The Queen of Bedlam (35 page)

“Came to you?” Matthew interrupted; he was in his element now, and he could almost feel the blood flowing in his brain. “Exactly how?”

“Was brought to us,” Ramsendell corrected. He answered the next question before Matthew could ask it. “By a lawyer in Philadelphia. Icabod Primm, of Market Street. He had written us previously, and visited us, to make certain his client would be satisfied.”

“Hold on.” Greathouse was totally bumfuddled. “His client? I thought you said you didn’t know who she was. Is, I mean.”

“We don’t.” By Hulzen’s sour expression, he was beginning to think Greathouse was something of a lout. “We’re trying to tell you.”

“More directly then, please,” said Matthew crisply. “How is it this woman arrived here nameless yet represented by a Philadelphia lawyer?”

“Mr. Primm,” came the reply from Ramsendell, “never spoke to her by any other term but either ‘Madam’ or ‘Lady.’ If he spoke to her at all, which as I remember was not very often and anyway she was in the exact same state you see her in now. His letters mentioned a ‘client’ but no name whatsoever. We are paid a yearly fee-quite a large fee, by the way-to keep Madam in her present accommodations, apart from the other patients and living amid familiar objects from her…shall I say…previous life. She has never had a visitor, but every April sixteenth the money has come by messenger from Mr. Primm, who told us that very first April, four years ago, that any effort on our part to discover Madam’s identity and history will result in his immediately removing her from this hospital. He has stated that his client has given him full power of representation, and so we signed the letter of admittance according to the terms.”

“His client.” Greathouse spoke it with some distaste. “Some young cur who married a wealthy older woman and then stashed her here when her mind went? So he takes the fortune and even strips her wedding ring off?”

“We considered that and rejected it.” Hulzen had fired up his pipe again and was standing beside the window with the garden view. “What you must understand, Mr. Greathouse, is that we are involved in an experimental treatment here. We have the belief that persons with mental disorders might be helped, and someday possibly returned to society. That’s why we built these four rooms in this house, so we might pursue that treatment with patients who would benefit from being in more familiar surroundings rather than the austerity of the asylum. At least we hoped that, when we began.”

“A room in this part of our hospital is, as I said, very expensive,” Ramsendell continued. “We doubt that someone would-as you put it-‘stash’ a relative here, or care to provide all these beautiful furnishings. No, we feel certain that Mr. Primm’s client cares very deeply for Madam’s welfare. Obviously Primm must have looked into the Quaker institution for similar living accommodations and was told about our hospital by them.”

“Is this lady the only current occupant here?” Matthew asked.

“No, there’s another elderly woman in the first room. Unfortunately she’s bedridden. But we do know her name and her circumstances, and her son and two daughters make frequent visits. We are gratified to say that we’ve helped her regain some of her power of speech.”

“This makes no sense,” Greathouse said, a horn’s pitch too loudly. “Why are you trying to find out anything about this woman at all, if-” He stopped, for the lady in the chair had given the softest whisper of a sigh. Her mouth moved again, making no noise. Matthew saw her eyes follow a bluejay that darted past the window. When Greathouse spoke again, it was the verbal equivalent of walking on eggs. “If,” he said, “you’ve been forbidden to do so by Mr. Primm?”

“Simply put,” answered Ramsendell, “we are not whores.”

“Well,” Greathouse said, with a nervous laugh, “I never suggested such.”

“My point being, we are physicians. Professional healers. Madam has been here for four years with no change whatsoever. Curtis and I believe that if we knew her history, we might be able to”-he paused, assembling his sentence-“help her out of this shell she has constructed to keep the world at bay. We think she has suffered a severe shock, and this is her mind’s method of survival.” He waited to make sure Greathouse and Matthew had grasped his diagnosis. “Yes, we have gladly accepted the money from Mr. Primm and put it to good purpose in the hospital. And yes, we signed the letter of terms fully aware of its limitations. But that was four years ago. You are here today, gentlemen, because we wish you to discover Madam’s identity and history without the involvement of Mr. Primm.”

