The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [108]
Melchett was far ahead. Pitt had to hurry to catch up with him. It even occurred to him not to, to turn around and go back out. But he did not. His feet increased their pace and Melchett was waiting for him at the door, holding it open.
“There!” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes round and angry.
Pitt walked past him into the long high-ceilinged room. Around the walls was a kind of narrow walkway slightly three feet above the floor, creating the impression of a wall full of people, most of them sitting on chairs or on the floor, many huddled over, hugging themselves, some rocking back and forth rhythmically, moaning and muttering unintelligibly, and it was along this that Melchett now led Pitt. Between them a man with matted hair picked at a scab on his leg till it bled. His arms were covered with similar wounds, some half healed, others obviously new. There were what looked like bite marks on his wrists and forearms. He did not even see Pitt standing close above him, so intent was he upon his own flesh.
A second stared into space, saliva running down his chin. A third reached up towards them, hands clasping at the air, throat straining, mind seeking words and failing to find them. A fourth sat with his wrists in leather-padded chains, banging against the restraint with sharp, jiggling movements as if he were sawing at something. He too was so absorbed in his pointless, painful task that he neither saw Pitt nor heard Melchett when he spoke.
“How many do you want to see?” Melchett asked quietly, his voice hard with a mixture of anger and offense. “We have scores, all much like this, all sad, unreachable by anything we know how to do. Do you think someone like this is your lunatic? Do you think we accidentally let one go, and he got hold of an ax and started decapitating people in Hyde Park?”
Pitt opened his mouth to deny it, but Melchett rushed on, his anger if anything increasing.
“Where are they, Pitt?” he demanded. “Living in the park somewhere? Where do they sleep? What do they eat? All your police swarming over the area, searching for clues, cannot find the poor devil?”
There was no answer. Looking at the fierce, pathetic, troubled souls all around him, beyond reason, beyond reach, the idea was ridiculous. If Tellman had come this far into Bedlam, he would have curbed his tongue before making such comments to Melchett, or anyone else.
Pitt’s silence seemed to soften Melchett a fraction. He cleared his throat.
“Hm—if your man is insane, Pitt, his obsession has not reached the stage where he would be committed to a place like this. He’ll appear much like anyone else most of the time—that is if he is mad at all.” He lifted his shoulders and straightened them again. “Are you certain there is no sane reason for all this carnage?”
“No I’m not,” Pitt replied. “But there seems to be no connection between the victims, not one that we can find so far.” He turned away from the poor creature nearest him, who was reaching up to the full extent of his restraining jacket as if to pluck at him.
Melchett saw he had more than made his point. He turned and led the way out of the great room into the corridor and back down in the direction of his office.
“If he were mad,” Pitt went on, “what sort of an obsession would I be looking for, Dr. Melchett? What sort of a past makes a man turn to such random violence?”
“Oh, it is not random,” Melchett said immediately. “Not in his mind. There will be a connection: time, place, appearance, something said or done which prompted the rage, or the fear, or whatever emotion drives him. It may be a religious passion of some sort. Many lunatics have a profound sense of sin.” He raised his shoulders again and let them fall. “Nasty question, I know, but is it possible your men were all committing some act he might have felt to be sinful? Soliciting women, for example? It’s not an uncommon form of delusion—that sexual congress with women is evil, debilitating, a snare of the devil.” He sniffed. “Sick, of course. Springs from some