Young Sherlock Holmes: Bedlam (Short Reads) (2 page)

One man brushed past Sherlock with a curse. He walked ten feet further on, then stopped for a moment and turned around. He walked back, brushing past Sherlock again as if he had never seen him
before, and strode off in the opposite direction. As Sherlock watched, he stopped again, turned around and walked back towards Sherlock once more.

Now that he was out of his cell, he could hear the cacophony of voices more clearly. It sounded like several hundred people all having conversations and arguments with themselves, or singing, or
wailing, all at once, and all in ignorance of the others.

The voices came from behind the doors which lined one side of the gallery.

Turning, he spotted a blackboard bolted to the wall beside his door. On it were chalked the words
Unknown boy – Acute mania
, along with the date.

The words were like spears of ice thrust into his heart.

Acute mania
.

‘This is a lunatic asylum,’ he said, and he could hear his voice verging on breaking. ‘This is where they send mad people.’

‘Like I said,’ the attendant said: ‘Bedlam. Or Bethlehem Hospital, to the gentry. Or the madhouse, to those of us who work ’ere.’

Sherlock’s keen eyes noticed that the bolt on his door was huge – probably a foot or more long. It was a design he’d seen elsewhere: a metal cylinder that slid back and forth
inside a couple of metal brackets across into a narrow brass barrel on the doorframe to secure the door. The cylinder could then be rotated by its handle so that it caught behind one of the
brackets on the door, stopping it from being slid back unless it was rotated again. Very simple, and quite foolproof. Even if Sherlock could have picked locks, which he couldn’t, there was no
obvious way out of the room. Accessing the bolt outside the door from inside would be almost impossible.

If he was going to escape.

‘Now, ’ead down that way, to the end,’ the attendant said, interrupting his chain of thought. ‘That’s where the Resident’s office is. ’E likes to see
all the new inmates. Very conscientious, is the Resident.’ He pushed Sherlock’s shoulder, backing away immediately in case Sherlock suddenly turned and grabbed him.

Sherlock started to walk. A few doors were open, others were locked with the bolts pointing firmly downwards. Whoever ran this place liked an orderly system, the appearance of control. As he
passed each locked door the noise of the occupant got suddenly louder, then quieter. He could hear words, sobs, screams, and in a couple of cases what sounded like music-hall songs.

Perhaps the worst were the doors behind which he could hear no noise at all, but sense a malign presence, watching and waiting, like a spider in its web.

A hand pushed Sherlock between his shoulder blades. He nearly went sprawling to the ground.

‘Move yourself,’ the attendant called. ‘We ain’t got all day.’

With the two attendants behind him, Sherlock walked the length of the gallery, past innumerable wooden doors and narrow windows and occasional caged fires which blasted heat all around them. At
one of the cages an enterprising inmate was holding a long wooden stick in the flames, toasting something. For a few moments Sherlock thought it was a chunk of bread, but as he got closer he
realized that it was a mouse, curled up and blackened.

The man with the stick watched Sherlock and the attendants pass. ‘I saw her again when they were all sleeping,’ he said in a reasonable, calm voice. ‘She walks in beauty, like
the night.’

‘Good,’ Sherlock replied. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

One of the attendants snorted with laughter. ‘Yeah, look out for ghosts, boy. Make sure you say your prayers and sleep nicely or you ain’t going to like what you see.’

The attendants pushed him to the end of the gallery, where a large grille, like a portcullis, separated it from the space beyond. It was a circular hall, with a domed roof. One of the attendants
opened a door in the grille with a key selected from a bunch that hung from his belt and pushed it open. He went through, leaving his colleague behind Sherlock, and gestured to Sherlock to follow
him. The two of them had obviously done this many times before. They had the whole process down pat.

The domed hall into which they led Sherlock was opulent: painted white with gold-leaf ornamentation, and beautiful paintings hanging up on the walls. This area didn’t have flagstones on
the floor: it had black and white tiles. On Sherlock’s left was a large door that, he guessed from the position of the windows along the gallery, led out into the grounds. On his right was a
smaller, internal door. It wasn’t locked or secured. Presumably it led into administrative areas: offices, examination rooms, kitchens, that sort of thing. And ahead of him, mirroring the
floor-to-ceiling grille through which he had just passed, was another grille leading into another gallery. Vaguely, in the red firelight glow beyond, he thought he could see shapes moving. Women? A
gallery for women, just as his was a gallery for men? More than likely.

