The Insanity of Murder (12 page)

Annie helped Florence with her clothes. Inspired by Emily’s plain sense of dress, Florence chose a drab outfit of brown and cream — the waistband of the skirt gaping due to her weight loss — and a worn woollen shawl that she had intended to give to the poor. She wouldn’t let Annie do her hair, insisting that it hang down her back like one who didn’t give a fig about her appearance.

Annie looked at her mistress aghast. ‘Even Miss Davison had her hair braided. Lord, Miss Florence, what will your mother say when she sees you looking like this?’

‘Don’t be a goose, Annie, I’ll have plenty of time to change after I’ve seen the doctor. Mother won’t be here until about six.’ She checked herself in the mirror, satisfied with the look of her body, but her face not so much. Her spirits had risen considerably since she had formulated her plan with Emily and it showed in the dabs of colour on her formerly pallid cheeks. One only had to look into her eyes and see the spark that suggested the revival of an inner fire. She needed to mope again, to look despondent and sad. She eyed a bottle of pills that had been sitting on her dressing table since she’d first come home from prison. Something to calm her down, Dody had said at the time. Well, she needed a bit of calming now, didn’t she, something to help with the impending performance?

She tipped a couple of pills into her hand. ‘Pass me some water please, Annie,’ she said as she popped them into her mouth.

A few minutes later she shuffled into the drawing room on Annie’s arm, already feeling the effect of the pills on her empty stomach. Dody and Doctor Lamb were waiting for her. Dody started at her appearance and tried to catch her eye, but Florence would not look at her. There would be time enough for explanations when the plan was a
fait accompli
.

Doctor Lamb took her hand and led her to the chaise lounge. Florence judged him to be in his mid-thirties, perhaps just a bit older than Dody. He wore a light summer suit, a wine-coloured silk waistcoat, and a matching cravat. Combine all that with a head of tight dark curls and she assumed he was rather pleasing to the eye. She could only assume, however. Her lids had all of a sudden become so heavy she could hardly see through them.

The room was festooned with Dody’s flowers, and for a moment Florence felt as if she was looking down at her own funeral. She pulled herself together.
Must concentrate
. She covered her mouth and yawned.

‘What is the matter, Florence?’ Dody asked, her voice laced with concern. ‘Have you had a relapse?’

She explained to the doctor how Florence had gradually been improving since her release from prison, though she was still worried about the continuous lack of appetite, weight loss, and melancholia.

‘I had a bad night, Dody.’ Florence turned her bleary eyes to the doctor. ‘Terrible nightmares.’

‘Did you manage to eat any breakfast?’ Doctor Lamb asked in a soothing Scottish burr.

‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t stay down,’ Florence said.

‘Really?’ Dody asked, arching a sceptical eyebrow. Earlier, Florence had told her sister that she had enjoyed her first good breakfast since her release.

‘Tell me about your nightmares, Miss McCleland,’ Doctor Lamb said.

Florence slurred out her dream account of the force-feeding, performed by a horned devil and his demonic minions, glorious phalluses all (for this she drew on the image of Satan as depicted in
Dante’s Inferno
), hoping to shock him. Even Dody looked shocked — she probably didn’t realise her little sister knew the meaning of the word.

The more Florence talked, the more concerned the doctor’s countenance became. When questioned, she told him the first things that popped into her head — sometimes the truth and sometimes pure bosh. She heard him mutter something about neurosis and hysteria. She yawned again and felt the fog of sleep unfurling around her.

Voices broke through the waves of sleep. She heard the doctor and Dody talking about rest cures. Dody’s voice rose when the doctor mentioned committal. ‘That’s absurd, Doctor, you cannot consider my sister’s hysteria to be severe enough to warrant committal.’

Slumped on the chaise lounge, Florence peeped through semi-closed eyes. Both Dody and the doctor were standing like creatures about to lock horns, Dody with her hands on her hips.

‘You asked me for my advice, Doctor McCleland, and I am giving it. Your sister needs to get away from London and everything that reminds her of the trauma she has been through. Even you are a reminder, I’m afraid. She needs new faces around her, pleasant grounds in which to stroll, and the guidance of fully trained staff who are experienced in her kind of behaviour.’

