Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë (29 page)

“I admit that I am,” I retorted. “It takes a certain amount of naïveté to think that one can write a novel that people will buy. It takes even more to believe that one can foil a plot against the British Empire. The fact that I've done both things indicates that God rewards naïveté.”

Slade groaned. “She invokes God as her accomplice!”

“Why not? I'm a parson's daughter.”

Night had come; the moon had risen. The workhouse appeared even more intimidating than ever. But I took my courage in hand, and I moved along the path, circling the mansion.

Slade followed. “What are you doing?”

“Having a look around.”

“I wish you had shot me and spared me the trouble of protecting you from yourself!”

The windows of the house were dark now that there was no sun reflecting from them. “Is Niall Kavanagh here?”

“No,” Slade said. “I've been keeping watch on the place for two days. He's gone. Nobody in town seems to know where. That's why I was breaking in—to see if he left any clues, or if there's any sign of his invention inside.”

I thought he would try to force me to leave, but he didn't; perhaps he couldn't bear for us to part any more than I could. We seemed to have come to a tacit agreement to quit the topic of our relationship, to pretend Slade's confession hadn't happened. We were conversing easily, but our talk felt brittle, like ice thinly frozen over a turbulent ocean. I said, “How did you find out about Kavanagh's secret laboratory?”

“I went to his house in Whitechapel. While questioning people in the neighborhood, I found a man who used to be Kavanagh's servant. He told me where Kavanagh had moved.” Slade said with abrupt suspicion, “How did you find out?”

I evaded the question in case the answer was a bargaining chip I might need later. The path veered away from the house. “What's in that building up ahead?”

The smell of decay wafted toward me as I approached it. Slade hurried in front of me to block the path. “You don't want to go in there.”

“Why not?” I stepped around him. The building was a barn that had once contained animals that the workhouse residents had raised for food. The wooden doors were open; a padlock dangled from broken hinges. I entered before Slade could stop me. The foul odor was so strong that I covered my nose with my hand. On one side of the barn, sheep lay dead in pens. Flies buzzed and maggots swarmed over the rotting carcasses. On the other side were cages of small corpses with matted fur, wizened claws, and long tails—rats.

I gagged and ran out of the barn. Gulping fresher air, I said, “What was Niall Kavanagh doing with those animals?”

“I haven't the slightest idea.”

“Did he kill them?”

“There are bare patches on their bodies where the hair was shaved off. I saw cuts in the skin, but not deep enough to kill. Maybe they died of neglect after Kavanagh left.”

My stomach was so queasy that I feared I would vomit. I marched back along the path. “Maybe the answer is in the house.”

We stopped near the window Slade had broken. The caretaker was gone; he'd regained consciousness and escaped. Slade said, “You're not going in there. ”

“Oh, yes, I am.”

“You're leaving before the caretaker comes back with the watch. If I have to drag you away, I will.” Slade advanced on me.

I stopped, but I stood my ground. My gaze dared him to make good on his threat. The air between us was charged with heat. If Slade had touched me then! But he didn't. He thought I would repulse any contact with him. His mouth twisted in frustrated despair.

“You wanted to know how I found out about the laboratory.” My voice was unsteady, my heart racing. “I spoke with a friend who knows Dr. Kavanagh. He told me about the house in Whitechapel. I went there, too. The landlord let me see some things Dr. Kavanagh left behind. Among them were his journal and some papers. The location of the laboratory was there.”

Slade beheld me with surprise, and heightened alertness. “What else did you find?”

“I'll tell you if you let me go in the house with you.”

“That's blackmail,” Slade protested.

“So be it.”

“The parson's daughter should be ashamed of herself,” Slade said in disgust. “All right. You win. Tell me.”

“After we've had a look around the house.”

Slade exclaimed, “I can take on the Tsar of Russia and his spy, but God save me from devious women!”

Grasping the tree beside the window, I started to climb, but Slade said, “Here, I'll help you up.” He clasped his hands and lowered them. “After we're finished, you're going home.”

“We'll see.” I stepped onto his hands. He boosted me through the window.

I
TUMBLED INTO A DARK SPACE. AS I STOOD AND DUSTED MYSELF off, Slade climbed in the window. He took matches from his pocket and lit one, illuminating an empty room with cracked plaster walls and a stone fireplace. We passed through other rooms in similar state, until we reached the kitchen. Slade lit a fresh match, and we gazed around in awe.

The kitchen was furnished like none I'd ever seen before. The worktops along the walls were black stone slabs. Below them were metal drawers and cabinets; above, a network of copper pipes. On their surfaces stood glassware such as I'd found in the Whitechapel house. Slade fiddled with lamps mounted on the walls. I heard a hissing sound and smelled gas.

Slade said, “Let there be light.” He lit the lamps. “I'm surprised there's gas in a house this old. It must have been recently installed.”

We explored the laboratory. The drawers contained rubber gloves, cloth masks and caps, steel knives, unidentifiable implements, and glassware: magnifying lenses; syringes like the ones used by the doctor in Bedlam; round, flat dishes with lids; long, tapered tubes connected to rubber bulbs. Cabinets held jars of powdered substances, labeled with numbers. The copper pipes were attached to spigots. When Slade turned them, water gushed from some and poured into sinks; others fed gas into burners that looked like metal candles. Glass flasks sat on stands above the burners. There were scales, and basins of water with thermometers mounted inside, an empty icebox, and a strange, clear glass case. The case had a lid sealed with a rubber gasket and two holes into which protruded a pair of rubber gloves. Beside it lay a small device comprised of two brass plates riveted together, a circle of glass set in a hole in them, a clamp holding a long, threaded bolt with a metal crosspiece, and various tiny screws.

