Piccadilly was murder that day. The world and his wife had come up to Town for the Season and demure young ladies were being chaperoned along the pavements, past window shoppers and flower sellers. Dray horses steamed and sweated, clattering over the cobbles and dipping their velvet noses into the green-scummed troughs.
James Batchelor had found number 48, a large town house tucked a little further back than the rest, and he was grateful that it stood on the shady side. The heat rose from the stones and leather-clad tradesmen puffed out their cheeks and tried not to swear for fear of offending the gentility that swarmed around them in frothy gowns and under fussy parasols. City gentlemen, up West for any number of reasons, regretted their top hats and starched collars, looking with envy at the cravats and boaters of visitors from the country.
‘Do you have an appointment?’
Batchelor swept off his low-crowned derby and said, ‘No.’
‘Then I can’t see you.’
‘I am not a patient, doctor,’ he explained, sliding out his card. ‘I am an enquiry agent. You are Dr Beard?’
‘I’m Frank Beard, yes,’ the doctor nodded, plopping his pen into an inkwell on his desk. ‘And what exactly is an enquiry agent?’
‘A private detective,’ Batchelor told him. He hadn’t taken to Dr Beard and he sensed that the feeling was mutual. The man had clearly been blond once and was now pepper and salt. His eyes were a clear blue, hawk-like astride his beak of a nose.
‘I see.’ Beard pursed his lips and pressed his fingers together on them, looking his visitor up and down. ‘I thought such people were creations of fiction,’ he said. ‘Something from the pen of Mr Collins, perhaps.’
‘No, sir,’ Batchelor stood his ground. ‘I can assure you I am a creation of fact.’
‘Clearly,’ Beard sneered. ‘Well, what do you want? I have a very busy schedule.’
‘The late Charles Dickens,’ Batchelor said. He was still standing in the man’s opulent study because he had not been invited to sit.
‘What of him?’ Beard’s eyes narrowed above the pince-nez.
‘Can you tell me the cause of death?’
Beard sat upright. For a moment he toyed with ringing his bell and summoning help, but the only help to reach him quickly was Mrs Le Tissier, his secretary, and Beard knew that, formidable though the woman was in the ordinary scheme of things, she’d be no match for Batchelor if things got ugly.
‘Yes and no,’ he answered.
‘Er … I’m sorry.’ Batchelor was a little thrown. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Because I am a doctor, yes, I can tell you the cause of Mr Dickens’s death. But precisely because I am a doctor and dear Charles was my patient, no, I cannot. Surely, Mr … er … Batchelor … in your line of work you must have come across the phrase “doctor–patient confidentiality”?’
‘I have,’ Batchelor nodded, ‘but it doesn’t help.’
‘Forgive me, sir,’ Beard was on his dignity, ‘I was not aware that it was my lot in life to help you. If you are ill, consult your own physician. Otherwise …’ and he reached for his pen again, ‘I wish you good day.’
‘Is it possible,’ Batchelor decided to take the bull by the horns, ‘that Mr Dickens was murdered?’
Beard sat up again so slowly that he dropped the pen, ink spattering over his pages. ‘Murdered, sir?’ he repeated. ‘Murdered? What the devil do you mean?’
‘Surely, doctor,’ Batchelor said, ‘in your line of work you must have come across the phrase?’
‘Get out!’ Beard was on his feet. ‘Leave this instant or I shall call the police.’
Batchelor ignored the threat. ‘The obituaries said a stroke,’ he said.
‘Well, there you are, then.’ Beard was still on his feet, white with fury. ‘Your question is answered.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Batchelor persisted. ‘You see, I used to be a journalist, Dr Beard. I know the hacks who write this stuff. They can be, shall we say, ill-informed?’
‘Ill-informed by whom?’ Beard demanded to know.
‘Oh, that’s the question, isn’t it? Have you spoken to the Press, doctor?’
Beard rang his bell furiously and a bombazined Gorgon appeared at Batchelor’s elbow. ‘Mrs Le Tissier, this … gentleman … was just leaving. Could you show him out?’
Batchelor raised his hands. ‘I can find my own way.’ He smiled at her, while being careful to avoid her basilisk stare. He had no time to be turned to stone today, not with a murder to solve. ‘You’ve been help itself, doctor.’ And he was gone.
‘Mrs Le Tissier.’ Beard sat down, crumpled up the stained page and started a new one. ‘Have that dim-witted lad from the back stairs take the letter I am about to write round to Scotland Yard. He is to give it to Adolphus Williamson in person. And I shall expect a reply.’
