“You’ve encountered such a case of kidnap yourself, sir?” Dorcas asked.

He smiled. “Encountered? Say rather dealt with. You see what we are, Miss Joliffe. A community of nearly a thousand patients. Coming and going.…”

“Children? Do you have children on the premises?”

“Some. We have groups of adult men and women, segregated for work and sleeping, but a few children too, the majority of whom have family members here. Unaccompanied young derelicts I am relieved to be able to send on to an excellent specialist youth unit elsewhere in the county. I am a medical clinician myself. Theoretical these days, I’m sorry to say. I like to think of Prince Albert’s more as hospital than asylum—a place to be cured of your ills and from which you pass out in as short a time as possible. But the state sends me increasing numbers of incurables—victims of nothing more than poverty, mental deficiency, sexual abuse, melancholia, general inadequacy and, yes, epilepsy. We are overwhelmed. We are sinking under the weight. But I do what I can.

“This could be a dust bin, my friends, a stinking receptacle for the dregs of a pullulating society. I won’t have that! I run a healing village. Fresh air, hard work—congenial work—and a good, if spare, diet. The patients do most of the work themselves. They have to earn their crust. They work hard. I allow no shirking. In laundry, bakery, market garden and farm. They are the villagers. And in their hours of recreation they do exactly that—they recreate themselves. They paint, they write, they play music. Some even get well!”

He caught himself and smiled. “But I’m launching into my welcome speech and neglecting your business. Your child—Spielman, did you say?—is not here, and if he’d been presented in the circumstances you describe I would first have treated him and secondly have contacted everyone who had an interest: his parents—both parents—but also his school even though he had just left it. I would also have notified the local police force. You never know.”

“Why did you stress both parents, sir?” Dorcas asked.

“A personal experience. In the case of a desperately sick child—mentally unstable or with low intellectual powers or even epilepsy—the strain on the family becomes too great to bear. One parent, usually the father, takes it upon himself to relieve the household of the burden. A scurrilous father or simply one who is a moral coward may make arrangements, unbeknownst to the wife, with a sympathetic local practitioner to ‘get him certified’ and presented at an establishment like this one. The required number of signatures and acceptances is well regulated. Inspections are made. Nevertheless it is always wise to check rigourously that the consent comes from both parties as well as the medical agent. I take no risks.”

“They made less fuss in ancient Sparta,” muttered Gosling, disgust in his voice. “Just hung them from a lintel. If they fell off—”

“Yes, they led a simpler life!” the superintendent said. “And in many ways we have made little progress over the centuries, you’d say. It was my uncomfortable lot to trip across one such attempt a few years ago. To my cost. I dealt with it. Now, do you want to be on your way, or would you like to accompany me on my rounds? I can unlock the padded cells for you, but you’ll find no occupants. We have nasty electric-shock equipment on the premises, but I’m not sure I could lay hands on it if you asked me to. There are the usual chemical remedies to which we may have recourse in extremis—pacifying drugs and such-like. I use other methods. Restraint is necessary occasionally, but only applied when a patient is in danger of harming himself or herself. That’s the rule here.”

Seeing them hesitate, he added, “Look, if I were some sort of a Bluebeard keeping wailing children behind locked doors, you could hunt around this building till kingdom come, and you wouldn’t come across a child I wanted to hide. It’s enormous. Bigger than Buckingham Palace and with twice as many rooms. Hidey holes everywhere, a farm with outbuildings, a stable block, a working well, a dovecote—stocked. Even a folly or two. Some of it I haven’t set foot in myself.” He paused and fixed Joe with a challenging glare that had an edge of dark humour. “We even have our own cemetery! Hundreds of bodies in it. No one’s ever counted. Going back to Saxon times, I shouldn’t wonder. Prince Albert’s was an abbey centuries ago. Most country hospitals and asylums were. Some graves have marker stones, most are just grassy mounds covering a thousand secrets. But feel free to move about. I’ll detail an escort for you. Francis and his merry men will take you wherever you ask to go.”

“Thank you, Dr. Chadwick, for your offer and for your understanding, but I think we’ll be on our way.”

Murmuring her thanks as they made for the door, Dorcas asked, “Francis Crabbe?”

“He’ll be waiting at the door to show you out. Francis is the leader of the watch teams. Everyone has a job or a duty to do. That is his. He has great authority with his fellow patients. An intelligent man with considerable powers of leadership. He makes an excellent deputy.”

“I’d noticed. What I didn’t observe is any sign of … mental disturbance. I was wondering why he was here with you.”

The doctor smiled. “He’s been here for nearly twenty years and will die here, Miss Joliffe. As you observe, he’s as sane as I am. The other patients know that. Though the judge in his case begged to differ. Francis Crabbe was a young beater on a grouse shoot in Norfolk just as the war was looming. Of the anti-war faction, his hot young blood urged him to make a protest. Many pacifists were marching with banners or chaining themselves to railings in Parliament Square in outcry against the unnecessary slaughter the high and mighty were about to thrust us into. Our Francis decided on a more flamboyant gesture. He grabbed a shotgun and drew a bead on one of the shooting party guests. His target was his Majesty, King George. Missed, as you will have noted. Nevertheless, His Honour Justice Bentwood’s judgement on the would-be regicide was milder than most had expected and many had hoped for. ‘Man’s mad!’ he declared. ‘Can’t hang a maniac.’ So they sent him to us.”

He opened the door. “Ah, Francis! Our guests are in your hands.”

THE DOCTOR CAME loping down the corridor after them, catching them as they reached the front door. “Sandilands, you ought to have this. May be all nonsense but, well, child at risk, as you say. One would like to help.” His words came fast, his tone was dismissive. “I mentioned an establishment I have close dealings with, a hospital at—I would say ‘the cutting edge,’ but you would despise me for a punster—of modern treatment in the realms of paediatrics. From surgery to psychiatry. It occurs to me that, in your confessedly garbled account of the morning’s events, the child you seek may have fetched up—entirely innocently and in his best interests—at this place. It’s further off your route, but its reputation is wide. The director is … not a friend, but a colleague. Very highly regarded in the profession. If you want to pursue the matter with him—and I would recommend it as a course of action—I would ask you, out of professional sensibilities, not to mention my name.”

He handed Joe a card. “I’ve scribbled his personal telephone number on the back.”

“I shall take your advice, doctor. Thank you very much.” Joe slipped the card away in his pocket. “And allow me to hand you something in return. The answer to six across? ‘Ancient killer at home at last to a pair of idiots.’ Eight letters. Try ‘assassin.’ ”

The doctor shook with laughter. “Idiots in plain view but where, Sandilands, is the home in question? Let me know if you find it!”

CHAPTER 19

The waiter at The Bells handed around menus and Joe and Dorcas looked at them, unseeing, preoccupied.