a padlocked gate stopped their way. Allen had sent his staff back to their duties, apart from Jones, who remained in the Physician’s office with Fenn guarding him, and Matthews, who made a labour of sorting through his keys and unlocking the gate.
While they waited, Harry went to the nearest room and peered through the viewing hatch let into its door. Inside, a man pushed his forehead against the wires stretched taut across the window. The patients’ windows were unglazed for the free passage of air, known to be therapeutic.
The man hummed the same two bars of music over and over.
‘He suffers from furious paroxysms,’ Allen told Harry, noticing his interest. ‘This is a lucida intervalla—he is calm for now. Musicians are vulnerable to maladies of the mind.’
‘I hear the woman singing, up the stairs.’
‘She was famous, in her time. Musicians. Artists. Teachers. All are prone. There are many soldiers here, too, who cannot rid themselves of the fears they felt in wartime.’
Hearing the jangling of the Porter’s keys, another man, sleepy-faced and with whey-coloured skin, joined them from a nearby room. He carried a tray laden with dishes of powders, a jar of leeches, and Indian hemp.
Allen introduced him. ‘Mr. Jeremy Lester, our Apothecary.’
‘Perhaps you saw the dead woman being taken?’ Sir John asked Lester.
‘Sebiliah did not arrive at Gresham,’ Allen explained, after Lester looked stupidly at them.
The Apothecary’s head jolted back at the news. ‘But we sent her,’ he said, as if one must lead to the other.
‘Were you here yesterday evening, Mr. Lester?’ Sir John asked.
‘I said so earlier,’ Allen said testily. ‘He was.’
‘Take a care, Dr. Allen, or I shall think you help him.’
Lester rubbed at his eyelids, which were swollen and dark, as he tried to recall as long ago as yesterday evening. ‘Every day’s the same among melancholics and maniacs, when you’ve forgot the variations. I spent most of yesterday in our room—mine and Dr. Allen’s. Preparing vesicatories and cantharides.’
‘You do not quite answer my question, I note,’ Sir John said. ‘The evening, particularly.’
Lester shut both eyes tightly, let out a great yawn, then seemed to decide. ‘All evening, too, I was there.’ He swayed, as if on a ship at sea. ‘I prepare the medicines,’ he added resentfully. ‘Cheaper than buying them in.’
‘Were you alone?’ Sir John asked him, wondering how reliable this somnolent man would prove.
