The male figures were not quite men—the faces were absolutely pale and not yet shaped into manhood—but neither did they look still to be boys. They were very thin and dressed in tights and tunics that almost seemed to be uniforms. Their hands and glimpses of their chests and midriffs between the ill-fitting costumes showed flesh as ghastly pale as their faces. Most strangely in the dimness of the wide sewer, each boy-man was wearing a pair of square smoked glasses over domino masks, as if they had ventured out of a midnight masked ball into brilliant sunlight.
“I believe that our ride has arrived, Wilkie,” whispered Dickens.
Glancing apprehensively over my shoulder at the black opening from whence I expected the wild boys to emerge again at any second, I crowded close to Dickens as he prepared to board the little boat. He paid the silent form in the bow two sovereigns, then paid the man at the sweep in the stern the same amount.
The two shook their heads and each handed one of the sovereigns back. They pointed at Dickens and nodded. Then they pointed at me and shook their heads again.
Clearly I was not invited.
“My friend must accompany me,” said Dickens to the silent pair. “I will not leave him.” He fumbled out more coins. The shadowy shape at the sweep and the one in the bow shook their heads almost in unison.
“Are you from Mr Drood?” asked the author. He repeated the question in French. The silent pair did not respond to either language. Finally the one at the stern pointed to Dickens again and motioned for him to board. The one in the bow pointed to me and then to the brick walkway I was on, telling me to stay. I felt that they were commanding me as if I were a dog.
“The blazes with this,” I said loudly. “Come back with me, Dickens. Now.”
The author looked at me, looked at the tunnel behind me—from which there were renewed scuttling sounds—looked at the boat, and craned to see up and down the underground river. “Wilkie…” he said at last. “After coming so far… after learning so much… I can’t… just… turn back.”
I could only stare. “Come back another night,” I said. “For now we must be away.”
He shook his head and handed me the bullseye lantern. “You have the pistol and… how many shots did Hatchery say?”
“Nine,” I said. Disbelief rose in me rather as one’s gorge might in a rough trailing sea. He was going to leave me behind.
“Nine shots and the lantern and the way back is clearly marked with three stripes the whole distance,” said Dickens. I noticed the lisp in his voice that others often had commented upon. I thought that perhaps it became more noticeable when he was carrying out an act of treachery.
“And if there are more than nine wild cannibal boys?” I said softly. I was amazed to hear how reasonable my voice sounded, although the echo in the large bricked space distorted it some. “Or legions of rats that come to dine after you are gone?”
“That boy was no cannibal,” said Dickens. “Only a lost child in rags so loose that they wouldn’t stay on his back. But if it comes to that, Wilkie… shoot one of them. The others will scatter.”
I laughed then. I really had no choice.
Dickens stepped aboard the little boat, bade the oarsman to wait a second, and consulted his watch by the lamp at the stern. “In another ninety minutes it will be too late to get back to Hatchery before the sun rises,” he said. “Wait for me here on this clean dock, Wilkie. Light the candle to give more light alongside the bullseye and wait for me. I shall insist that my interview with Mr Drood not exceed an hour. We shall go back up into the light together.”
I started to speak or laugh again, but no sound emerged. I realised that I was still holding the huge, heavy, idiotic pistol… and that it was aimed in the general direction of Dickens and his two boatmen. I did not need the grapeshot-shotgun barrel to send all three of them falling lifeless into the surging current of London’s sewage. All I had to do was pull the trigger thrice. That would leave six cartridges and balls for the Wild Boys.
As if reading my thoughts, Dickens said, “I would take you along if I could, Wilkie. But obviously Mr Drood has a private interview in mind. If you are here when I return—in less than ninety minutes, I assure you—we will go up and out together.”
I lowered the pistol. “And if I leave before you return—if you return,” I said hoarsely, “you will have a hard time of it finding your way to the surface without the bullseye.”
Dickens said nothing.
I lit the candle and sat between it and the lantern, my face to the tunnel opening, my back to Charles Dickens. I set the cocked pistol on my lap. I did not turn as the flat-bottomed boat slipped away from my tiny dock. The sweep and bow pole made such little noise that the sound of them was lost under the echoing rush of the underground river. To this day, I do not know if Dickens was carried upstream or down.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The rest of that summer of 1865 remained hot. By early September the unusually warm and frequently stormy weather receded and London enjoyed clear skies, pleasant days, and cool nights.
I rarely saw Dickens during those intervening two months. His children, during the summer and school holidays, put out their own little paper—the Gad’s Hill Gazette—and my brother, Charles, dropped off a packet of these in August. There were articles about picnics, outings to Rochester, cricket matches, and note of the first correspondence from Alfred, Dickens’s son who had left for Australia in May to become a sheep farmer. Mentions of the Inimitable, other than the expected observations that he had presided over the picnics, Rochester outings, and cricket matches, merely confirmed that he was working hard on Our Mutual Friend.