The toothless attendant pushed him towards the door to his right. ‘Through there, then first door on your left. We’ll be waiting outside. All the Resident has to do is shout, and
we’ll be straight in.’ He suddenly lashed out with his club, catching Sherlock behind his left knee and sending a spike of sick agony up his thigh. Sherlock dropped to the floor, his
leg suddenly unable to support his weight. His elbow hit the tiles, sending another wave of agony through him. He had to clench his jaw shut and swallow hard to stop himself from throwing up.
‘And if we have cause to come in, you’ll remember it for a very long time. Just bear that in mind.’

He hauled Sherlock to his feet and pushed him towards the door. It swung open beneath the pressure of Sherlock’s extended hand. Beyond it was a long corridor lined with doors. Attendants
were walking along it, much as the inmates had walked along the gallery, and with the same mixture of purpose and purposelessness.

Sherlock saw a door immediately on his left. A brass sign had been screwed to it. The words engraved on it said:
William Rhys Williams MD MRCS MRCPE – Resident Physician &
Superintendent
.

Sherlock glanced backwards, at the attendants. They were watching him carefully. He wondered if this was some kind of test: what would he do – knock politely, just stand there, or open the
door and walk in unannounced?

He knocked and waited.

‘Come in,’ a voice called. He twisted the knob, pushed the door open and entered.

The room inside was carpeted, panelled and curtained. It was, in a strange way, reminiscent of the Diogenes Club in its plushness and its quietness. A large desk was placed to one side, in front
of a large window. Bookshelves to either side of the window were filled with leather-bound volumes. A man wearing a black suit, high-collared shirt and striped waistcoat sat behind the desk,
writing with a quill pen in a ledger. He was bald, apart from a fringe of black hair running around the back of his head like a small curtain.

The man glanced up at Sherlock. His gaze flickered all over Sherlock’s face, hands, clothes, everything. He nodded, as if he had just confirmed a conclusion that he had reached before
Sherlock had entered.

‘Stand in front of the desk,’ he said. His voice was thin, whispery. ‘My name is Doctor Williams. I am the Resident Physician at this institution. That means I have the final
say when it comes to any decision regarding the inmates – of which you are one. I should warn you that if you make any move to come around the desk, or exhibit any violent or unwarranted
behaviour, I will have no hesitation in calling on my attendants for assistance. Do you understand?’

‘I understand, sir,’ Sherlock said, moving to the front of the desk. ‘There has been a terrible mistake. I am—’

‘Be quiet. Answer questions when I ask them. Do not volunteer information, or I will have you removed back to your room.’ Williams paused, and glanced down at the ledger on his desk.
Sherlock noticed a small brass bell beside it. ‘Do you know your name?’

‘Holmes, sir. Sherlock Scott Holmes.’ He was about to say something else, but thought better of it.

‘Memory appears intact,’ Williams murmured, making a note in the ledger. ‘Locomotion and posture are reasonable for a boy of age –’ he glanced up at Sherlock.
‘How old are you?’

‘Fourteen, sir.’

‘– of age fourteen,’ he continued. He leaned back in his chair, which creaked beneath his weight. ‘I make it a habit formally to interview all new inmates. You have been
sent here because you exhibited severe manic behaviour in a public place. The police restrained you, and a doctor present at the scene certified you insane. You will stay here until I – and I
only – am convinced that you have recovered. Do you understand?’

Sherlock’s head was spinning. He was desperate to explain himself. ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘but I am not insane!’

‘Nobody who is insane believes themselves to be insane,’ Williams said. ‘It is, I dare say, one of the defining characteristics of insanity.’ He nodded. ‘I have, as
you might expect, made no small study of insanity. I was previously Assistant Doctor firstly at Derby County Asylum and then at the Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire County Asylum.
Eight years ago I was appointed Assistant Physician here under Doctor William Hood, whom I succeeded six years ago as Resident Physician. I tell you this so that you know there is no way you can
pull the wool over my eyes. I can tell when someone is mad, and I can tell when they are sane.’

