Dark Asylum Read online

  ‘Have you enjoyed your time as superintendent?’ I said. ‘I believe Dr Hawkins is back soon.’ Dr Rutherford did not reply. His fingers tightened about my wrist as he drew out his pocket watch. Seconds passed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘There are some interesting cases here. I think you may benefit from my methods one day.’ ‘But I’m not mad,’ I said.

  ‘No, you are not. Not yet, at any rate.’

  ‘Your methods hold no value for me, sir,’ I said.

  ‘No?’ He smiled. ‘You are thinking of Letty. And yet, her condition was remedied, you must allow that much.’

  ‘But at what price?’

  He bent his face close to mine. ‘My dear Mr Flockhart,’ he whispered. ‘Life always comes at a price.’

  Letty. She was often in my mind, though I tried hard not to think of her. She was one of Dr Rutherford’s patients at Angel Meadow, and he was interested in her because she appeared to demonstrate the accuracy of his theories. Dr Rutherford made no secret of his devotion to phrenology, that study of the contours of the head that purported to reflect the aptitudes and characteristics of the person who possessed it. He owned a collection of two hundred human skulls and over fifty plaster death-masks, each of which belonged to those he termed ‘deviants’, who were either mad or criminals. He carried a pair of anthropometric callipers in his pocket at all times, just in case he might suddenly find himself in the company of someone with an especially interesting cranium. Some months earlier I had attended a lecture on phrenology that he had given to some medical students. The week after, I witnessed a new surgical procedure, based upon Dr Rutherford’s work, which Rutherford himself carried out in his rooms at Angel Meadow. The patient Letty was the object of his attentions.

  ‘There are those who are violent in their madness,’ Dr Rutherford said as we waited for Letty to be brought up. ‘In these people the organs of destructiveness are enlarged. Sometimes grotesquely so. The skull of the patient I have chosen clearly demonstrates this – be sure to observe the contours behind the ears once she is restrained. If we might excise the corresponding area of the brain, then it follows that there should be a diminution of violence. The subject will be rendered placid.’

  ‘Or dead,’ Dr Golspie muttered. ‘At best a walking vegetable, we cannot be sure.’ Dr Golspie was in attendance to administer a new drug, chloroform, which would keep the patient sedated. ‘I’ve tried it on myself repeatedly,’ he said, dripping a clear fluid onto a pad of gauze. ‘And I can gauge the correct amount easily. It’s imperative that the patient does not move – I’d hate Dr Rutherford to slice off her “organ of hope” instead of her “organ of destructiveness”.’

  ‘I don’t imagine she has an organ of hope,’ Will said. ‘It will surely have withered away to nothing by now.’

  ‘I can’t think why you need to be here,’ said Dr Rutherford.

  Will did not answer. In truth, he was there because I was there. ‘You, alone with Rutherford, a bottle of chloroform, and a knife?’ he’d said. ‘No, Jem. I’ll come with you, no matter what.’

  ‘Dr Golspie will be there,’ I’d replied. ‘It’s surgery, Will. Brain surgery.’

  ‘All the more reason for me to come.’

  And I? I was there because Dr Rutherford had insisted. Were the job to prove a success, he said, I might like to consider a similar procedure for myself should my own hereditary malady appear.

  Dr Rutherford had selected Letty because she was subject to violent fits of temper and was often put into the strait waistcoat. She had no relations – none that appeared to care what happened to her at any rate – and of course, once one entered a mad house all notions of habeas corpus were left at the asylum gates. It was only the humanity of Dr Hawkins that ensured that the inmates of Angel Meadow were, on the whole, treated with sensitivity and compassion. But Dr Hawkins was not there, and Dr Rutherford had very different ideas.

  I shall never forget it: the bewildered babbling and sobbing of the patient as she was brought into the doctor’s lamplit consulting room, row upon row of phrenology skulls and plaster death-masks peering down at us in a glimmering sightless audience. Then came the creak of leather as Dr Rutherford tightened the strap that held the woman’s head against the operating table, the sweetish smell of chloroform, and the visceral tang of blood as Dr Rutherford sliced through the scalp. The room filled with the acrid reek of hot bone as the circular saw sliced through; and then we saw that pearlescent organ, the soul and centre of our very being, pale and glistening, exposed to the world. How little we knew of its mysteries, I thought, and how dare we assume we might change human nature by slicing it up like a piece of fruit.

