Drood, Page 59

  Come, Isis, Queen of Heaven! Order that this child shall be conceived in the flames of Nebt-Het, holy Nepthys, Goddess of that death which is not eternal. Hide thyself with the child of Osiris, God of our Fathers. Nourish and sustain this child as you nourished and sustained Horus, Lord of Things to Come, in the hidden place among the reeds. This infant’s limbs will grow strong, as will her body and mind, and she shall be placed upon the altar of her father and serve the Temple which carries the truth of the Two Lands. Hear us, O Osiris! You, whose breath is life! Hear us!

  I awakened from my morphia dreams to find this and similar pages left on the table by my bedside. The hand was that of the Other Wilkie. I had no memory of dictating them. The words, without memory of the dreams, made little sense.

  But my scarab seemed placated.

  On the first day I found such pages, I made a fire in my bedroom fireplace and consigned the text to the flames. I was in bed screaming with pain for two days after that. From then on, each morning after the dreams from one of Frank Beard’s evening morphia injections, I would gather up the tight-writ pages and set them in a locked box on a high shelf in my study closet. Then I would lock the closet. Someday they would all be consigned to the flames, but perhaps after my death. I had no illusions that the scarab could hurt me then.

  IT OCCURRED TO ME sometime in May of that year, 1868, that being out of touch with Inspector Charles Frederick Field was working more to my disadvantage than to his.

  As terrible as that final night on the Undertown river had been—I still had nightmares about the Wild Boy pitching face forward into filthy waters, and there was a scar near my hairline where Reginald Barris had clubbed me with the barrel of his pistol—there remained the fact that when I had been in touch with Inspector Field, I received much more information from him (about Dickens, about Drood, about Ellen Ternan, about what was going on around us) than the inspector had ever received from me. Now that I was approaching what I was certain would be the final confrontation between Dickens and me (after which there would be no doubt to anyone that I was his equal or superior), I realised that I needed precisely the sort of information that Inspector Field had provided until January.

  So in May I began looking for him.

  As an ex-newspaper reporter, I knew that the most certain approach would be to contact someone in authority from the Metropolitan Police or their Detective Bureau. Despite Field’s being retired, there was no doubt that someone there would know both his personal address and the whereabouts of his Private Enquiry Bureau office. But there were compelling reasons not to ask the police. First of all, there was the fact of Field’s ongoing feud with the Police Force over his pension, over his meddling in the Palmer poisoning case years earlier, and over other problems. Secondly, I was concerned that Inspector Field himself might be in trouble with the police after the January mob scenes and burnings and shootings I had witnessed in Undertown. I had no wish to associate myself with such illegal behaviour.

  Finally, and most compelling, I knew that both Drood and Dickens had their contacts with the Metropolitan Police Force and I had no intention of letting them know that I was seeking Inspector Field.

  I then considered going to the Times or other newspaper; if anyone knew where the old inspector’s offices might be, I was sure that some enterprising street reporter would.

  But here again, the negative points outweighed the positive aspects of such an approach. As little as I wanted the police to associate me with Inspector Charles Frederick Field, I wanted the newspapers to do so even less. I had been away from reporting so long that I no longer had any contact with the papers or magazines that I could trust.

  So that left searching myself. Throughout May, I did this as best I could—walking the streets when I was well enough to do so, taking a cab through the downtown at other times, and sending my servant George into promising buildings and alleys to look for Field’s office. Perhaps because of our walk up the Strand and through Lincoln’s Inn Fields (or perhaps because young Edmond Dickenson’s ancient barrister’s office was there), or perhaps because of our repeated meetings on Waterloo Bridge, I had carried away the distinct impression that the old detective’s offices had been between Charing Cross and Fleet Prison, quite probably within the warren of old buildings and legal offices between Drury and Chancery Lanes.

