Kidney Pie – Chapter 12

-"I Am Not Mad"-

The night was uncharacteristically clear, and the moon shone down eerily on Fogg's Asylum. Nellie couldn't help comparing the large, square, rather ugly stone building to a prison or a medieval fortress. She shivered as she looked at it through the black iron bars of its looming fence.

"Tell me again what the plan is?" She felt Jack move closer even as he spoke. The makeshift manacles – only a strip of an old sheet, really – he had agreed to be bound with pulled tight around her arm as his fingers dug nervously into her shoulder. She was suddenly glad that she wasn't the one about to play the patient. Poor thing…

The baker jumped, surprised, as Mr. Todd stepped closer on her other side, the leather of his coat brushing her elbow. "We bring you to Fogg. He looks at you. I ask to see the hospital. I get Johanna. We leave."

"And by the time he realizes I'm not mad, you'll have the girl?"

Mrs. Lovett cast the Ripper a pitying glance. "Something like that, love." There was a moment of silence as the three stared at the blocky hospital.

"Do we kill Johanna?"

"No!" She and Mr. Todd answered together, turning to their companion. Sweeney's hand closed viciously around hers, and Nellie was thankful she was standing between the two killers.

Oblivious, Jack still looked wide-eyed at the asylum. "Oh." The barber's grip relaxed, but his fingers lingered on hers. She turned to look at him. To her surprise, her eyes met his. She forgot for that moment about their mission, lost in that stare until he stepped away, drawing her by the hand toward the heavy gate. With the Ripper still clutching her other arm, Mrs. Lovett stepped slowly to the asylum, flanked by the two fiends.

Inside, they were ushered quickly into a dingy office to wait for Mr. Fogg. Its desk was cluttered with books and records, its walls bare, and the whole room was filled by the sharp smell of chloroform. Nellie glanced around, noticing the threadbare chairs behind them but preferring somehow to stand. Sweeney leaned close to her ear. "You remember the story?"

"Violent fits. Out late at night. We're very worried." He had released her hand, but she reached out to lightly touch his wrist, feeling a kind of electricity as she did, a tingle that seemed to lift her tired body. Absurdly, she thought of the stories about new treatments being used on mental patients, ones that left them writhing as sparks surged through their poor scattered brains. She shuddered, glancing again at Jack, who hung behind her like a lost puppy. "We'd just like Mr. Fogg to take a look at him."

"Look at who?" All three faces snapped toward the door, where a tall, ferrety man in a grimy white coat was just slipping into the office. Dark, beady eyes flicked over their little party. Any one of us must look half out of our minds. "Sorry. Dr. Jonas Fogg. How can I help you?"

Mrs. Lovett took a deep breath as he stepped away from her men, reaching out for Fogg's hand. "Thank you, Mr. Fogg. We just hoped you might have a little look at someone for us." The doctor's eyes ran again to the two she had left behind her. The Ripper waved shyly, the frayed cloth pulled taut between his hands. "Come on, Jack. It's alright."

Fogg glanced at Sweeney before giving Jack a smile. "Certainly. If you'll have a seat, please…" He gestured toward a badly stained wooden counter against the opposite wall. Toying with his bindings, Jacked edged over to it reluctantly, his eyes still fixed on the others as he hopped onto its surface. "Now, if I may ask, ma'am, how do you know the gentleman."

"Oh, he's my brother, he i-"

"In law." Both Jack and Nellie stared wide-eyed at the barber, confused, but Sweeney continued. "My brother. Her brother-in-law." Nellie's heart raced as it dawned on her what he had just implied. But a seaside wedding could be devised, my rumpled bedding legitimized… "We're married."

"No! No, they're not!" Glaring, Jack pointed accusingly at the two from his perch on Fogg's counter. "They are not married."

Sweeney stepped towards the doctor, twining the baker's arm around his. "You see, sir, how delusional he is." He smiled, turning to cast another look at the speechless Ripper. "We just want our poor brother back in his right mind." Scowling, Jack wound the loose cloth around his hands, jerking the remaining slack so that the fabric made a sharp cracking sound.

