Young Sherlock Holmes: Bedlam (Short Reads) Read online

  Sherlock saw a door immediately on his left. A brass sign had been screwed to it. The words engraved on it said: William Rhys Williams MD MRCS MRCPE – Resident Physician & Superintendent.

  Sherlock glanced backwards, at the attendants. They were watching him carefully. He wondered if this was some kind of test: what would he do – knock politely, just stand there, or open the door and walk in unannounced?

  He knocked and waited.

  ‘Come in,’ a voice called. He twisted the knob, pushed the door open and entered.

  The room inside was carpeted, panelled and curtained. It was, in a strange way, reminiscent of the Diogenes Club in its plushness and its quietness. A large desk was placed to one side, in front of a large window. Bookshelves to either side of the window were filled with leather-bound volumes. A man wearing a black suit, high-collared shirt and striped waistcoat sat behind the desk, writing with a quill pen in a ledger. He was bald, apart from a fringe of black hair running around the back of his head like a small curtain.

  The man glanced up at Sherlock. His gaze flickered all over Sherlock’s face, hands, clothes, everything. He nodded, as if he had just confirmed a conclusion that he had reached before Sherlock had entered.

  ‘Stand in front of the desk,’ he said. His voice was thin, whispery. ‘My name is Doctor Williams. I am the Resident Physician at this institution. That means I have the final say when it comes to any decision regarding the inmates – of which you are one. I should warn you that if you make any move to come around the desk, or exhibit any violent or unwarranted behaviour, I will have no hesitation in calling on my attendants for assistance. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ Sherlock said, moving to the front of the desk. ‘There has been a terrible mistake. I am—’

  ‘Be quiet. Answer questions when I ask them. Do not volunteer information, or I will have you removed back to your room.’ Williams paused, and glanced down at the ledger on his desk. Sherlock noticed a small brass bell beside it. ‘Do you know your name?’

  ‘Holmes, sir. Sherlock Scott Holmes.’ He was about to say something else, but thought better of it.

  ‘Memory appears intact,’ Williams murmured, making a note in the ledger. ‘Locomotion and posture are reasonable for a boy of age –’ he glanced up at Sherlock. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen, sir.’

  ‘– of age fourteen,’ he continued. He leaned back in his chair, which creaked beneath his weight. ‘I make it a habit formally to interview all new inmates. You have been sent here because you exhibited severe manic behaviour in a public place. The police restrained you, and a doctor present at the scene certified you insane. You will stay here until I – and I only – am convinced that you have recovered. Do you understand?’

  Sherlock’s head was spinning. He was desperate to explain himself. ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘but I am not insane!’

  ‘Nobody who is insane believes themselves to be insane,’ Williams said. ‘It is, I dare say, one of the defining characteristics of insanity.’ He nodded. ‘I have, as you might expect, made no small study of insanity. I was previously Assistant Doctor firstly at Derby County Asylum and then at the Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire County Asylum. Eight years ago I was appointed Assistant Physician here under Doctor William Hood, whom I succeeded six years ago as Resident Physician. I tell you this so that you know there is no way you can pull the wool over my eyes. I can tell when someone is mad, and I can tell when they are sane.’

  ‘But, sir—’ Sherlock started desperately.

  Williams kept talking, as if he hadn’t heard the interruption. ‘I am of the firm opinion that insanity is a hereditary disease of the brain. I have, for instance, seen several cases of babies delivered of women – I can hardly call them “ladies” – who are inmates here at Bethlehem. These babies were steeped in madness as they lay in the womb, and my attendants have told me that they have acted like devils from the moment they were born.’

  It occurred to Sherlock that any baby born in a place like Bedlam, with all its screams and cries and the slamming of doors, would be likely to scream and cry themselves, and that was regardless of whether their mothers were properly able to take care of them, but he kept quiet. He suspected that Dr Williams did not like to be interrupted when he was pontificating.

