“Really? Who might this missing man be, Mr Collins?”

“Edmond Dickenson.”

The old man scratched his cheeks, tugged at his side-whiskers, and, inevitably, set that plump forefinger alongside his ear as if awaiting further information from it. Finally he said, “That would be the young gentleman whom Mr Dickens helped save at Staplehurst. And the same young man whom you reported as having sleepwalked at Gad’s Hill Place a year ago this past Christmas.”

“Exactly the same man,” I said.

“How has he disappeared?”

“That is precisely what I would like to know,” I said. “And it might be precisely what you need to know in order to close the connection to Drood.” I handed him a folder of notes I had taken on my conversation with the solicitor Mr Matthew B. Roffe of Gray’s Inn Square, the address of Dickenson’s last known London dwelling place, and the approximate date when the young man had ordered Mr Roffe to transfer the duties of guardian-executor, for the last few months such a role was required, to none other than Charles Dickens.

“Fascinating,” Inspector Field said at last. “May I keep these, sir?”

“You may. They are copies.”

“This may indeed be of some service to our common cause, Mr Collins, and I thank you for bringing this man—missing or not—to my attention. But why do you think that Mr Dickenson might be important in this investigation?”

I opened my gloved hands above the railing. “Is it not obvious, even to a non-detective such as myself? Young Dickenson was perhaps the only other living person who we know—through Dickens’s own testimony—was in the immediate area with Drood at the Staplehurst site. Indeed, it was Drood, according to Dickens, who led my friend to the young man, who was trapped in the wreckage and who would have died had it not been for Dickens’s—and Drood’s! — intervention. There is also, I would suggest, the inexplicable interest that Dickens took in the orphan in the months after the accident.”

Inspector Field rubbed his cheeks again. “Mr Dickens is widely known to be a public altruist.”

I smiled at this. “Of course. But his interest in young Dickenson bordered on the… shall I say… obsessive?”

“Or self-interested?” asked Field. The wind had arrived from the west, and we were both now holding our hats with our free hands.

“How do you mean, sir?”

“How much money,” asked the old man, “was under trust to whomever the guardian of Edmond Dickenson was until the young man reached his majority last year? Did your investigations, Mr Collins, happen to extend to visiting young Dickenson’s bank and having a chat with the manager?”

“Of course not!” I said, voice cold again. Such an idea was totally outside the scope of a gentleman’s behaviour. One might as well open another gentleman’s mail.

“Well, that will be easy enough to find out,” muttered Inspector Field as he tucked my papers away into his jacket. “What did you wish in return for this possible help in our search for Drood, Mr Collins?”

“Nothing in exchange,” I said. “I am neither a tradesman nor peddler. After you look into the disappearance of this man who, despite his claims to the contrary, actually may have seen Drood at Staplehurst—indeed, his having seen Drood may be the reason for his disappearance, who knows? — all I wish to hear are the details of your investigation… so as to add verisimilitude to my own writings about the investigation into a missing person, you understand.”

“I understand perfectly.” The old inspector stepped back and extended his hand. “I am delighted that we are working on the same side again, Mr Collins.”

I looked at the extended hand for several long seconds before finally shaking it. It made a difference that we were both wearing gloves.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was May and we were in Dickens’s alpine chalet. It was a pleasant place to be.

After a wet, cold, slow-to-waken spring, late May had suddenly erupted in sunlight, flowers, blossoms, green lawns, warm days, long evenings, soft scents, and gentle nights perfect for sleeping. My rheumatical gout had improved to the point that I was using the least laudanum in two years. I had even considered discontinuing my Thursday-night trips into King Lazaree’s world.

It was a beautiful day and I was on the upper level of the chalet enjoying the breeze through open windows and telling the partial story of my book to Charles Dickens.

I wrote “telling” advisedly because although I had forty pages of my written outline and synopsis on my lap, Dickens could not read my handwriting. That has always been a problem with my manuscripts. I have been told that printers scream aloud and threaten to resign when confronted with the manuscripts of my novels—especially the first half of the book, where I admit that I have a tendency to rush, to scratch out, to write in all available margins and open spaces, and to substitute until the cramped words and letters become a blur of ink and a riot of lines, arrows, indicating marks, and violent scratches. The laudanum, I admit, does not increase the legibility.

I also wrote “partial story of my book” advisedly, since Dickens wanted to hear my general outline of two-thirds of the novel even though I had not decided the particulars of the specific ending. That longer reading-aloud, we had decided, would happen in June, when Dickens would make the final decision on whether my Eye of the Serpent (or perhaps The Serpent’s Eye) would appear in his magazine All the Year Round.

So on this beautiful late-May day in 1867, I spent an hour reading and telling the story of my novel to Charles Dickens, who—to his credit—was fully attentive, not even interrupting to ask questions. Other than my voice, the only sounds were the occasional waggon going by on the road below, the soft wind rustling leaves and branches in the trees on either side of the chalet, and the occasional humming of bees.

When I was finished I set the manuscript notes aside and took a long drink of water from the chilled carafe that Dickens kept in his writing space.

After a few seconds of silence, Dickens literally leaped out of his chair and cried, “My dear Wilkie! That is a wonderful tale! Wild and yet domestic! Filled with excellent characters and carrying a great mystery! And the surprise near the part where you leave off—well, it was an absolute surprise to me, my dear Wilkie, and it is hard to surprise an old writer warhorse such as myself!”

“Indeed,” I murmured shyly. I always craved praise from Charles Dickens, and now the pleasure from his words spread through me rather like the warm glow from my daily medicine.

“We shall definitely want this book for the magazine!” continued Dickens. “My prediction is that it shall outshine anything we have serialised to date, including your marvellous Woman in White!”

“We can hope,” I said modestly. “But would you not prefer to hear the outline of the last fourth of the book—when I decide how to tie up the obvious loose ends, such as the reenactment of the crime—rather than commit to purchasing it now?”

“Not in the least!” said Dickens. “However much I look forward to hearing you tell me the true ending in a week or two, I have heard enough to know what a splendid story it is. And that plot surprise! To have the very narrator not know of his own culpability! Wonderful, my dear Wilkie, absolutely wonderful. As I say, I have rarely been so taken by surprise by another writer’s dexterous plotting!”

“Thank you, Charles,” I said.

“May I pose a few questions or make a few minor suggestions?” asked Dickens as he paced back and forth in front of the open windows.

“Of course! Of course!” I said. “Besides being my editor at All the Year Round, you have been my collaborator and fellow-plotter for too many years for me to not benefit from the sagacity of your advice at this stage, Charles.”