Fogg looked up at the sound, but turned back to Sweeney. "Of course."

"You'll understand, though, that I couldn't possibly leave my -" Sweeney cast a sideways glance at Jack. "-dear brother in a hospital I knew nothing about."

Another snap sounded out behind them, but Mrs. Lovett hardly heard it. Her attention was fixed solely on Mr. Todd as he talked his way into a tour of the hospital. The silky, commanding cunning he had suddenly mustered gave her chills. It was so unlike the brutality she often saw in him, unlike Benjamin Barker's unassuming innocence. She wondered if he had learned to lie in prison before he talked his way past the guards and walked into freedom.

"Yes, sir, I agree," Fogg was saying. Nellie snapped out of her dreaming as the doctor turned and leaned out his office door, calling out to someone in the hall. She looked around her quickly. Sweeney met her eyes, smiling at her the way he had when she had first suggested their little enterprise to him. She felt her heart turn to sand and poor down into the pit of her belly, even as Fogg swung the door open, showing a balding orderly on the other side. "Samuel here will be more than happy to show you around."

"Thank you, sir." Mr. Todd watched Nellie as he stepped toward the door, still smiling. "I'm sure Nellie will give you all the help you need with Jack. She's quite fond of my brother." Whatever bond had tied her senses only to him broke as soon as the door swung quietly shut behind the barber. The only bond left in the room was the strip of cloth that ran between Jack's wrists. He snapped it again, angry, as she turned to face him, her smile only weakly meeting the jealousy blazing in the Ripper's glare.

XXXXXXX

"Wake him up." Beadle Bamford jumped as Turpin's voice cut through the dark inside the carriage. The judge's private coach stood in the shadows of Fleet Street, its one curtained window allowing them to watch the dark close around the deserted pie shop and looming peak of Sweeney Todd's Tonsorial Parlor, its massive window gleaming dimly in the moonlight. There wasn't a soul to be seen in the road, but they waited still, as the stench that always hung over the area seeped into the carriage's perfumed interior.

At least it masked the smell of opium. The beadle turned hesitantly to the third man, slumped and snoring on the seat beside him. "Are you sure, my lord? Maybe we should let it run its course…"

"Wake him up!" The judge all but snarled. Even though the darkness hid his face, his fury was unmistakable. "Or would you like to wait her until they return and conduct our search with the Ripper at home?"

Bamford grabbed the man by the lapels, shaking him like a rag. "Inspector! Wake up at once!"

Inspector Frederick Abberline opened his unfocused eyes with a groan. "Wha's it, Godley?"

"Sergeant Godley is downing ale in the same Whitechapel pub where he told us how to find you." The judge sat stiffly in his seat, his voice sour with contempt. "Honestly, Inspector, if you conduct your investigations in this state, it's hardly a surprise that we have solved the Ripper case before you."

"Actually, that's where you're wrong." Sitting up unsteadily, Abberline waved a clumsy hand in the judge's direction. "I know exactly who the Ripper is. I just can't prove it yet. You see the Freemasons have-"

"I don't care." Beadle Bamford jumped in his seat as Turpin lunged through the gloom at the detective. "We are outside the home of one of the two men I am certain are behind the murders. You are going to help us link this man to the murders in Whitechapel. Is that clear, Inspector?" Abberline only blinked sleepily before the judge threw him back against the padded walls of the coach. "Get him moving! We'll search the barber's shop first."

The moonlight leapt into the carriage as Turpin flung the door open and stepped out. The beadle felt his knees go so loose he wasn't sure he could follow. "But, your honor…" Ignoring his underling, his honor swept angrily into the street and towards Mrs. Lovett's empty yard. "Perhaps the Inspector and I should stay here and keep watch."

The judge gave him a look of disgust. "Bring. Him. Now." Bamford's heart pounded as he scrambled out of the coach, dragging the half-conscious detective behind him. Turpin was crossing the courtyard already, striding past the empty rows of stools with such a fury that the sleeping birds in cages strung overhead began to chirp and flutter in surprise. The beadle staggered after him, struggling to keep Abberline upright. Afraid to call, he hurried after the judge.

