“I would imagine that you are headed to the British Museum, Mr Collins, there possibly spend time in the Reading Room, but more likely to peruse Layard’s and Rich’s Ninevite and the ethnographical collection from Egypt.”
I stopped. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing.
“The museum is closed today,” I said.
“Yes,” said Inspector Field, “but your friend Mr Reed will be waiting to open the side door for you and to give you a Special Visitor’s ticket.”
Taking a step towards the husky sixty year old, I said very softly but very firmly, “You are making a mistake, sir.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” I squeezed the head of my cane until I imagined that I could feel the brass bending. “Your blackmail will not work with me, Mr Field. I am not a man who has much to hide. Either from my friends and family or my reading public.”
Field raised both hands as if shocked by the suggestion. “Of course not, Mr Collins! Of course not! And that word… blackmail… is far from anything that can pass between two gentlemen such as ourselves. We are simply exploring areas of mutual concern. When it comes to helping you avoid potential difficulties, I am your obedient servant, sir. Indeed, that is my profession. A detective uses information to help men of parts, never to harm them.”
“I doubt if you could convince Charles Dickens of that,” I said. “Especially if he were to discover that you are still having him followed.”
Field shook his head almost sadly. “My aim is precisely to help and protect Mr Dickens. He has no idea of the danger he is in because of his intercourse with this fiend that calls himself Drood.”
“From what Mr Dickens tells me,” I said, “the Drood he has met is more a misunderstood figure than a fiend.”
“Indeed,” murmured Field. “Mr Collins, you are young. Relatively young, at least. Younger than Mr Dickens or myself. But do you remember the fate of Lord Lucan?”
I stopped by a lamp post and tapped the paving stones with my stick. “Lord Lucan? The Radical M.P. who was found murdered years ago?”
“Horribly murdered,” agreed Inspector Field. “His heart ripped out of his chest as he was staying alone at his estate—Wiseton, it was called—in Hertfordshire, near Stevenage. This was in 1846. Lord Lucan was a friend of your literary acquaintance and Mr Dickens’s old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton, and Lord Lucan’s estate lay only three miles from Lord Lytton’s own Knebworth Castle.”
“I’ve been there several times,” I said. “To Knebworth, I mean. But what can this ancient murder have to do with anything we are discussing, Inspector?”
Field set his corpulent forefinger alongside his nose. “Lord Lucan, before he assumed his title after his older brother’s death, was a certain John Frederick Forsyte… rather the black sheep of his noble family, even though he had received a degree in engineering and privately published several books based on his travels. There were rumours that, in his youth, Lord Lucan had married a Mohammadan woman during his extended stay in Egypt… and perhaps even fathered a child or two while he was there. Lord Lucan’s terrible murder occurred less than a year after the man calling himself Drood first arrived at our London docks in 1845.”
I stared at the ageing detective.
“So you see, Mr Collins,” Field said, “it is quite possible that you and I could be of great assistance to one another should we share all information we have. I believe your friend Mr Dickens is in great danger. Indeed, I know that Mr Dickens is in danger if he continues to meet with this fiend called Drood. I appeal to your responsibility as the great author’s friend to help me be his protector.”
I caressed my beard for a moment. Finally, I said, “Inspector Field, what do you want of me?”
“Only information that may better allow us to protect your friend and to apprehend the fiend,” he said.
“In other words, you want me to continue to spy on Charles Dickens and to report to you on everything he tells me about this Drood.”
The old detective continued staring at me with those penetrating eyes. If I had not been looking for his nod, I would not have noticed it, so imperceptible was it.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
“If you could convince Mr Dickens that your company would be required on another nocturnal expedition into Undertown, all the way to Drood’s lair this time, that would be of great help,” said Field.
“So that I could personally show you the way when it comes time to apprehend the man,” I said.
“Yes.”
It was my turn to nod. “It is a very hard thing, Inspector, to become an informant on one’s closest friend—especially when that friend is of the temperament and position of power of Mr Charles Dickens. He could destroy me, professionally and personally.”
“But you are doing this in his own best interests…” began the inspector.
“So we have ascertained,” I interrupted. “And perhaps someday Dickens might see it that way. But he is a man of strong emotions, Inspector. Even if my… spying… were to save his life, it is quite possible that he may never forgive me. Even try to ruin me.”
The detective continued to watch me closely.
“I simply want you to understand the risk I take,” I said. “And why such a risk requires me to request two things in return from you.”
If there was a smile, it appeared and disappeared too quickly to be caught by the human eye. “Of course, Mr Collins,” he said smoothly. “This is, as I said, a transaction between two gentlemen. May I know the nature of your two requests?”
I said, “Inspector, did you happen to read Dickens’s novel Bleak House?”
The older man made a rough noise. For a second I thought he was going to spit on the sidewalk. “I… looked at it… Mr Collins. In a passing way.”
“But you are aware, Inspector, that many people believe that you are the original for the character named Inspector Bucket in that novel?”
Field nodded grimly and said nothing.
“You are not pleased with the depiction?” I asked.
“I thought the character called Bucket was a caricature and a travesty of proper police behaviour, procedure, and decorum,” growled the old detective.
“Nonetheless,” I said, “Dickens’s novel—which I thought rather dreary and stodgy to that point, especially in the person of the cloying and saccharine narratoress named Esther Summerson, did seem to come alive in the penultimate chapters as our Inspector Bucket took charge of the murder case regarding Lawyer Tulkinghorn, as well as in his fruitless but exciting pursuit of Lady Dedlock, Esther’s true mother, who was to die outside the city burial ground.”
“Your point, sir?” asked Field.
“My point, Inspector, is that as a professional novelist myself, I see the potential for real interest in a book which has, as its protagonist and central character, a Scotland Yard or private detective not so different from Inspector Bucket, except… of course… more intelligent, more insightful, more educated, more handsome, and more ethical. In other words, Inspector Field, a fictional character not so different from yourself.”
The older man squinted at me. His corpulent forefinger was resting next to his ear as if he were again listening to its whispered advice. “You are too kind, Mr Collins,” he said at last. “Too kind altogether. And yet, perhaps, in some modest way, I could be of help for your research into such a character and such a novel? Offering advice, perhaps, on the proper investigatory methods and police procedures, so as to avoid the sort of travesty shown in Mr Dickens’s novel?”
I smiled and adjusted my spectacles. “More than that, Inspector. I would benefit greatly from having access to your… what would you call them?… murder files. I presume you keep such things, as ghastly as they must be?”
“Indeed we do, sir,” said Field. “And they would indeed be of inestimable benefit to a literary gentleman wishing to achieve, as they say, verisimilitude, in the writing of such a work. This is an honourable request and I agree to it without hesitation.”