“Even sane men have dark thoughts,” I said softly as we came into the very shadow of Rochester Cathedral. “Even sane men—eminently sane men, public men—have dark sides which they show to no one.”
“True, true,” said Dickens. “But to the point of being able to do murder?”
“But what if the real puppet master behind this crime were to be a Master Mesmeriser and mass killer himself?” I said. “He might have many covert ways of convincing the men and women under his control to do his bidding, no matter how horrible. Perhaps they are made to think that they are players in some theatrical experience and that their murdered victims will hop up and take a curtain call bow at the end.”
Dickens looked at me very sharply. “You are more of a sensationalist than I gave you credit for, Wilkie Collins. This new book of yours—The Moonstone—will do very well indeed, given the public’s literally insatiable appetite for slaughter, gore, and the unwholesome aspects that stir to life in the darkest folds of the human mind.”
“One can only hope,” I said softly.
We had come into the town and were less than a block from Rochester Cathedral. The great tower threw its shadow over us and over the whole cluster of low, grey houses on either side of the road.
“Would you care to go up and look around?” asked Dickens, gesturing towards the tall stone spire. “I happen to have the key with me.”
“Not today,” I said. “But thank you all the same, Charles.”
“Some other time, then,” said the Inimitable.
SO HE SHOWED no visible guilt or remorse about the twenty thousand pounds,” said Reginald Barris. “But what about the anniversary?”
“I beg your pardon?” I said. I had been thinking of other things.
“The anniversary of Staplehurst,” whispered the young detective. “Inspector Field asked you to do your utmost to accompany Dickens when he comes into town on that date, and the ninth is only three days away. You said nothing in your report on whether he had accepted or rejected your offer of spending the day and night with him at Gad’s Hill Place or during his inevitable return to the city and Undertown London on that night.”
I finished my ale and smiled at Hibbert Hatchery as the huge man, in his attempt not to overhear us, was respectfully browsing through the copy of The Woman in White that I had just signed for him. “Does the book meet with your approval, Detective Hatchery?”
“It is a gift beyond measure, Mr Collins,” rumbled the giant.
“The anniversary, Mr Collins?” prompted the insufferable Barris.
“Mr Dickens did not invite me to stay at Gad’s Hill or to wander the city with him on Sunday night—the ninth—in search of his phantom Drood,” I said, still not turning to look at Barris.
“Then, sir,” said the detective, “it is imperative that we arrange a time for you to meet with Inspector Field. He has laid on twenty-three operatives for Sunday night’s watch and…”
“Instead,” I continued, smoothly interrupting the upstart, “Mr Dickens has agreed to come to dinner at my house at Melcombe Place on Sunday and…” I paused just an instant for full effect. “… to spend the night there in my home.”
Barris blinked. “Dickens will be at your house on the night of the Staplehurst anniversary?”
I nodded, feeling some well-earned condescension in the slow motion of my head.
Barris jumped to his feet and turned the chair around with a clatter. “I must deliver this information to the inspector at once. Thank you, Mr Collins. This is an… extraordinary… development.” He touched his invisible hat brim and, to Hatchery, said, “Stay safe there, Hibbert.”
And then Barris was out of the public house, and Hatchery and I walked the mile and a half or so to St Ghastly Grim’s Cemetery. There he set out his few things for his long vigil—a small lantern, a greasy sack with his three AM dinner inside it (packed, no doubt, by one of his daughters), a small flask of water, and his pristine copy of The Woman in White.
Descending the stairs into the ancient catacombs, I reflected—not for the first time—on the human creature’s infinite ability to adapt to circumstances. Two years ago, this descent as I followed Dickens down to the catacombs had been strange and not a little terrifying for me. Now it was as nothing—as commonplace as walking to my corner chemist’s to renew my weekly jug of laudanum.
King Lazaree the Chinee and his two bodyguards met me at the tattered curtain to their alcove. My pipe was filled and ready for me.
Eight hours later, when I ascended the stairs to a new day, Detective Hatchery had tidily tucked everything away except the novel, which he was reading in a thin strip of morning light coming in through the partially opened crypt door.
“Everything all right, sir?” he asked as he slipped the book into one of his many voluminous pockets.
“Everything is very much all right, Detective Hatchery. Very much so. It appears to be a beautiful day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
On Sunday, 9 June, 1867, I returned home later than I had planned. I had told Caroline that morning that I would be at my club working on my book until evening but that I would be home before Dickens arrived for dinner. As you may have guessed, Dear Reader, I actually spent most of the day with Martha R— in her rooms on Bolsover Street, had lost track of the time, and hurried home feeling slightly dishevelled and a bit knackered.
I came into the downstairs parlour to find Charles Dickens again making mesmeric passes over an apparently somnolent Caroline G—.
Dickens was the first to notice me. “Ah, my dear Wilkie,” he cried jovially. “Just in time!”
Caroline opened her eyes and said, “Mr Dickens was mesmerising me.”
“So it appears,” I said coolly.
“Showing me how to apply the procedure to you!” she said. “To help you get to sleep on those nights when… you know.”
“I know that I’ve been sleeping quite well of recent,” I lied.
Dickens smiled. “But if Caroline can use the magnetic influence to help you drift off of an evening,” he said, “you could cut back or eliminate your dependence on laudanum at night.”
“I need hardly use any as it is,” I said.
“Oh, Wilkie, you know that’s not true!” cried Caroline. “Just two nights ago you were…” She broke off when she saw my cold stare. “I shall go talk to Cook,” she said, “and see if dinner is ready.”
Dinner was ready soon and it was a success, not only in taste and quality (a surprise, since our “Cook,” Besse, was also our parlourmaid and one of only three servants we kept, the others being her husband, George, and their daughter, Agnes, who was Carrie’s age) but also in terms of conversation and merriment.
Carrie, who always seemed to delight something in Charles Dickens (even as his own daughters did so less and less frequently those days), was at her blushing, school-girl best—young Harriet, like her mother, was intelligent enough and had already learned the subtle arts of being beguiling with older men without being coquettish—and even Caroline carried her own in our conversations. Dickens himself was relaxed and affable.
I do not know if I’ve described it accurately or sufficiently in this poor memoir, Dear Reader from my posthumous future, but Charles Dickens, while quite possibly a villain and even a murderer, was almost always a most pleasant man to be around. His conversation was easy, agreeable, almost never self-centred, and totally free of any effort or humbug. He held the unique position of being, at least among my circle of famous English friends and acquaintances, never boring and a capable and sympathetic conversationalist.… He never reached after aphorisms or heavy wit… and one aspect of his active listening was that he laughed a lot. And infectiously.