Shadow of the Raven (14 page)

T
he sound of patients screaming and hollering in the distance did nothing to unsettle the comparative calm of the reception desk at Bethlem Hospital. Such echoing agonies were politely ignored by those who came and went through the great portico and into the grand hallway. Thomas was one such visitor. When he presented himself on his return from Brandwick, he was surprised, and relieved, to find that the usual clerk with the bulging eyes was absent.

“May I help you, sir?” asked the new clerk, a younger man with, it seemed, a more helpful disposition, who was seated behind the desk.

Thomas gave a tight smile. “You are new here.”

The man smiled back politely. His teeth were as large as tombstones and bucked out at the front like a rabbit's. “I am, sir. How may I help, sir?”

The absence of the obstreperous clerk with his disconcerting eyes could, thought Thomas, prove to be to his advantage. “I am Dr. Thomas Silkstone and I am come to see one of my patients.” On the long return journey from Oxford, he had concocted a vague story to cloak his deceit.

The clerk slid the large leather ledger in front of him. “Name, sir?”

Thomas recalled the flash of her large brown eyes and the melancholy air that shaped her delicate features.

“Miss Kent,” he said, peering over the register. “Miss Anna Kent.”

“Miss Kent,” repeated the clerk. He licked his lips and ran his pen down a column of names. “Miss Annalise Kent, sir,” he said, emphasizing the last syllable in “Annalise,” as his nib stopped suddenly. He frowned. Tapping the entry with his forefinger, he looked up.

“Oh, Doctor,” he said.

“What is it?” queried Thomas, his unease growing by the second.

“Were you not informed?”

The doctor leaned forward nervously. “Informed of what?”

The clerk slid the ledger back toward him and turned it so that Thomas could see the name
Annalise Mary Kent (spinster of the parish of Southwark)
written quite plainly. There was her last known address and her age, and beside her sketchy details was written the word
deceased
.

The words swam before Thomas's eyes. “Dead. But when?”

The clerk retrieved the register. “On Thursday, April 26, sir, it says.”

“Last week.” Reeling from the news, Thomas tried to collect himself quickly. “I should have been informed,” he said sharply.

The clerk's cheeks reddened as he became flustered. “I can only apologize, Dr. Silkstone,” he replied.

Thomas could see that indignation was his best method of attack. “I shall, of course, need to know more.”

“Of course.” The clerk nodded. “May I direct you to the mortuary?”

A few minutes later Thomas found himself outside a door in the basement area, away from the main building. He did not need to read the sign to know he was in the right place. The reek of death and of vinegar seeped over the threshold. He walked in and gave his name to a male attendant.

“I am inquiring of a patient of mine who died last Thursday,” he told him.

“The name of the deceased, sir?”

“Miss Annalise Kent.”

The attendant checked the register. “Yes, sir.”

“There has been a postmortem?” Thomas came straight to the point.

The attendant's eyes hovered over the notes and delivered his answer as if he were delivering the laundry. “Yes, sir.”

“And the conclusion?”

Without bothering to embellish his reply, the attendant said neutrally, “Suicide.”

Thomas tensed. He leaned over and scanned the text of the relevant page. Under
Cause of death
were written the words:
Self-murder. Method: wrists cut with a sharpened spoon.

So Annalise Kent had killed herself just the day after he last saw her and less than a week after Lydia's removal from the hospital. For a few seconds Thomas was lost in his thoughts.

“Sir?” The attendant saw the doctor's face fall. “Will that be all?”

The ledger closed with a dull thud. The sound made Thomas start.

“Wait!” he said, raising a hand. “Has the body been released?”

The attendant, surprised by this sudden volte-face, reopened the volume and viewed the relevant page. “Yes, to an undertaker, sir, a Mr. Wilkins in Chiswell Street, the day after the postmortem,” came the reply.

Armed with this information, Thomas knew exactly where to go next. He strode purposefully back toward the great gates. Just beyond them lay normality, a world where logic was not a foreign word and where order was maintained by the courts, not like this topsy-turvy place where nothing was what it seemed. He welcomed the cries of the hawkers, the muffin men and peascod sellers, as the music of the everyday that drifted through the great iron grille. He could not wait to return to the refuge of Hollen Street, but just before he reached the exit, he heard someone call his name in a hoarse whisper.

“Dr. Silkstone!”

He turned to see a woman behind him in silhouette. She was leaning by a wall, seemingly to avoid detection. He watched her hook her finger and beckon to him. When he leveled with her he recognized her as the plump warder who had taken him to visit Lydia. She backed against a nearby pillar as he approached, and for the first time he could see an anxious look on her face. She leaned toward him so that she came close enough for him to catch her scent. She smelled of lemons.