  ‘Under my predecessor, the esteemed Doctor Hood,’ Williams continued, ‘insanity was treated – if you can call it that – with drugs and with rest and with seclusion. This is not an approach that I believe works well. I would rather tie a patient down constantly than keep him always under the influence of a powerful drug. I have known cases of chronic insanity benefit materially – although not be cured entirely, of course – by a prolonged period of time in a padded cell. I have also observed several patients who were destructive and aggressive become as meek as lambs after several hours restrained in baths of warm water. This is my approach, and you will experience its benefits yourself. I hope that in time you will recover from the mania which you have so obviously displayed, and that you will be able to be released into society again.’ His gaze met Sherlock’s. ‘Now, do you have any questions?’

  Sherlock’s brain raced. How could he best convince Dr Williams that he wasn’t mad?

  ‘Am I displaying signs of mania now?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘You appear to be in a placid phase of your insanity,’ Williams said. ‘Mania goes in cycles.’

  ‘Then how do you know that I was displaying signs of mania?’

  ‘I have the reports of the policemen and other members of the public at the scene.’

  ‘If I do not display any further signs of mania,’ Sherlock went on carefully, ‘then how long will it be before you decide that I am either cured or that I was never mad at all?’

  ‘As to the first,’ Williams said, ‘I cannot observe you at all times. Just because you display no signs of mania now, that does not mean that at three o’clock tomorrow morning you will not be raving in your cell and banging your head against the walls. As to the second – well, of course you are mad to begin with. Why would you have been sent here otherwise?’

  Before Sherlock could respond to this obviously stupid remark, Williams rang the bell that sat beside the ledger.

  ‘If madness is hereditary,’ Sherlock said desperately, hearing the door opening behind him, ‘then how can it be cured? Surely by that definition people are born with it, in the same way that they might be born with red hair.’

  Williams stared at Sherlock as if he was disappointed by him. ‘Ah, a display of argumentativeness,’ he murmured. ‘A classic sign of incipient mania.’ He made a note in the ledger. ‘Take him away,’ he said, without looking up.

  A hairy hand closed over Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘Don’t make any trouble,’ the attendant advised. ‘Remember what I said.’

  Sherlock allowed himself to be pushed out of the room, across the hall, through the grille gate and along the gallery. Despair filled him. Unless something happened, unless Amyus Crowe could get him out, then he might be incarcerated there forever. How could Sherlock persuade a man like Dr Williams that he was sane when Williams believed that insanity was inherited, and that even arguing was a sign of madness? Nothing that Sherlock could do would change his mind!

  Padded cells. Being tied down. Restrained in a warm bath for hours on end. Was this what his future held for him? Was this the shape of the rest of his life?

  Not if he could help it.

  As he was led along the gallery, past the caged fires and the slitted windows, past the various men who paraded up and down or just stood around motionless, his brain was racing. If he couldn’t rely on the medical profession to realize that he was sane, and if he couldn’t rely on Amyus Crowe or brother Mycroft to get him out, then it was left to him. He had to escape by himself.

  ‘You’re allowed free association wiv the other inmates,’ the toothless attendant said. ‘Until lights out, that is, then you’re locked in your cell.
Sorry, I mean your room. Your palatial accommodation.’ He laughed. Sherlock could smell something rank coming from his mouth: a combination of tooth decay and tobacco. ‘Food trays will be bought along later. If there’s any trouble – if you start a fight, or start trying to cut yourself – then we’ll lock you up early. Understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ Sherlock said.

  ‘Good lad. I don’t think you’re goin’ to be any trouble at all, are you? I got a sense about these things. Be good and the years will just fly past.’

  He was still laughing as he got to the grille at the end of the gallery.

  Sherlock gazed around. There were six other inmates in the gallery. Two of them were walking up and down like mechanical toys, three were playing dice and the sixth was sitting against the wall, arms around his knees, rocking to and fro. The man who had been toasting the mouse earlier had vanished back into his cell, presumably to eat his feast in comfort. There were also two attendants: one at each end of the gallery. They were standing in a position where they could get a clear line of sight all the way down, but they looked bored. As long as a fight didn’t break out, Sherlock didn’t think they would be interested.

