“How did he do this?” Captain Mabry said. “We didn’t hear a thing.”
We were standing in the bedroom of George Naylor, one of the patients who was currently downstairs lying in the hall. Naylor, a quiet twenty-two-year-old with a gap in his front teeth and a fragile constitution from having been gassed, was a neat and orderly patient. But his meager belongings had been pulled from his dresser drawer, his socks and underthings shredded, his pillow reduced to a pile of fabric and feathers on the floor, his mattress sliced. A single picture frame, the only personal item Naylor had been allowed, lay facedown on the ground.
“This room is just one of them,” Roger said. “There are others like this, too.”
I glanced at Jack. Creeton had done this while we were downstairs at breakfast, while I had been giving Jack his clothes back. Creeton must have come up past the back servant stairs—it was the fastest way. He’d been passing the stairwell door as Jack and I had stood in the corridor.
Jack’s face was stony, impossible to read. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked from the room.
He was going to Jack’s own room, of course. We all followed him, clustering in the doorway as he stood looking around the small, dim space where he’d spent six months alone. Creeton hadn’t damaged it, not the way he had George Naylor’s room. He had littered it with pa- pers, all of them lettered in dark, square writing, the lines close and thick. Pages were strewn across the floor, the window seat, the bed.
Jack picked up one of the pages, scanned it. “His dreams,” he said, handing the page to Captain Mabry.
Mabry glanced at the sheet and winced at what he read there, as if it were shocking or painful. “Didn’t he give you these when the rest of us did?”
“No.” Jack’s attention had been drawn to the bed. “He refused.” Go fuck yourself, the exact words had been.
“Well, it looks like he wrote his dreams after all.” Mabry looked around at the dozens of pages littered across the room. “Creeton always denied he had nightmares.”
“You all denied it,” I said.
“Wait.” Jack walked over to the bed, and I could see a single piece of paper placed squarely on the pillow. It was not covered in writing like the others, but had a single message on it that I couldn’t read from where I stood. Jack picked up the paper. “Bloody hell.”
“What does it say?” said Paulus.
Jack held it up. “Eliminate the weak.”
We all digested that for a second. Roger spoke first. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
I thought of Archie telling me, It’s too late. I’m sorry. The ghost of Nils Gersbach. Creeton going over the edge into delusion at the same time. “The sick men,” I said. “Downstairs.”
“Archie Childress,” said Jack.
“You think he means to harm them?” asked Mabry.
“I think we can’t take the risk,” Jack replied. “We know he’s been in the kitchen, and he sliced Naylor’s mattress with a knife. So he’s armed himself. He may have found other weapons by now, too. If he’s got this idea fixed in his head—”
A sound came from the walls. A low groan, deep and vibrating. By reflex I put my hands to my ears; I knew that sound all too well. It was followed by a hollow clang, and then another.
“The lav,” I heard Paulus say.
It came again, and from down the corridor, toward the men’s lav, we heard a wet gurgling sound. I pressed my hands harder to my ears, but I couldn’t block it. I could see the mold in my mind; I could smell it. I could see how it had smeared as I mopped it. And I heard the words in my head, the ones that always presented themselves unbidden. He’s coming. I opened my mouth to shout it, prepared to run. I had no courage to face it anymore.
And then it stopped.
We looked at one another in the silence.
“By God,” said Paulus hoarsely at last. “I hate that bathroom.”
“That’s the loudest I’ve ever heard it,” Jack said as I reluctantly took my hands from my ears. “Something’s happening.”
The air was thick—anticipation, fear. I didn’t know what it was, but my back ached with tension and my jaw felt stiff. Somewhere, a shutter banged in the rain.
Roger cracked his knuckles. “Let’s find this bastard. I don’t care about ghosts. Just let me lay my hands on Creeton.”
“We need to guard the patients,” Jack replied. “If he’s planning something, he’ll come to them—we won’t have to go anywhere.”
“They’re too exposed in the main hall,” Mabry said. His voice was shaky and he looked even paler. “It’s dark, and he could come from too many directions.”
“I agree,” said Jack. “Where should we move them?”
Mabry thought about it. “The common room. There’s only the one doorway.”
“But it has the French doors to the terrace,” I replied. “He could come through there.”
“Not without someone seeing him,” Mabry replied. “They can be barred. And they let in light. If the generator goes, we want to be in the best-lit room in the house, at least during daylight hours.”
I turned to Jack. “Can we move beds in there? I don’t like having patients on the floor.”
Paulus answered me. “We’ve no folding beds, but we can move mattresses down. How many would we need?”
“Seven,” I replied. “We’ve five sick men, and Archie. And a mattress for the attending nurse to use.”
“Do it,” Jack said to the orderlies.
“We’ll be quick.” Paulus was even paler than before. “I’ve no desire to be up here longer than I have to. Not after that.”
Jack, Mabry, and I descended the stairs to the main floor. “I wish I had a weapon,” Mabry said. “I don’t like how he’s creeping around the house behind our backs. We should be armed.”
“I agree,” said Jack. “A handgun would be best. Too bad they don’t keep them in madhouses.”
I halted on the stairs.
The men stopped and turned. “What is it, Kitty?” said Jack.
I looked at them uncertainly. “Is a Luger a handgun?”
Jack and Mabry exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Mabry said. “It is.”
“Then we have one,” I said. “At least, I think we do. It’s Creeton’s.” I bit my lip. “He told me they took it from him when they checked him in here. There’s a safe in Matron’s office where she locks up the men’s valuables, the things she doesn’t keep in the main cupboard.” I glanced at Jack. “Boney told me about it. If she confiscated Creeton’s gun, she wouldn’t have discarded it. She would have locked it up.”
The men considered this. “And how,” Jack said slowly, “would we get into Matron’s safe?”
I pulled out the key ring I’d taken from her cardigan pocket. It held the key to the cupboard where I’d found Jack’s clothes, but there was a scrap of cloth attached to it as well. I’d noticed it when I’d first grabbed the ring, but I hadn’t paid it much attention. Now I did. Because Matron would have kept the two things together—the key to the men’s belongings and the key to the valuables, two things that were her responsibility alone.
“I think this is it,” I said.
Jack reached for it, but it was Mabry who took it from my hand. He stared at it with what seemed like fascination. Numbers were inked onto the scrap of cloth. Six numbers. A combination.
“The safe,” I said, “will have any valuables the men brought in. Money. Watches. Gold. Passports.” I bit my lip. “All of it.”
Mabry closed his hand around it. He really did look tired, I worried. “Well,” he said quietly. “I believe it’s official. The inmates are now running the asylum.”
“Take it,” I said. “But be aware. Creeton’s going to want the contents of that safe. And he’s going to want his gun.”
“We’ll get it, and we’ll help the orderlies move the sick,” Jack said. “Then we’ll scout the west wing for signs of Creeton. Roger has a key.” He looked at me. “And where are you going?”
“I’m going to find Nina,” I said. “She was exhausted. I think she may have gone to bed.”
“Upstairs in the nursery?”
“Yes. She doesn’t know what Creeton’s been up to. I don’t want her up there alone.”
“Right,” said Jack. “Go get her. We’ll set up her mattress downstairs with the others.” His blue gaze was steady on me. “And for God’s sake, Kitty, be careful.”