“Sir, I believe you have been making inquiries about Miss Kent.” Her eyes darted around her, as if she was fearful that she might be seen. Away from the madness of the asylum she looked much younger, thought Thomas. The authority she had commanded inside had ebbed away, leaving a more vulnerable woman in its wake.

“I am,” he replied, aware that she seemed acutely nervous.

“A most distressing affair, if I might say so,” she replied, as if seeking permission to hold her own opinion.

“I know she is dead,” said Thomas, trying to ease her path.

The warder shook her head mournfully. “I see many patients come and go in this hospital, sir, but the manner of Miss Kent's death—” She broke off.

“I can see you are distressed.” Thomas allowed the warder to take her time. She tried to snort back her tears.

“As you know, she and Lady Lydia had formed an . . . an attachment during her stay.” Her speech was deliberate, hesitant almost. “And when her ladyship . . . when she left, well, Miss Kent became distraught. We knew she'd done herself mischief before, so we put her in a cell for her own safety.”

Thomas was aware that this was standard procedure in such cases. “But then what happened?” he pressed.

“She was searched, sir, but somehow she had secreted a blade about her person.” She shook her head as if reliving the moment. “And when we next checked on her . . . Oh, the blood!” She clamped her hand over her mouth.

Thomas tried to ease her obvious concern. “A terrible sight, I am sure,” he sympathized. He himself had been called to such a scene when a young man had taken his own life by the same ghastly method. It was never easy dealing with the aftermath of such an experience. Despite his sympathy, however, Thomas's senses were not dulled to his task. What the young woman had just told him triggered alarm.

“You say a blade?” he queried. “But the register cited a sharpened spoon.”

“A spoon?” The warder regarded him with surprise. “Oh no, sir, it was definitely a knife, a sharp kitchen knife.”

“But how did a patient manage to secure such a knife?” Sounds of clanking locks and screeching gates echoed in Thomas's head. Bethlem, he knew, was as secure as the Tower of London.

The warder shook her head and let out a shallow mouthful of air. “That's the mystery of it, sir. None of us knows.”

Thomas's mind flashed back to the face of the young woman, frightened and helpless. He knew little of her story, save that her heart had been broken when her fiancé had died and that her distress had brought on her madness. He only hoped that now she was dead she would gain the peace she deserved.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “You have been most helpful.” He doffed his tricorn.

The woman raised her hand as if forbidding him to go. “But you have word of Lady Lydia?”

He was ill prepared for such a question. “She is well,” he said, although as the words left his lips he questioned why he had invented such a lie. The warder seemed satisfied with his reply. He thanked her and bid her farewell. As he walked away from Bethlem, he asked himself why he had not told the warder that Lydia was also dead. Perhaps it was because somewhere deep within him, he refused to believe it himself.

T
he last rays of sunlight reached through the gaps in the London roofline like translucent fingers. Thomas knew this was not a good time of day to be hunting for the undertaker's premises, but he could not suppress his anxieties. His unexpected encounter with the concerned warder and his knowledge that Annalise Kent had somehow managed to procure a kitchen knife had planted a seed of consternation in him that was growing by the hour. The fact that the warder's version of events was at odds with the official report into the death suggested to him at best some form of collusion, and at worst a conspiracy. He could not wait until the morning to follow up the fragile lead he had been thrown at the mortuary.

The undertaker's business was but a short walk away in Chiswell Street. Thomas noted that it was conveniently situated close to both the Artillery Ground and the City Burying Ground. The shop sign, an iron coffin, had fallen off one of its hinges and creaked forlornly in the intermittent gusts that assaulted the corner of the lane. He walked in, his arrival heralded by the tinkling of a bell over the door.

The shop was a shabby, dismal affair, displaying several accoutrements of death. On one shelf was a folded pile of plain shrouds and on another a selection of mourning gloves and other funereal accessories. The sound of hammering and sawing could be heard from a back room. Thomas assumed it came from a workshop where coffins were fashioned.

An elderly bespectacled gentleman, sporting a jet-black wig with a frock coat to match, shuffled out from the back, his face as solemn as his attire.

“May I help you, sir?” he inquired in a gruff voice that clearly lent itself to hawking rather than dispensing platitudes.

“Mr. Wilkins?” asked the doctor.

On his way to the premises Thomas had decided to further embellish his story in the hope that it would allow him to gain access to information that might be sensitive and not shared with anyone apart from close relatives and involved professionals.

“I am he,” replied the man, seemingly flattered to be addressed by name.