  Casually, he wandered back into his room. His cell. The moment he was out of sight of the attendants he slipped his jacket off. He ran his hands along the sleeves until he located a tear. It had probably been caused by whatever fracas he had got into just before he had been taken away to Bedlam.

  Carefully he pulled at a thread until it came loose. He followed the thread along the sleeve, pulling at it all the time, until he found the other end. A quick tug and it was away: a section of thread about a foot long. The material of the jacket sleeve was wrinkled now, pulled out of shape, but that didn’t bother him too much. Working rapidly but carefully, he managed to get another five threads loose. Once he had them all in his hand he put the jacket down and tied the threads together so that he had two long strands. Cautiously he tugged at them. The knots held firm.

  It was a start, at least.

  If there was one thing Sherlock was sure about, it was that he wasn’t going to spend the next few years in the Bethlehem Hospital. One way or the other, he was getting out.

  Sherlock ambled out of his straw-matted, brick-lined room, the threads from his jacket held bundled in his hand. He leaned against the door frame, as if watching what was going on in the corridor, but he was waiting for something. He was waiting for a distraction, and given that he was in a lunatic asylum he was fairly sure that a distraction was going to come along soon.

  It took nearly half an hour, but, just as he was about to give up, one of the dice players suddenly stood bolt upright. His hand was groping inside his jacket pocket.

  ‘My watch,’ he snarled. ‘It’s gone!’ He glowered at the man nearest him. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You fell against me a few minutes ago. You must’ve taken it then! You black dog!’

  A fight broke out, both men rolling on the flagstones of the gallery, trying to claw each other’s eyes out, while the gallery quickly filled up with shouting observers lured out of their rooms by the noise. The attendants rushed from opposite ends of the gallery, brandishing their clubs, hitting out to the left and to the right to clear a way through the growing crowd.

  Sherlock slipped to the other side of his door: the outside. The large metal bolt was at head height. Taking one thread he tied it around the handle of the bolt and then trailed it up the door and over the top, pressing it into a gap between two planks. The loose end now hung down on the inside of the door. When the door was closed and locked, it would be on Sherlock’s side.

  The second thread he also tied around the handle of the bolt, but this time he trailed it horizontally, towards the hinges. He passed the thread through the gap between the door and the frame, letting it rest on one of the hinges so that it didn’t fall. Again, he passed it through to the inside of the door, catching it on one of the rivets that held the door together so that it didn’t slip down.

  He checked over his shoulder. Nobody was watching. The attendants were laying into the fight now, splitting people up and cracking heads.

  Sherlock bent down and rubbed his hands on the flagstones, picking up as much dirt and dust as he could. Quickly he rubbed his hands along the two threads, blackening them and making them less visible. He imagined the attendants sliding the bolt across, flicking the handle down and locking him in for the night. If he was lucky they would do it automatically – slide, across, down – and the threads would be intact and unnoticed. And maybe – maybe – that would be the start of his escape.

  Finished for the time being, he moved out into the gallery to watch the fight being broken up. There was blood on heads, on the clubs and on the floor.

  ‘In your cells, all of you!’ one of the attendants called. ‘Now!’

  ‘What about food!’ someone yelled.

  ‘No food tonight. You’ve lost that privilege. Nothing till breakfast for you animals, and you’ll like it or lump it!’

  As the attendants began pushing people into their cells and bolting the doors, starting at the far end of the gallery, Sherlock glanced sideways. A man was standing in the doorway of the next cell along. His clothes were threadbare: so dusty that although they had started off different colours they were all now approaching the same shade of grey. His beard and hair were grey. Even his skin was grey.

  He glanced over at Sherlock. His eyes weren’t grey: they were a faded, watery blue.

  ‘Do I detect a new arrival?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘My name is Richard Dadd. I am exceptionally pleased to meet you.’ He extended a hand towards Sherlock. As Sherlock shook it, he noticed that Dadd’s hand was coloured in various shades of green and blue.

