Stephen Gallagher - The Bedlam Detective

“See if he listens to you,” Dr. Sibley said sorrowfully. “He won’t to me.”

“But where would I settle?” Sir Owain said. “That’s the question. There’s no welcome for me in London. Not since the unpleasantness at the Royal Society. And this is the only real home I know.”

As well as driver and cook, Thomas Arnot was their server for the evening. The dining-room doors opened and he came in pushing a trolley, on which there was a white cloth and a plated copper tureen. He lifted the tureen onto the table and left them to it.

Dr. Sibley raised the lid on a rabbit consomme, releasing steam and an agreeable aroma, and Sir Owain said, “Mister Becker, I hope I’m not being inappropriate in mentioning it, but are you in mourning?”

“I am,” Sebastian said. “How did you know?”

“We get the London papers here,” Dr. Sibley said, showing some skill with the ladle.

“My dear sir,” Sir Owain said. “I’m devastated to hear of your wife’s passing.”

“Thank you.”

From then on, Sir Owain played the perfect host. Dinner consisted of a good pheasant each and a lot of easy conversation. The decanter passed around the table and Dr. Sibley was induced to tell some tales of his seafaring days as a ship’s medic in the Caribbean seas, prior to his meeting with Sir Owain. One of them had a supernatural theme, but he told it with a twinkle in his eye.

Though Sebastian was itching to see their talk move on to more germane matters, a part of him was wishing for a world where all could be as it appeared, and where he could enjoy this evening as much as his companions did. He had not known such masculine company, without issues or pressure, in a long time, and had never missed it so much as he did now.

Toward the end of the ghost story, Sir Owain’s man came in. He waited until the tale was over before clearing the plates and the bones.

He said to Sir Owain, “Will you need me for anything else tonight, sir?”

And Sir Owain said, “No, Thomas. Just bring us the pudding and the rest of the night’s your own.”

Dessert was a dish of vanilla-flavored cream. When they were done, Dr. Sibley started to collect their crockery together.

“Oh, leave it, man,” Sir Owain said. “Thomas will deal with all that in the morning.”

“Not on a Sunday, he won’t,” Dr. Sibley said.

“It can wait until Monday, then.”

“So we just close the dining-room doors on all the mess? And what will your guest think of us if we do?” He said it with a wink to Sebastian, who could imagine that the mariner in him was offended by such untidiness.

With good humor, Sir Owain pushed himself back from the table and let the physician get on with his domestic business. Sibley piled up the dessert dishes with Sir Owain’s barely touched portion on top.

Sebastian said, “May I have the use of your telephone? There’s a call I ought to make.”

“Come to my study,” Sir Owain said. “You can have some privacy there.”

Sebastian was led to the book-lined room where he’d conducted his first interview with the industrialist. The typewriting machine was still on the desk, but he saw no telephone until Sir Owain reached down and produced one from the drawer.

After making sure that Sebastian knew how to get a connection, Sir Owain withdrew. Within a few minutes Sebastian was speaking to Stephen Reed, who’d been awaiting this call.

Sebastian said, “All’s well. But it’s not the night we were hoping for.”

“No confession?”

“The pair of them are being downright sociable.”

“Don’t lower your guard,” Stephen Reed warned him.

“No, of course not. But I’ve watched Doctor Sibley account for most of a decent Burgundy, and if a man doesn’t make a slip after that, you start to wonder if there’s a slip to be made.”

As if in ironic counterpoint to his remark, at that moment there was an offstage crash from somewhere in the direction of the kitchens. The sound of breaking crockery is unique and was easy to identify.

Sebastian said, “I suspect that was him.”

“What should I do? Wait up for you?”

“No,” Sebastian said. “They’ve just dismissed their driver, so I imagine I’ll be offered a bed for the night.”

“Be sure you lock the bedroom door.”

“I’ll have a chair under the handle and my revolver under the pillow,” Sebastian said. “Don’t lose any sleep over me.”

At that point, he became aware of Sir Owain standing in the doorway. He hadn’t even heard the study door open. How long had the man been there? What had he heard? Sebastian quickly finished the conversation, ending it with a few neutral pleasantries that alerted Stephen Reed to the change in his situation.

When he saw that the call had ended, Sir Owain came fully into the room and settled himself into the second chair, across from Sebastian.

“So,” he said.

“So indeed,” said Sebastian, uncertain of where this was going.

“There was a piece of moving-picture film? What did it show?”

“Nothing conclusive,” Sebastian said. “Something or someone rushing at the camera.”

“Do you know who or what?”

“I’m in no position to say.”

Sir Owain said, “I know what your real suspicions are. You want to know if I could have killed those children. So do I.”

Sebastian started to frame a reply, then stopped. Sir Owain seemed entirely serious. Sebastian said, “ Did you kill them?”

“I don’t know,” Sir Owain said.

“But are you telling me it’s possible?”

“My heart says no. But I’m a scientist. I have to start by accepting that everything is possible, and then be guided to a proper conclusion by the evidence. Evidence-based thinking, Mister Becker. The greatest single achievement of the human animal. Without it we’d be praising God while shivering in our caves and dead by the age of thirty.”

“And what does the evidence tell you?”

“That I don’t have enough of it to form a reliable conclusion.”

Sebastian sat back in the captain’s chair. “This isn’t what I expected to hear,” he admitted.

“Nor is it what the good doctor would want me to say. But I won’t live a lie, Mister Becker. If a lie is what it is.”

“What makes you suspect yourself?”

“I’ve examined the timings. I can’t account for my whereabouts with any certainty.”

“Any blood on your clothes? Your hands?”

“A man who can kill and not know it can surely bathe and not know it.”

He stood up and indicated for Sebastian to follow him. Sebastian scrambled to his feet. This seemed too good to be true. He hadn’t dared to hope for a confession. Much less for Sir Owain to act as his own inquisitor.

As he led the way out into the hallway, Sir Owain said, “We’ll settle this tonight, you and I. Doctor Sibley is dedicated to the preservation of my health and my freedom. His livelihood depends on both. But I care nothing for either. In my time I have been an arrogant man. Experience has made me a humble one. I wish only to be judged as I deserve.”

He stopped and locked the study door behind them before walking on.

Sebastian said, “And tonight’s so-called celebration …?”

“Was my excuse to bring you here. And a way to disguise the direction of my thinking for the good doctor.”

“But the moment he sees your purpose, he’ll interfere.”

“I planned for that,” Sir Owain said, and they entered the kitchen.

The kitchen was a tall room, two stories high, on the north-facing side of the Hall. It was tiled in yellow, with a cement floor and visible pipework. A black iron range covered the length of one wall, with ovens and griddles enough for a dozen cooks to work at once.