The Detective and Mr. Dickens (20 page)

“Witness?” he repeated—drunken, befuddled, yet grasping enough of what was being said for fear to show itself in his voice.

“You’re a part of this murder,” Field said, dogging the man mercilessly. “Answer our questions and you might be able to save yourself. Answer.”

“Answer,” the actor repeated dully.

“Why did Paroissien kill Lawyer Partlow?”

“It was the wench. Peggy Ternan’s stupid little wench.”

“How was it the wench?”

“Stage manager flew into a rage when Lawyer said he’d bought her.”

“What was said?” Field asked, showing extraordinary patience.

“Screaming. Curses. Stage manager said again and again ‘She’s mine! She’s mine!’” The sodden actor seemed to be gaining in coherence.

“And? What did Partlow do?”

Fielding’s face twisted in a bit of sick mirth. “Laughed at him, he did. Laughed right in his face.”

“Where was this?”

“At The Player’s Club.”

“And later? At the river?”

“The two of ’em took it up again.”

“Over the girl?”

“The same,” he said, his head lolling, “the little whore. Her own mother panders for her.”

I felt Dickens starting to move beside me, and, instinctively, I reached out and grasped his arm. When I looked into his face, I saw that he was caught in a tide of mad anger. With my restraining hand on his arm, the violent tension of his body relaxed. Our eyes met but he quickly turned away. In embarrassment? Shame? Not a word exchanged between us, but so much revealed. We were gentlemen. Our secrets, those weaknesses revealed, were always held in the strictest confidence.

“You saw Paroissien stab the Lawyer?” Field was losing his witness.

Fielding nodded drunkenly in assent.

“And you ’elped throw the body in the river?”

The actor nodded again, his head lolling wildly at the finish.

Field bent down, grasped Fielding by both lapels, and yanked him to his unsteady feet with his back still against the lamppost. Field shook him hard once, banging his head against the post. Field’s face pressed within an inch of his victim’s bloody countenance. “I own you now,” Field hissed into his face. “In court you will answer every question just as you ’ave answered it this evenin’. If you try to run, to the Continent, to the ends of the earth, I will find you. One lie, and I will ’ang you just as ’eye as I am goin’ to ’ang the murderer. Do you understand my meanin’?”

We left this unfortunate victim of Inspector Field’s terrible wrath propped precariously against that lamppost.

“When will you arrest Paroissien?” Dickens asked.

“Not right away. I want to observe ’im a bit longer. There is one more witness I wish to interview.”

“Who would that be?” I asked.

“Lord ’Enry Ashbee, of course,” Field answered as if I was a dolt.

“Of course.”

“You are going to drag a titled gentleman into such a sordid affair?” Dickens seemed startled.

Again Field’s face revealed surprise and not a little impatience. “Murder ’as no class consciousness,” he finally answered.

“Might we be present to observe the arrest of Paroissien?”

“You ’ave been on this case from its very beginnin’,” Field smiled, “you shall be present at its end. I will send Rogers for you.”

*
These evidently were the public names of two of the more popular boxing personalities of the Victorian age. Whether Collins was drawing upon boxers of the 1850’s or the 1860’s could not be determined.

Inspector Field, Novelist, or, “The Murderer’s Room”

May 8, 1851—evening

The night Inspector Field chose for the arrest of Paroissien was the coldest of the English spring. The sky shone clear, but the wind slicing up the Thames was exceedingly sharp. The stars hung in the black sky. Four days had passed since our last foray out with Field to coerce his witnesses. We were leaving Devonshire House after rehearsal of
Not So Bad As We Seem
(the benefit performance for Her Majesty being less than two weeks away), when Serjeant Rogers clattered up in a hansom. Since we were in a group with a number of the other members of the amateur troupe, Rogers hung back. He stood on the step of the cab staring at us, until he caught Dickens’s eye. With that, he gave a sharp nod, and climbed back in.

Of course, Dickens and myself disengaged as quickly as possible from the others, and joined Rogers in the cab. I am sure that Forster observed our hasty withdrawal. I am sure he huffed and puffed about us after we drove away. “’Ee sent me for you. Tonight’s the night, mates. Tonight’s the night we take ’im,” Rogers announced.

