The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens (13 page)

My evening at the ballet with Amanda was very much in my thoughts in the days that followed. I saw no need to tell Catherine about it. Nor did I tell anyone else.

In addition to my regular reporting duties for
The Evening Chronicle
, I continued to investigate Geoffrey Wingate's business empire. When time allowed, I went to various records offices and spoke to innumerable clerks. The sum total of what I learned amounted to between little and nothing.

Benjamin Ellsworth had instructed me to limit my investigation to Wingate's ongoing financial empire. I decided to ignore his edict and learn what I could about Owen Pearce. The record of Pearce's marriage was where I expected it to be. But the file relating to his will and the assurance policy on his life was missing at Doctors' Commons.

Ellsworth had also instructed me to communicate directly with him if I learned anything of importance. I decided to follow that much of his edict, and on the last Monday in March, I went to the station house to advise him of the missing file.

The inspector greeted me with a handshake. We went upstairs to his office, and he offered me a chair. I told him of the missing file, and he pointed to the papers on his desk.

“The file is there,” he said.

I expected that revelation to be followed by a reprimand for disobeying his orders. Instead, he thumbed through the papers, recounting what he had learned.

“The policy on Owen Pearce's life was with the London Assurance Company in the amount of ten thousand pounds. The premium was paid from year to year. After Pearce died, documentary evidence was submitted to the court in support of the proposition that the deceased had changed the policy beneficiary from his wife to Geoffrey Wingate. The judge, for reasons that are unclear to me, ruled in Wingate's favour.”

“Wingate also gave the court what he said was a partnership agreement between Owen Pearce and himself. The agreement was drafted in Wingate's hand and purports to bear the signature of each party. Its terms are contrary to logic and, if genuine, reflect unsound business judgment on the part of Owen Pearce to Wingate's advantage. Here again, the judge accepted Wingate's position on the matter.”

Ellsworth stood up from his chair.

“I think it is time that I visit Geoffrey Wingate.”

Then, to my surprise, he added, “I would like you
to come with me. Your presence joined with mine will unsettle him. And I can benefit from your transcription skills.”

I answered without fully considering the implications inherent in what was involved.

“When would we go?”

“Now.”

Twenty minutes later, we were in a hackney carriage on the way to Wingate's home. The timing of Ellsworth's offer had left me no time to reflect upon the risk to my person that I was likely to incur. Now I was in an uneasy state of mind. Two men were presumed to have died at Wingate's hand. I pushed that thought aside.

The ride continued. I asked myself if Amanda would be at home. That led to the realisation that it was incumbent upon me to tell Ellsworth about escorting her to the ballet.

“Is there anything more that I should know?” the inspector asked when I was done.

“That is all.”

As we approached Wingate's residence, Ellsworth offered a final thought on the matter at hand.

“A man who commits murder will confront its aftermath with effrontery. If it weighed on his conscience—if he had a conscience at all—he would not have committed the crime. But there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal and shades of colour in black itself. He can be broken.”

The inspector turned to face me.

“You are to transcribe all that is said once the interview begins and remain silent to the greatest extent possible. I expect you to heed these instructions.”

We arrived unannounced at Wingate's residence. Ellsworth hit the brass knocker against the door, and a servant answered.

“Is Mr. Wingate at home?” the inspector queried.

The servant recognised me from previous visits. But it was Ellworth who had addressed him, and he responded to Ellsworth.

“Who should I say is calling, sir?”

“Inspector Benjamin Ellsworth of the Metropolitan Police Force.”

The servant left us and returned several minutes later.

“Come with me, please.”

Amanda was not in sight as we walked through the house. Wingate was sitting behind his desk when we entered his office. It took a moment for him to consider the implications inherent in Ellsworth and I being together. He was adding up the weights and measures in his mind when the inspector spoke.

“Geoffrey Wingate?”

“I am.”

“I am Inspector Benjamin Ellsworth of the Metropolitan Police Force. I believe that you are familiar with Mr. Dickens.”

“I did not know that police inspectors travel with newspaper boys.”

“Mr. Dickens is assisting me. His shorthand skills are of great value.”

There was an outward calm on Wingate's face, though a bit more colour in it than I had seen before. He understood at that point that the inspector and I were united. Whatever either of us knew separately, it
was likely to be worse for him now that our knowledge was joined.

Ellsworth sat uninvited in a chair. I followed his lead and took a transcription pad from my coat pocket.

Wingate leaned back in his chair, settled into a position of repose, and looked at the inspector with an expression that seemed to say, “This is an amusing fellow. I will hear him out.” Then he yawned.

Ellsworth began. “It is my duty, sir, in the position which I hold, to inform you that—”

“I'm a busy man,” Wingate interrupted with the air of one who, by reason of his superior place in society, has the right to speak condescendingly to another. “My time is precious even if yours is not. Come to the point, and I will imagine all that ought to have been said before.”

“I speak to you from the heart—”

“Don't be absurd,” Wingate interrupted again. “The heart is the center of the blood vessels, an ingenious part of our formation. Men are some times stabbed in the heart or shot in the heart. But as to speaking from the heart or being warm-hearted or cold-hearted or broken-hearted, those things are nonsense. The heart has no more to do with what you say or think than your knees have.”

“I am not as clever as you are,” Ellsworth continued. “But the truth raises me to your level. Let me ask you first about Owen Pearce.”

