Drood (37 page)

I was not surprised that he knew the name of my principal supplier. This was, after all, a dream.

“It has been some weeks since I have heard from you, sir,” continued Field.

I leaned my aching head on my hands. “I’ve had nothing to say,” I said.

“That
is
a problem, Mr Collins,” sighed the inspector. “In that it violates both the spirit and specific wording of our agreement.”

“Bugger our agreement,” I muttered.

“Now, sir,” said Field. “We’ll get some burned sherry into you so you remember your duties and behaviour as a gentleman.”

The boy, whose name, I was certain, was Bob, returned with a huge sweet-smelling jug. In his left hand, Bob carried an iron model of a sugar-loaf hat—Dickens had described this, I remember, and I had paid attention to the written description just as if he and I had not shared a thousand such specialities—into which he emptied the contents of the jug. He then thrust the pointed end of the brimming “hat” deep into the embers and renewed fire, leaving it there while he disappeared, only to reappear again with three clean drinking glasses and the proprietress.

“Thank you, Miss Darby,” said Inspector Field as the boy set the glasses in place and plucked the iron vessel from the fire. He gave it a delicate twirl—the thing hissed and steamed—and then poured the heated contents into the original jug. The penultimate part of this small sacrament was when Bob held each of our bright glasses up over the steaming jug, opaquing them to some degree of foggy perfection known only to the boy, and then filled them all to the applause of the inspector and his detective-henchman.

“Thank you, William,” said Field.

“William?” I said, confused, even as I put my face forward the better to inhale the warm effulgence emanating from my glass. “Miss Darby? Don’t you mean Bob and Miss Abbey? Miss Abbey Potterson?”

“I certainly do not,” said Field. “I mean William—as in the good boy Billy Lamper you saw before you just a second ago—and his mistress, Miss Elisabeth Darby, who has owned and run this establishment for twenty-eight years.”

“Is this not the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters?” I asked, taking a careful sip of my drink. My entire body seemed to be tingling as if it were a leg or an arm I had allowed to fall asleep. Except for my head, which was aching.

“I know of no such establishment by that name in London,” laughed Inspector Field. “This is the Globe and Pigeon, and has been for years and years. Christopher Marlowe probably dipped his learned wick in a back room here, if not across the street in the riskier White Swann. But the White Swann is not a gentleman’s inn, Mr Collins, not even for a gentleman so adventurous as yourself, sir. Nor would the proprietor have opened the door for us and heated our sherry as my lovely Liza has. Drink up, sir, but pray tell me why you’ve had aught to report as you do so.”

The heated drink was slowly clearing my clouded mind. “I tell you again that there’s nothing to tell you, Inspector,” I said a trifle sharply. “Charles Dickens is preparing for his triumphant tour of the provinces and—the few times I’ve seen him—there’s been no mention of your shared phantom Drood. Not since Christmas Day night.”

Inspector Field leaned closer. “When you say Drood levitated outside Mr Dickens’s first-floor window.”

It was my turn to laugh. I regretted it at once. Stroking my aching forehead with one hand, I lifted the glass with the other. “No,” I said, “when Mr
Dickens
said that he saw Drood’s face levitating outside his window.”

“You do not believe in levitation, Mr Collins?”

“I find it very… unlikely,” I said sullenly.

“Yet it seems you express a quite different view on the subject in your papers,” said Inspector Field. He made a move of his corpulent forefinger, and the lad Billy hurried to refill both of our still-steamed glasses.

“What papers?” I said.

“I believe they were gathered under the title ‘Magnetic Evenings at Home’ and were each clearly signed ‘W.W.C.’—William Wilkie Collins.”

“Dear God!” I cried too loudly. “Those things must have appeared… what?—fifteen years ago.” The series of papers he was referring to had been written for the sceptic G. H. Lewes’s
Leader
sometime in the early fifties. I had simply reported on various drawing-room experiments that had been much in vogue then: men and women being magnetised, inanimate objects such as glasses of water being magnetised by a mesmerist, “sensitives” reading minds and foretelling the future, attempts to communicate with the dead, and… yes, I remembered now through the opium and alcohol and headache… one woman who had levitated herself and the high-backed chair upon which she sat.

“Have you had reason to change your opinion since you observed these things, Mr Collins?” I found Field’s soft but somehow peremptory and insinuating voice as irritating as I always did.

“They were not my opinions, Inspector. Simply my professional observations at the time.”

“But you no longer believe that a man or woman—say, someone trained in ancient arts of a long-forgotten society—could levitate ten feet in the air to peer in Charles Dickens’s window?”

Enough. I had had
enough
of this.

“I
never
believed in such a thing,” I said harshly, my voice rising. “Fourteen or fifteen years ago, as a much younger man, I reported on the… events… of certain drawing-room mystics and on the
credulity
of those gathered to watch such things. I am a modern man, Inspector Field, which in my generation translates to ‘a man of little belief.’ For instance, I no longer believe that your mysterious Mr Drood even exists. Or, rather, to state it more positively and in the affirmative, I
believe
that both you and Charles Dickens have used the legend of such a figure for your own different and disparate purposes, even while you have each endeavoured to use
me
as some sort of pawn in your game… whatever that game may be.”

It was too long a speech for a man in my condition, at this hour of the morning, and I buried my face in the glass of steaming sherry.

I looked up as Inspector Field touched my arm. His florid, veined face was set in a serious expression. “Oh, there’s a game all right, Mr Collins, but it’s not being played at
your
expense. And there are pawns—and more important pieces—being put into play, but you ain’t a pawn, sir. Although it’s almost certain that your Mr Dickens is.”

I withdrew my sleeve from his grasp. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you wondered, Mr Collins, exactly
why
I have placed so much importance on finding this Drood?”

I could not resist a smirk. “You want your pension back,” I said.

I thought this would anger the inspector and therefore was surprised by his quick, easy laugh. “Bless you, Mr Collins, that’s true. I do. But that’s the least of my goals in this particular chess match. Your Mr Drood and I are on the verge of becoming old men and we’ve each decided to put an end to this cat-and-mouse game what we’ve been playing these twenty years and more. Each of us has enough pieces left on the board to make our final move, it’s true, but what I believe you do not appreciate, sir, is that the end of this game must…
must
… result in the death of one or t’other of us. Either Drood dead or Inspector Field dead. There’s no other way for it, sir.”

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.”