Twelve Minutes to Midnight Read online

  They were nearing the end of the corridor now, where a dark wooden door stood slightly ajar. Dr Morris reached out for its handle and pushed the door open to reveal a cramped office filled with desks, pigeonholes and dusty ledgers.

  “Since then the patients’ writings have multiplied beyond reason. Every night brings yet more pages filled with their demented babblings. We have had to give over an entire annexe of the administrative offices to keep them all. Mr Jenkins here will be able to show you what you need.”

  The doctor gestured towards a slight figure in a faded grey suit, who was rising chameleon-like from behind one of the dusty desks. “Jenkins, this is Mr Montgomery Flinch. Mr Flinch would like to see the Midnight Papers.”

  At these last words, Jenkins’s mouth twitched, a nervous shadow momentarily flitting across his features as he stepped out from behind his desk.

  Dr Morris turned back towards Monty.

  “The Midnight Papers is what the orderlies took to calling the patients’ nocturnal writings. They joked that they were more believable than the first editions of the Daily Mail and the other morning papers.”

  “Mr Flinch, it’s an honour,” said Jenkins, recovering himself as he clasped Monty’s hand in his own. “I’m an avid reader of your stories in The Penny Dreadful.”

  “Why thank you,” Monty nodded his head courteously, “and this is my niece, Miss Penelope Tredwell.”

  “Miss Tredwell.”

  Jenkins inclined his head towards Penny in greeting, giving her a first chance to study him at closer quarters. His face was spreading lazily into middle age with jowly cheeks and the beginnings of a double chin as the wattling skin bulged around his neck. His thin lips were pulled uncomfortably into an ingratiating smile, but Penelope noticed that his grey eyes flicked nervously from Dr Morris to Monty and then back again as if calculating his next move.

  “Dr Morris, if I might just ask,” Jenkins ventured, a slight note of shrillness entering his voice. “The Midnight Papers – are you sure? If word was to get out of what is happening to the patients here…”

  Dr Morris fixed him with a glowering stare.

  “Mr Jenkins, may I remind you that I am the Physician Superintendent at this hospital. The care and well-being of the patients here is my ultimate responsibility. I believe that Mr Flinch can help us to bring an end to this nightmare and I expect you to give him your every assistance. Now bring him the papers.”

  Jenkins shrank back at the doctor’s command. Nodding his head, he turned to rummage in his desk drawer, before finally pulling out a large bunch of keys.

  “We keep the papers in one of the back offices,” he told them, motioning for Monty to follow him as he turned towards another door at the rear of the office, half-hidden between the overflowing cubbyholes. “They were taking up far too much space in here – getting mixed up with the patient records and medical notes – so we moved them into the rear annexe. We’re going to have to find a new space for them soon though.” He pushed the door open and ushered them through. “They’ve practically filled the entire office.”

  Penelope followed Monty and Dr Morris as Jenkins led them through a warren of small rooms, each filled with more desks and pigeonholes bristling with papers.

  “The patients’ writings are kept in here,” said Jenkins as he stopped at yet another door and began to search through the loop of keys in his hand. “I’m afraid though that the papers are in some disarray. It’s been quite some time since I was able to get to the filing back here.” He cast a nervous glance towards Dr Morris, who scowled back at him owlishly. Finding the right key, Jenkins fitted it to the lock and, turning the handle, began to push the door open. “Here you are, Mr Flinch – the Midnight Papers.”

  Penelope heard Jenkins’s shocked gasp of surprise, but couldn’t see its cause as Dr Morris and Monty stood motionless in front of her, their bulky frames blocking her view of the room’s interior.

  “Mr Jenkins,” the doctor growled, “what is the meaning of this?”

  As Penny wriggled through the small gap between Monty and the doctor, digging her sharp elbows into Monty’s midriff to ease her passage, she heard Jenkins splutter in reply.

  “I – I – I don’t know.”

