Among the Mad (13 page)

“But there’s still research in progress at Mulberry
Point, isn’t there?”

“Yes, of course. However, there’s more organization at
the laboratories now. In my day it was like a bit of a bun fight, to tell you
the truth. We were scrambling to find antidotes, in the first instance, and . .
. you know, perhaps I should start at the beginning.”

“Yes, please.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door and the
porter entered bearing a tray with tea for two and a plate of biscuits. Gale
thanked him, and Maisie offered to pour tea while he continued his story.

“The first attacks—with chlorine gas—were like a cosh
on the back of the head to the military, took them completely unawares. They
had to scramble, and scramble fast, to provide protection for the soldiers, and
to find an antidote. The wounds from the gas were terrible, as you know;
chlorine gas was just the beginning. Before you knew it, the military was
crawling over every university in Britain, looking for the best and brightest
physicists, chemists, biologists and engineers. They were effectively
requisitioning people right, left and center.”

“And you were one of them.”

“Yes. I was still teaching because I have the most
dreadful flat feet, so was passed over for military service. But not this time,
not when it came to a different sort of part to play.” Gale looked into the
fire as he dipped a biscuit into his tea, biting off the end just as it was
about to drop. “I was drafted to join a special group who were sent straight to
France. We were with doctors examining patients, we collected skin samples,
cultures and what have you, and some of us returned home to the laboratories as
soon as possible. The army took many of the best students, and for those who
were left, this was their research. It was all a bit hit and miss, to tell you
the truth.”

Maisie watched Gale as he spoke, his eyes now fixed on
a coal that had just fallen from the grate and was rolling close to the edge of
the fender. He did not reach for the tongs to pick up the still-hot coal, but
kept staring at its ashen glow.

“I’d never seen anything like it. They’d taken over
the casino in Le Touquet for the gas cases. It was hard to believe that the
roulette wheels had been spinning just a year earlier, that men and women were
laughing, playing blackjack and poker, placing their bets. Now all bets were
off and the only thing you could hear was the wrenching sound of men screaming
in pain as they died from their wounds, with gas-filled lungs, frothy and
filled with a liquid that looked like the whites of eggs. Funny, I think the
place was once called the Pleasure Pavilion, or something like that.”

“What did you do? What was your job?”

Gale shook his head as if the movement would banish
the memories, and turned back to Maisie. “Well, I’m no doctor, but along with
other scientists, I was taking samples, as I said, and was questioning those
who could speak. We were desperate to know what they saw, what they smelled,
what were their first symptoms.” He sighed and placed his cup and saucer on the
tray. “It was the sort of thing that was never meant to happen. The Hague
Declaration of 1899 clearly stipulated that poison gas was not to be used in a
time of war, and there we were, groping in the dark for a solution, and the
best advice we could come up with was to tell the men to hold urine-soaked
cloths to the face when attacked by chlorine gas.”

Maisie glanced at the clock, and asked another
question. “Is that how you came to work at the War Department Experimental
Ground at Mulberry Point?”

“Yes, that’s it. The government bought three thousand
or so acres of land, threw a fence around it and set us up in some huts. We had
a gas chamber there, laboratories and various other facilities. And—between
us—everyone who worked there, from the cleaning staff to the orderlies to the
scientists and army personnel, we all became involved in the experiments. If
you needed to run a test on a human being, you just called in one of the
orderlies, or you tested on yourself. We had to get the job done, you see,
there was no time to lose. And it may seem strange, but even with the daily
tally of dead and missing in the papers, the press got wind of the fact that
we’d used animals in our experiments and they kicked up a fuss. Not that we
stopped, but you never knew how an antidote worked on a human being if you’d
only ever used it on a dog, for example. Mind you, we wanted to test it on the
dog before we moved on to the human, just in case.”

“And you worked on weapons too?”

“Can’t have one without the other.”

Maisie was thoughtful. “Professor Gale, how easy would
it be for an amateur to handle gas?”

“Depends on the substance—the risk increases with the
effects of the gas and with the level of volatility. However, generally
speaking, I would say it would be very, very difficult. And with something such
as mustard gas, well, it would be lunacy even to think about it. Simply being
close to the body of a man killed by the gas can have you in suppurating
blisters from stem to stern before you know it—in fact, I am sure you would
have had to take precautions against such secondary wounds in the war.”

“Yes, I remember.” Maisie nodded. “I understand you
still work at the laboratories at Mulberry Point, and though I know your work
must be subject to high levels of security, I wonder if you can tell me—and
this has just occurred to me—how many people, do you think, took on this kind
of work during the war? Tens? Hundreds? And are there many still at Mulberry
Point who were there in 1918?”

“I’m still there on and off, for a start, and of
course some of the old team are still in situ. But they’re like me—it’s not my
main job, if you know what I mean. This is my work, I am an academic. However,
if in the course of my work I can come to the aid of my country, so be it. And
to your question, the military scoured the universities, so you are talking
about Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durham, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh,
Glasgow—every single seat of higher learning and research. Some students didn’t
even know they were working for the war effort, but they were the best and
brightest. Some were literally conscripted right there and then to join the
Special Brigades, to spearhead our own chemical attacks over in France and
Belgium. But yes, there were a fair number, and, of course, they’re all
scattered now.”

Maisie glanced at the clock again. “Professor Gale, I
have taken a good deal of your time, and I think you have a lecture in about
ten minutes.”

Gale checked his fob-watch. “Oh dear, thank you for
reminding me. Yes, I must be off now. Time and tide wait for no man, eh?”

Maisie smiled and held out her hand. “Thank you so
much for helping me with my inquiries.”

