The Bedlam Detective

THIRTY-SEVEN

The darkness was sudden, utter, and as unrelieved as it was unexpected. Someone farther down the tunnel screamed. Evangeline gasped, “Oh, Lord,” and Sebastian said, “Don’t be afraid. Take my arm.”

“Where?”

“Here,” he said, finding her hand and guiding it. When her fingers brushed his coat, she clutched at him. He said, “The power has failed, that’s all. It might help if you close your eyes.”

“It doesn’t,” she said after a moment. “What can we do?”

“Stay calm. We’re not trapped. We’re in no danger.”

“There’s no air.”

“The air’s the same as before. You’re just breathing too hard. I’m going to follow the wall to the end of the tunnel.”

He stretched out his hand and took one or two cautious sideways steps toward the tunnel wall, drawing her along with him at a shuffle. When his fingertips made contact with the tile, he felt a relief that he took care not to communicate. Reason was one thing. But this fear was a primitive urge and knew no logic.

With the wall to guide them, he started to move forward. Somewhere way ahead of them, someone found a match and struck a light.

“There,” Sebastian said. “Look.”

The match flame burned for a short while, giving them something to focus on like a distant, dying star, but the flame did not last. It burned all the way down and then, like a star, it fell.

Evangeline said, “I can’t do this, Mister Becker.”

“You can. You’re doing well. Don’t faint on me.”

“I’m trying.”

They kept on moving. People were shouting now, many of them calling for help. Someone else-perhaps the woman who’d screamed when the lights had first gone out-began to panic and shout. Evangeline clutched at Sebastian’s arm more tightly.

“It’s all right,” Sebastian said. “Someone losing control of themselves, that’s all. There’s no good reason for it.”

But Evangeline was beginning to shake, and he quickly had to put his arm around her waist to prevent her from sinking to the ground. This caused him a dilemma, because he couldn’t touch the wall for guidance and hold Evangeline up as well. He shouted back over his shoulder, “Madam! You’re in no danger! Just find the wall and follow it!”

But the woman only screamed back, “Please, sir, help me!”

“I am already helping someone!”

He doubted whether she heard him. Everyone seemed to be calling now, expressing their fears and not listening to each other.

Close to his ear, Evangeline said, “Sebastian. I know it makes no sense. But I feel something watching us.”

“Nothing’s watching us. Nothing’s there.”

“I know that. But it is.”

“Hold on to me. Tight as you can. We’re well on our way out of here.”

She steadied herself and put one arm around him, which freed him to reach again for the wall. That one point of reference was enough to give him the confidence to start forward, though not without continuing hesitation. Though he knew for a fact that the way ahead was clear, he fought against a growing conviction that they were about to walk into some obstacle at any moment.

Evangeline said, “How will we get out?”

“They have stairs,” Sebastian said.

And then: “Look.”

He’d seen the first rays from the light of a lantern in the stairwell ahead of them, and even as he spoke the official carrying it came around and stepped into view. With that one point of reference, all of Sebastian’s inclination to dread abated.

The official held the lantern high and called out, “Everybody all right down there? Come toward me.”

Seconds later, the electric lighting came back on and everyone was caught in whatever attitude they’d assumed in the darkness. Most standing, some dropped to their knees, a very few people crawling on the ground. A long way off, one woman lay in a flat-out faint.

Evangeline was still holding on to him. He was still supporting her. Self-consciously, they disengaged and moved apart.

“See?” Sebastian said. “Nothing there.”

Evangeline nodded. Of course not. But that was not the point.

The official said, “Can I ask you to use the stairs, please? Until the electric can be relied on.”

Sebastian said, “There’s a woman back there in some distress. Didn’t you hear her?”

“Yes, sir,” the official said, and started forward.

Instead of entering the lift, they turned to climb the stairs. The iron stairway curved up and around in a rising spiral between the central shaft and the outer wall. More lanterns had been set out to light the way, although with the power restored these were no longer needed.