‘You will have a job committing her. I will not support you in this. All I wanted was advice.’

‘But what if I want to go, Dody?’ The pair whirled around at the sound of Florence’s feeble voice.

Dody stared at Florence with astonishment. ‘You want to be sent to an asylum? Florence, have you any idea what those kinds of places are like?’

‘Yes, please, I do. I fear it is my only hope.’ Effortless tears began to spill down her cheeks. ‘You are ever the loving sister, Dody, but sometimes I need to have some say over my life.’ Florence looked at Doctor Lamb, forcing her liquid eyes to become big and round and innocent. ‘May I request my residence, Doctor?’

‘You may go where you like as long as I consider it to be suitable,’ the doctor replied.

‘Then I request to be sent to the Elysium Rest Home for Gentlewomen. It’s in Surrey,’ she added, avoiding eye contact with Dody.

Dody turned on her sister as soon as Doctor Lamb had left the house. ‘Florence, how could you!’

She calmly ignored Dody’s outburst and reached for the sherry decanter.

Dody slapped her hand away. ‘Don’t you dare! Not on top of those pills you’ve taken.’

‘Pills, what pills?’ Florence asked innocently.

Dody felt like strangling her. ‘Fast acting, short lasting. I left them on the dressing table — more fool me — never expecting that you would help yourself to them. I can see your demeanour improving before my very eyes.’

‘That reminds me, I must look a fright. May I borrow your comb please, dear?’

Without waiting for a reply, Florence reached into Dody’s beaded bag, which was sitting on the couch, and removed her comb. She crossed to the mantelpiece mirror and began doing her hair. ‘I must change before Mother arrives. What do you think, my blue tea dress or the lavender?’

‘I think you have a lot of explaining to do.’

Florence laughed. ‘Poor Dody, I have teased you long enough. Do sit down and let me explain my plan.’

Dody reluctantly sat next to her on the couch.

‘Now, don’t be cross,’ Florence began. ‘I think you will be pleased when you hear my reasoning.’

Dody pinched her mouth into a tight line.

‘As you know,’ Florence went on, ‘I have a pathological fear of going back to prison. Seriously, Dody, I think it will kill me.’ She took hold of Dody’s hand. ‘You do believe me, don’t you? I swear I am not making that part up.’

Dody cautiously agreed.

‘But with this Cat and Mouse Act enforced, I will have to go back when a doctor certifies that I am well enough.’

‘But I could have done that for you, told them you were still too ill to return!’

‘No, you could not. Don’t you think the authorities haven’t thought of that? Apparently I have to be examined by a prison doctor. A prison doctor, did you hear me? It’ll be that ghastly man from Holloway, the demon. If he so much as touches me again, I’ll, I’ll …’ Florence flopped against Dody’s shoulder and began to sob great tears of anguish.

Dody knew this was no act. ‘There there, I believe you,’ she said, close to tears herself as she stroked her hair. ‘But why the Elysium of all places?’

‘Well, I have a confession to make.’

‘Another?’

‘Yes. I’m afraid I overheard you and Pike talking last night, and I lay awake most of the night thinking about what was done to those poor women — having their privates interfered with and such — and what still might be done to them. Thinking that that kind of operation might still be being carried out on innocent women fills me with a white-hot rage. By getting myself admitted to that rest home, I will not only be getting away from the clutches of the authorities, but I will be able to help you and Pike with your investigations from the inside. By doing this I see myself as striking another blow for the cause of female equality.’

‘I can’t let you do that, Florence. It might be dangerous. We don’t know what they get up to in that place.’

‘I can’t see that my life will be in any more danger than if I was sent back to prison. Besides, you and Pike can keep an eye on me.’

‘I don’t know what Pike will think of it.’

Florence folded her arms. ‘Well, the crux is that neither of you can stop me. I am being voluntarily committed and you are not my nearest male relative so you cannot interfere. This is between Doctor Lamb and myself.’

For once Dody was speechless. Florence’s argument seemed uncharacteristically logical, and yet still so wrong. If only she could confer with Pike, but with Mother on her way she dared not leave the house.

