“This is where the boss torments baby animals?” Joe said, looking about him at the cheerless cages with dismay.
“Sir!” Adam turned an anxious look on him. “That’s bad enough, but it’s worse than that. Tell him, Miss Joliffe!”
“Yes, Miss Joliffe,” Joe said invitingly, turning to her with a politely enquiring expression. “You’ve got our attention! Something you’ve been working towards for quite a while. Perhaps you’ll tell us why you’ve lured us to this charming spot?”
“I told you about the experiment that was abandoned. There were six of us students present to witness the torment. You can’t imagine what an inferno of pain and screams this room was! Afterward, three of the students went away to write up notes, and three of us stayed behind.”
“It took courage, sir,” said Adam stoutly. “I was proud to hear them speak out!”
“We faced up to the professor and demolished-at the time we thought we were demolishing-his experiment in no uncertain terms. We gave him what for, Joe.”
“Ouch! And his response?”
“He demolished us. All three of us. Sacked us on the spot. ‘Leave the hospital at once!’ What’s more, he told us we lacked the qualities to be students of psychology in his university and he was going to have the Chancellor strike us off.”
“But you didn’t leave it there?”
“No. I went straight to Sir James and told him everything. He listened. He laughed at me and explained that no laws of any kind had been broken and that his brother-in-law had a point. This was a scientific field of enquiry. He thought I was being overemotional, but he was sympathetic. He talked to people, and the upshot was that all three of us were quietly reinstated. We never came back here, of course.”
“Until today.”
“Adam had seen the whole grisly scene, and afterward he helped me.”
“With information, sir. And I warned her as how there were other things-worse things-no students ever clapped eyes on, and she gave me her address at the university.”
“Three weeks ago I got a note from Adam. I rushed round to James to show him, and he was shocked. He’d suspected his brother-in-law was capable and probably culpable of unpleasant behaviour-”
“Hold it there, Dorcas. Why suspected? Who had alerted him? Did you ask yourself? Bentink doesn’t go about with A for Arsehole branded on his forehead.”
“He didn’t say, but I believed him when he said he’d no idea how far it went. He could hardly take on Bentink, the most respected psychologist in the country and a director of a prestigious hospital with royal funding. The British Establishment will do anything to avoid a hint of a scandal. You know that, Joe; you’re a part of it. You and Gosling, both. James thought the best plan was to attack this … this … cancer with a scalpel. He spoke with Commissioner Trenchard, and they decided to get the evidence-clandestinely if necessary-then face him with his iniquity and force him into a discreet resignation at the least, the gun and the brandy on the terrace with MI5 to witness it at best.”
“Heavens!” Joe said. “What on earth did you put in your letter, Adam? That resulted in me-an honest copper-being shoved down this rat hole like a ferret?”
White-faced and earnest, the boy squared up to him. “I need this job, sir. I don’t go getting into mischief lightly. The animals, I get too fond of ’em. I know that, and I can hide it-master it, needs must. If I weren’t here, looking out for them, there’s those who aren’t too particular. But what I can’t stomach is the children, sir.”
“Children?” Gosling exclaimed in disgust. “They allow children to come down here? What are they thinking of? It’s not a zoo!”
“You haven’t understood, sir!” Adam’s anguish was hobbling his tongue. He struggled to force out: “Animals are not good enough for his purposes, it seems. He’s moved on to humans. Children.”
“He’s not the first, Joe. There are rumours that Pavlov himself was not content to experiment with dogs. He worked on children.”
“Pavlov? But he’s Russian! This isn’t bloody Russia!”
“Come and have a look next door, sir. That’s where it all goes on.”
Adam went to the far side of the room and produced a key from his pocket. He slid aside a chrome panel to reveal a keyhole.
“Ah. The Locked Door! A touch of the Gothick at last in this monument to modernity!” Gosling’s light remark covered his fear and incredulity, Joe thought.
The space beyond proved to be a suite of three rooms. The two smaller ones were study and filing space for documents. The largest was evidently the operating theatre, though Joe struggled to find a different word, a word to encompass the horrors he sensed had occurred in this grotesque space.
“It’s very white.” Gosling was finding his powers of expression strained as Adam switched on blinding high-wattage lights.
“There’s a reason for that, sir,” Adam said.
A central, shaped couch at working height, clearly an operating table, was covered in some shiny white material that Joe had never seen before. He noted sockets in the walls on either side providing current for the electric wires that dangled from a peg. A range of fluids in laboratory glass containers were ranged neatly on the shelves of a bureau, and a copious sink and draining board occupied one corner. Hospital? Research laboratory? Torture chamber? It could have been any or all of these.
“This is where he brought them, sir. The gyspy children.”
“Gypsies?”
“Don’t expect that would be reported in the capital, but here in Sussex it was. Just once.” Adam spoke roughly. “The gypsies have been complaining that children have disappeared from their camps. Makes a change! They’re always being accused of stealing country children. T’other way round it makes you think there’s something to it. Anyway-I know as there is. I told Miss Joliffe. And now you’ve come. I’ll leave you to do what you have to do and go and keep an eye out.”
Joe looked back uneasily, checking their line of retreat. “Wait! Bentink must have help. Apart from Matron, I mean. An operation so well organised depends on manpower. Manpower that stays vigilant and doesn’t knock off at teatime. Who’s still in the building, Adam?”
“The two medics he’s hand in glove with are off for the weekend. But the heavies he uses are still on duty. There’s only two, but they’re big ’uns. The Trusties. Well paid. London blokes. Don’t mix with the rest of us. Hobnailed boots but not thick heads. No, they’re sharp lads as well as rough. They restrain the animals and the kids that get hysterical until someone can get the needle in.”
“Where are they?”
“They were detailed to be on watch out there by the cages. Right now. Making sure you didn’t get any further. I gave ’em a message. Nicked a sheet or two of the prof’s writing paper last week in case of emergency, and I scribbled a note. Pretended I’d rushed it back from the car for him. An afterthought before he shot off. They don’t read too well, either of ’em. Told them they were to go and stand guard in the graveyard over the fresh plots. They went but they won’t stay out there freezing for long. Better get on-they’ll be back.”
“And looking for you, Adam?” Joe asked.
“I’m scarpering. Picking up my old ma and going off to an auntie’s in London.”
“And then?” Joe handed him a card. “Give me a ring next week and we’ll talk.”
“Get on, Joe!” Dorcas urged. “You know what’s gone on here. Sterilisation. Death to order. Death by experimental methods, even. You’ve seen it now. Let’s get out.”
“No, wait!” Joe was peremptory. “I can’t use this! There’s absolutely no proof here that what you claim has happened, has indeed happened. It could be simply a dentist’s chair or equipment for the treatment of epileptic patients. Easy to account for. Speaking professionally, I can’t take this any further. Unprofessionally, that’s a different matter, and I shall put the boot in but as it stands.…”