When he and Batchelor had tossed the coin that morning to see who went to see the doctor and who went to see the housekeeper at Gads Hill, Grand was pretty sure he had been the winner. After all, the doctor was bound to be a much harder nut to crack than a grief-stricken young woman; Grand had quite the track record when it came to grief-stricken young women, even if it was only a lost cat they were mourning. He had asked Batchelor, the Londoner born and bred, how he would set about getting to Gads Hill, and his reply had not really been very heartening.
‘If I were you,’ Batchelor had said, ‘I wouldn’t start from here.’
Grand had been in no mood for levity, so he had simply jammed on his hat and left the house in something of a snit. The cabbie had been more helpful and had deposited him in quick time at Charing Cross Station, from where, he was reliably informed, he could get a train to Higham. He was no stranger to railroads, of course, but he still enjoyed the English trains and their stations. The lines were not wide and windswept and straight as a die for hundreds of miles like they were back home. They were narrow, winding and parochial; in a nutshell, just like the English roads, but steel-shod. The stations in London, on the other hand, were built like palaces. He stood back against the cross and held on his hat as he tipped his head back to take in the front of the station – who but the British would hide a train station in a building that looked so very like a hotel? He realized, and not for the first time, that he loved this country.
That mood passed as soon as he got inside. The queues seemed to snake around and disappear into some hellish tangle in the middle. Children screamed, hawkers cried their wares, and at one point Grand was almost trampled to death by the unwavering crocodile of a Thomas Cook Temperance Tour, led by a determined-looking bald gent whose expression suggested that he was very much in need – perish the thought – of a stiff brandy and a good long lie-down.
But eventually Grand had his ticket and had found his platform and had even found a seat on the train. He unfurled his Telegraph and prepared himself to read Sala’s eulogy, without coming over bilious. The train puffed and heaved and there were various incoherent cries from the platform and then a series of crashes getting louder and louder until suddenly a porter materialized at Grand’s elbow, wrenched open the door and then slammed it again with an almost manic vigour. Grand’s ears were still ringing when, with an extra-large lurch, the train was on its way.
The journey was slow to the point of tedium, and Grand gradually came to understand just how much stopping a stopping train actually did, even in a journey as relatively short as his. He watched the station names trundle past and felt a little homesick. Where he came from – and you could take the boy out of Boston but you could never take the Boston out of the boy – stations were generally named after an event, usually a massacre of some kind, or some very minor local personality, usually run out of town on a rail the day after the tape was cut. Somehow Erith and Belvedere just didn’t get his imagination racing. Somewhere south of the former, he felt himself drifting off to sleep and did nothing to prevent it.
He was woken by a gentle poke in the ribs and struggled upright in his seat. He had slid sideways at some point in the journey and was leaning on the shoulder of an elderly gent who very politely helped him up.
‘I do apologize,’ Grand muttered. ‘Dropped off for a moment, then.’
‘Please,’ the elderly gent said, ‘it’s no trouble. But I noticed you had a ticket for Higham in your hatband and that is where we come into next. About five minutes, as long as there is nothing on the line to prevent us.’
Grand did his best to look wise. He knew all about that kind of thing. Buffalo. Arapaho. The things that prevented travel in the West. He shook his head. No, perhaps neither of those; not in Kent. He held out his hand, which was sweaty from being trapped under him for so long, but too late now. ‘I’m Matthew Grand,’ he said.
‘Are you from America?’ the elderly gent said. ‘How terribly exciting. My daughters would just love to meet you. Would you like to join us for lunch? I’m sure Cook could stretch to one more.’
‘Thank you,’ Grand said. ‘That’s very kind.’ He had had meals stretched by cooks before and they had little to recommend them. ‘I need to get to Gads Hill and I’m not sure how long—’
‘But my dear fellow! How very serendipitous! I am the rector of St John’s and Gads Hill is on my way. Let me at least offer you a ride in my brougham. If things have gone to plan, it should be waiting for me outside the station.’
It was at this point that Grand noticed the dog collar and rather clerical garb. He wasn’t in the habit of taking rides from strange old men, but surely this was kosher, if he could mix his religions for a moment. He smiled and nodded and the elderly gent was ecstatic. ‘And lunch?’ he asked again. Then, his brow darkened. ‘You are not from the … Press?’ He said the final word as though it were the deepest obscenity.
‘No, no, goodness me. Not at all.’ Grand hoped he had not protested too much.
‘That’s wonderful. Poor Georgina and the family have been positively bombarded by the Press, in the grounds, night and day. One even got in – a ghastly sort, who claimed to be a friend of the family.’
