Seven Dials - Anne Perry [132]
They reached the cab and Garrick stopped abruptly, his body shaking, his hands out in front of him as if to ward off an attack. Garvie put his arms around him gently, but with considerable strength, and with Pitt’s assistance, they lifted him into the hansom. The driver sat facing forward, ignoring everything as though his life depended on seeing and hearing nothing.
Pitt swiveled around to see if Narraway was coming yet.
Inside the cab, Garrick began to thrash around, wailing and sobbing with terror.
Pitt swung up beside him to try to keep him from escaping, or in his delirium injuring Garvie. “It’s all right, sir!” he said urgently. “You’re quite safe. No one’s going to harm you.” He might as well have been speaking in a foreign language.
Garvie was losing control. He was white-faced in the gaslight, and there was panic and helplessness in his eyes. If Narraway did not come soon they were going to have to leave without him.
The seconds ticked by.
“Go around the hospital and back!” Pitt shouted at the driver. “Now!”
The hansom lurched forward, throwing all three of them against the back of the seat. For a few moments Garrick was too surprised to react. Please God, Narraway would be there when they reached the front again. Pitt’s mind raced as to where on earth he could take Garrick if he were not? The only place he was certain of any kind of help at all, and secrecy, was his own home. And what could he and Charlotte do with a madman in delirium? For that matter, how much better was Garvie?
Narraway had spoken of the local police station, but Pitt believed that was almost certainly a bluff. And either way, Pitt had no authority he could prove to them. The very most they might do would be return them all to Bedlam and extricate Narraway, which would put them in an even worse position than that in which they had begun, because now the authorities in Bedlam would be warned.
He would have to go home, and leave Narraway to his own devices.
They were at the front of the hospital again. The footpath was deserted. Pitt’s heart sank, and he could feel his stomach tighten and his whole body go cold.
“Keppel Street!” he shouted at the driver. “Slowly! Don’t hurry.” He felt the lurch and swing as they turned onto Brook Street, then almost immediately afterwards into Kennington Road, and back down towards the Westminster Bridge.
It was a nightmare journey. The mist had thickened and a slower speed was forced upon them. They held up no one by slackening to a walk. Stephen Garrick slumped forward, alternately weeping and groaning like a man on the way to his own death—and whatever hell he believed lay beyond. Garvie attempted now and then to comfort him, but it was a wasted effort, and the despair in his voice betrayed that he knew it.
Pitt tried desperately to think what on earth he would do if Narraway did not show up soon, and ever worse images crowded his mind as to what had happened to him. Had he been arrested for abducting an inmate? Or simply imprisoned in Bedlam as if he too were mad? Had they locked him in one of their padded rooms? Or administered some powerful sedative so he might not even be conscious to protest his sanity?
They were over the river and heading north and east. Part of Pitt wished they would hurry, so he would be home in the warmth and light of familiar surroundings, and at least Charlotte could help him. Another part wanted to spin out the journey as long as possible, to give Narraway a chance to catch up with them and take charge.
They were in a busy thoroughfare. There was plenty of other traffic, sounds of horns in the swirling mist, harness clinking, light from other coach lamps, movement reflected in bright gleams off brass.
Garrick sat up suddenly and screamed as if in terror for his life. Pitt’s flesh froze. In a moment he was paralyzed, then he lunged sideways and grasped Garrick’s arm and threw him back in the seat. The hansom swayed wildly and slithered around on the wet cobbles, then shot forward at