“It's a microscope,” Slade said.

I examined the stove, a cast-iron monstrosity with eight gas burners. A large pot sat on top. I lifted the lid. A horrible stench burst out from a rotten stew of meat and bones. I hastily clapped down the lid. Inspecting the pantry, we covered our noses to keep out the odor of more spoiled food. Shelves were stacked with the sort of glass dishes we'd found in the drawers. These held brown, moldy residue. Glass bell jars contained more of the same, plus burnt-out candles. On other shelves sat racks of glass tubes with cork stoppers, filled with murky liquid. Some corks had exploded out of the tubes, and the liquid had spattered the walls. On the floor stood several braziers, as if Niall Kavanagh had wanted to keep the pantry warm instead of cool.

“If this is food, Dr. Kavanagh eats a very strange diet,” I said.

“It must be his experiments,” Slade said, “although I can't imagine the purpose of them. I don't see any evidence that he was building a weapon.”

In the dining room we did find mechanical devices—fans with blades like pinwheels, operated by cranks; a bellows attached to a bicycle. When Slade rode the bicycle around the room, the bellows pumped.

“I'm beginning to wonder if Kavanagh was a fraud,” I said. “Perhaps he led the British government to believe he'd invented a new kind of gun but he really hadn't. Perhaps he fooled Wilhelm Stieber, too.”

“I had the same thoughts,” Slade said, “but I'm not ready to believe I've been chasing after a gun that doesn't exist.”

He stalked from the room. Although I should have been relieved to think that Britain might be safe from the weapon, I couldn't forget that Katerina had been murdered because of it. Stieber believed the gun existed, and perhaps it really did. We had to keep searching.

The kitchen was the only room supplied with gas. Slade lit an oil lamp he found there, while I extinguished the gaslights. He carried the lamp and we mounted the broad staircase. The rooms on the second story were empty except one in a round tower. Here Niall Kavanagh had lived. An unmade bed with dirty linens stood amid stained clothing, empty liquor bottles, and a chamber pot that contained dried urine and feces. Dishes on the bedside table held moldy cheese and bread crusts.

I think I need not describe the smell.

Slade flung open the window. We glanced at a bookcase filled with scientific texts, then examined the desk, on which were strewn ink pots, pens, journals, and papers. The papers were covered with Niall Kavanagh's drawings and script. I riffled them while Slade perused a journal. I couldn't help being conscious of his nearness. Glancing at him, I discovered that he was looking at me. He quickly dropped his gaze. Despite the fact that we were working together and nothing more, we were bonded by love—his confessed, mine undeclared and forbidden.

He handed the journal to me. “I can't read this aloud. Words like these shouldn't be spoken to a lady.” I read to myself:

“That explains the dishes in the pantry and the sheep, but what was Kavanagh thinking?” Slade shook his head in disgust. “I'm not an expert at science, but I know that what he describes isn't accepted practice.”

I barely heard Slade; I was too stunned, for I remembered the journal from the Whitechapel house. “He found them.”

“What?” Slade said.

“The clean women.” I told Slade about the journal, summarized the entries for him, then interpreted them. “Kavanagh picked up Mary Chandler, Catherine Meadows, and Jane Anderson on the streets of Whitechapel. He examined them to ascertain that they were clean; then he applied the ‘cultures' to them.” I pictured hands smearing slime on a woman's private parts, and bile rose in my throat. “He let a few weeks pass, then reexamined them to see if they had the disease. And he killed them so he could dissect them.” The horror of it choked my voice. “He even made drawings.”

Slade stared. “That's what you discovered in his house in Whitechapel?”

“Yes,” I said. “Niall Kavanagh is the Whitechapel Ripper. The murder victims were subjects in his experiments.”

“Good Lord.” Slade was awed by the truth about Kavanagh and the fact that I'd discovered it. “Kavanagh wasn't inventing a gun; his work involved determining the cause of diseases. He thought it was a substance that could be taken from a sick person, grown in a laboratory, and passed to other people.”

Slade leafed through the journal, frowning at the illegible, ink-blotted script. “Kavanagh must have been drunk when he wrote this. Look, there's wine spilled on these pages. ‘Dutch scientists have studied samples of water, soil, and vegetable and animal material under the microscope. They have observed tiny animalcules moving therein. I have repeated the experiments and seen the animalcules myself.'” We beheld drawings of spherical, ovoid, and wormlike creatures. “‘I have a theory that it is some species of these animalcules that are the cause of all contagious diseases.'”

“My friend Dr. Forbes mentioned Kavanagh's theory,” I recalled. “He said it was met with ridicule and contributed to Kavanagh being expelled from the Royal Society.”

“Kavanagh deserved it,” Slade said. “His theory goes against hundreds of years of learning, the judgment of the best minds in the world, and all common sense. If Kavanagh believes it, he isn't just a fraud; he's mad!”

“Madman or not, he's still dangerous. He's a murderer even if he can't help Russia win a war against England.” I was jarred by a sudden idea. “Perhaps we've misinterpreted Niall Kavanagh's work. Perhaps he really has invented a weapon.”