Seven Dials

She realized as he said it that he was admitting a kind of defeat. He had not wanted Ryerson or Ayesha to be guilty. He had performed every contortion of reason to argue another solution, and had at last run out of the power to delude himself any further.

“I’m sorry,” she said gently, putting out her hand to touch him. “But let us at least save Martin Garvie?”

“Yes… yes, of course. I’ll go and find Narraway now. Thank you for that.” He smiled bleakly, taking her hand and holding it with exquisite gentleness. “I’ll deal with the issue of your going back to Seven Dials later.” And he kissed her very softly before he turned to leave.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PITT LEFT KEPPEL STREET with his mind whirling. Bedlam! If Ferdinand Garrick had committed his son to an asylum whose very name was a byword for horror, then he must have had a powerful reason to do so. Was Stephen Garrick insane? There had been no mention of any kind of mental weakness in his military record; in fact, it had been excellent. He had shown courage and initiative, physical prowess and mental agility. He was perhaps the most promising of the four.

Pitt strode down towards the Tottenham Court Road and hailed a cab, climbing in and shouting Narraway’s address.

If Garrick was indeed mad now, what had driven him to it? Was it overuse of opium? Why had he taken to drinking excessively and smoking a substance that distorted the emotions and perceptions?

Or had he seen something in Egypt which had driven Yeats to the recklessness which had ended in his death, Sandeman into a kind of exile in Seven Dials, and Lovat to be the victim of murder? Had Ferdinand Garrick consigned his only son to Bedlam to protect his life?

From whom? Ayesha Zakhari? In God’s name-why?

That thought was still repellent to him, but he could no longer ignore it. The evidence had to be faced.

He reached the street where Narraway lived, alighted, paid the driver, and strode across the wet footpath in the mist. There was no echo to his footsteps; everything was muffled. On the step of Narraway’s house he pulled the lion-headed doorbell.

It was answered by a discreet, gray-haired manservant who recognized him immediately.

“Good evening, Mr. Pitt,” he said, stepping back to allow him in. He had no need to question what Pitt was there for, or if it were urgent. He saw the answer to both in Pitt’s face before he preceded him across the hall and knocked briefly on the door of the study before opening it.

“Mr. Pitt, to see you, sir,” he a

Narraway was sitting in an armchair with his stocking feet on a stool, and a plate of sandwiches on a small table at his elbow. A cut-glass goblet of red wine sat next to the plate.

“This had better be worth it,” he said with his mouth full.

The manservant retreated and closed the door behind him.

Pitt sat down in the other chair, after pulling it around a couple of feet to face Narraway.

Narraway sighed. “Pour yourself some claret.” He gestured towards the bottle on the sideboard. “Glasses in the cupboard.”

Pitt stood up again and obeyed, watching the dark liquid reflecting facets of silvery light as it filled the bowl. “Charlotte found Martin Garvie and Stephen Garrick,” he a

Narraway gasped and then coughed as his sandwich went down the wrong way. He jerked forward in his chair and reached for his wine.

Pitt smiled to himself. It was exactly what he had intended.

Narraway swallowed hard, cleared his throat and sat back. “Indeed?” he said, not quite as gratingly as he would have done had he not choked. “It seems you do not have your wife under control after all. Are you going to tell me where he is, or do I have to guess?”

Pitt turned around with the claret and came back to sit down before replying.

“Actually she went to see Sandeman again.” He made no comment on her lack of obedience to instructions. He crossed his legs comfortably and sipped. The claret was extraordinarily good, but he would have expected no less from Narraway. “She persuaded him to tell her the truth, or at least some of it. Garvie confided in Sandeman that Garrick was in a very bad way indeed with nightmares and delirium. Sandeman is almost certain that both he and Garvie have been taken to Bedlam.” He ignored the horror in Narraway’s face and continued. “Garvie perhaps unwillingly, since he apparently has had no opportunity to tell his family. It fits with all the facts we know. The question is, do Garrick’s nightmares stem from his use of opium, some madness inherent in or, far more seriously, from something that happened during his service in Egypt? And-”

“All right, Pitt!” Narraway said abruptly. “You don’t need to spell it out for me!” He rose to his feet in a single, smooth movement, the last of his sandwich still in his hand. “Yeats is dead, Lovat murdered, Sandeman has lost himself in Seven Dials, and now it seems Garrick is in a lunatic asylum with nightmares that have driven him mad.” He picked up his glass and drained the claret. “We had better go and fetch him. See if we can get any sense out of him.” He looked meaningfully at the glass in Pitt’s hand.

Pitt was not going to leave a claret of that quality behind. It was a pity not to savor it, but there was no time. He drank it quickly and put the glass on Narraway’s table.

Narraway ate the rest of his sandwich as they reached the door and he took his coat from the stand.

Outside, he walked briskly to the end of the street and hailed a hansom, Pitt only a stride behind him. He gave the driver a one-word command: “Bedlam!”

The hansom lurched forward and Pitt was thrown against the back of his seat. He said nothing; he would find the answers to all his questions as to how they would accomplish their task when they reached Bedlam.

It was quite a long journey, and it was not until they were rattling over Westminster Bridge, the lamps along the Embankment reflecting patchily through the mist onto the river, that Narraway at last spoke.

“Agree with anything I say, and be prepared to move quickly if necessary,” he commanded. “Stay close by me; on no account allow us to be separated. Do not act arbitrarily, no matter what happens. And do not allow your emotions to distract you, however humane or commendable.”

“I have been to Bedlam before,” Pitt said dryly, refusing to permit the memory of it into his imagination.

Narraway glanced at him as they reached the end of the bridge and started climbing the rise on the other side, past the railway line ru

The hansom stopped, and Narraway gave the driver a sovereign and told him to wait. “There’ll be four more for you if you are here when I need you,” he said grimly. “And your licence canceled if you are not. Wait as long as you need to. I may be a short time, or I may be hours. If I have not come out by midnight, take this card and go to the nearest police station and fetch half a dozen uniformed constables.” He passed a card over to the man, who was sitting wide-eyed and by now seriously alarmed.

Narraway strode over the path and up the steps to the front entrance of the hospital, Pitt half a pace behind him. They were met immediately by an attendant who barred the way firmly and politely. Narraway informed him that he was on a government matter to do with the security of the nation, and he had a royal warrant to pursue his business wherever it took him. One of the inmates had information urgently needed, and he must speak with him without any delay whatsoever.

Pitt’s stomach sank as he realized just what a risk they were taking. He had accepted without question that Charlotte was right, and Garrick was here. If she was mistaken and he was in some other asylum, Spitalfields, or even a private institution, then Narraway was not going to forgive him for it. He was startled when he realized just how completely Narraway had trusted him, even more when he remembered that it was actually Charlotte’s word he was taking.