Dody knew that Florence genuinely did have nervous problems since her release from prison, and she had been trying to think of ways of preventing her sister’s re-arrest. Her admittance to an asylum seemed like a valid solution, but why did it have to be
that
asylum? She could only pray that their suspicions of the home were unfounded; after all, they had no concrete evidence that the place was actually performing illegal or immoral operations. Mrs Hislop may even have undergone the operation elsewhere. If not for the preserved ovary, she and Pike might never have made the connection.

The front doorbell rang and Florence jumped to her feet. ‘That’ll be mother. Don’t allow Annie to let her in until I’m at the top of the stairs. I must change.’

Louise McCleland crossed the morning-room floor, flung her furled parasol onto the couch and opened her arms to her eldest daughter. ‘My darling, it is so lovely to see you.’

Dody launched herself into her mother’s embrace and squeezed her extra tight. When finally released, Louise pushed Dody to arm’s length and gazed at her through the same violet-hued eyes that she’d passed on to Florence. ‘My goodness, darling, what have I done to deserve that?’

‘It’s been a trying week,’ Dody admitted, wondering herself where her unusual show of emotion had come from. The lump in her throat fizzed and ached, but she refused to give in to it. She reached for the handkerchief in her sleeve and dabbed her nose.

‘I would have come earlier if I could,’ Louise said, eyeing Dody with concern. ‘I left Italy almost as soon as I got your telegram, but the bally ferry crossing was delayed by weather. How is Florence, is she still confined to bed?’

‘She is much better now. But Mother, you must know, there is something we’ve decided to do to prevent her re-arrest.’

Dody sat her mother down and explained about the now commonly referred to ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, and how Florence had chosen voluntary committal to avoid going back to prison. She made no mention of the operations they suspected of being performed in the rest home.

‘Is Florence that ill? Do you think she really will benefit from such a place?’

Dody looked her mother in the eye and answered truthfully. ‘Yes, Mother, I think she will. Just knowing that the police will be unable to arrest her again will give her hope and aid in her recovery.’

‘When will she have to go?’

‘Doctor Lamb is going to make the arrangements. He seems to think it might be as early as tomorrow if there is a bed for her.’ Dody paused to give Louise time to absorb everything she had been told. ‘Would you like a sherry, Mother?’

‘Take me up to Florence first please, dear, we’ll have a sherry later.’

They stepped into the hall. Her mother wore a day dress of white silk with a high collar and a yoke of bobbin silk. Dody suspected Louise’s stylish dress sense was her way of disassociating herself from the eccentric taste of her husband. Florence had acquired her impeccable taste in clothes from their mother. Dody wasn’t sure where she had been when the style instruction had been dished out —probably at boarding school.

‘You are looking well, Dody,’ Louise said, despite her earlier emotional exhibition. Her mother was probably trying to boost her spirits. ‘But your father and I do worry about you — not your career itself, but working in that dreadful place with Doctor Misogynist.’

Dody smiled. ‘I’m fine — it’s Florence you should be worrying about. How is Father?’ she added as they reached the first-floor landing.

‘He sends his love and apologises that he could not get away. He met some fellow Fabians in Rome who are working on ground-breaking prison reforms they hope soon to present to the British government. He felt he would be more effective helping Florence and her ilk that way than by getting under everyone’s feet here.’

Dody couldn’t imagine her father ever saying the latter part of that sentence. The Russian-peasant-garbed socialist had never worried about getting in anyone’s way before. As Dody knocked on her younger sister’s bedroom door she wondered just how much Louise had revealed to her husband of Florence’s predicament. Louise had probably played matters down. Although she was a literary critic and playwright (amongst other things) and was sometimes inclined to dramatise, she generally smoothed things in a way that cast a veil of calm over some of the more turbulent situations her family tended to court — unlike Florence, who seemed to thrive on the drama. Dody thought back to her Sarah Bernhardt performance for Doctor Lamb. Her sister was obviously feeling a little better. She smiled to herself and pushed open the bedroom door.