Matthew and Greathouse looked at each other. Their unspoken question was Can it be done?

“There’s another thing you might find of interest.” Ramsendell walked to the table where the Earwig lay. He picked the broadsheet up and held it for the visitors to see. “As I said, Madam likes to be read to. Occasionally she nods or makes a soft sound that I take to be approval as I’m reading the Bible or one of the other books. On Friday evening after supper I was reading to her from this sheet. For the first time, she repeated a word that she heard me say.”

“A word? What was it?” Greathouse asked.

“To be exact, it was a name.” Ramsendell put his finger upon the news item. “Deverick.”

Matthew remained silent.

“I read the article again, but there was no response,” said Ramsendell. “No spoken response, that is. I saw by the lamplight that Madam was weeping. Have you ever seen anyone weep without making a noise, sirs? Or changing their expression from what it is day in and day out, hour after hour? But there were the tears, crawling down her cheeks. She demonstrated an emotional reaction to that name, which is extremely remarkable because we’ve seen no emotion from her for the four years of her residence.”

Matthew stared down at the woman’s profile. She was perfectly immobile, not even her lips moving to betray the secret thoughts.

“I read the article to her several times with no further incident. I’ve spoken the name to her and gotten only a sigh or shift of position. But I saw your notice and I began to wonder if you might help, for this is certainly a problem to be solved. So Curtis and I discussed this, I went to New York on Saturday, left the inquiry, and came back yesterday.”

“The mention of one name doesn’t mean anything,” Greathouse scoffed. “I’m surely no expert, but if she’s not right in the head, then why should the name have meaning for her?”

“It’s the fact that she made the effort.” Hulzen’s face was daubed orange as he put another match to his pipe. “Also the evidence of the tears. We feel very strongly that she does know that name, and in her own way was trying to tell us something.”

Now Greathouse began to get his back up. “Beg pardon, but if that evidence was stuffing for a mattress you’d be sleeping on a board.”

Matthew decided to do one simple thing before the wrangling could grow into argument. He knelt down beside the woman, looked at her profile, which was as still as a portrait, and said quietly, “Pennford Deverick.”

Was there a brief flicker of the eye? Just the merest tightening of the mouth, as a line deepened almost imperceptibly at its corner?

“Pennford Deverick,” he repeated.

The two doctors and Hudson Greathouse watched him without comment.

There was no response from Madam that Matthew could tell, yet…did her left hand clutch the armrest a fraction more firmly?

He leaned closer. He said, “Pennford Deverick is dead.”

Her head suddenly and smoothly turned and Matthew was looking directly into her face. The abruptness of this made him gasp and almost topple backward, but he held his position.

“Young man,” she said in a clear, strong voice, and though her expression was exactly the same as when she’d been watching the fireflies her tone carried an edge of irritation, “has the king’s reply yet arrived?”

“The…king’s reply?”

“That was my question. Would you answer, please?”

Matthew looked to the doctors for help, but neither spoke nor offered assistance. Hulzen continued to smoke his pipe. It occurred to Matthew that they had heard this question before. “No, madam,” he nervously responded.

“Come fetch me when it does,” she said, and then her face turned toward the window again and Matthew felt her moving away from him even though the physical distance did not alter an atom. In another few seconds she was somewhere very far away.

Ramsendell said, “That’s why she’s called the Queen. She asks that question several times a week. She asked Charles one day if the king’s reply had arrived, and he told the others.”

Matthew tried again, for the sake of attempt. “Madam, what was your question to the king?”

There was no reaction from her whatsoever.

Matthew stood up. He was still thoughtfully absorbed in watching her face, which had now become that of a statue. “Have you ever told her the reply had arrived?”

