Spider Light(121)
‘Someone from Reaper Wing?’ he said.
‘No, it is not someone from Reaper Wing,’ said Freda. She spoke sharply, but her eyes shifted. ‘It’s a patient from one of the private rooms. We have her listed as Miss Smith.’
Chancery lunatic, thought Bryony, remembering what her father had once said. Or at the very least, something a bit underhand.
Daniel Glass appeared to be thinking on the same lines, because he said, ‘Ah. An anonymous lady. From the sound of things, another of the poor creatures who get shuffled into an asylum under cover of darkness, surrounded by so much secrecy you’d think it was a crowned head. Not that the royal families of Europe are strangers to the odd whiff of madness. Well, Matron? Who and what is Miss Smith?’
Prout hesitated for longer this time, but just as Bryony thought she had decided not to reply, she said, ‘It’s Maud Lincoln.’
Bryony and Daniel both stared at her. Bryony said, ‘But–what was Maud Lincoln doing in Latchkill?’
‘And,’ said Daniel, ‘more to the point, when did she escape, and where is she likely to be now?’
‘What she was doing here is not a matter for your concern, Nurse Sullivan. But I can say that Miss Lincoln had become a little disturbed of late, and so her father thought…a private room, of course, and I promised that the child’s identity would remain secret.’
Daniel did not say anything, but Bryony saw that he was thinking the promise would have involved money changing hands. The Prout was as venal as a Shakespearean money-lender. Bryony thought the private room was more likely to have been one of the bleak cell-like places on the second floor.
Maud Lincoln, said Freda, resolutely, had apparently lain in wait for Nurse Higgins the previous evening, and had thrown a plateful of stew into Higgins’ face the instant the woman went into the room. After that, she had hit her smartly over the head, and bound and gagged her so that Higgins could not raise the alarm when she came round. After which, Maud had made off into the night, wearing Nurse Mordant’s cloak which had been hanging in a broom cupboard.
‘When did this happen?’ said Daniel.
‘Last night. Supper time.’
‘But that’s an entire day! Did no one go into the girl’s room today?’
‘My nurses have a great deal to do,’ said Freda. ‘They looked into the room of course, but thought Miss Lincoln to be asleep.’ This was said with studied casualness, and Bryony guessed that whoever had been on duty had simply glanced into the room, decided the patient was sulking, and taken the food away again.
Dr Glass had clearly come to the same conclusion, but he said impatiently, ‘Has the child gone back to Toft House?’
‘I don’t know. But it is a strong possibility,’ said Freda. ‘I must, of course, go along there now to search the house and talk to George Lincoln.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘I should like you both to come with me.’
‘Why?’ said Daniel. ‘I mean why us?’
‘Maud was violent last night and she may be violent when we bring her back to Latchkill. For that reason I need to have someone with me. But I am trying to preserve the secrecy George Lincoln requested. Anyone coming with me to Toft House will instantly guess who Miss Smith is. But you both know Maud already.’
She paused again and Daniel said, ‘And that being so, you think you might as well trust us with the whole thing.’
‘Exactly.’
Toft House, when they got to it, was lit only by a single lamp in one of the downstairs windows. The curtains of the window were not drawn, and Bryony found this oddly sinister, although she could not think why. For all she knew, George Lincoln left his windows uncurtained every night of the year.
Daniel said, ‘That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’ and Bryony was relieved that she had not been alone in finding the uncurtained window disturbing.
It was Prout who said, ‘I see nothing odd, Dr Glass,’ and Daniel said, ‘Yes, look.’
‘What? Where?’
‘There’s someone sitting in the window.’
‘I don’t see that that’s particularly odd—’
‘I do. Whoever it is, is either asleep or…’ He did not bother to finish the sentence. He ran the rest of the way along the path, and hammered on the door.
Bryony went with him, beyond reason or logic, but knowing instinctively that there was something dreadfully wrong.
They had to get into the house through a door at the back; Bryony thought that if she had been on her own she might have simply given up, but Daniel Glass had taken one look at the figure slumped in the lamplit window, and had gone doggedly around the outside until he had found what seemed to be a scullery door with a lock flimsy enough to snap under pressure.
There was only the thin soft light coming from the room at the front. Bryony, who had never been in Toft House before, looked uneasily about her. It was a big old place; there was a large hall at its centre, and narrow stairs winding upwards to the bedrooms. Everywhere was silent, which surely was strange, because they had made a good deal of noise getting in, and they were making even more noise now. Daniel bounded across the hall to the front of the house, and his footsteps rang out loudly on the polished oak floor. Bryony glanced rather nervously at the darkened stair, and then went after him.