A green and gilt-lettered sign announced the driveway of the Elysium Rest Home for Gentlewomen. Dody asked the taxi driver to drop them off there as they’d had enough of sitting on the train and wished to stretch their legs. He obligingly said he would deliver their bags to the village hotel. Florence carried only one small valise, having been told that all necessities, including an attractive uniform, would be provided.

‘I hate to think what the uniform is like,’ Florence said as they began their walk down the magnificent woodland-fringed driveway, the sun on their backs, a gentle breeze lacing the tops of the silver birches. ‘Why can’t I wear my own clothes?’

Because, sister dear, Dody thought to herself, in a uniform you will be easily recognised and recaptured if you decide to abscond.
Lord, Florence do you really know what you are letting yourself in for?

‘Wearing a uniform is more practical,’ Dody said. ‘They’ll probably get you involved in all sorts of messy activities. You don’t want your own clothes ruined, do you?’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Florence turned to Louise, who walked beneath her opened parasol, the hem of her linen skirt gently brushing the surface of the gravel driveway. ‘Mother, don’t worry if I seem to be acting a little strange when we meet Doctor Fogarty. I’m feeling a lot better now, but I don’t want to appear too normal in case they decide not to accept me.’

Louise shot Florence a worried glance. ‘But are you sure you will be all right in this place, dear? The cause is very noble, but —’

‘I’m doing this so I don’t have to go back to prison, Mother,’ Florence snapped. ‘I will wait it out here until that disgusting Act is repealed.’

Dody squeezed her mother’s hand. The three of them had discussed the topic
ad nauseam
through the night and into the early hours of the morning, but nothing either Louise or Dody could say would sway Florence from her course. To make matters worse, Dody had still not been able to tell Pike about the risky plan. All she could do was write him a quick note explaining that she would be absent for a few days and where he could get in touch with her. She would stay in a small hotel near the rest home until she was satisfied that Florence was in good hands. If he had nothing pressing to do, she’d written, he was welcome to join her.

After telling Doctor Spilsbury about the ovary, Dody had been given a short leave of absence to inspect the institution and compile a report for the coroner. She and Spilsbury had mutually decided that some subterfuge might be necessary to get to the truth. Her position in the Home Office pathology department would not be mentioned in the short term to the authorities at Elysium.

The rest home came into sight — a sandstone fantasy of rounded towers with ice cream-cone roofs, weathervanes, and stepped gables. A croquet course had been set up on the front lawn and several women sat relaxing on benches in the shade of an ancient cedar-of-Lebanon. The women, all wearing the same sage-green bonnets and striped aprons, appeared trance-like, staring vacantly at the croquet lawn, which only a peacock seemed to be taking full benefit of, strutting about with his hens. A young man wearing a short white jacket dozed in a deckchair nearby.

‘I say, that looks jolly relaxing,’ Florence said to Dody. ‘Though I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those bonnets.’

‘That’s the least of your problems. Do as you’re told and toe the line, else things might become very difficult for you. And don’t, whatever you do, take any of the drugs that might be offered. Conceal them in your cheeks and spit them out as soon as you get the chance.’

‘Doctor Lamb told me he would prescribe no drugs or involuntary treatment for me, that I should consider this place nothing but a short-term holiday venue — a rest cure — and that is what I intend to do.’

No one on the croquet lawn looked at the McCleland women as they ascended the front steps of the building. Another young man in a white jacket, fair-haired with a neatly trimmed beard, met them in the entrance and escorted them to the office of the physician and administrator.

Doctor Fogarty was a small-framed man of about forty, with a hollow face, thick greying hair that had been disciplined with liberal quantities of pomade, and a tweed jacket a size too big for him. On the wall above his desk hung a medical degree and a gynaecological diploma. The sight of the latter shot a sudden jet of tension through Dody. That the chief doctor of the asylum was also a gynaecologist was not a good sign. It suggested that the prevailing attitude was that female biology was the major cause of insanity in women. She chastised herself for not asking Doctor Lamb about Fogarty’s qualifications; she had assumed he was a nerve doctor. Dody prayed to a God whose existence she doubted, that Lamb was as good as his word, and that no untoward treatments had been recommended for Florence.