  Dadd noticed the direction of his gaze. ‘They allow me to paint,’ he explained. ‘They provide me with canvas and oils and turpentine. It makes the days pass quicker. The endless days.’

  Sherlock gazed at Dadd. ‘You seem . . . normal.’

  Dadd smiled. ‘You mean sane?’ He shrugged. ‘I believe that I am. Doctor Williams believes that I am not. We have a difference of opinion. Unfortunately, his opinion counts for more than mine does in this establishment.’

  The attendants had moved to about halfway between the end of the gallery and Sherlock’s cell now. Every few seconds another door would thud closed, and the bolt would be shot across, locking it. Within a few moments he would be locked away as well. Alone. Desperate for human conversation, if only with a lunatic, he asked: ‘What . . . what happened . . . to get you locked up here?’

  ‘It’s very simple, and very sad. My father was possessed by the very Devil himself. I killed him in Cobham Park. I stabbed him to death.’

  Sherlock felt as if someone had doused him in cold water. ‘And that’s why you are here?’ he heard himself saying.

  ‘That,’ Dadd admitted, ‘and the fact that I was apprehended on my way to murder the Austrian Emperor. It’s all a tragic misunderstanding, but Doctor Williams refuses to see it as such.’

  The attendants would be with them in a few moments. The gallery was becoming quieter and quieter as the inmates were locked away, one by one.

  ‘Take my advice,’ Dadd said urgently.

  ‘What’s that?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘Beware the Lady who walks in the night.’

  ‘The Lady?’ Sherlock asked, confused.

  ‘She walks the galleries late into the night on noiseless feet,’ Dadd confided, leaning towards Sherlock with a serious expression on his face. ‘They say she was a serving girl who fell in love with the son of the man in whose house she worked. When this son left home he gave her a guinea coin – pressed it into her hand as a gift. He got into his coach and drove away, but the next thing the family knew she was chasing after the coach, screaming. The family ran after her, but the shock of the son leaving had driven her senses from her. She was committed here, to Bedlam, and spent several years here, a
nd all that time she clutched that guinea in her fist and would not let it go, whatever the proffered compensation. She died with it still in her hand, they say, and her last request was that she be buried with the coin, but the story goes that a heartless attendant prised it from her cold, dead fingers. And so her spirit roams the corridors of this ghastly place every night since, forever searching for that lost coin, that gift from the man she loved and who loved her not. Her fingers clutch our trinkets in place of what she has lost.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ Sherlock said, but he could hear the uncertainty in his own voice. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something about Dadd’s serious expression, and the conviction in his voice, that gave Sherlock pause.

  ‘Perhaps so,’ Dadd said. ‘Perhaps so, but be watchful nevertheless. There are strange things that walk these galleries at night. Believe me. The boy who was in that room before you – he disappeared. Vanished suddenly and noiselessly. My suspicion is that the Lady came looking for her coin, and he saw her, so she took him instead.’

  The attendants had reached Dadd by now. He nodded his head to them courteously, and backed into his room. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said as he went. ‘Goodnight to you.’

  Next it was Sherlock’s turn. He backed into his room before they got to him. The thud of the door closing, and the metallic rattle of the bolt sliding shut, were the two most terrible sounds he had ever heard.

  He waited until the attendants had moved on, and he had heard the door and bolt on the next room thudding home, before he checked the threads. They were both intact. He tugged experimentally on both of them, taking up the slack. They seemed to be all right. Maybe, just maybe, his plan would work.

  But he had to wait until well after midnight to try it out.

  Aware that his stomach was empty and that he wasn’t going to get anything for at least another twelve hours, he sat on the straw-covered floor and rested his back against the cold, dank bricks. How did people survive here, night after night? How did they manage to keep . . . sane? The moment the word popped into his mind he found himself laughing. Of course. Most of them weren’t sane. Most of them. But Sherlock was, and he suspected that at least a handful of other people imprisoned in Bedlam were sane as well. Maybe they were eccentric, maybe they had opinions that were abhorrent to politicians or Church leaders, but that didn’t make them mad.