‘George Sala?’ Grand, though loyal to his clients as a rule, did so hope it was.
‘Eh?’ The rector was startled. ‘Oh, no. No, Mr Sala is a delightful person, we’ve met on numerous … but wait? Not a pressman, surely!’
Grand pointed to his newspaper, by now rather battered. Even so, Sala’s by-line was clearly visible.
‘I’m shocked. He never said.’ The rector was still shaking his head when they reached the station, just a single platform, Grand was pleased to note, without a queue in sight. A pile of hampers was leaning precariously on a boy pushing a hand trolley, and an almost comatose guard held out a lacklustre hand to take their tickets.
‘I’m the Reverend Moptrucket,’ the vicar suddenly said, turning with his hand outstretched again. He smiled and nodded. ‘A ludicrous name, I am the first to admit. My poor daughters struggle beneath it but, as I always say to them, with luck they will soon be able to change it.’ He laughed. ‘My poor wife, God rest her soul, suffered for twenty years as Mrs Ernestine Moptrucket, but she was pleased to know she brought hours of innocent amusement to our neighbour, Mr Dickens. I believe at one time he asked if he might use the name in one of his tales, but my lovely wife was too unassuming to accept such a plaudit.’
Grand was speechless. He had heard some jim-dandies back at home but this one had to take the biscuit.
‘My name is Reginald,’ the rector added. ‘I wouldn’t usually be so informal with someone I had just met, but I do try and avoid Moptrucket as much as possible.’
‘I do understand,’ Grand said. An idea was forming in his head. ‘Were you very great friends? You and Charles Dickens, I mean.’
‘Not very great, perhaps. No, no, I wouldn’t say that. But we were neighbourly, you know. Yes, very neighbourly. Oh, look,’ he suddenly said. ‘There’s young Isaac, the lad who does up at Gads Hill. I think we can squeeze him into the brougham; save his legs.’
Grand’s eyes began to take on a cunning gleam. ‘Really?’ He looked at the rather unprepossessing child who was coming now out of the station, no longer encumbered with the baskets. The boy was not much more than thirteen or so and was walking with a jaunty air, as well he might, having divested himself of the hampers. He had spots, carroty hair and freckles to match across his nose, and an open expression which made Grand, used to the Alsatia urchins, smile to see. He turned to the vicar. ‘May I take you up after all on your kind invitation?’
‘My dear fellow,’ the man said, bouncing on his toes with joy. ‘It would be our absolute pleasure. And look – there’s the brougham. Isaac!’
The lad looked round and slouched over, his previous jaunty air rather dampened by the proximity of the clergy. ‘Yus, vicar,’ he mumbled, flattening down a recalcitrant lock of hair with his hand.
‘Can we take you in the brougham up to the house? You must have had so much work to do since your master died.’
‘It’s been a fair bugger, vicar,’ the lad said, clambering happily up alongside the driver.
Grand waited for the typical clerical response to the boy’s gaffe, but the vicar simply laughed. ‘A simple soul, Isaac,’ he said. ‘But no malice in him. None at all.’ He gestured to the vehicle. ‘After you, my dear chap. After you.’
Grand got in, but not without a calculating glance at young Isaac, sitting happily up on the seat. He was prattling away to the driver and Grand’s day began to take on a very different shape. Very different indeed.
Grand was optimistic by nature, but even he was not ready for the Misses Moptrucket. There were four of them altogether, ranging in age from a dimpled little creature of about sixteen who giggled and blushed a lot when faced with a big, handsome American, up to the eldest, a rather languid girl of twenty. But the Reverend Moptrucket was not being overly hopeful when he said that they would all marry and slough off the handle nature had dealt them – he could see in his mind’s eye that the youth of the parish were probably already forming an orderly queue.
The food was also excellent, and if the cook had stretched anything, it didn’t show. Grand found himself looking around the table and smiling fondly; if this family was also made up of inveterate gossips, his day would be complete. He chuckled to himself, thinking of Batchelor having to lock horns with a recalcitrant doctor, the journey forgotten.
As the last mouthful of featherlight sabayon disappeared, Grand sat back with a sigh. Dripping on toast was all very well, but that meal had been just perfect – he pushed thoughts of press-ganging the cook back to Alsatia with him and addressed the vicar. ‘That was a wonderful meal, Reverend Mo … sorry, Reginald. Your cook is a marvel.’
‘Indeed she is,’ the vicar beamed. ‘Actually, she is an example of another thing we have in common with Gads Hill; she is my sister-in-law, as dear Georgy is sister to Catherine Dickens.’
