The Detective and Mr. Dickens (11 page)

“He is a man who believes in the power of words,” Wills said, entering the fray on Forster’s side.

“It was a bad joke, nothing more,” I said, scoffing at their old-maid superstition. But things were connecting in my mind. On the night the child died, Dickens had paced the room expressing his own guilt and seeing Dora’s death as a punishment inflicted upon him by a literary God, who did not like the way he treated his characters. Indeed, maybe that was a sign of insanity, mixing up real people with fictional characters. If it was, however, then all of us—Dickens, Thackeray, even myself—belonged in Bedlam, rather than out walking the streets, sharpening our pens.

Within four days of that concerned dinner, Dickens was back in London. The house in Devonshire Terrace held such painful recent memories that from the evening of his return he took up permanent bachelor residence at the
Household Words
offices in Wellington Street. To my great surprise, when I entered the offices the next morning, he was sitting at his desk.

“Wilkie,” he said, rising and shaking my hand enthusiastically, “you and Wills have kept the ship from sinking, held her steady while the Captain was indisposed.” Quite pleased with his sailing metaphor, he beamed and shook my hand some more. Yet, as the day went on, I could not help but observe the very inconsistency which Forster had described. He would work with great intensity for a time, but then he would simply stop and sit looking off into space. By the middle of the afternoon, I had come to the conclusion that Forster’s theories carried more weight than I had allotted them. Dickens was, indeed, not himself. He was a man struggling against the spectres haunting his mind. Something new was needed to distract him from this now restless, now lethargic state of mental anguish. As if by a miracle, that something walked in the door at precisely five o’clock on the afternoon of April thirty-first. To our surprise, it was none other than Inspector Field of Bow Street Station.

“Mister Dickens, sir. And Mister Collins, sir.” Field stepped out of the stairwell. “Please forgive this sudden intrusion. Doubtless, I am the person you least expected to see disruptin’ the center of your lit’rary offices. Yet ’ere I am, and, believe it or not, I’m ’ere on business.” He punctuated his last assertion with a sharp tap of his demonstrative forefinger on Dickens’s desk.

“Inspector Field, what a pleasant surprise,” Dickens was veritably beaming as he leapt up from his chair.

I too rose and circumnavigated my desk to greet and shake hands with Field. It was only then that I noticed the everpresent Rogers lurking at the top of the stairwell.

Field was substantially encouraged by the heartiness of Dickens’s greeting. He scratched the side of his mouth with his crook’d forefinger, thus summoning a sly grin of renewed conspiracy. Dickens quickly pulled two wooden chairs up between our two desks and all four of us took our seats in a rough circle. Inspector Field’s momentary grin of conspiracy was replaced by an intense gravity, out of which the personal condolences of the man, and of the whole force of the Metropolitan Protectives were tendered. Dickens accepted his condolences with a sad up-and-down nodding of the head, a ritual gesture I had already seen him perform a number of times. I was beginning to recognize it as a piece of stage business, which Dickens-the-actor had improvised and polished as a stock reaction to this particular scene.

“You said that you’re here on business?” Dickens said, breaking the silence.

“I am indeed.”

“It couldn’t involve our mutual acquaintance, Lawyer Partlow, so recently encountered on the peaceful banks of the Thames, could it?”

“It could indeed.” Field took up his coy game.

How Field knew that Dickens had returned to London, I do not venture to guess. He seemed to know everything.

“I’m intrigued. What is it?”

“I want you and Mister Collins to become spies in my employ,” Field put it bluntly.

“Spies?” The word had caught Dickens’s attention just as it had mine.

“Yes, spies.”

Dickens and I exchanged equally puzzled looks.

“Upon whom do you propose we commit this act of spying?” I asked.

“On whoever is available at The Player’s Club located at number thirty-six King Street in the West End,” Field replied in deadly seriousness.

Dickens and I looked at each other in surprise.