  Through the open doorway, Penelope could see a small gloomy office, just like all the others they had tramped through. But where the other offices had been crammed to bursting with files and records, papers spilling from every surface, here every pigeonhole was empty, every desk clean; not a single scrap of paper could be seen anywhere.

  The Midnight Papers were gone.

  VI

  “Where are the patients’ writings?” Dr Morris demanded. “Where are the Midnight Papers?”

  Ashen-faced, Jenkins shook his head, his fingers trembling on the door handle as he surveyed the empty office.

  “I don’t know. They were here first thing this morning – Mr Bradburn, the night orderly, dropped off the latest batch of writings at the end of his round.” He motioned towards the empty desk nearest the door. “I put them there – I was going to try and find the time to file them later today…”

  Jenkins’s voice trailed away as he shook his head again, dumbstruck by their mysterious disappearance.

  “Who else has access to this room?”

  At the sound of Penelope’s voice, the three men spun in surprise as they turned to face her. She was only a girl, but something in her searching stare compelled Jenkins to answer.

  “Just Dr Morris and myself,” he stuttered in reply. “The orderlies bring files and medical notes to the administrative offices, but they never venture past the outer lobby.” A momentary flicker of doubt flashed across Jenkins’s eyes, but before Penny could press him further, Monty’s booming tones filled the room.

  “Well, the mystery deepens, but I’m afraid that without seeing the patients’ writings there is little more I can do here now.” Monty straightened his jacket and began to turn towards the door that led back to the outer office. “As soon as you gentlemen manage to track down these Midnight Papers, please let me know and I’ll return forthwith to solve these strange events. But the next issue of The Penny Dreadful will not write itself, so for now I’ll bid you good day.”

  Penelope turned to face Monty, astounded by his audacious attempt to escape from this place. She glared at him in warning, but the actor studiously avoided her gaze. As Dr Morris fussed around Monty, offering his profuse apologies and assuring him that they would track down the papers, she stood there silently seething. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jenkins’s pale face flush with relief, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

  “Come along, Penelope.”

  At Monty’s imperious command, Penny gritted her teeth and nodded obediently. Still muttering his apologies, Dr Morris began to usher them out through the warren of offices.

  “I will return shortly, Mr Jenkins,” the doctor called back over his shoulder in a frosty tone, “and we’ll discuss this matter further then.”

  Penelope fumed as she fell into step behind Monty and the doctor, the two men deep in conversation as they left behind the dusty offices and began to walk back along the long corridors of the asylum. She had been on the brink of a discovery. The nervous flicker in Jenkins’s eyes told her that. The patients’ writings – these Midnight Papers – they were the key to unlocking this mystery. But Monty’s lily-livered constitution hadn’t been strong enough to face the challenge of tracking down where they had disappeared to. Now she had to leave behind the scene of potentially her greatest story before the first chapter had even been written.

  Ahead of her, the two men stepped to one side in the corridor to let another figure pass. A woman, dressed from head to toe in black, swept by without a word, the veil beneath her widow’s cap shrouding the beauty of her features.

  “Ma’am,” murmured Monty respectfully.

  “My Lady,” intoned Dr Morris.

  Penelope drew to one side too, bowing her head in
sympathy as the woman passed. Beneath the flowing lines of her mourning clothes, the woman’s youthful figure showed that she had been widowed at a tragically young age. Penny’s eyes followed her along the corridor. What fresh sorrow could bring her to so bleak a place as Bedlam?

  As the doctor and Monty resumed their progress along the corridor, Penelope remained where she was standing, her gaze still drawn to the departing figure. With an author’s eye, she watched the twilight swish of the widow’s weeds; the part of her mind that crafted Montgomery Flinch’s fictions seeing the model for a character who could step into the pages of his next story. From behind her, she caught a snatch of Dr Morris’s hushed tones as the two men continued their conversation.