‘But, sir—’ Sherlock started desperately.

Williams kept talking, as if he hadn’t heard the interruption. ‘I am of the firm opinion that insanity is a hereditary disease of the brain. I have, for instance, seen several cases
of babies delivered of women – I can hardly call them “ladies” – who are inmates here at Bethlehem. These babies were steeped in madness as they lay in the womb, and my
attendants have told me that they have acted like devils from the moment they were born.’

It occurred to Sherlock that any baby born in a place like Bedlam, with all its screams and cries and the slamming of doors, would be likely to scream and cry themselves, and that was regardless
of whether their mothers were properly able to take care of them, but he kept quiet. He suspected that Dr Williams did not like to be interrupted when he was pontificating.

‘Under my predecessor, the esteemed Doctor Hood,’ Williams continued, ‘insanity was treated – if you can call it that – with drugs and with rest and with seclusion.
This is not an approach that I believe works well. I would rather tie a patient down constantly than keep him always under the influence of a powerful drug. I have known cases of chronic insanity
benefit materially – although not be cured entirely, of course – by a prolonged period of time in a padded cell. I have also observed several patients who were destructive and
aggressive become as meek as lambs after several hours restrained in baths of warm water. This is
my
approach, and you will experience its benefits yourself. I hope that in time you will
recover from the mania which you have so obviously displayed, and that you will be able to be released into society again.’ His gaze met Sherlock’s. ‘Now, do you have any
questions?’

Sherlock’s brain raced. How could he best convince Dr Williams that he wasn’t mad?

‘Am I displaying signs of mania now?’ he asked quietly.

‘You appear to be in a placid phase of your insanity,’ Williams said. ‘Mania goes in cycles.’

‘Then how do you know that I
was
displaying signs of mania?’

‘I have the reports of the policemen and other members of the public at the scene.’

‘If I do
not
display any further signs of mania,’ Sherlock went on carefully, ‘then how long will it be before you decide that I am either cured or that I was never mad
at all?’

‘As to the first,’ Williams said, ‘I cannot observe you at all times. Just because you display no signs of mania now, that does not mean that at three o’clock tomorrow
morning you will not be raving in your cell and banging your head against the walls. As to the second – well, of
course
you are mad to begin with. Why would you have been sent here
otherwise?’

Before Sherlock could respond to this obviously stupid remark, Williams rang the bell that sat beside the ledger.

‘If madness is hereditary,’ Sherlock said desperately, hearing the door opening behind him, ‘then how
can
it be cured? Surely by that definition people are born with it,
in the same way that they might be born with red hair.’

Williams stared at Sherlock as if he was disappointed by him. ‘Ah, a display of argumentativeness,’ he murmured. ‘A classic sign of incipient mania.’ He made a note in
the ledger. ‘Take him away,’ he said, without looking up.

A hairy hand closed over Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘Don’t make any trouble,’ the attendant advised. ‘Remember what I said.’

Sherlock allowed himself to be pushed out of the room, across the hall, through the grille gate and along the gallery. Despair filled him. Unless something happened, unless Amyus Crowe could get
him out, then he might be incarcerated there forever. How could Sherlock persuade a man like Dr Williams that he was sane when Williams believed that insanity was inherited, and that even arguing
was a sign of madness? Nothing that Sherlock could do would change his mind!

Padded cells. Being tied down. Restrained in a warm bath for hours on end. Was this what his future held for him? Was this the shape of the rest of his life?

Not if he could help it.

As he was led along the gallery, past the caged fires and the slitted windows, past the various men who paraded up and down or just stood around motionless, his brain was racing. If he
couldn’t rely on the medical profession to realize that he was sane, and if he couldn’t rely on Amyus Crowe or brother Mycroft to get him out, then it was left to him. He had to escape
by himself.

‘You’re allowed free association wiv the other inmates,’ the toothless attendant said. ‘Until lights out, that is, then you’re locked in your cell. Sorry, I mean
your
room
. Your palatial accommodation.’ He laughed. Sherlock could smell something rank coming from his mouth: a combination of tooth decay and tobacco. ‘Food trays will be
bought along later. If there’s any trouble – if you start a fight, or start trying to cut yourself – then we’ll lock you up early. Understand?’