I blinked several times. Finally I said, “Why?”

Inspector Field leaned closer again and I could smell the warm sherry on his breath. “You may have thought I was exaggerating, sir, when I said that Drood has been responsible, personally and through those mesmerised minions he sends out, for the deaths of three hundred people since he come here from Egypt more than two decades ago. Well, I was not exaggerating, Mr Collins. The actual count is three hundred and twenty-eight. This has to end, sir. This Drood has to be put a stop to. So far, all these years, in my service to the Metropolitan Police and out of it, I’ve been skirmishing with the Devil—we’ve each sacrificed pawns and rooks and better in this long game—but this is the true End Game, Mr Collins. Either the Devil checkmates my king or I check his. There’s no other way for it, sir.”

I stared at the inspector. For some time I had been doubting Charles Dickens’s sanity; now I knew for certain that there was another insane man affecting my life.

“I know that I’ve asked for your help with no other offer in recompense than my assistance in keeping the knowledge of Miss Martha R— from your lady Caroline, sir,” said Inspector Field. I thought that was a very polite way to describe his blackmailing of me. “But there are other things that I can offer in exchange for your help, sir. Substantial things.”

“What?” I said.

“What is your biggest problem in life at the moment, Mr Collins?”

I was tempted to say “You” and have done with it, but I surprised myself by uttering another syllable. “Pain.”

“Aye, sir… you’ve mentioned the rheumatical gout you’re suffering from. And it’s visible in your eyes, if I may be so bold as to mention it, Mr Collins. Constant pain is no trifling thing for any man, but especially for an artist such as yourself. Detectives depend on deduction, as you well know, sir, and my deduction is that you’ve come this awful March night to Opium Sal’s and this filthy neighbourhood just in some hope of further assuaging your pain. Is that not so, Mr Collins?”

“Yes,” I said. I did not bother telling Field that Frank Beard, my doctor, had recently suggested to me that the “rheumatical gout” I’d long suffered from might very well be a virulent form of a venereal disease.

“It bothers you even as we speak, Mr Collins?”

“My eyes feel like bags of blood,” I said truthfully. “I feel that every time I open them, I run the risk of haemorrhaging pints of blood down my face and into my beard.”

“Terrible, sir, terrible,” said Inspector Field, shaking his head. “I don’t blame you for a moment for seeking some relief from your laudanum or the opium pipe. But if you don’t mind me telling you so, sir, the grade of product at Opium Sal’s simply will not do the trick.”

“What do you mean, Inspector?”

“I mean that she dilutes the opium far too much for someone who is in your level of discomfort, Mr Collins. And it is not a pure product to begin with. It is true that a judicious combination of your laudanum and the opium pipe might have salutary—perhaps even miraculous—effects on your affliction, but these Bluegate Fields and Cheapside opium dens simply don’t have the quality of drug to help you, sir.”

“Where, then?” I asked, but even as I spoke, I knew what he would say.

“King Lazaree,” said Inspector Field. “The Chinaman’s secret den down in Undertown.”

“Down in the crypts and catacombs,” I said dully.

“Yes, sir.”

“You simply want me to go back to Undertown,” I said, meeting the older man’s gaze. There was a dim, cold light filtering through the red-curtained windows of the Globe and Pigeon. “You want me to try again to lead you to Drood.”

Inspector Field shook his balding and grey-cheekwhiskered head. “No, we’ll not find Drood that way, Mr Collins. Mr Dickens undoubtedly told you the truth last autumn when he said that he’s been returning regular to Drood’s lair, but he’s not gone back through the nearby cemetery. We’ve had men posted there for months. Drood has told him of some other route to his underground world. Either that or the Egyptian Devil is living aboveground all this time and has revealed one of his locations to your Mr Dickens. So your writer friend don’t need to enter Undertown by that route any longer, Mr Collins, but you can if you wish the relief of King Lazaree’s pure opium.”

My glass was empty. I looked up at the inspector through eyes suddenly grown watery. “I cannot,” I said. “I’ve tried. I cannot move the heavy bier in the crypt in order to gain access to the stairs.”

“I know, sir,” said Inspector Field, his voice as professionally smooth and sad as an undertaker’s. “But Hatchery will be most glad to help you whenever you wish to go down there, day or night. Won’t you, Hib?”

“Most glad, sir,” said Hatchery from where he stood nearby. I confess that I had almost forgotten that the other man was present.

“How would I get word to him?” I asked.

“The boy is still waiting on your street, Mr Collins. Send word through my Gooseberry, and Detective Hatchery will be there within the hour to escort you through the dangerous neighbourhoods, open the way to the staircase for you, and wait upon your return.” The infernal inspector smiled. “He will even loan you his revolver again, Mr Collins. But you should have nothing to fear from King Lazaree and his patrons. Unlike Opium Sal’s shifty clientele, Lazaree and his living mummies down there know that they are allowed to exist only upon my sufferance.”

I hesitated.

“Is there something else we can help you with in exchange for your help in finding Drood through your Mr Dickens?” asked Field. “Some problem at home, perhaps?”

I glanced askance at the old man. What would he know of my problems at home? How could he know that my daily and nightly fights with Caroline had sent me to Sal’s as surely as my need to lessen the pain from my gout?

“I’ve been married for more than thirty years, Mr Collins,” he said softly, as if having read my mind. “My speculation is that your lady is, even after all this time, demanding marriage… even as your other lady in Yarmouth is demanding to return to London to be near you.”

“D— n you, Field,” I cried, banging my fist down on the heavy, worn planks of the table. “None of this is any of your business.”

“Of course not, sir. Of course not,” said the inspector in his oiliest voice. “But such problems can be a distraction to your work as well as to our common goals. I am trying to see how I could be of help… as a friend would.”

“There’s no help for this,” I growled. “And you are no friend.”

Inspector Field nodded his understanding. “Still, sir, if you don’t mind advice from an old married man, sometimes a change of place buys a period of peace and quiet in such domestic disagreements.”

“Move, you mean? We’ve talked about it, Caroline and I.”

“I believe, Mr Collins, that you and the lady have several times walked to look at a fine home on Gloucester Place.”

I was no longer surprised or shocked to hear that Field’s men had followed us. I would not be surprised to learn that he had secreted a dwarf into the walls of our home on Melcombe Place in order to take notes on our quarrels.

“It is a fine home,” I said. “But the current resident, a Mrs Shernwold, does not wish to sell. And I’d be strapped to find the funds for it at this time anyway.”

“Both of these impediments could be eliminated, Mr Collins,” purred Inspector Field. “If we were working together again, I could all but guarantee that you and your lady and her daughter could be moved into that fine residence on Gloucester Place within a year or two, even while your Miss R— could be reinstated on Bolsover Street, if you wish, with our help in meeting her travel and other immediate expenses.”

I squinted at the old man. My head hurt. I wanted to go home to breakfast and then bed. I wanted to pull the bedcovers over my head and to sleep for a week. We had moved from blackmailing to bribery. On the whole, I believe I had been more comfortable with the blackmail.