Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [123]
“Yes?”
Drummond’s smile was tight, bleak. “He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary.” His eyes met Pitt’s.
“So they all held that office!” Pitt exclaimed. “Perhaps that is why they died. She was looking for Royce, and she still thought of him in connection with the office he held when she worked in his house. She must have asked around, and she found three other men living south of the river who had held that position before she got the right one! But why did she hate him so long and so passionately?”
“Because he had her committed to Bedlam!”
“For melancholia? Perhaps. But may I go to Bedlam and ask about her, to see what they know?”
“Yes. Yes, Pitt—and tell me what you find.”
The Bethlem Royal Hospital was in a huge old building on the Lambeth Road on the south side of the river, a block away from the Westminster Bridge Road where it curved up the hill away from the water and the Lambeth Palace Gardens, the official house of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England. Bedlam, as it was commonly known, was another world, shut in, as far from sweetness and ease as the nightmare is from the sleeper’s sane and healthful room, where flowers sit in a vase and the morning sunlight will presently stream through the curtains onto a solid floor.
Inside Bedlam was madness and despair. For centuries this hospital, whether within these walls or others, had been the last resort for those no human reason could reach. In earlier times they had been shackled night and day and tormented to exorcise them of devils. Those with a taste for such things had come by to watch them and taunt them for entertainment, as later generations might go to a carnival or a zoo, or a hanging.
Now treatment was more enlightened. Most of the restraining devices were gone, except for the most violent; but tortures of the mind still persisted, the terror and delusion, the misery, the endless imprisonment without hope.
Pitt had been in Newgate and Coldbath Fields, and for all the superintendent in his frock coat and the stewards and medical staff, the walls smelled the same and the air had a fetid taste. Pitt’s credentials were examined before he was permitted the slightest courtesy.
“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