A
LSO BY
S
TEPHEN
G
ALLAGHER:
Chimera
Follower
Valley of Lights
Oktober
Down River
Rain
The Boat House
Nightmare, with Angel
Red, Red Robin
White Bizango
Out of His Mind
The Spirit Box
The Painted Bride
Plots and Misadventures
The Kingdom of Bones
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Stephen Gallagher
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gallagher, Stephen.
The bedlam detective : a novel / Stephen Gallagher.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Private investigators—England—Ficiton. 2. Rich people—England—Fiction. 3. Eccentrics and eccentricities—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6057.A3B93B43 2012
823’.91—dc22 2011018605
eISBN: 978-0-307-95278-3
Jacket design by Whitney Cookman
Jacket photography © Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel Images
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Postscript
About the Author
It is no good casting out devils. They belong to us,
we must accept them and be at peace with them.
D. H. LAWRENCE
The Reality of Peace
1917
SEBASTIAN BECKER’S TRAIN HAD BEEN STANDING IN THIS LITTLE English rural stop for fifteen minutes or more. When he looked out through his compartment’s window the view fogged and cleared, fogged and cleared, adding an illusion of movement as the locomotive’s idling boiler vented its unused energies and a breeze drove the cloud vapor on down its flanks. Sebastian saw a landscape of field and hedgerow, hedgerow and West Country field, all the way out to the blue distant hills.
There was a railway guard working his way down the platform toward them, stopping at each compartment to ask the same question.
A glance around Sebastian’s companions in first class showed strangers, all. A fat man in tweeds. Two clerical men, and a woman with a child. The child was about eight years old and wore a sailor suit, much as Sebastian’s own son once had. A pint-sized sailor, on his way to the seaside. The plush fabric of the seat made the child’s bare legs itch. Whenever he squirmed his mother would reach for his arm and shake him, once, in silent remonstration.
She was a widow, still in the attire. The boy was pale and blue, like the cloth of his suit. It was as if he were his father’s only memorial, and she exercised her grief by keeping him scrubbed down to the marble.
She met Sebastian’s eye.
“Forgive me,” he said, and once more looked out the window.
How far were they now, from the sea? Fifteen, twenty miles?
The sprung latch on the carriage door opened with a sound like the bolt of a rifle. The door swung out and the train guard hauled himself up to stand on the footboard. He’d bypassed the third class compartment next door.
He was a man of some girth, and he was shining with perspiration. His thinning hair was the dark brown of a much younger man, but his thick mustache was mostly gray and ginger. He wore a watch chain and waistcoat and the uniform of the Great Western Railway.
“Pardon me,” he said breathlessly. “But is anyone here a medical man or an officer of the law?”
He spoke to the company in general but when his gaze lit upon Sebastian, his manner changed.
No one moved.
“I thought perhaps you, sir?” the guard persisted when Sebastian made no response.
Sebastian Becker could sense the eyes of everyone in the compartment upon him.
“I’m sorry, but no,” he said.
The guard seemed to hesitate, as if about to say something else. Then he accepted the rebuff and moved to withdraw.
One of the clerical men called after him.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but why have we stopped?”
“Just a slight problem in the baggage car, sir,” the train guard said. “The stationmaster and I are having a difference of opinion over what’s to be done about it.”
The door closed with a bang. And that was that.
There was some shifting and throat-clearing in the compartment, but apart from something murmured by the fat man no one spoke. Back in America, Sebastian thought, the guard’s departure would have been the cue for some lively speculation and debate between strangers. But here, there followed a strained and British silence.