Alan Petrillo - Asylum Lane

Bootham Park Lunatic Asylum sprawled across ten acres of neglected lawn and gardens, surrounded by a stout, eight-foot high iron fence, topped with sharpened points on the uprights, which kept the asylum inmates inside while preventing anyone from wandering uninvited onto the grounds. Only three gates pierced the iron fence around the property. The south gate lay at the chapel entrance on the southeast corner, the main gate was on the northeast along Asylum Lane, and a service gate occupied the farthest northwest reach of Asylum Lane where the building stood closest to the fence.

Four men stood across from the northwest gate in the shadows of the trees lining the front of the cricket ground, talking in low murmurs and occasionally stamping their feet to ward off the early morning chill. Across the lane, lights showed dimly along the two wings that were visible from the street, as well as in the more brightly-lit main reception area.

The smallest of the men stepped to the edge of the pavement and studied the building across the road, scratching at the collection of scraggly whiskers on his chin.

“When do we go over there?” Snow, the near-white-blond with the quavering voice, asked him.

Harry Fletcher looked up into the dark sky, as if sniffing the air for a sign of trouble, then turned his gaze back toward the asylum. He ran his hand over the black eye patch covering his left eye and breathed deeply.

“In a bit,” he said. “Patience, me boy.”

Behind them Kendrew and Moses slapped at each other’s face, trying for a hit that would leave a red handprint on the other’s cheek. A flurry of open handed blows by Moses sent Kendrew reeling backward into the bushes, crashing through the underbrush. He let loose with a loud string of oaths.

“Shut up you two bloody buggars,” Fletcher hissed. “You arseholes will give the caper away.”

Grinning broadly, Moses extended a hand to Kendrew and pulled him to his feet.

“Next time,” Kendrew said, pointing at Moses’s chest. “Just wait, matey.”

The asylum had been constructed in the form of the letter H to allow a series of windows for light and ventilation to be set in the four wings emanating from the central reception area. Bootham Park was built in 1831 as York’s workhouse and functioned in that capacity until 1901 when the city councilors converted it to a containment area for the infirm of mind.

“Boys, there’s absolutely nothing moving over there. No watchman or guards of any kind. Let’s go and get the girl,” Fletcher said.

The foursome loped across the road in a ragged line, down the gravel drive and up to the portico at the end of the northwest wing.

Fletcher stood to one side. “Put a bar to the door.”

Kendrew pulled a short length of iron from under his coat and inserted its flat tip into the door jamb immediately above the latch. He leaned on the bar, pushing it as far into the joint as possible, then levered it back. The door popped open amid a shower of wood splinters and the sound of snapping wood.

Fletcher stood listening in the dim light spilling from the opening. Turning to the three men behind him, he grinned.

“Let’s be on our way. Snow and Moses, make sure that she’s kept quiet.”

Moses and Snow sprinted ahead, but stopped halfway down the hallway in front of a locked door. Moses ran his hands over the door’s edges to test its solidity, then looked back at the others.

“The bar won’t do for this one. But we can take it down if we hit it together.”

The four men retreated ten feet and assembled in a wedge formation. On Fletcher’s word, they hurled themselves into the wooden door, ripping it from its frame and sending it crashing into the corridor beyond.

At the instant the intruders assaulted the door, an attendant stood on the opposite side, twisting an iron key in the door’s lock. Startled from a near slumber by the splintering sound of the exterior door, John Benson had bestirred himself and shuffled down the hallway to investigate. As he turned the key, the door crashed down on top of him, pinning him to the floor.

Fletcher and Kendrew ran across the door, then stopped past the other end to pull it off Benson. As the old man raised his hands, Kendrew smashed his head with the iron bar.

Snow and Moses continued along the corridor to room 114. Stopping outside the door, Snow touched the card pinned to the doorframe, tracing the neatly-printed letters with his fingers. He looked blankly at Moses.

“What’s it read?”

Moses squinted at the card. “Jane Waddington,” he announced. “Tis the woman we want.” He cocked his head toward the interior. “Let’s take her.”

Snow turned the latch, but the door didn’t budge. He pressed his shoulder against the heavy door, but it still stuck fast.

Moses stood to the side, a bemused smile on his face. “Snow, you bloody moron, go back and tell Fletcher we need a key for the door.”

A glint of recognition washed over Snow’s face, and he raced down the corridor, nearly bowling over Fletcher as he turned a corner.

“The woman’s door is locked, Fletcher. We need a key.”

Fletcher returned to the unconscious attendant and rifled the man’s pockets, fishing a key from the front left. He held it up for Snow to inspect. “Here’s our ticket, me boy. Come with me.”

Fletcher entered the dimly-lit room and immediately saw a woman sleeping in the narrow bed against the wall. Snow reached past him and pulled back the blanket, exposing the woman in her white, full length nightgown. She shivered in the night chill.

Fletcher pulled the top off of a tin can and removed a chloroform-soaked rag, wrinkling his nose as the sickly-sweet smell wafted into the room.

“This should do nicely,” he said as he applied the rag softly to the sleeping woman’s nose. She continued to breathe regularly and slept without interruption.

Within minutes, Snow and Fletcher bundled the unconscious woman into the blanket, and tied thin ropes around her chest and thighs to prevent her from falling out. Fletcher snatched a handful of clothes from pegs on the wall and threw them on top of the blanket. He then whistled lightly.

Kendrew and Moses entered the small room and lifted the woman from the bed. They carried her down the corridor, struggling not to drop her, and at the doorway to the service entrance, Snow helped them through the opening. Fletcher, the last to leave the asylum, pulled the broken door shut behind him and then disappeared into the black night.

The day dawned clear and chilly, a sure sign that spring had not yet arrived in full force. Round Freddy pulled on his mackintosh and lumbered down the steps of the flat to the ground floor. The bracing air stung his cheeks and he pulled his collar up close around his chin as he trudged toward the corner. A two-wheeled gig occupied the cab stand at the end of St. Helen’s Square, its driver dozing on the front seat, bundled against the chill. Round Freddy arrived as a Morris motorcar taxi pulled away and noisily sped down the street. He rapped on the carriage’s side as he hauled himself into the rear seat.

“Wake up, driver; you have a fare. To the Central York Police Station on Church Street, if you please. And you can make it at a leisurely trot.”

Only a few constables talking in low tones inhabited the station house at that early hour. One policeman, a disgusted look on his face, rubbed dirt and grime from his jacket sleeve, the occupational hazard of retrieving a drunk from the gutter and confining him to a holding cell in the cellar to sleep it off.