  Dr Rutherford took hold of a scalpel. He sliced away a sliver of brain. Then another. Then another, the way he might carve himself slices of brawn. He laid the slices on a saucer, as if about to add them to a sandwich. Beside me, Will’s breathing became laboured.

  ‘Struggling, Mr Quartermain?’ Dr Rutherford said.

  ‘I’m quite well, Dr Rutherford,’ replied Will faintly. He took a surreptitious whiff from his bottle of salts. ‘Let us hope your patient will soon be able to say the same.’

  In fact, the patient said nothing of the kind. Indeed, she said nothing at all ever again. Certainly she recovered, which is to say that she did not die. And yet in my view she did not live either. From that day on she neither spoke, nor demonstrated any sign of intelligent thought whatsoever. She spent her days standing motionless, staring out at the grass of the quadrangle as if waiting for the return of her former self.

  Dr Rutherford released my wrist and slipped his watch back out of sight. ‘There was much in Letty that resonated with Gall’s later work,’ he said. He bent towards me again, his face inches from mine, and peered into first one eye, and then the other. ‘More inquiries are needed, however. Experimentation. Observation. I have found the means to take things further.’ Dr Rutherford stood up straight. ‘Well, Mr Flockhart,’ he said. ‘Everything seems to be in order.’

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’

  A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and slim, with thin blond hair and pale blue eyes. His lashes were white, giving him a curious, squinting appearance. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his topcoat drawn back, a gold watch dangling from a chain looped across his waistcoat buttons.

  ‘Good day, Christie,’ said Dr Rutherford.

  The man grinned. ‘Has he measured your head with his callipers yet?’ he said. ‘I won’t let him near me with them. I assume you’ve measured yourself, Rutherford?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Dr Rutherford, stiffly. ‘My organ of benevolence is especially well developed.’

  Dr Christie laughed. ‘I’ll wager that there’s a few patients who might disagree. Hello there, Quartermain.’

  ‘Good day to you, sir,’ said Will, stepping forward to shake the fellow’s hand. ‘What a surprise! What on earth brings you here?’

  ‘Me? I’m the consulting physician. I’ve been in the post for a month or two now – in addition to my duties at the House of Correction – and I must say I’m quite delighted by the appointment.’ He grinned, and rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve not seen you here before, though that’s perhaps not surprising as I’m kept busy in the custodial wards. Like Rutherford here I’m particularly interested in lunatics of a criminal disposition – women, obviously. But all that’s as clear as day. What’s more of a mystery is what on earth you might be doing here!’

  ‘Why, we’re practically neighbours,’ said Will. ‘My friend and I live not two streets away, at the apothecary on Fishbait Lane—’

  ‘You’re not an apothecary, Quartermain.’

  ‘No, sir. But my friend Jem – Mr Flockhart – is. He and I are partners, so to speak, though our professions are quite different.’

  ‘And is this your friend here?’

  ‘If I might introduce you, sir,’ said Will. ‘Jem, this is Dr Christie. He’s consulting physician at the Surrey House of Correction
– my current employer, if you like!’

  Like so many buildings in London, the Surrey House of Correction was in a sorry state of disrepair. In Will’s view it needed to be demolished and rebuilt entirely. But the governors were unconvinced and the prison – for such it was – was to be altered and expanded as cheaply as possible. Will had been tasked with drawing up the plans for these modifications. The drains – and the sewers – were causing him particular problems. Drains and sewers were a problem for everyone in London. I saw a frown darken Will’s face, and I knew he was thinking about the place.

  ‘Jem Flockhart, sir,’ I said. ‘Apothecary – formerly of St Saviour’s Infirmary.’

  Dr Christie stepped forward to shake my hand. ‘St Saviour’s?’ He looked at me so closely that for a moment I thought he was about to pull out his spectacles. Then, ‘I was sorry to hear of your troubles,’ he said. His voice was soft. ‘Your father hanged for a crime he did not commit – it’s enough to turn anyone mad. “In the world you will have tribulation.” John, sixteen, thirty-three.’ He shook his head. ‘Never a truer word, eh?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said.