Turpin was halfway up the rickety steps when they reached the foot of the stair, but Beadle Bamford could force himself to climb up after him. He felt the inspector slide from his shaking arms to teeter on his own feet and then fall. "M-maybe I sh-should stay with A-a-abberline, in c-case-"

Judge Turpin turned to glare at him. In the moonlight, Bamford saw a fury in his eyes that had little to do with Jack the Ripper and everything to do with Sweeney Todd and the sailor, with Johanna, even with the woman who had poisoned herself in that very shop fifteen years ago. Turpin started up again with a snarl. Even as frightened tears started form in his eyes, the beadle clutched the railing and followed his master.

XXXXXXX

"These rooms here, they're for holding the ones what need to be by themselves." Sweeney stopped in the badly lit hallway as the orderly stopped beside a row of heavily barred cells. Feigning interest, he stepped closer, peering through the nearest padlocked door. The dark on the other side was hopelessly thick, but the rancid smell of blood and filth painted a clear enough picture. He staggered back, reminded distantly of the dark, reeking hold of his prison ship years ago. "You alright, gov?"

Sweeney steadied himself, forcing a faint smile. "Yes."

Samuel, looking back at him, was obviously concerned. "They ain't in there long, you see. Or we'd clean 'em better." He spoke with a tense, forced calm, as if the barber was one of Fogg's unfortunate patients. Mr. Todd's smile grew wider. "We don't take bad care of 'em."

"Of course. I'm sure in your line you're unable to give your patients the proper care all the time." Sweeney stepped casually up to the bars, looking dismissively again into the black, empty cell. "What I'm most interested in is the regular quarters. You'll show me, won't you?"

Samuel smiled back, relieved. "Course I will, sir. Now – Just this way, sir." The lights flickered in the hallway as they moved on, making shadows leap around the bars and heavy iron doors. "Here-" The orderly flung out his arm toward another locked door as they passed. "That's where the doctor works on 'em." There was no explanation, but Mr. Todd eyed the door, remembering stories. Too many of the men he had known were ones who had been shuffled from prison to madhouse and finally to anywhere but England. The ones no one knew what to do with. He imagined the devices of helping horror behind the door, smiling in the gloom. Jack should do excellently in that particular level of society.

They didn't stop. Nor did his guide stop talking. Sweeney, though, had stopped listening. He pictured Mrs. Lovett's devastated expression when the Ripper failed to make his escape from the Asylum. He pictured her tears, the pie shop closed. He pictured himself coming down to comfort her, giving her Johanna to be a daughter, a sister to Toby. They'd be a perfect family, the four of them. His family.

"Here we are." Pausing at a chained, rusted gate, Samuel drew out a set of keys. "Men on this side of the hall, women on the other." The bars swung with a creak into the darkness on the other side. "It's your brother gone daft, ain't it?" There was a pause as they stepped into another long hallway, lined by more doors, all barred, locked, and bolted. "You know, gov? It's a hard thing for a man to take, having madness in the family, but you take it better than most."

Sweeney reached instinctively for his razor, his fingers finding the cold silver peeking from its holster. He grinned. "I have every confidence, sir, that it'll all end well."

XXXXXXX

Electroshock therapy was not in use until the 1930's, so that part is historically impossible. But then, Jack the Ripper was at work in 1888, 86 years after Sweeney Todd was supposedly hung or 42 years after the musical is set, so...

Fun fact: "I am not mad" is from one of the lesser known Ripper letters, in which Jack complains about the newspapers calling him crazy. He also claimed not to "smoke, swill, nor touch gin." So much for that.

And once again, I strongly encourage everybody to check out "The Mystery of Jack the Ripper" by Star the Ripper on DeviantArt. That's star-the-ripper dot deviantart dot com, and it's right in her gallery. It's a great story and she's a great friend of mine.

Thanks again to everybody who reviewed!