Dody realised Fogarty was staring at her and forced herself to relax.
If I’m not careful he’ll be locking me up too
, she thought, taking a calming breath and sinking into the proffered chair.

Fogarty positioned the women in a semi-circle and sat with them rather than behind his desk. Two large sash windows presented a view of the croquet lawn and tree, under which the patients still sat, their positions almost unchanged. From the garden bed below, the tops of colourful roses bobbed, brushing against the lower panes in the delicate afternoon breeze. Atop a filing cabinet sat a box-shaped object about two feet high. Covered by a sheet, it piqued Dody’s curiosity. She was trying to work out what it was, when Fogarty began to speak.

‘The home was set up by my late father,’ he explained in a honeyed voice, deeper than one would expect from a man his size, ‘to attend to the needs of troubled women of a certain class. Then, as now, many of the problems boil down to the seduction of women by modern life and its diminishing values.’

He paused, continued to look at them while he absently picked at one of the many plasters encircling the fingers of his right hand. It was as if he had deliberately said something that he expected to be pounced on. Dody wondered if this was an attempt to ascertain their social convictions. To determine not just Florence’s, but her family’s suitability for the patriarchal rule he subjected his patients to.

All three women held their tongues. Dody was especially proud of Florence who was in the middle of a masterful performance of melancholia: head in hands, as if not taking in a word he said.

‘I see you’ve been in the wars, Doctor,’ Louise said, indicating his bandaged fingers.

Fogarty smiled. ‘I tend to the roses myself. Lovely to look at, but the devil to maintain — a bit like some of the patients here,’ he joked.

The women smiled politely.

The young, bearded attendant appeared again, this time introduced by Fogarty as, ‘Mr Beamish, my right hand man. I managed to lure him away from the army — he was a medic, you know.’

‘Not too much of a change really, ma’am,’ Beamish replied to Louise’s look of surprise. ‘Sick folk all require the same skilled care and attention, whatever the ailment, whatever the gender. The premises here are a lot more pleasant than at your average army camp though — I’ll concede to that.’

Fogarty stood up and approached Florence. When she refused to meet his gaze, he turned her face towards him with a finger on her chin.

‘Florence, look at me,’ he said.

Dody saw the muscles in her sister’s throat constrict as he looked deeply into her eyes. Her own flesh crawled as she watched on. Lord, what was her sister letting herself in for?

Waveringly, Florence at last managed to meet Fogarty’s eyes, small and dark as raisins. He smiled. ‘That’s better. I’ve read your notes. It sounds as if there is much to admire about you. Doctor Lamb says you have pluck. Pluck is good, provided it is channelled. With your help I will get you well again, Florence. I promise you I will.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Fogarty let go of her chin. ‘Off you go now, my dear.’

Florence was escorted away by Beamish to collect her uniform and be shown her private bedroom. Dody watched with a frown; it never made sense to her that while the majority of lunatic patients in any community were female, most of the carers were male. It was fortunate that Florence was no babe in the woods when it came to men.

‘Are all the attendants male, Doctor?’ she asked.

‘Oh no, that would be most unseemly,’ he replied, scrutinising her, though not in such a tender way as he had Florence. And with Dody his tone held a defensive edge. ‘We have female staff to attend to the intimate needs of the patients, and, of course, the more trivial domestic tasks. On the whole, though, we find the patients respond to the disciplinary authority of the male attendants better than they do to the females.’

Especially to the ex-army disciplinarians, Dody added to herself. And all presided over by you, the wise father benefactor, she thought wryly.

Dody and Louise were given a tour of the home by Fogarty himself. He started by showing them around the extensive grounds. From a terraced rose garden they looked down upon a nine-hole golf course wrapped around a sizeable lake. In warm weather the patients, under strict supervision of course, were permitted to sit by the lake, and sometimes the attendants would row them to the other side for picnics and flower-gathering sessions.

‘Florence loves boating,’ Louise remarked.

‘In that case I’ll make sure that she is taken out as soon as possible, tomorrow even. Fresh air and rest are the most important treatments for anguish of the mind,’ he explained.

The two women nodded wisely.