Dickens was, of course, an honorary member of The Player’s Club as he was of all the various London actors’ establishments, but he rarely went there, The Garrick Club being the regular meeting place of his particular theatrical circle. I had no doubts, however, that he could enter The Player’s Club at any time and be greeted with every courtesy of the house.

“The Player’s Club? Why?” he asked, posing the natural question.

“I need information concernin’ the identities of the four men in company with Solicitor Partlow the night ’ee was murdered. We are makin’ little progress on this partic’lar case. The man lived alone, ’ad no relatives. ’Is landlady says ’ee went out every evenin’, when not otherwise engaged, to dine at The Player’s Club. Yet, and ’ere’s the rub, ’ee rarely returned to ’is rooms before three or four in the mornin’. Player’s Club closes doors at eleven-thirty, says I. Landlady ’as no further explanation.”

At this juncture of his narrative, Field pulled in on the reins and stopped for a short breather.

“We ’ave traced ’is movements of that evenin’ to The Player’s Club where we ’ave been brought up rather short.”

“Brought up short? How’s that?” Dickens glanced at me.

“Blokes won’t talk to us,” Rogers admitted.

“No one on the premises seems inclined to discuss the dead club member,” Field said, taking up the narrative with equanimity. “It is almost as if the ’elp at The Player’s Club ’olds some irrational fear of ’im. Or perhaps they ’ave been instructed not to give out information concernin’ any club member. We could, of course, get a writ from the Queen’s Bench and break in there and accost the members present concernin’ their dealin’s with Partlow and their whereabouts on the night that our dead friend went for ’is fatal swim, but we would probably not obtain much useful information, it almost always bein’ the case that gentlemen intensely dislike bein’ disturbed in the private environs of their club rooms.”

“That certainly is the case,” Dickens agreed.

“It ain’t like trampin’ into some Rats’ Castle and ’aulin’ out our man for questionin’,” Rogers interjected. “Gennelmen is a diff’rent problem.”

“Indeed they are,” Inspector Field said. “Gentlemen require much more subtlety, discretion, and delicate persuasion in order to get ’em to peach on their fellow gentlemen. In other words, gentlemen, it takes a gentleman to catch a gentleman.”

“Precisely.” Dickens’s eyes were sparkling.

“Therefore, I concluded that if I just ’ad a friendly ear mixin’ with the unsuspectin’ members some busy club night, such as tonight, say, and if the conversation perchance turned to the gruesome death of Lawyer Partlow, that somethin’ perhaps might be learned. And then I said to myself…didn’t I Rogers?” (Rogers nodded emphatically) “…I said, our friend Mister Dickens ’as many connections in the theatre, was an acquaintance of the deceased, would be welcomed at The Player’s Club. And there you are.”

“And there you are!” Rogers repeated for emphasis.

“Well,” Field pressed our decision, “will you do it?”

“Spies, Wilkie,” Dickens said excitedly, “what do you think of that?”

“Well, really…”

“Splendid! We’ll do it,” he replied to Field.

Field immediately was up and shaking both of our hands enthusiastically. “Welcome to the Protectives, gentlemen,” he said with great relish.

“We are yours, Inspector Field, but how are we to proceed? What are we to do?” Dickens inquired, turning to the more practical aspects of the undertaking.

“We need to know where Partlow went, what ’ee did, in whose company ’ee did it. If you could go there, converse with the members, it would be quite ’elpful. Rogers.” He turned to his faithful shadow, who was rummaging in the pouch which he carried slung over his shoulder.

“Yes sir,” Rogers answered, handing over a folded newspaper.

Field immediately unfolded it to reveal the sensational headline: “PROMINENT WEST END SOLICITOR MURDERED.” It was a two-week-old
Times
.

“You carry this,” Field directed Dickens, as if he were some playwright blocking out the movements of his actors. “You let it be known that you ’ave been out of the city an’ ’ave been catchin’ up on the news. You’ve been readin’ about Partlow’s murder. Terrible thing. That’s the tack. It is our ’ope that this ruse will loosen some gossip’s tongue. Who knows, it may even flush our killer.” With that, Field turned to me. “And you, Mister Collins, are very important to this scheme. While Mister Dickens is entertainin’ ’is audience and tryin’ to draw ’em out, you remain in the background carefully observin’ the crowd, notin’ every reaction, eye peeled for any suspicious movement, ’urried flight or nervous tick.”