  But weeks of searching there turned up not the slightest hint. I then dropped the word at my club that I was seeking (for literary research purposes) the former policeman whom Dickens had written about in the mid-1850s, but although many remembered that Field had been the template for Inspector Bucket (none had yet come to associate him with Sergeant Cuff, who was currently so popular in my still-serialised novel), no one at the club knew where he might be found. In truth, most of those to whom I spoke were under the impression that Inspector Field had died.

  I still firmly believed that Field would be back in touch with me before the summer was out. As chagrined as he might have been about his subordinate’s pistol-whipping of me in January—my guess was that Field was afraid that I might sue for damages—I was certain that he still wanted information from me. Sooner or later, one of his street urchins or an otherwise non-descript man in a brown suit (although I seriously doubted that he would used Reginald Barris as his agent for such a service) would approach me on the street and I would resume my relationship with the obsessed inspector.

  Until then, I realised, I would have to use my own spies to prepare for my confrontation with Charles Dickens.

  BY EARLY JUNE, Dickens was writing to me almost daily from the Hôtel du Helder, where he was staying in Paris. Fechter had joined him there to oversee rehearsals, but the true stage manager—as he had promised—was Dickens himself. The French were calling my play L’Abîme (“The Abyss”), and it was scheduled to premiere on 2 June. He also reported to me that the French version of No Thoroughfare (according to Fechter and Didier, Dickens’s translator there, as well as his Parisian friends and actors) was an immense improvement over the London version and was bound to be a success. He also reported that he would, in all probability, stay in Paris until mid-June.

  I accurately guessed his prediction of the play’s wild success there to be wishful thinking and his stated plans to stay for two more weeks a simple lie. Scarab or no scarab, I knew that Drood would draw Dickens back to London for the 9 June anniversary of the Staplehurst accident. Of this I had no doubt whatsoever.

  Accordingly, I activated my own modest network of spies. To Fechter in Paris I sent a confidential letter asking if he would telegraph me the instant Charles left the city to return home. Explaining that I was considering a small but pleasant surprise for the Inimitable that required me to know his return time, I requested that Fechter keep the telegram a secret between us. (Since the actor now owed me more than £1,500, I felt certain he would honour my request.) Next, I asked a similar confidential favour of my brother, Charley, who, with Katey, was spending several weeks at Gad’s Hill recovering from a bout of moderately severe stomach pains. (Charley and Katey did employ one servant, but she was undependable and a poor cook. The amenities at Gad’s Hill Place were infinitely more suitable to a convalescent than the younger couple’s cramped and overheated home in London.) For Charley’s place in my espionage net, I simply asked him to send me a private note letting me know when Dickens arrived home at Gad’s Hill and another when he departed for London, which I was sure he would do soon after arrival.

  And I also knew that London, per se, would not be the Inimitable’s actual destination after touching briefly at Gad’s Hill Place upon his return from France. Dickens would again be going to Peckham to see Ellen Ternan. It was from Peckham, I was sure, that Dickens would come back to the city to meet with Drood on the Anniversary.

  I also did my own small bit of spying. An older female cousin of mine—more of my mother’s generation than my own—lived in Peckham, and after years of being out of contact with the old maid, I visited her twice in May. The ostensibl
e reason was to console her after Mother’s passing, but in truth I spent time during each trip to Peckham walking or taking a cab past the Ternans’ home—paid for by Dickens under the assumed name of “Charles Tringham,” you may remember—at 16 Linden Grove. I also took time to stroll by the dark apartment Dickens kept—secretly—near the Five Bells Inn at New Cross, only about a twenty-minute walk (at Dickens’s pace) from 16 Linden Grove.

  The two-storey home that the author had provided for Ellen and her mother could have comfortably housed a well-to-do family of five with the appropriate number of attendant servants. The house—it was more small manor than cottage—was surrounded by a well-tended garden which, in turn, was surrounded by empty fields, giving the suburban home an almost resplendent country feel. It was evident that the reward for being an intimate but secret friend of the world’s most famous author was substantial. It occurred to me that Martha R—— might not be so pleased with her small rooms on Bolsover Street should she ever see the home provided for Ellen Ternan and her mother.