Field was waiting in the bullpen when we arrived at Bow Street Station.

“Don’t remove your coats, gentlemen,” he ordered right off as he fetched his own greatcoat and that square, sharp hat from the pegs on the wall. “We are goin’ out without delay to take up Mister Paroissien for the murder of Solicitor Partlow.”

“What has happened?” Dickens was curious. “Has there been any change in the stage manager’s circumstances? Is he preparing to flee?”

“Not at all,” Field answered. “Quite the opposite. The man is secure. ’Ee is re-establishin’ ’is former liasons. ’Ee thinks ’ee’s gotten away with it and it is forgotten.”

“Liasons?” Dickens asked.

“Yes,” Rogers said, showing no reticence (he missed little, yet it occurred to me that he had not yet observed Dickens’s attraction to the Ternan girl, though I was certain he was fully cognizant of mine toward Irish Meg Sheehey), “’ee pursues once again the girl who was the cause of it all.”

Dickens blanched—went white as a French potato. For some strange reason, Dickens’s pallid, strained face made me remember the night of his daughter’s death. That night he had warned me against the perils of writing novels. “Reality is a sick thing,” he had said, “a diseased, bleak house where no one should be forced to live.” This threat to Miss Ternan was like the death of another of his children. It was the childlike qualities of the girl which had initially attracted him to her. Was it not ironic that those same qualities aroused the sexual appetites of both Partlow and Paroissien? How sickening that the girl’s own mother was auctioning off her childhood.

“The Ternan woman and ’er daughter. ’Ee dined with the two of ’em this evenin’. We must go,” Field said, moving toward the back door of the stationhouse. “A problem ’as arisen with the surveillance.”

“What problem?” It was Rogers asking. His voice betrayed his impatience at having missed out on some event in the case. I am sure he blamed Dickens and me for this loss.

“Constable Gatewood ’as lost contact with Paroissien and the two women.” Alarm again spread like a white death across Dickens’s face.

A post-chaise waited for us in the narrow mews behind the station. We mounted it in haste, and, at Field’s order to the postilion, set off. The horses picked up speed and we seemed to be catapulting across London.

“There was no performance of
Macbeth
this night.” Field, at another “What ’appened?” from Rogers, took up the narrative. “Nevertheless, our Mister Paroissien went to the theatre. There, as if by plan, ’ee met the woman Ternan and the daughter. They supped together at a nearby public ’ouse. When they left the pub, Constable Gatewood was close. They set out walkin’, and Gatewood followed. ‘Owever, without warnin’, Paroissien ’ailed a passin’ cab. Gatewood, unable to find a similar conveyance, was left at a disadvantage. ’Ee attempted to pursue the ’ansom on foot but, due to the sparsity of traffic and the speed of the ’orse, ’ee could not keep up.”

“Man’s an incompetent idiot!” Rogers spat.

“When was this?” Dickens said, taking up the questioning.

“No more than an hour and a half ago,” Field answered. “Constable Gatewood immediately returned to Bow Street Station, and, though quite winded, gave his report.”

“Ought to be cashiered,” Rogers groused openly.

“From the direction the cab took, Paroissien could ’ave been takin’ the two women to ’is lodgin’s, but that is only the flimsiest of speculation. I ’ad already decided to take ’im up tonight, and ’ad sent Rogers to find the two of you when Gatewood arrived with ’is unfortunate report. This break in our surveillance convinced me that it was time to drop the net over Paroissien before ’ee made a more permanent escape.”

“What do you mean ‘a more permanent escape’?” It was the first time I had opened my mouth since we had entered the carriage.

“Out of London. To the Continent. To America.”

“Good God, why have we waited this long to apprehend this monster? He is dangerous to society, to…to…” Dickens’s voice was distraught. Field could not help but mark it. His forefinger, crook’d, came up and speculatively scratched at the side of his eye.

“I chose to ’old off on ’is arrest,” Field said, breaking the short pause, “because for the last three days I ’ave been attemptin’, to no avail, to attain an interview with Lord ’Enry Ashbee. I ’ave been repeatedly informed upon callin’ at ’is ’ome that ’ee is out of the city. I ’ave reason, ’owever, to think otherwise. It is possible ’ee ’as a secret entrance to ’is ’ouse which allows ’im to come and go undetected.”