From our common friend Percy Fitzgerald I learned that Dickens had taken a relatively large party of friends and family up to Bulwer-Lytton’s estate, Knebworth, in order to celebrate the opening of the first homes for indigent artists and writers established by the Guild of Literature and Art. Dickens was in charge of the gathering and—according to Fitzgerald—“seemed to be his old, merry self.” The Inimitable had made an energetic and upbeat speech, at one point in conversation privately compared his too-pompous friend John Forster to Malvolio (in the company of several writers, knowing therefore that the comparison would get back to Forster), led a large group to drop in on a nearby tavern named Our Mutual Friend, and even took part in the open-air dancing before decamping back to London with his friends and family.
I was not invited.
It was also from my brother that I learned that Dickens was still suffering the after-effects of the Staplehurst disaster, including having to take the slow train whenever possible because rapid rail travel—and occasionally even travel by coach—would bring on the “shakes.” And Charles also informed me of the postscript that Dickens had added to Our Mutual Friend when he finished it in the first week of September—it was the first postscript that Dickens had ever added to one of his books—in which the author defended his rather unusual method of narration in the novel, then briefly described his experience at Staplehurst, expurgating the presence of the Ternans and Drood, of course, and ended with the mildly disturbing peroration—“I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book—THE END.”
It is perhaps not telling you too much, Dear Reader, since you do reside in our future, that Charles Dickens would not live to ever again pen those two words—THE END—at the close of another novel.
IT WAS ON A PLEASANT DAY in early September that Caroline came up to my study where I was working and presented me with the card of a gentleman waiting on the landing. The card read in its entirety—
INSPECTOR CHARLES FREDERICK FIELD
Private Enquiry Bureau
Caroline must have seen my reaction in my expression, for she said, “Is there anything wrong? Shall I tell him to go away?”
“No, no… show him in. Be sure to close
the door behind you after you do show him in, my dear.”
A minute later and Field was in the study, bowing slightly, pumping my hand, and chatting away before I could say a word. As he spoke, I remembered an early description in one of Dickens’s essays in Household Words about the inspector—“. . . a middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the air of a corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his eyes or nose.”
Field was beyond middle age now—I realised he must be about sixty years old—and only a fringe of grey hair remained where I remembered a lion’s mane of darker curls over his ears, but the husky voice, knowing eye, and corpulent forefinger remained accurate and operative.
“Mr Collins, Mr Collins, it’s a pleasure to see you again, sir. And to see you prospering so obviously and delightfully, sir. What a lovely room this is, sir. So many books. And I believe that is a copy of your own The Woman in White there by the ivory tusk—yes, upon my soul, it is. A wonderful book, so I hear, although I’ve not yet found the time to read it, but my wife has. You may remember me, sir…”
“Yes, of course, you accompanied Charles Dickens and me…”
“On one of your expeditions into the darker parts of our fair city, indeed I did, Mr Collins. Indeed, I did. And perhaps you remember that I was present the first time you met Mr Dickens.”
“I am not sure that I…”
“No, no, sir, no reason for you to recall my presence there. It was 1851, sir. Mr Dickens had hired me, on a private basis you might say, to provide security for his performance of Lord Lytton’s play Not So Bad as We Seem at a benefit by the Duke of Devonshire. You were an aspiring actor then, I believe, sir, and Mr Dickens—on the advice of Mr Egg, I do seem to recall—invited you to play the part of Smart. ‘A small part,’ I remember Mr Dickens saying to you during that first rehearsal, ‘but what there is of it, decidedly good!’ As were you, Mr Collins. As were you. Decidedly good. And I saw several performances, sir.”
“Why, thank you, Inspector. I…”
“Yes—oh, may I be seated? Thank you very much. Beautiful stone egg here on your desk, Mr Collins. Is it onyx? Yes, I believe it is. Fascinating.”
“Thank you, Inspector. To what do I owe…”
“You remember, I am sure, Mr Collins, that the Duke of Devonshire provided Devonshire House for that first performance of Lord Lytton’s play. It was all for the good of the Guild of Literature and Art, as I recall. Sir Edward was president of the Guild at that time. Mr Dickens was vice-president. You may recall that I—and a few carefully chosen associates of mine—were hired to be present in what we call plain clothes because Lord Lytton’s estranged wife, Rosina was her name, I believe, had threatened to disrupt the play. I saw the first note she sent Lord Lytton. She promised to pose as an orange-seller and to pelt the stage with fruit, as I recall.” Inspector Field chuckled and I worked to return a smile.
“In another note,” he continued, “she promised to throw rotten eggs at the Queen, who did attend despite the threats, I am sure you recall, sir, you having the memory of a writer after all. Her Majesty the Queen was there with Prince Albert that evening of the first performance and witnessed your first public appearance anywhere with Mr Dickens. Sixteen May, 1851, that was—seems like just last week, does it not, sir?—and you had your own special guests that night, Mr Collins. Your brother Charles, I do believe, and your mother… Harriet, I believe her name is, and I hope her health is good, Mr Collins, I surely do, and I seem to remember that she lives with your brother Charles and his wife, Kate, Dickens’s eldest daughter, I do believe, when your mother is staying in town. At Clarence Terrace, I think the address is. A lovely neighbourhood. And a wonderful lady, she is. Oh, and you had other guests that night of the Command Performance fifteen years ago, I seem to recall. Edward and Henrietta Ward… a cigar? Why yes, sir. I don’t mind if I do.”
