“I’m not a visitor. I’m a medical inspector. Cribbins. And you?”
“Nurse Bracegirdle. How can I help you, Mr. Cribbins?”
“By fetching the warden. At once, please.”
The attendant dithered. “Um. Um. Um. Er. Yes, of course. Would you, um, wait here?”
He raced away, and, as he went, whispered to himself a little too loudly, “Oh no! Today of all days!”
Burton was left alone. He looked around at the walls and saw stained paintwork, cracked plaster, and cobwebby corners. Rat droppings dotted the edges of the floor. The pervasive odour of unwashed bodies hung in the air.
Three minutes passed, then a door burst open and a pale-faced, anxious-looking man hurried in. He had closely cropped grey hair, a small clipped moustache, and very widely set brown eyes. He strode over and shook Burton’s hand. “I’m Doctor Henry Monroe, the director of this establishment.”
“Cribbins,” Burton responded.
A nervous tic suddenly distorted Monroe’s mouth and pulled his head down to the right. He grunted, “Ugh!” then said, “I’m surprised to see you here, sir. My report into Mr. Galton’s escape was posted less than four hours ago.”
“Galton, you say?” Burton exclaimed. “Francis Galton? The scientist?”
Monroe stammered, “Y-you’re not here about the—the—ugh!—escape?”
“I’m here to interview one of your patients, Laurence Oliphant.”
“Con—concerning his part in the affair?”
Burton held up a hand. “One moment. What? You’re telling me that Oliphant helped Galton to break out?”
Monroe licked his lips nervously. A nurse entered the foyer. As she passed, the doctor glanced at her and, in a low voice, said, “Mr.—Mr.—ugh!—Cribbins, we should talk in my—my office.”
“Very well.”
Monroe ushered Burton out of the lobby, along a corridor, and into a somewhat shabby and disorganised room. He strode to a desk and, as if taking refuge, flung himself into the chair behind it. Immediately, he gained a little composure, and indicating the seat opposite said, “Please, sit. I’ll explain to you the events of last night.”
Burton sat.
“Oliphant!” the doctor said with mock cheerfulness. “An interesting patient. Morbidly excitable with periods of gloom. He has moments of such lucidity that one might consider him as sane as you or—ugh!—I. Certainly, his mind is organised. He keeps a little notebook, the pages of which he fills with masses of figures—numbers—added up in batches, then the totals added again, as though he were focusing some account, as an auditor would say. Then, without any obvious trigger, he’s suddenly completely delusional. Rats, Mr. Cribbins.”
“Rats?” Burton repeated.
“Rats. Periodically, in the week and a half that he’s been here, Oliphant has been overcome by an obsessive desire to hunt and capture them. I have indulged him to see what would come of it. Unfortunately, the vermin infest every floor of this building, so he’s not been starved of opportunity. You must understand that in the treatment of a lunatic one must first seek to understand the nature of the—ugh!—deep problem—ugh!—in the mind. Whatever preoccupation dominates gives a clue to it, and more often than not, it is some—ugh!—trauma experienced in the past. Discover what, and one might perhaps help the patient to overcome the damage done to them.”
Burton considered this for a moment. “You propose that madness springs from an inability to cope with a mental shock?”
“In cases of monomania, yes. There are, of course, a great many instances where the cause can be traced to a physical imbalance, but with Mr. Oliphant—he was an opium addict, you know?”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“Well then, I suspect he was so petrified by a nightmarish vision induced by the drug that he lost his—ugh!—mind in order to escape it. It is my supposition that the hallucination involved rats, and he is now trying to recreate it. You see, there is method in his madness.”
“To what end, Doctor?”
“If he manages, independently, to reproduce his hallucination, he will achieve mastery over it. Or, to put it another way, if he can knowingly reconstruct what he experienced, he can also knowingly destroy it, thus breaking the shackles of terror that—ugh!—bind him.”
Burton brushed dust from his trouser leg, nodded slowly, and said, “Very well, your theory sounds eminently plausible, but how does this relate to Galton’s escape?”
Monroe’s face spasmed again and his right arm jerked outward. He pulled the errant limb back to his side and held it there with his left hand.
“About fifteen years ago, Galton suffered a severe nervous breakdown and was brought here to recover. He never did. Instead, he developed an idée fixe concerning the transmutability of the flesh.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning he believes animals can be artificially raised to a human standard of intelligence, and that humans can, through scientific means, be made into something akin to—ugh!—gods.”
“Again—this concerns Oliphant how?”
“I’m coming to that, Mr. Cribbins. You see, Oliphant’s delusion involves the conviction that a god of some sort is seeking incarnation in the flesh.”
Burton recalled what Monckton Milnes had told him about the magic squares.
Monroe continued, “Since Galton’s misconception concerning artificially constructed gods is—ugh!—thematically similar, I thought it might be enlightening to put the two men together. I hoped they would either cancel out each other’s delusions or hasten each other toward a conclusion to their—ugh!—ugh!—demented fantasies.”
“And what happened?”
“During their fourth encounter, last night, Oliphant flew into a rage and attacked his attendants. While they were distracted, Galton broke into a storage room and climbed out through its window.”
Burton opened his mouth to speak but was stopped by a gesture from Monroe. “No, Mr. Cribbins, the window was not left open by accident. We are—ugh!—meticulous about security here. The fact is—it was forced from the outside.”
Burton leaned forward in his seat. “By whom, Doctor?”
Monroe shrugged. “I don’t know, but a ladder was left behind on this side of the perimeter wall, which means not only that Galton had help to get away, but also that whoever assisted him knew Oliphant would provide a diversion at that—ugh!—particular moment. I can’t for the life of me think how such a thing could be arranged.” He hesitated then added, “Although suspicion must naturally fall on Mr. Darwin.”
“Darwin?”
“Charles Darwin. The Beagle fellow.”
“What has he to do with it?”
“He and Galton are half-cousins. As one of our long-term and most docile patients, Galton was allowed to send and receive letters. Darwin is the only person he has ever corresponded with, and he did so on a regular basis. It’s our policy here to monitor all incoming and outgoing post. The communication between the two men appeared purely—ugh!—scientific in nature. Darwin is apparently on the brink of publishing a theory that might alter the way we think about—ugh!—creation itself. It bears some relation to Galton’s preoccupation, and I was hoping that I might gain a better understanding of my patient’s fixations by reading their missives. Unfortunately, all I could glean from them is that both men are engrossed in disturbingly godless matters which make little—ugh!—sense to me. If any escape plans were discussed between them, then it was done in code and I didn’t detect it.”
“I should like to see those letters.”
“I’m afraid Galton took them with him.”
Pushing his chair back, Burton stood. “Then take me outside. Show me the window.”