  Both times I visited my cousin in Peckham, I traced the shortest distance from the Ternans’ house to Peckham’s railway station.

  My final guess was that Dickens would be leaving Paris a day or two after the premiere of his play.

  I was wrong only on that final guess. As it turned out, both Dickens and Fechter were half-mad with tension on the evening of the June 2 premiere of L’Abîme and although Dickens attempted to enter the theatre, he found he could not do it. So rather than attend the performance, the writer and the actor clopped through the streets of Paris in an open cab all evening, returning frequently to a café near the theatre where Didier, the translator, would emerge between acts to inform the two nervous men that—so far—the play was a riotous success.

  During the last act, Dickens tried to enter the theatre again—lost his nerve again—and ordered the cab to take him to the station so that he could catch the late train to Boulogne. At the station, Fechter and Dickens hugged farewell, congratulated each other on their success, and then the actor returned alone to his hotel, stopping only to send the telegram I had requested of him.

  The next day, Wednesday, the third of June, Dickens was home at Gad’s Hill Place and my brother sent me a note that the author would be leaving the following morning, “for London.” I’d left my servant George at the Peckham station with instructions to follow Dickens (whom he knew from the writer’s many visits to my home) at a discreet distance (I had to explain the meaning of “discreet” to George). Should the Inimitable notice George, I’d prepared a note to my cousin that my employee was delivering as an explanation for my none-too-bright man’s presence on that street, but as it turned out, Dickens was oblivious to being followed the short distance. As per his instructions, George confirmed that Dickens entered the Ternans’ home, waited two hours in the vicinity (discreetly, one hoped) to confirm that the author did not go on to his own lodgings near Five Bells Inn, and then George took the train into town and came straight home to report.

  None of these machinations would have been possible, of course, if Caroline G—— had still lived with me at Number 90 Gloucester Place. But she did not. And her daughter, Carrie, was gone most days and many evenings in her employment as governess.

  But if I were to intercept Dickens on his way to meet Drood—and this was one annual rendezvous with the Egyptian that I was not going to miss—then I had to do the final detective guesswork on my own. (Here was when I most wished that I once again had the aid of Inspector Field and his many agents.) Dickens had returned to Gad’s Hill Place late on Wednesday, 3 June, had travelled to Peckham to visit Ellen on Thursday the fourth, and presumably would not be meeting with Drood until the following Tuesday, the ninth.

  Or would he follow his usual summer schedule and come into town on Monday and stay in his Wellington Street flat above the magazine office through Thursday?

  Dickens was a creature of habit, so that would suggest he would come to town on Monday morning, the eighth. But in this case he had written me earlier from France to tell me that he would, in all likelihood, be staying in Paris until at least the following week, so this made it much more likely that he planned to stay with Ellen Ternan until Tuesday, 9 June, while letting none of us—Wills, Dolby, anyone—know that he was back in the country or city.

  Finding Dickens at Charing Cross Station would be difficult. Doing so in a way that made it look as though I had come across him by accident would be even more difficult. The crowds, even on a Tuesday evening, would be large, the confusion general. I needed to lure Dickens away to dinner for the conversation I envisioned. During that long conversation, I would talk him into taking me with him when he met with Drood later that night. To convince him to join me for dinner for that long conversation would require me to run into him earlier, either at Peckham Station or on the train itself.

  But then again, Dickens might not be leaving from Peckham if he was not staying with the Ternans but was coming in from his place near Five Bells Inn. The closest station there was New Cross. I had to take a risk on this and choose Peckham or New Cross… or go to the safer alternative of Charing Cross.

  I decided it would be Peckham Station.

  But when on 9 June would Dickens be travelling into town?