  ‘Still.’ He smiled again. ‘Let us hope for better things ahead. And you’re friends with Mr Quartermain here?’

  I nodded. ‘Will’s a fine draughtsman, sir,’ I said. ‘He has a keen eye for detail.’

  Dr Christie’s fingers were as cool and smooth as marble. He was staring at my birthmark, and I knew he had not heard a word of what I had just said. ‘Well, well,’ he murmured, releasing my hand at last. Then, ‘Such a physiognomy! Rutherford, have you taken the fellow’s likeness?’

  ‘He will not allow it,’ said Dr Rutherford. They spoke to one another as if I were not there, or as if I were too addle-pated to answer their questions myself.

  Dr Christie took up his watch absently, and began turning it over and over between his fingers, his still gaze fixed upon my face. ‘Such a pity,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps he might permit me—’ His lashes fluttered like moths. My eyes are sharp, and I could just make out the words engraved upon his watch as it slipped beneath his fingers: To Dr John Forbes Christie, from the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane. The man was too young for the watch to be his own. Was it his father’s perhaps? Might not the son follow in his parent’s footsteps?

  ‘Oh, he won’t permit anyone,’ said Dr Rutherford. His face was close too, now, his gaze sweeping over my birthmark, so that for a moment I thought he was going to touch it. ‘Amazing, isn’t it? This is the fellow I told you about—’

  All at once it was as though Will was not there at all, as though there was no one in that asylum but Dr Rutherford, Dr Christie and me. Was it my imagination, or had there been something mocking about the way Rutherford had said the word ‘fellow’? I felt as a bird must, caught in the stare of a pair of cobras: I could not flinch, could not blink, or all would be lost.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ said Will. He sounded flustered. Had he noticed it too?

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing, Mr Quartermain,’ said Dr Rutherford. ‘Just a little matter of interest to Christie and myself—’

  ‘You must have found the tropics trying, Dr Rutherford,’ I said suddenly. ‘Those of a fair complexion often do. Some would call that madness – when a man is so afflicted by heatstroke that he hardly knows his own name. Others might say he is never the same—’

  Alook of surprise and confusion crossed Dr Rutherford’s face. ‘Why, yes,’ he stammered. ‘How did you—?’

  ‘The skin about your eyes betrays your time abroad,’ I said. ‘The sun in the southern hemisphere leaves its mark – freckles, crow’s feet – after only two or three summers. The scars about your forehead from a severe erythema solare confirm it. We seldom have the heat in England for such blisters. Did you go mad, sir?’

  ‘Erythema solare?’ said Will.

  ‘Sunburn,’ I said. ‘Dr Rutherford once caught the sun quite badly. Such burns are likely to have been accompanied by delirium, at least.’

  Dr Rutherford put a hand up to the patches of pale pink skin that mottled his hairline. ‘I forgot my hat,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t out for long, but the heat—’ He shook his head. ‘The sun almost killed me. I should have known better!’

  ‘India?’ I said.

  He smiled at that. ‘No, Mr Flockhart, there are places in the world where the sun is far hotter.’

  ‘Amazing, Jem,’ cried Will.

  ‘Merely observation,’ I said.

  ‘Oh? And what do you observe from me?’

  ‘Everything, Will,’ I replied. ‘I know you too well.’

  ‘Christie then? What can you tell us about him?’

  ‘I think you would be better off asking his sister.’

  ‘A sister?’ said Will. ‘Really, Jem, you’re guessing now—’

  ‘I rarely guess,’ I said. In fact, I had guessed a little. But I wished now I had kept my observations to myself for I did not want to explain – and yet Will was insistent—

  ‘Very well then,’ he said, laughing. ‘How did you conclude it?’

  ‘From the doctor’s waistcoat. It’s quite clear.’

  ‘Then I must be very stupid, for I can’t for the life of me see how. Can you, Dr Christie?’

  The doctor’s smile had vanished. ‘Do illuminate, Mr Flockhart.’