“I have,” Hulzen said. “Just as an experiment. She seemed to be waiting for some other action on my part. When I failed to do whatever it was she expected, she went back into her dream state.”

“Dream state,” Greathouse muttered under his breath.

Matthew was suddenly aware that, as he stared at the Queen of Bedlam, he was also being keenly watched in turn by four other faces.

He looked up, at what caught yellow lamplight there on the opposite wall next to the window.

His mouth was very dry.

He said with what seemed an effort, “What are those?”

“Oh.” Ramsendell motioned toward them. “Her masks.”

Matthew was already walking around behind the Queen’s chair, past Greathouse and the two doctors to the four masks that hung upon the wall. He hadn’t seen them before, as his attention had been so firmly fixed upon the lady. Two of the masks were plain white, one red with black diamond shapes upon the cheeks, and the fourth black with the shapes of red diamonds framing the eyeholes.

“They came with her,” Ramsendell said. “I think they may be Italian.”

“No doubt,” Matthew murmured; he was thinking of what Ashton McCaggers had told him: In the Italian tradition, carnival masks are sometimes decorated with colored diamond or triangle shapes around the eyes. Particularly the harlequin masks of-

“Venice,” Matthew said, and looked across the room at the blue-toned painting that depicted the city of canals. “She may have visited there, at some time.” He was speaking mostly to himself. Again he regarded the quartet of masks. Then back to the woman’s face. Then at the copy of the Earwig still clutched in Ramsendell’s hand.

Matthew was, in a way, measuring the distance between all these things as surely as if he were a surveyor’s compass. Not the physical distance, but the space between them in terms of meaning. The Queen’s face in calm tranquility, the masks upon the wall, the broadsheet, and back and forth and forth and back. From Deverick to masks, he thought. Or should that be from Deverick to Masker?

“What is it?” asked Greathouse, sensing turbulence where Matthew was standing.

Matthew traced with a finger the red diamond shapes around the eyes of the black mask. Yes, they were similar-identical?-to the wounds on the faces of the Masker’s victims. He turned around again to look at the Queen, and to clarify what was beginning to form in his mind.

That she sat in her chair, a sad yet regal presence, at the center of this unknown geometry between Pennford Deverick and his killer.

Two facts made his brain burn.

Whoever had put her here cared for her-loved her?-deeply, and wished her to be watched over in some semblance of the previous wealthy life she must have enjoyed, yet this same person had gone to the length of chiseling away the maker’s marks from the furniture to prevent her identity being traced.

Why?

Did she really recognize the Deverick name, from somewhere in the locked room her mind occupied? If so, again, why had that name caused her to shed silent tears?

Deverick to Masker and Masker to Deverick. But was the proper geometry really Queen of Bedlam to Masker to Dr. Godwin to Pennford Deverick to Eben Ausley?

“May I ask what you’re thinking?” It was Ramsendell’s voice.

“I’m thinking that I may be looking at a pentagon,” Matthew replied.

“What?” asked Hulzen, as a thread of smoke leaked over his chin.

Matthew didn’t answer, for he was still calculating. Not distances of meaning this time, but whether or not he thought there was any possibility of success at solving this particular problem. Where to begin? How to begin?

“So.” Greathouse made the word sound like a note of portent. “Does she think herself to be Queen Mary? Waiting for a message from King William?” He scratched his chin, which was in need of a shave. “Doesn’t anyone have the heart to tell her that William is deceased?”

Matthew had come to a conclusion. “I think we will accept this problem, sirs.”

“Wait just one moment!” Greathouse flared up, before the doctors could respond. “I haven’t agreed to that!”

“Well?” Matthew turned a cool gaze toward him. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because…because we ought to talk about it first, that’s why!”

“Gentlemen, if you wish to return with your answer in the morning, we’d be most grateful,” said Ramsendell. “You can find rooms at the Constant Friend, but I have to say that the food is better at Mrs. DePaul’s eating-house.”