The youngest daughter giggled and blushed and was hushed by the sister sitting nearest.
‘Excuse Madeleine, Mr Grand,’ the eldest, Caroline, said, nudging the girl with her elbow. ‘She is at the age when everything seems funny. I think perhaps we will leave you and father to your coffee, and then you may smoke if you wish.’
‘I don’t wish to smoke, Miss Moptrucket,’ Grand said, feeling sorry for the girl who, as the eldest, had to bear the brunt of the name for polite address. ‘And as for depriving us of your company, please reconsider. I don’t often get to enjoy family meals – I would be so glad if you would stay.’ He didn’t expect to get much in the way of direct comments from these girls but, if he were careful, he could gain a lot from just watching their reactions. If he had gotten it right, young Madeleine was giggling because there was local rumour about Georgy Hogarth and Dickens, and like all children found it hilarious to consider a parent of hers in the same boat.
Caroline smiled and gave Madeleine a final nudge. ‘Then we would be delighted, Mr Grand.’
Gwendoline, the plainest sister, although only plain by comparison with the others, leaned forward. ‘I’m afraid you will find our company dull, Mr Grand. We see so few people here in the vicarage.’
‘Come, dear,’ her father gently admonished. ‘I don’t think that’s quite right, is it? We’re not exactly the Brontës, here. I don’t think a day goes by without at least one guest.’ He extended a hand to Grand. ‘For example, look at this wonderful amusement I have brought you today!’ All the girls laughed and, for a moment, Grand’s hairs stood up on the back of his neck. There was just a hint of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, of the handsome woodcutter taken in by the family and never seen again. He shook it off; this was Kent, for heaven’s sake, not Bavaria.
‘Papa is joking,’ Gwendoline said, having noticed the look that flew across Grand’s face. ‘We haven’t eaten a guest for …’ she looked around at her sisters. ‘How long has it been?’
Caroline twinkled at Grand. ‘Not since lunch,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Papa, I didn’t mean to make it sound as if we were recluses. It’s just that we all miss our visits to Gads Hill. We can’t really call while they are still in mourning.’
Grand’s ears pricked up. This was more promising.
‘Indeed you can’t,’ the vicar said firmly. ‘I have made my official visit, but I think that we must wait at least until after the funeral until we resume calls.’
‘I miss Georgy,’ Caroline said to Grand. ‘She and I are firm friends, although she is a little older than I am, of course.’
Madeleine could be contained no longer. ‘And of course,’ she said, ‘when Mr Dickens was in residence, she had no time for anyone else. People say—’
The Reverend Moptrucket raised his voice for the first time since Grand had met him. ‘Madeleine!’ he roared. ‘Go to your room!’ Then, turning to Grand, ‘I apologize for my daughter, Mr Grand. She listens too much to servants’ gossip. Caroline, could you go with her, please, and make sure she understands the error of her ways.’
The other two girls, left without the guiding light of Caroline, sat silently from then on, except when Grand was telling them of the pleasures of the London theatre season, of the bustle and hustle he saw every day.
‘Papa,’ Evangeline, the third of the vicar’s daughters complained, ‘one would think that London was on the moon for all we see of it. You go all the time, but I can’t remember the last time I was there!’
‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,’ Grand assured her. ‘For instance, although I live in London and have offices just along from Chapman and Hall, the publishers, I have never met Charles Dickens there, though I did once cross the Atlantic on the same ship. Whereas you, living here in the beautiful countryside of Kent county, have met him many times.’
‘It wasn’t as exciting as you might imagine,’ Gwendoline said sulkily. ‘He was useless at telling stories, for instance.’
‘Gwendoline,’ her father grumbled ominously.
‘Well, he was,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember when we were there for the Sunday School treat that time? He sat us all down and just recited poems. Not even his poems, either. Some stuff by … who was it, Evie?’
‘Arnold somebody, wasn’t it? It was very peculiar, anyway, and I don’t think he got the words right. Not in the right order, anyway.’
The vicar sighed. ‘Yes, not a good choice. And I think you mean Matthew Arnold, my dear, not Arnold somebody.’ He turned to Grand. ‘It was, at least, “The Forsaken Merman”, and not one of Professor Arnold’s more … contentious works. Do you know it?’
Grand shook his head. He was beginning to realize how much he didn’t know of the literary world of his adopted homeland, and thought perhaps he should bone up as soon as possible.
‘Yes, dear Charles. Not the best memory in the world, dear man.’