  “… quite terrible the tragedy that lady has had to bear – you see, even the finest of families can find themselves touched by the cruel finger of madness…”

  The echo of his footsteps obscured the rest of the doctor’s words. Penny watched as the black-veiled lady reached the entrance lobby. Waiting in the shadows there, she glimpsed the burly figure of the scar-faced guard. Her eyes widened in surprise as she watched the widow pause for a moment in front of him. With slender fingers clad in black kid gloves, the widow reached inside her purse and then pressed something into the orderly’s hand. Penny thought she saw an envelope, but in the gloom of the corridor it was difficult to be sure.

  As the guard stuffed his hand into his pocket, the veiled woman turned away, gliding like a spectre through the entrance doors and out into the world beyond. Intrigued, Penelope stared after her departing figure. A sudden itch in her fingers told her that here was another story, yet more mysteries for her mind to twist into story shape. Penny’s brain whirred with ideas. A widowed wife, a blackmail plot, a dark family secret lost in the corridors of madness. The next issue of The Penny Dreadful started to take shape in her mind.

  A sudden clattering sound jolted Penny’s thoughts from their plotting. Monty and Dr Morris were several paces ahead of her, both of them oblivious to the sound as they carried on walking. But as Penelope looked down she saw a metal bucket tipped on to its side, the spilled wax seeping into the floorboards and the wrinkled face of the prematurely aged woman staring back up at her.

  Penelope quickened her step to pass the woman by, but before she could, the woman rose to her feet. Dropping her cloth, she grabbed hold of Penelope’s arm with painfully sharp fingers.

  “You’ve got to stop them,” she hissed. Her open mouth revealed blackened stumps of teeth. “Stop them before it’s too late.”

  “Please,” said Penelope, trying to pull her arm free. “If you could just let me past—”

  The woman’s nails dug into her skin.

  “Every night they come, filling my mind with maddening visions. Glimpses of the secrets of the universe revealed.”

  Penelope stood transfixed, the pain from the nails digging into her skin forgotten as she listened to the woman’s pleadings. “But they’re watching me, always watching, and when I wake they take my dreams away.”

  Further along the corridor, Monty glanced back over his shoulder to check that Penelope was still following. Seeing the patient gripping her arm, he let out a shriek of alarm. At this Dr Morris turned and, with a shout that rang down the corridor, cried out for assistance.

  “Orderly! Orderly!”

  Fear flashing across her wrinkled face, the woman pulled Penelope closer. The heavy scent of sweat and waxed floorboards filled the space between them.

  “But they can’t take them all,” she told Penelope, speaking quickly as a thunder of boots echoed down the corridor towards them. She pulled back the sleeve of her grey dress and thrust her bare arm in front of Penelope’s face. “See!”

  Penny stared at the liver-spotted skin. The woman’s arm was pale and shaking, but scratched in black ink along her veins were the letters E=MC2.

  “I don’t understand,” said Penelope, slowly shaking her head. “What does it mean?”

  The woman opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, the thunder of footsteps reached a crescendo and the large figure of a white-coated man loomed behind her. With one hand, the man grabbed hold of a handful of hair, dragging the woman from Penelope’s side with an anguished squeal.

  “Leave her alone,” Penelope cried.

  Still holding the struggling woman by her hair, the burly orderly clamped his other free hand around Penelope’s wrist. His fingers tightened and Penelope looked up to see the snarling features of the scar-faced guard.

  “It seems you’ve got the unfortunate knack of upsetting the patients around here,” he growled. “I think you’d better leave – for good.”

  He gave her wrist a vicious twist that made Penelope’s eyes sting with tears. As a second orderly reached the hysterical patient and began to bundle her into a stiff side-arm dress, the brutish guard released his grip on Penelope. He turned to help the second guard, the two of them forcing the madwoman into the restraining dress, her arms held captive in its padded pockets.

  “Take her to the basement cells, Mr Bradburn,” Dr Morris ordered, the medic wheezing as he hurried down the corridor towards them with Monty close behind. With a swift nod of his head, the burly guard dragged the woman backwards by the collar on her dress, her legs thrashing against the polished floorboards as she let out a banshee wail.