‘I wouldn’t mind a stay here myself,’ Louise whispered to Dody as they strolled arm in arm along the stone pathways of a flourishing vegetable patch.

They came upon a woman forking potatoes, a huge pile of earthy goodness drying on sacking by her side. The woman stopped what she was doing, leaning on her fork to watch them pass.

Fogarty lifted his deerstalker hat. ‘Splendid job, Mrs Halifax — at this rate we’ll have enough potatoes to last all winter!’

The woman ran the back of her arm across her glowing forehead. ‘Thank you Doctor,’ she said with a smile before returning to her vigorous work.

The place certainly seemed idyllic, Dody thought, before reminding herself that even a graveyard could look welcoming on a bright summer’s day.

‘Wouldn’t speak a word when she was first admitted,’ Fogarty said once they were out of the woman’s earshot. ‘She’ll be going home soon if she continues to improve at this rate.’

Louise made noises of approval, and Dody relaxed slightly — maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all. Fogarty’s concern for his patients seemed genuine enough. They came to a modern building made of red bricks with a pitched slate roof and a heavy chimney. It was situated independently, several yards away from the rear of the house. The building had no windows and a thick overhead electricity cable running into its roof. The heavy wooden door was padlocked.

‘What is the nature of this building?’ Dody asked.

Fogarty waved a dismissive hand. ‘It houses the treatment rooms. We think they are best kept from the house proper.’

‘May we have a look inside?’

‘Why, certainly, Miss McCleland.’ Fogarty made a futile attempt at patting himself down. ‘Hmm, I seem to have misplaced my key.’

‘I’m sure you have a spare in your office,’ Dody said.

‘In my desk drawer, yes.’

‘What kinds of treatments do the women have in there?’ Louise asked before Dody had the chance to say that they would be happy to wait while he went to fetch the key.

‘Just the usual calming treatments, ma’am: hot and cold hydrotherapy, the swinging chair, and a couple of padded cells for solitary confinement — not that we need to resort to any of these too often.’ He turned a circle on his heels, pointing out the magnificent surroundings. ‘The patients respond so readily to this place that few extra treatments are needed.’ He smiled at Louise, put a hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the back entrance of the house, Dody trailing behind.

They walked through the kitchen staffed by patients, every one of them looking up from tasks ranging from kneading bread, rolling pastry, washing up dishes and basting meats. All greeted Mr Fogarty and his guests with friendly smiles.

‘Most of the women are from privileged homes,’ the doctor explained, ‘and these kinds of tasks are a novelty to them. If the modern woman spent more time in the domestic sphere, she would probably not suffer from half the afflictions she has today

‘I heartily agree,’ Louise said.

Dody shot a look of astonishment at her mother, the woman who had encouraged her girls to put their hands to anything that interested them, despite the conventions of society. Louise seemed quite smitten with the place — or was it Fogarty’s artful charm? The man had a soothing speaking voice, almost hypnotic; the kind of voice that would inspire a patient’s confidence. She wondered why he had the need for the more outmoded therapies in the treatment room when voice therapy, as recommended by Doctor Freud, was breaking so much ground on the continent.

He took them into the activity room where more women sat behind easels and sewing machines. Many here did not seem as well adjusted as those they had seen in the kitchen.

‘The women have to earn the right to partake in domestic tasks,’ Fogarty explained. ‘The women in this ward have progressed more than those you saw on the croquet lawn, but are not yet ready for the stimulation of the kitchen and the gardens.’

Dody glanced at some of the canvases. Several were blank, the ladies in front of the easels staring languidly into space. Another canvas was a mess of haphazard drips and splotches, the artist — a young mongoloid — covered in almost as much paint herself. This girl acknowledged their presence with so much enthusiasm that Fogarty had to signal to an attendant to pull her away lest her uninhibited hugging stain the visitors’ clothing.

In the corner, two women sat weaving wicker baskets. These were the only patients in the activity room who appeared to have any kind of balance about them. The elder of the two looked relatively normal, save for a thatch of untidy white hair and more lines on her face than a map of the London Underground. The younger was in early middle age, but still quite beautiful, with glossy dark hair, high cheekbones and almond eyes that suggested a touch of the Far East.