“Spies indeed,” I scoffed. “What you want is the net of Hapheastus.”

“Don’t know the gentleman,” Field’s face was deadly serious, “but if ’is net will catch us a murderer, tell ’im to bring it along.”

“Your plan is excellent,” Dickens said, taking the newspaper. “I can’t wait to set it in motion.” He didn’t bother to ask me if I would accompany him. Like any bold knight, he simply took for granted that his faithful squire, his Sancho, would be at his side. Of course, he was right!

All of the sadness, the loss of his power of concentration was gone from Dickens’s mien. He was animated, trembling to act. He could have been a character in one of his own novels. “It takes a gentleman to catch a gentleman,” Field had said, and Dickens was in the process of inventing a gentleman detective to work side by side with the professional detective.

“Spies!”

April 31, 1851—evening

The
maitre d’
at The Player’s Club, with his thin pencil moustache and black frock coat, gushed like a Parisian fountain when Dickens entered: “Oh Meestair Deekens, welcome back to zee Player’s Club. Eet has bean a long time, Meestair Deekens. Welcome back.” The person nodded to me in total non-recognition and said “Zanck you, sir” when he took my hat and gloves.
Someday
, I thought,
they will recognize me as well as him
.

Upon entering the dining room, we created quite a stir. No one disturbed our dinner, but a low hubbub of gawking and pointing took possession of the room. When we had finished, Dickens suggested we retire to the smoking lounge for our brandy and cigars. While retrieving his prop newspaper from the cloakroom, Dickens whispered, “Now let us join the rabble!”

“The rabble” were more than eager to close ranks around us. Within seconds upon entering the smoking lounge, we were surrounded by greeters, professed acquaintances, devoted readers, and all manner of actors, writers and theatre patrons. Dickens recognized a few, pretended to recognize many, made new and fervent acquaintance with a multitude, and smiled and shook hands with all. All the while, he kept on prominent display his copy of the
Times
with its gory headline. Men bowed in and bowed out after shaking the great man’s hand but a few, who felt, because of prior acquaintance, that they held a greater claim to his company, lingered. Ultimately, we were invited by two well-known actors, Mister Grahame Storey of the Adelphi and Mister Earle Davis of Drury Lane, to join their group.

We were ushered to chairs of honor in a circle of six near one of the three glowing fireplaces. Without question, Dickens was the center of attention, and the newspaper trumpeting the murder of Lawyer Partlow lay prominently displayed on his lap as the snifters arrived and the cigars were lit. It could only be a matter of time before someone in this doting circle noticed it and commented upon it. We were not disappointed.

“I see you are reading about the unfortunate affair of Solicitor Partlow’s death,” Storey of the Adelphi gravely intoned, right on cue.

“Yes,” Dickens replied, tapping the newspaper in his lap with the back of his cigar hand. “I’ve been out of town two weeks. Was wading through the backed-up papers at the
Household Words
office before coming out tonight, and this one caught my eye. First I’d heard of it. Terrible thing!”

“Quite, quite,” Davis of Drury Lane said, nodding through the blue smoke of a Turkish cigarette.

“Great surprise to all of us,” another agreed.

“Indeed,” assented other voices.

“Poor man was an acquaintance of mine,” Dickens announced sadly. “Met him with the Covent Garden crowd.”

“Poor man indeed,” Storey harrumphed with a sarcastic tone.

Consulting his newspaper, Dickens pushed the point: “Says he was here drinking the night of his death.” Dickens cocked a mischievous eye and remarked with an evil grin, “Why, any one of you here might have been the last to see him alive.” He paused for effect. “Perhaps the murderer is in this room right now.”

They stared at Dickens, aghast.

“Really, Charles,” I said, stepping in to lighten the mood, “you’ve been reading too many of your own novels.”