  “Are you all right?”

  As he reached her side, Monty placed a protective arm around Penny’s shoulder, blocking her view of the terrible scene.

  She slowly nodded her head. The woman’s screams echoed down the corridor, but Penelope could still hear the guard’s words of warning ringing in her ears. Someone didn’t want them here. Closing her eyes, she could see the woman brandishing a shaking arm in front of her face, the strange letters scratched across her skin.

  E=MC2

  Penny opened her eyes once again and stared up into Monty’s concerned face.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, “but we’re not finished here. We’ll be back.”

  VII

  “I’m afraid that Montgomery Flinch isn’t here, Mr Barrett,” Penelope replied as she held the door ajar, her face fixed in an apologetic smile. “He is currently secluded in his country manor working on his next fiction serial. I don’t think that he will be able to give an interview to your newspaper or indeed any newspaper – exclusive or otherwise.”

  On the doorstep, the young journalist peered suspiciously past Penelope’s shoulder, his gaze trying to penetrate the gloom of The Penny Dreadful’s office. Inside, two dying gas lamps hung from the ceiling, their fading glow illuminating stacks of magazines and paper proofs piled across desks as the scant December sunlight slowly began to creep in through the office’s high windows. At the far desk, the silvery thatch of Penelope’s guardian, William Wigram, was bent over a ledger of accounts. The elderly lawyer looked up, raising his eyebrows questioningly as Penelope stepped in front of the journalist, blocking his inquisitive stare.

  “And I don’t suppose you could tell me where Mr Flinch’s country manor can be found?” the journalist asked, scratching doubtfully at his moustache.

  Penelope shook her head.

  “Mr Flinch is a very private individual,” she replied, her cheeks colouring at the thought of revealing such a confidence. “I’m really not at liberty to share his address with passing journalists. He likes to keep the location of his home a secret.”

  “Seems a lot of things about Montgomery Flinch are secret,” the journalist sniffed. “Where he lives, where he was born, where he came from – his readers have a right to know.” He peered at Penelope intently. “Anyone would think he had something to hide.”

  Penny shifted uncomfortably under the journalist’s gaze.

  “Is that all, Mr Barrett?”

  Blowing out his cheeks, the journalist slowly nodded his head.

  “For now, but when you next see Montgomery Flinch, please give him this.” He handed Penelope his card. “Tell him the Pall Mall Gazette w
ould very much like the courtesy of speaking to him to check a few facts, else we might have to run a less than flattering story.”

  Penelope looked down at the card in her hand.

  Mr Robert Barrett

  Arts and Entertainments Correspondent

  Pall Mall Gazette

  2 Northumberland Street

  Strand, London

  Pulling the collar of his coat tight against the early morning chill, the journalist turned and headed down the stone steps. As he reached the bottom, he glanced back up at Penelope.

  “By the way, it was a clever trick you pulled the other night at the theatre,” he said begrudgingly. “Speaking up for Flinch like that – you had everybody fooled. I wonder what they would have said, though, if they knew he was your uncle.”

  Penny’s smile cracked. The lies she had spun to bring Montgomery Flinch to life now had her trapped in their web.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she spluttered. “Who told you that?”

  Barrett tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially.

  “A good journalist never reveals his sources,” he replied, a wry smile creeping across his face. “But when the bestselling author in Britain pays a visit to Bedlam, well, let’s just say people start to talk.” He tipped his hat as he turned away. “Goodbye, Miss Tredwell.”

  Penelope stood frozen for a second, her knuckles whitening around the door handle. Then she slammed the door shut on Barrett’s departing figure, a scowl splitting her own face in reply.

  “Problem?” her guardian asked as Penelope stomped across the office and flung herself into the chair behind her desk.

  Penny shook her head in defiance as she reached for a fresh sheet of foolscap paper.