“He had the misfortune to die, as all of us shall some day.”

“But he died rather young. And I find it curious that you are in possession of so much that belonged once to another man.”

“The legal papers were in proper order. I conducted no business that was not to the full satisfaction of the court. I find your questions rather dull.”

“Blunt tools are some times of use where sharper instruments fail.”

“And you misjudge the limits of my patience.”

“Your patience is not my concern. Let me be plain with you and play a fairer game than when you held all the cards and Owen Pearce saw only the backs.”

Wingate glared with eyes as cutting as swords. “You fail to understand who I am,” he said with an air of patronage.

“To the contrary, Mr. Wingate. You are no stranger to me. I understand your kind well.”

“And you have no idea of what went on in Owen Pearce's home. Perhaps you have spoken with Lenora Pearce. I am sure she did not tell you that she had a lover.”

Ellsworth sat silent.

Wingate smiled a dark wicked smile.

“That is correct, sir. A lover. At times, I have wondered whether Lenora was not complicit in Owen's murder. He loved her and confided in me that he was hurt terribly by her conduct. It was the reason he changed several financial instruments in the months before his death.”

“The instruments are fraudulent,” Ellsworth said calmly. “Through procedures of detection developed only recently at Scotland Yard, we have determined that a forgery was committed. And there is more. We have found a witness who saw Owen Pearce and another man walking together and then heard a gunshot moments before the body was found.”

Wingate started when Ellsworth spoke those words. It was a slight start, quickly repressed and checked. But he did start, though he made it a part of taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and blowing his nose.

“The witness will identify you as that man who was walking with Owen Pearce.”

“My dear Mr. Ellsworth. Have you really lived to your present age and remained so simple as to approach a gentleman of my established character and credentials with nonsense such as this?”

“The sordid tale is all there, capable of being proven by the prosecution in a court of law.”

“It is not possible for you to prove blame upon me. The law of England supposes every man to be innocent until he is proved—proved—to be guilty. Either you know that, or you do not. Which is it?”

Ellsworth stared hard into Wingate's eyes. There was silence between them, but I detected a twitching at Wingate's mouth and perhaps an involuntary attraction of his right hand in the direction of the inspector's cravat.

“Did you speak to me, sir?” Ellsworth queried.

“I did not.”

“Perhaps you wished to speak.”

“I did not do that either.”

“Very well then. Let us move to the subject of Florence Spriggs.”

A look of fear crossed Wingate's eyes, quickly replaced by defiance and contempt.

“What of Miss Spriggs?” he demanded.

“Did you know her?”

“She was my companion at one time. I am sorry to say that she proved treacherous and ungrateful.”

“And James Frost?”

“He was of the streets, and he died on the streets. What more is there to be said?”

“One might speak of the manner in which he died.”

Wingate's eyes turned cold and calculating. His face was stern, but his colour was changing, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been running.

“Speak to the walls of my office, sir,” he said angrily, rising from his chair. “I will listen to no more of this. Speak also to my desk. They are attentive listeners and will not interrupt you. Make this room yours, and I will return when you have finished what you have to say.”

“Sit down,” Ellsworth ordered.

Wingate stood still with his hand on the back of his chair. He tried to stand scornfully, but it appeared as though he needed the chair for support. He fixed his eyes on a silver pencil case on the desk, as a tightrope walker on a dangerous wire might keep an object in his sight to steady himself lest he lose his balance and fall.

Then he sat, a scowl of hatred on his face.

“Do your duty, Mr. Ellsworth. But be careful not to overstep it. If you exceed your authority, I have friends in high places who will be displeased.”

“You are a low, murderous, mercenary villain, and it shall be proven by the evidence against you in a court of law.”

“I am not sure I heard you correctly,” Wingate said, summoning up one last effort to establish control over his antagonist. “Could you repeat what you just said.”

Ellsworth met Wingate's icy stare with one of his own. Then he turned in my direction and nodded toward my transcription pad. “Mr. Dickens?”

For the first time since we sat down in the office, I spoke.

“You are a low, murderous, mercenary villain, and it shall be proven by the evidence against you in a court of law.”

Wingate stared at Ellsworth as a reptile might when looking for a hole to hide in. A stoppage came upon his breathing. His nostrils rose and fell convulsively, but I saw no moving at his mouth. His figure appeared to shrink.

“Have you ever seen a public hanging?” Ellsworth asked.

There was no response.

Now Ellsworth was wielding his voice as a weapon in the same manner as Wingate had before.

“You think you are a superior breed of man, but death and fire make equals of us all. You shall see me again in court when you are tried for your life. The charge will be willful murder, twice done. That, and your assault on Miss Spriggs.”

Wingate raised a fist above his head and slammed it down upon his desk with the force of a blacksmith.

“That whore you would make an angel of! That low girl I picked out of the mud!”

“You shall know her worth and that of James Frost when the hangman's noose is placed round your neck. The boards will spring open, and you will fall as dead weight. There will be a sudden jerk, a convulsion of the limbs, and you will hang there, swinging lifeless before the cheering mob.”

“A curse upon you,” Wingate shrieked.

“The curse may pass your lips, but it is empty breath.
You have no greater power to call a curse down upon me than you have to make a drop of rain fall from the sky. The rope for your necklace is being woven as we speak. It would be my pleasure to place it round your neck, but that privilege shall fall to other hands.”