  For the first two anniversaries of Staplehurst, Dickens had escaped Field’s agents and apparently met with Drood late at night. It had been after midnight that I saw him in my study, talking to Drood and the Other Wilkie.

  If the Inimitable was staying with the Ternans—or at least with Ellen Ternan—up to the time of this third-anniversary rendezvous, my guess was that he would leave their home somewhere between late afternoon and late evening, taking the train to Charing Cross, having dinner at one of his usual haunts, and then disappearing down one of his secret entrances to Undertown somewhere after ten PM.

  So the best course of action for me would be to stay on lookout at Peckham Station from sometime in the afternoon until whenever Dickens appeared.

  This posed certain problems. The Peckham Station, as I may have mentioned, was never terribly crowded, and the sight of someone even so respectable-looking as myself might bring official attention, perhaps even of the Peckham constabulary, should I be standing around for seven or eight hours without boarding a train. There was also the problem of how I could wait for Dickens without being seen in return. The last thing I wanted was for the author to know that I had been stalking him.

  Luckily, my previous reconnoitering had shown me a solution to these difficulties.

  Behind Peckham Station, between the depot and the road that ran into the suburban village and to 16 Linden Grove, was a small public park consisting of little more than indifferently tended gardens, a central fountain, and a few gravel paths, including one that traced the perimeter of the park. To give privacy to the park and its occasional visitors (presumably travellers bored of waiting within the station or on the platform), the Peckham town fathers had planted a hedge that completely bordered the little space and was at its highest—about seven feet tall—between the park and the modest highway. The park itself, although opening onto the platform area via a path passing under a trellis, faced only the blind, largely windowless back of the station proper.

  A traveller whiling away time in this pocket park would be far less noticeable than someone lounging on the platform for many hours. Especially if the traveller were a respectable, bespectacled gentleman sitting in the sunlight and working on a manuscript—in this case, the galley proof pages for the final number of The Moonstone.

  Two of the stone benches were in the shade of young trees, but also—fortuitously—set close to the hedgerow bordering the road. Here even the fact that the garden was indifferently tended served my purpose: there were narrow gaps in the hedge through which a waiting gentleman might watch the road from Peckham without revealing his own presence to those approaching on foot or via carriage.

  So that became my final plan—to wait for Charles D
ickens in the pocket park behind Peckham Station, to allow him to board before slipping aboard myself, and thence to run into him, quite by “accident,” and then to convince him to join me for dinner in London.

  By the morning of Tuesday, 9 June, I was sick with worry and convinced that my plan would lead to nothing and that it would be another year, at least, before Dickens might lead me to Drood. More than that, this dinner itself and its attendant conversation were overdue. This was the night that I planned to end forever the image of Wilkie Collins as an amenable and amiable but supplicating protégé to the Literary Master that was Charles Dickens. This was the night that Dickens would have to acknowledge my equality, if not my superiority.

  But what if he did not come to town that night after all? But what if he were no longer staying with the Ternans and took the train from New Cross? Or what if he did indeed travel from Peckham but I somehow missed him at the station or… worse… he saw me watching him there and confronted me?

  A hundred times I pondered these factors and a hundred times I changed my plans, only to revert to the Peckham Station plan each time. It was far from perfect but it seemed my best chance.

  That afternoon of 9 June was pleasant. After days of rain, the sun shone, the flowers in my own garden gleamed, and the air was brisk, promising summer but not yet bringing the oppressive heat and humidity of a full London summer.

  For my ride out to Peckham and my wait of unknown length, I packed in my old leather portmanteau—which I carried with a shoulder strap—the proofs of my last number of The Moonstone; a portable pen-and-ink writing set; a copy of Thackeray’s most recent novel (should I finish reading my own work); a light lunch and a late-afternoon snack consisting of cheese, biscuits, a few slices of meat, and a hard-boiled egg; a flask of water; another flask of my laudanum; and the deceased Detective Hatchery’s pistol.