  ‘You wear an embroidered waistcoat,’ I said. ‘The work is – forgive me – poorly executed. There are missing stitches and the tension is all wrong. Would any man wear such a garment if he did not feel compelled to do so out of love or duty? You are not married – I see no wedding ring – and a fiancée or mother would surely make a better job of it. No, the work speaks of youth – inexperience and impatience. And yet it was completed, and completed for you. A sister is the most likely explanation. A young one, perhaps, but one old enough to attempt a fashionable garment. The cut and the colours are modish even if the implementation is—’ I hesitated. Had I gone too far?

  ‘Maladroit?’ supplied Dr Christie.

  I inclined my head in agreement. ‘Inexpert.’

  Dr Christie said nothing.

  ‘Jem,’ said Will quietly. ‘The girl may be deceased—’

  ‘The waistcoat is perhaps a year old, at most,’ I said. ‘Dr Christie is wearing no items of mourning. I would not have spoken otherwise, Will. I do have some sensitivity.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Dr Christie. ‘Very interesting.’ He was silent for a moment. Then, ‘I also see that I shall have to watch you, Mr Flockhart. And watch myself – I would not want all my secrets to be uncovered so easily.’ A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, but quickly fell away. ‘Would you?’

  I was glad to leave them, Dr Rutherford and Dr Christie. They made me uneasy, though I could not say why. The way they looked at me, and at each other, as though they shared some sort of delicious secret – how glad I would be when Dr Hawkins returned. But not everything was disquieting about Angel Meadow, and I had at least one friend in the place.

  ‘Pole,’ I said to the attendant who was escorting us back down the stairs. ‘Is Dr Golspie in, d’you know?’ Pole was a curious-looking individual with weathered skin textured by pockmarks and scars. His hair grew patchily upon his head and some sort of palsy pulled at the right side of his face, dragging his lip and the rim of his eye downwards. He gazed at me with his one good eye, his hanging lip quivering. I tut-tutted. Why one as ugly as he might stare me out of countenance was a mystery, and I had had enough of being looked at for one day. ‘What is it, Pole?’ I said. ‘If you want an ugly face to look at you might well take a peek in a mirror. Is Dr Golspie here or not? We have a package for him.’

  Pole nodded, leading us forward in silence, his hands thrust deep into the oily pockets of his shapeless coat. He kept close to the wall, moving noiselessly from one shadow to another so that it was as though we were guided forward by some hideous shambling apparition. At length we came to the door that led through to the men’s wing. Pol
e put a hand on my arm.

  ‘I’ll tell you what turns a man mad, sir,’ he said suddenly. ‘It’s cruelty and injustice, that’s what does it.’ He leaned in close, as if divulging a secret. The smell of dirt and stale tobacco from his coat made my gorge rise. ‘All on us is mad at some time or other. And when we are, well, then we do things no man can explain, and no judge can forgive.’

  He stepped back then, his face waxier than ever in the dim lamplight. All at once it seemed to be filled with sorrow, as if his eye was worn away by tears, his lip weighted down with misery and despair at the way we treated one another. And then he coughed and spat a blob of phlegm onto the stone floor and leered up at me, so that the effect was instantly dispelled, and there once more was the repulsive, palsy-faced turnkey.

  ‘Thank you, Pole,’ I said.

  I could feel the man’s eye watching us as we walked away, but when I looked back the door was closed. Perhaps there was a peephole in it through which he was regarding me. I would not be surprised. There had been all manner of changes since Dr Rutherford had assumed the role of superintendent.

  Dr Golspie had a consulting room on the ground floor of the men’s wing. Formerly a patient’s bedroom, Dr Golspie had done his best to make it his own. He had painted the walls a muddy green – a restful colour chosen for its soothing properties. These were adorned with calming watercolours depicting nebulous rural scenes. He deliberately avoided clutter, and the disturbing paraphernalia of his profession – skeleton, bottles and instruments, lurid anatomy books – were absent, the room minimally furnished with nothing but a table and two chairs, both bolted to the floor, and a heavy chaise longue. Anything else he brought with him in his bag and took away again at the end of the day. Dr Golspie had graduated from medical school some two years earlier and had decided to pursue a career amongst the mad.