Dickens could not have asked for a fuller explanation of Field’s methods and motives, yet the tension in his face did not abate.

Our post-chaise galloped headlong through the dark thoroughfares and only slowed as we entered an area of lofty dark tenements arranged in a labyrinth of crazy narrow streets off Charing Cross, in a mongrel section of public houses, boarding houses, gentlemen’s hotels, and private lodging establishments commonly known as Soho.

“There!” Field shouted, with a lunge of his ubiquitous forefinger. “That is the ’ouse. Stop the coach!”

The postilion reined in as ordered, and we came to a stop in front of a high brooding stone building, blackened by a century of London soot.

“’Is rooms is on the third floor, in the back,” Rogers informed us.

“You lead,” Field nodded.

We followed Rogers into the dark lodging house in a tight file, Field immediately behind him, Dickens next, and myself bringing up the nervous rear. Inside the front entrance was a squalid, narrow foyer. It was clearly a house partitioned in such a manner that there was little wasted space. Three paces into this cramped entranceway a narrow flight of stairs reared abruptly and steeply up.

Maintaining our rigid file behind Rogers, who had lit his bull’s-eye in a not-wholly-successful attempt to penetrate the thick darkness, we began our ascent. Rogers’s light wavered weakly above, as we climbed two storeys into a narrow corridor. A gaslight flickered down this corridor, but it offered only the weakest resistance against the crush of the building’s darkness. Tiny cracks of flickering light seeped out from beneath the doors, signaling that some species of troglodytic life might possibly exist in the depths of this dark cavern.

We walked slowly, almost groping our way despite Rogers’s bull’s-eye in the lead. It was a frightening place. The wavering light cast devilish shadows upon the walls, as if we had entered some decrepit inferno. Abruptly, Rogers stood before a closed door, nodding to Field, and pronouncing, “This is ’is,” with a professional certainty. No light seeped out from beneath the door. No sound emanated from within.

“Open it,” Inspector Field ordered in a low whisper.

I braced myself for the crack of splintering wood, as Rogers kicked the door in, but he tried the brass knob first, and the door floated silently open.

Rogers turned quickly to Field. “Not only unlocked but not even closed,” he whispered.

“Yes, strange,” Field answered.

No one moved.

“Well,” Field finally broke the silence, “perhaps we ought to go in. You two stay back, behind me and Rogers,” Field ordered in a whisper to Dickens. “If there is a fight, it’s our fight, not yours.”

Field moved in front of Rogers, drawing a small cudgel out of an inside pocket of his greatcoat, and, with a waggle of his singular forefinger, directed his eager Serjeant to follow. As we had done all evening, Dickens and your humble servant brought up the rear. Thus, we entered the murderer’s rooms.

It was dark as pitch inside. Rogers had extinguished his bull’s-eye, so that the advantage of surprise and the cover of darkness would be ours. Yet, with every step I took into that dark circle of violent possibility, my nerves stretched tighter. Was the murderer there, lurking in the dark, his weapon primed and ready to fire, as we came within range of his ambush? Every possibility raced and tumbled in my frightened mind, yet I followed Dickens and Field blindly.

We stopped when a silent touch of a hand passed quickly from one to another along the file. I sensed that Field was listening.

“Raise a light,” he ordered Rogers, “there is no one ’ere.”

The task of relighting his bull’s-eye in the all-encompassing darkness of those silent rooms took Serjeant Rogers only a moment. How he could accomplish the delicate task so quickly in the utter dark attests to his professionalism. The light flared, sending lank shadows up the walls. We stood in the doorway of an inner chamber, and watched as the light groped its way around the interior walls. It was Paroissien’s bedchamber. Two chairs sat against the wall, with clothes draped casually over their straight backs. A large pier glass hung above a commodious dry sink cluttered with male utensils for shaving and daily hygiene. The glass reflected back the light of Rogers’s bull’s-eye, reflected the disheveled bedstead that filled the greater part of the room, reflected the glass cylinder of the oil lamp sitting next to the leather razor strop on the dry sink, reflected the white porcelain of the wash basin, reflected the bluish milkglass of the water pitcher, reflected a large and disturbing dark shadow on the floor at the foot of the impassive bed.