“I am a physician and I am inquiring about my recently deceased patient,” Thomas began. “Miss Annalise Kent.”

Wilkins eyed Thomas oddly and sniffed. “Yes,” he drawled.

“I have been away and was only told of her death by Bethlem Hospital today,” said Thomas.

The undertaker cocked his head in a well-rehearsed gesture of sympathy. “Very remiss of them, if I might say so, sir.”

“Indeed.” Thomas fingered his hat nervously. “I wish to know when her funeral might take place, if you please?”

The undertaker frowned, peered over the rim of his spectacles, and looked at Thomas questioningly.

“I remember the order very well, as it happens, sir,” he replied with a sniff.

“You do?” Thomas could not hide his surprise.

“Indeed.”

“How so?”

“I had the impression that Miss Kent's father was a man of considerable means, yet his agent said he was not interested in our ruffled crepe linings or our superfine sheet and shroud.” The undertaker obviously took this flagrant disinterest in his wares as a personal slight. “He opted instead for the most meager of cloths and the cheapest of woods for the casket.”

Such penny-pinching was not, agreed Thomas, the customary behavior of a grieving father. He needed to know more.

“Perhaps grief clouded his judgment?” he suggested.

The undertaker shrugged.

“You mentioned his agent?” pressed Thomas.

“Why, yes. A man most brusque in his manner, with strange eyes, as I recall.” Thomas thought of the original clerk at Bethlem. “He seemed only interested in dispatching poor Miss Kent with the greatest possible haste,” added the undertaker.

Thomas knew he should have guessed the officious clerk was in Sir Montagu's pay.

“So what happened next?” he urged.

Wilkins shook his bewigged head. “I was told in no uncertain terms that the plainest coffin was to be dispatched the following day up north.” He pointed heavenward with his thin finger.

“Do you have the address?” asked Thomas. He hardly needed to ask. With each passing exchange he grew more convinced that his inclination was right.

“Yes. Now, where is it? Let me see.” The undertaker squinted over his order book, leafing through its pages until finally he pronounced, “Here we are. Boughton Hall, Brandwick, Oxfordshire.” He looked up at Thomas over the rim of his spectacles. “Miss Kent's remains were dispatched five days ago.”

 

Back at Hollen Street, Thomas found Dr. Carruthers dozing in his chair after supper, some of which was spilled down the front of his waistcoat. He had eaten something accompanied by gravy by the looks of it. Not wishing to startle his mentor, he gently laid a hand on his.

“Sir, 'tis Thomas. I am back.”

The old anatomist stirred, mumbled something inaudible, then came to his senses. “Thomas, dear boy!”

Pulling up a chair, the young doctor proceeded to bring his mentor up to date with developments in Boughton and his recent visit to Bethlem.

“When I heard that Miss Kent had stabbed herself with a knife from the kitchens, I suspected it must have been supplied to her by someone who might profit from her death,” explained Thomas.

“You're not telling me Malthus was behind it?” the old anatomist asked incredulously.

“Yes, sir. I should've known. By befriending Lydia, Miss Kent inadvertently put herself in danger. A clerk at the hospital must have been employed by Sir Montagu.”

“And when Miss Kent reacted badly to Lydia's departure, he saw his chance?”

“Exactly. The clerk facilitated the poor young woman's death. He may as well have slit her wrists himself.”

“And afterward?”

“He replaced the knife with a sharpened spoon and the postmortem was straightforward. He made all the subsequent arrangements and saw to it that the body was dispatched.”

Carruthers paused for a moment, as if trying to digest all that he had just heard. “And you say the remains were delivered to Boughton?”

“Aye, sir.” Thomas nodded.

“So this could mean . . .” He dared not say what he was thinking, so Thomas, even though he, too, was filled with trepidation, said it for him.

“It means that the body buried in the vault at Boughton may not be Lydia's.”

Carruthers paused for a second, then clapped his hands together and clenched them into gleeful fists. “Oh, dear boy! Could it be that she yet lives?”

Thomas felt his heart barreling in his chest. Hearing his mentor say these words brought home to him the prospect of a hope he had thought dashed and lost forever. “Perhaps,” he replied softly. He must not allow himself to dwell on such an overwhelming possibility. He could not dare to dream. For now, his immediate concern was how he might obtain access to the Crick vault at Boughton. He cast his mind back to the dark, damp, airless space that was home to the last three generations of the family. The latest casket to join the ranks of the dead might well contain an innocent impostor. Only when he could see inside the coffin and gaze upon the face of the woman who lay there could he be sure that his beloved Lydia was still alive.