They emerged on the north side of the river. After their experience underground, the fog seemed almost benign. North Greenwich Station was only yards away on Johnson Street, and a train was waiting at its single wooden platform. They climbed into a carriage and all but fell into their seats.

Evangeline threw her head back and gave a great sigh of relief.

“I’ve embarrassed us both,” she said, although she seemed anything but unhappy.

“No,” Sebastian said. “You have not.”

“I know I frighten too easily. I do my best not to.”

“There’s no need to explain.”

The train had yet to move when the ticket collector came around. Sebastian showed his travel warrant, and the guard tried to argue. “This is only for one,” he said, and Sebastian said, “Are you challenging me?” and the man backed down. Evangeline’s spirits were so high that she had to fumble out a handkerchief and pretend to blow her nose, lest she be seen laughing.

“You told him,” she said when the man had gone.

“He’s just doing his job,” Sebastian said.

“Then it must be his job to annoy people.”

“For a woman who’s had a scare, you seem in good spirits,” Sebastian suggested.

“I suppose I am,” she said. “I have survived one of my nightmares.”

There was a slamming of doors, and then a whistle, and then smoke and steam as their train jerked and began to roll. It left the station at a little above walking speed, and kept to it. A plate-layer sat with hut and brazier by every major set of signals, ready to place a detonator on the rail if a warning should be needed.

Sebastian said, “You were never in danger.”

“I know,” Evangeline said. “I even knew it then. I believe that’s why it’s called an irrational fear. Are you going home now?”

“If there’s no message for me.”

Evangeline nodded and looked out the window as the vague shapes of fogbound ships in the West India Docks went by.

“I could die for a pie,” she said.

Sebastian took a moment to follow her train of thought. Messages, pie stand …

“No need to die,” he said. “Fourpence usually does it.”

“My treat. You saw to the train.”

But the pie stand had closed early and was all shuttered up. The fog was not so dense in town, though it had slowed everything to a walking pace. To Sebastian Evangeline still seemed bright, almost as if excited by life itself; she’d braved fog, she’d endured a trial underground, and now she’d even crossed the river and braved Southwark.

On an impulse, he said, “Would you like to meet my family?”

“Now?”

“We’re very close. It’s only a few minutes’ walk to where I live.”

“If you think it won’t be an intrusion.”

“Elisabeth will be glad to see a new face. I think she’s grown tired of mine.”

Guests were rare in their home. Not through shame, but because their friends were so few. As they walked through the streets of the borough, and he pointed out some of the more familiar sights that he thought might interest a stranger, he had a sense of-pride?

No. Surely not. This was Southwark, after all.

The street door to their apartments was standing open. This was unusual, but not too remarkable. But when they ascended to the rented rooms, they found Robert alone, sitting at an empty table waiting to be fed.

“Robert?” Sebastian said. “Why was the door not closed?”

Robert looked past him, to Evangeline, noting her presence without seeming to acknowledge it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Frances must have left it that way.”

“Where is she?”

“I’m waiting for her to come back,” Robert said. “I haven’t had any dinner yet.”

“Excuse me for one moment,” Sebastian said to Evangeline, and went to look in Elisabeth’s bedroom. She was not there. He went back to find Evangeline trying to engage Robert in conversation, and Robert increasingly unhappy at this general air of growing disruption.

Sebastian said, “Robert, tell me what happened.”

“The nurse came to change Mother’s dressing,” Robert said. “Frances was up there with her. I heard them saying something and then Frances went out to get a cab. She ran all the way down the stairs. But it was ages before she could find one in the fog.”

“Did she say where they went?”

“Nobody said anything to me.”

“Was there anything else?”

Robert thought for a while.

Then he said, “Frances was crying.”

They all went to Guy’s together. They found Frances alone in the casualty waiting hall. She was alone on one of the hard benches, wiping her eyes.

Her news was not good.