The offer of a fine cigar had served to stem the verbal flow, and the silence continued as we each trimmed our cigars, lit them, and savoured the first minute of smoking them. Before the detective could get his second wind, I said, “Your memory does your profession and yourself credit, Inspector Field. But I should ask—to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
He removed the cigar from his mouth with his left hand and allowed the corpulent forefinger on his right hand to touch first the side of his nose, as if he were sniffing something out, and then to tap his lips, as if the finger were helping to form his next words. “Mr Collins, you should know that the ‘Inspector’ before my name now is a pure honourific, as I am no longer employed by the Scotland Yard Bureau of Detectives. Haven’t been since the year after I protected the integrity of Not So Bad as We Seem, to be one-hundred-percent accurate.”
“Well, I am sure the honourific is well deserved and should be and will be maintained by all who know you,” I said, not bothering to point out that the “Inspector” title was plainly there on his card.
“Thank you, Mr Collins,” said the florid detective, exhaling a great cloud of smoke. With the doors to my study closed and the window open only a small bit, as was my habit due to the noise from the streets outside, the little room was quickly filling up with blue smoke.
“Tell me, Inspector,” I said, “how can I be of assistance today? Are you writing your memoirs? Is there some small gap in your otherwise voluminous and incredible memory which I could help fill in some way?”
“Memoirs?” chuckled Inspector Field. “Now that is an idea… but bless you, no, sir. Others, such as your friend Mr Dickens, have written about my… well, exploits would not be too bold a word for them, would it, sir?… about my exploits before, and I suspect that more will write about them in the future, but no memoirs on my docket for now, sir.”
“How can I help you, then, Inspector?”
Cigar firmly clamped between his teeth, Field leaned forward, planted his elbows on my desk, and freed his corpulent forefinger to point first up, then down, then to prod the desk, and finally to point it at me. “It came to my attention, Mr Collins—came to my attention too late, I regret—that you and Mr Dickens were in Tiger Bay and the Undertown searching for a certain personage named Drood.”
“Who told you that, Inspector?” My voice was cool. This former Scotland Yard detective had already exhibited too much curiosity and intrusion to suit me.
“Oh, Hib Hatchery, of course. He works for me. Hatchery is an operative of my Private Enquiry Bureau. Did not Mr Dickens tell you that?”
I remembered Dickens saying something about Inspector Field having moved on from police work and not being available for our outing, and of Field having recommended Hatchery, but I had not paid much attention to the comment.
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe he did.”
Field nodded and his finger seemed to move of its own volition to a place alongside his beak of a nose even as his other hand removed the cigar from his mouth. “He is, sir. Hatchery is a good man. Not imaginative, perhaps, as the great inspectors and detectives must be, but a good man. A dependable man. But when Dickens contacted me about finding someone to escort him into the… ah… difficult parts of the city again, I assumed that it was another little slum-jaunt of his, of the sort I escorted him and you on and him and the American visitors on, sir. I was out of London for a while, on Private Enquiry Bureau business, and did not hear until I returned recently that Drood was the object of Mr Dickens’s pursuit.”
“I would hardly call it pursuit,” I said.
“Search, then,” said Inspector Field, breathing blue smoke out. “Enquiry. Investigation.”
“Is there something about Charles Dickens’s interests that concerns you?” I asked. My tone was not sharp, but it was meant to put a former policeman in his place when it came to the interests and actions of gentlemen.
“Oh, yes, sir. Yes, Mr Collins. Indeed there is,” said the inspector, sitting back in the chair until it creaked. H
e was inspecting his still-burning cigar and frowning slightly. “Everything about this Drood person concerns and interests me, Mr Collins. Everything.”
“Why is that, Inspector?”
He leaned forward. “Drood—or the monster that calls itself Drood—appeared and began its depradations upon my watch, Mr Collins. Quite literally upon my watch. I had just become Chief of the Detective Branch of Scotland Yard, taking over from Inspector Shackell… it was 1846, sir… when Drood’s reign of terror began.”
“Reign of terror?” I repeated. “I do not remember reading in the newspapers about any such reign of terror.”
“Oh, there’s lots of horrors that happen in those dark parts of town you and Mr Dickens went voyaging into in July that don’t end up in the newspapers, Mr Collins. You can be assured of that.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Inspector,” I said softly. The cigars were close to being smoked in their entirety. When they were, I would claim the press of creative business and show the retired old policeman to the door.
He leaned forward again and this time his active finger was pointed at me. “I need to know what you and Mr Dickens discovered about Drood that night, Mr Collins. I need to know everything.”
“I do not see how that is your concern, Inspector.”
Field smiled then and it was a broad enough smile to rearrange his ageing face into an entire new complexity of wrinkles, folds, and planes. It was not a warm smile. “It is my concern, Mr Collins, in ways that you cannot and could not ever comprehend. And I will have this information in all its details.”
I sat straight in my chair, feeling the pain from my rheumatical gout fuel my displeasure and impatience. “That sounds like a threat, Inspector.”