Gale frowned. “I’m not sure I understand why you are
making such inquiries—though I trust my old friend Maurice Blanche.”

“And your trust is well placed. Good-bye, Professor
Gale.” Having shaken hands in farewell, Maisie pulled on her gloves, waited as
Gale opened the door for her, and said thank you again as she left the room.

Croucher came to see me. Croucher brought apples. He
said a bit of fruit would do me good. He brought soup, bread, some cold meat, a
packet of Brook Bond, so I can make myself a fresh pot of tea. And matches. He
sat and talked for a bit, made me chuckle. Croucher’s like that, always was.
Makes you have a bit of a laugh to yourself. The sparrow reminded me of
Croucher, chirpy little fellow, wiry, quick about his business. Yes, Croucher
looks after me. He went out for a sack of coal and made up my fire, kept me
warm, for a bit. A bit of this, bit of that, bit of coal, only ever a little
bit for a bit of a man. Yes, Croucher’s kind. Now he’s gone, though, and I’ve
got to get on. Nothing’s come from the wireless, so it looks as if I’ll have to
keep my word.

The man set down his pen in the middle of his journal,
closed the book around it and secured them together with the string. Pushing
the book aside, he cleared the table and shuffled across to the cupboard, where
he opened the door and with both hands removed a large, empty aquarium. He
placed it on the table, went back for the metal lid he’d fashioned to fit like
a glove, snug and tight, then made his way toward the back of the flat.
Stopping to cough, a phlegmy cough that caused him to thump his chest to clear
congestion, he remained still for some seconds before opening a splintered door
that led to the postage stamp of a back garden. Once outside he turned to the
side and spat out the yellow, blood-threaded debris that had issued from his
lungs, then walked in a deliberate manner along the path to a cage-like
construction with mesh netting. Inside, birds had been captured, and as the man
opened a door and reached in, the sparrows, blue-tits, robins, pigeons and
starlings scattered and squawked. He winced at the sound, grabbed a butterfly
net leaning against the side of the cage and an old sack, and one by one he
removed the birds. Soon there was no furious chirruping, not even aggression
between the more dominant birds and those they considered lesser, only their
muffled movements as he carried the closed sack into the flat. With care he
emptied the birds into the glass aquarium set up on the table, and secured his
catch inside with a tight metal lid. He had to be careful, even more careful
than last time. He couldn’t afford a single mistake.

SEVEN

It was midafternoon by the time Maisie arrived back at
her office in Fitzroy Square. Billy was already there, waiting for her.

“Any news, Billy?” asked Maisie, as she unwound her
scarf and hung it over the top of her coat on the hook behind the door. She walked
to her desk and took out the narrow wad of index cards she had used to take
notes during the return journey from Oxford to London. “Have you managed to
locate Bert Shorter?”

Billy’s chair scraped against the wooden floor beyond
the carpet as he came to his feet. He approached her desk, his notebook in
hand. “Yes, I have, and it turns out Mr. Shorter had seen the man in Charlotte
Street before, but usually down in Soho Square. He said the man sat in the
park, never with his cap out, but people would usually walk by and press a few
coppers in his hand. Shorter told me he stopped to talk to him once, and that
he was wounded in the war. He’d lost a leg and the other one wasn’t much good.
He thought the man might have had a small pension, but not much of a life, as
far as Bert could make out.”

“Did he know his name?”

“That’s the thing, he said he introduced himself to
the man once, but didn’t really catch his name in return—reckons it might have
been Ian. He said he was in a pretty bad way with his lungs, and that every now
and again he wouldn’t be in his usual place for a month or so. Bert thought he
might have been taken down to the coast, you know, like they do—I was taken
once myself, when I got really bunged up in my chest.”

“Then he must be known, must have a connection to a
doctor or a hospital—perhaps he’s an outpatient somewhere.” Maisie rubbed her
forehead. “I wonder if they would have missed him yet, if he’s a regular
patient?” She looked up at Billy. “Did Bert have any idea where he lived?”

“Remember, Bert was only surmising, so this is nothing
definite, but he thought the man must’ve been local, perhaps living down in
Soho—there’s a lot of boardinghouses down there. He probably had a pension, but
I bet it didn’t amount to much. And it sounds like he couldn’t work, even if he
could’ve found a job.”

“So, we’ve got a man who might be named Ian, who could
be living in Soho, crippled by his war wounds. Anything else about him that
Bert might have noticed?”

“He said he second-glanced him at first because he
always had a book on him. Always reading.”

“Did he see him with anyone, ever?”

Billy nodded, licked his finger and turned over the
pages of his notebook. “Saw him with a man once. Small fellow, well dressed—but
not in a toff way, more in a clean way, very correct, everything pressed. Bit
like you might see a doorman at one of them hotels up near Hyde Park, when he’s
off duty and just leaving out the back door. The bloke was talking to him,
ordinary, nothing strange, but went on his way when Bert came along with his
horse and cart and Ian—or whatever his name is—waved at him.”

“Let’s recap again. We’re talking about a man who
might be called Ian, who could live in Soho—or anywhere between, say, Old
Compton Street and Soho Square. ‘Ian’ suffered wounds to the legs and the
respiratory system, and he liked to read. If he had a pension, it would not
have been sufficient to cover the purchase of books, so he must have gone to a
library. And if you remember, there was talk of him being on the number
thirty-six bus from Lewisham. I think I might take a guess that that little
piece of evidence has deflected us from narrowing down the search to find him
and his place of domicile.”

Maisie looked around at the clock. “Billy, I wonder
how many lending libraries there are in Soho? Of course, Soho encompasses most
of Charing Cross Road, so if we’re on the right track, he might have a contact
in one of the bookshops.”