Stephen Gallagher - The Bedlam Detective

“Here, sir.”

The station’s platform cart had been dragged into the room. A leaking crate stood upon it. The side of the crate had been opened, with some of its boards prized off and then replaced loose to shield the contents from view.

The three railway employees stood watching him, and none offered to explain. So he moved the loose boards and looked inside.

Inside the crate was a cylindrical, glass-lidded tank, roped into place. Folded blankets had been wedged in around the sides to cushion it. Staring out at him, crammed in like so much colorless fruit in a preserving jar, was a small dead freak.

Or two dead freaks that shared a head. Opinions might vary. It was as if in creation their faces had been mashed together to make one three-eyed, two-mouthed horror. Their bodies, as far as he could see, were normal.

To get them into the jar they’d been arranged in a tight embrace, arms wrapped around each other as if clinging in terror to the only reassurance that either of them knew. Their limbs must have softened, to fit the space in the jar so closely. The lid had been sealed on with strips of tarred linen.

The stationmaster said, “There are five more boxes like this on the train. We’re supposed to hold them for collection.”

Sebastian looked up at him.

“And?”

“That is some kind of a human child, is it not?”

Sebastian considered. He’d been expecting something suspicious concerning a trunk. Trunk murders, most of them involving dismemberment and left-luggage offices, were an enduring British obsession. He could recall one that had proved to be a consignment of theatrical costumes, unlaundered and reeking of glue and the sweat of performance.

This was something else.

He took a moment longer. Then he said, “I believe this should properly be called a specimen. Do you not recognize that rank smell?”

The three looked blank.

“It’s formaldehyde.”

Two of the three did their best to look enlightened.

He indicated the stain around the crate. “It’s either leaked or spilled. What happened here?”

With a pointed look at the lad, the guard said, “There was a mishap as the box was taken from the wagon. The box was dropped, something broke, and the smell came right after.”

The boy might have been looking embarrassed, but it was hard to tell. His expression barely changed.

The stationmaster said, “I stopped the unloading and took a decision to open the box. Specimen or no, sir, is there no special law to cover the transport of the dead?”

“You’d know that better than I would,” Sebastian said. “Who’s the owner of the crate?”

The guard handed him the consignment papers, and he gave them a quick look-over. The boxes had been packed and shipped by a carrier in New York. The contents of the six crates were described as “curiosities” and were to be collected by one Abraham Sedgewick or his representative.

Sebastian looked at the stationmaster. He said, “Do you know this Abraham Sedgewick? Is he a local man?”

The stationmaster made a small and helpless gesture, but the lad chipped in and spoke for the first time.

“Sedgewick’s Fair is passing through on Thursday,” he said.

Sebastian considered for a moment. “Well,” he said. “A fair. That makes a kind of sense. Does it not?”

They were all looking at him and expecting more.

Sebastian went on, “Created as specimens, bought to be exhibits. Destined for display in some fairground sideshow.”

“Specimens, exhibits,” the stationmaster said. “I don’t care what you call them. They’re dead bodies, and I don’t want them in my station.”

“Well,” the guard said, “they can’t stay on my train.”

They looked to Sebastian for some kind of adjudication. He realized that what they’d been seeking was neither a doctor nor a policeman, but a Solomon.

Meanwhile, his train stood waiting. And there was an urgency to his mission that, though he could not advertise it, argued against delay.

The fact of it was that he had no answer. Freak or not, these were human remains and there was probably some law to govern their storage and use. His employer might know. But Sir James was up in Dundee for the week, giving an address to the British Association.

He gave the bottled specimen a more intense inspection. Here, only inches from the glass, the smell of formaldehyde was almost overpowering.

He had an idea.

He said, “Have you opened any of the other boxes?”

“No,” the stationmaster said.

“Have you taken a close look at this?”

“As close as any man would care to.”

“Look,” he said, and beckoned the man in. “Get close enough and you can see a faint crazing pattern in the surface of the skin. What does that tell you?”

The stationmaster opened and closed his mouth and then was about to shrug, so Sebastian told him.

“I think you’ll find that what you’re looking at may not be flesh, but …”

“Wax!” the guard said suddenly.

The stationmaster seemed doubtful. He regarded the freak through its glass and said, “They’re waxworks?”

“Have you never heard of such a thing? Anatomical models. Bottled up in spirits of alcohol for a showman’s trick. Of course,” he added for safety, “that’s only my guess.”

Then he looked into the milky eyes of the three-eyed freak, and the dead freak stared ahead and through him as if refusing to meet his gaze.

He felt a touch of guilt.

But hadn’t he witnessed worse things in this world? And the freak was long dead.

And as for the guard, he had all the answer that he needed.

He clapped his hands together. “Right,” he said. “I’ll have the rest of your goods off my train and we’ll be on our way.”

As the lad went to unload the other crates, the stationmaster crouched down and peered more closely into the jar. All of his reticence was forgotten now.

“A waxwork,” the stationmaster said, and he looked up at Sebastian with a face of wonder where, before, there had been only disgust.

“Indeed,” said Sebastian.

“Who’d have imagined that?” the stationmaster said. “You don’t see it till you really look.”

The unloading of the boxes took another fifteen minutes. Once the train was moving again, Sebastian opened his book and tried to read.

The reading was not for pleasure; behind the content of the book lay one of the reasons for his journey. If he arrived too late to seek out the author this afternoon, he could finish it in his hotel.

He was keeping alive a glimmer of hope for a decent supper. His warrant might give him first class travel out of London, but the restaurant car was beyond his means.

To those hopes of a quiet evening and a decent supper he added another, which was not to dream of carnival freaks in a strange bed.

In the event, he did not. But only because worse was to come, before the day was out.

After the goods dispute and an unscheduled crossroads stop to pick up some soldiers, Sebastian reached his destination almost an hour late. There was an address on the slip of paper that he’d been using as a bookmark. He took it out to check it now. He had a room reserved by telegram at the Sun Inn, Arnmouth.

Arnmouth was a resort that had been established close to an estuary, where the lack of a suitable bridging point had sent the railway line inland. Which meant that the station was more than a mile from the town, with a horse wagon service to carry passengers and their luggage over the final leg of the journey.

Sebastian had no luggage to speak of, just his usual leather Gladstone. While the other passengers were seeing their bags onto the station wagon, he watched the soldiers climbing into the back of a waiting motor truck. They were a squad of teenaged boys and a gray-headed sergeant. All had ridden the last few miles together in the baggage car. Their transport now was a petrol-driven three-tonner with cart wheels and a canvas cover, and an engine noise like spanners tumbling in a drum.