‘But …’ Grand was confused. ‘I thought he recited long passages of his own works to audiences. Surely, that takes a prodigious memory—’
‘Oh, I know all about that,’ Emmeline broke in. ‘He didn’t learn it at all. He just told the stories from his books in any words that came into his head.’
The vicar lowered his chin and looked doubtfully at his daughter.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Papa,’ she said. ‘Isaac told me. He got it from Bob …’
‘Bob?’ Grand didn’t want to seem too nosy, but it paid to know who was who.
‘Bob Cratchit, the gardener,’ Emmeline told him.
‘Who?’ Grand had heard that name before. But where?
‘Mr Dickens was not above using a real name if it took his fancy,’ the vicar chuckled. ‘Many folk around here have names that are quite famous now. Or he would change them slightly, but, yes, old Bob … I’m not sure how pleased he was when he found out. He had not done it so much of late – I wonder perhaps if one of our more illustrious neighbours took exception.’
Grand couldn’t show his ignorance now, so smiled politely.
‘Bob said,’ Gwendoline went on, not anxious to lose the attention of this handsome stranger, ‘that Mr Dickens would just go out on stage and tell the story. He was very good, I expect, but I know he didn’t learn it.’
The vicar had just realized what his daughter had said. ‘I don’t think you should be talking with Isaac, my dear,’ he said, mildly.
Gwendoline leapt up from her seat. ‘You!’ she shouted. ‘You! You’re always criticizing what I do and who I do it with! I hate you!’ And she ran out in a flurry of petticoats, with Evangeline in hot pursuit.
The vicar sighed and turned his kind, tired eyes on Grand. ‘Daughters, eh?’
Having nothing to add on the subject, Grand spent a little longer with him and then made his excuses. Next stop, Gads Hill.
In the drowsy afternoon, the bees loud in the meadows and the sun burning down on his wideawake, Matthew Grand reached Gads Hill Place. The house was Georgian, red brick and huge, and there was a man in a smock hacking at the foliage with a sickle. Bob Cratchit, if Grand had remembered the Moptruckets’ conversation right. He saw the lad Isaac too, carrying boxes again to the back of the house. It seemed to be his lot in life.
Grand rang the bell and listened for the faint, answering ring. There was a black bow on the door and he suddenly felt rather inappropriate in his light grey suit. A crepe armband would have made the point, but he hadn’t even got that. The bow fluttered and bounced as the door swung back and an attractive woman stood there. She was perhaps Grand’s age, with a pale face, auburn hair tied in a bun, and she was wearing funereal black.
‘Miss Hogarth?’ Grand tipped his hat and then took it off. He showed her his card. ‘Matthew Grand, enquiry agent.’
‘Not today,’ she said and began to close the door.
Grand was faster and stopped it with his foot. ‘I realize this is a bad time, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but my enquiries very much concern you.’
Georgy Hogarth paused. There was a large American standing in front of her, looking very purposeful. For a moment, she checked on the men in the vicinity. Old Bob was just there and he was armed. She could hear Isaac clattering about back in the kitchen, with access to knives without number. Not that anything like that would be necessary, she was sure, but you read such things in the newspapers these days. And there was an asylum in Rochester.
‘In what way?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps if I could come in?’
She hesitated again. She had barely had time to sit down since Charles had died. People had been kind. They meant well. Apart from the newspaper people; they didn’t mean well at all. But all she really wanted now was a little peace and quiet. And something told her she was not going to get that from this unquiet American.
She showed him into the drawing room where the mantel clock ticked loudly and no breeze wafted in through the net curtains of the open French windows. The front of the house was in deepest mourning, with curtains drawn and sorrow etched. Grand had half expected to see a pair of undertakers’ mutes guarding the entranceway, their faces a ghostly white under their weepers and glycerine tears on their cheeks.
‘Won’t you sit down, Mr Grand?’ She offered him the nearest piece of chintz. ‘Now,’ she sat opposite him, knees together, back ramrod straight, hands in lap. ‘What is it you wish to know?’
‘Your brother-in-law,’ Grand said. ‘How did he die?’
‘Nobly,’ she said, sniffing away a tear. ‘Quietly. As you would expect.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Grand smiled, laying his hat down alongside him on the sofa. ‘But what was the cause of his passing?’
‘It was a stroke,’ Georgy said. ‘I have it on the best medical authority.’
‘Dr Beard,’ Grand said.
‘Yes. You should talk to him.’
‘I have people for that, Miss Hogarth. I was hoping that you could tell me what happened.’
‘What is your interest, Mr Grand? I note the address of your offices is near to dear Charles’s publishers, but can it be that simple?’
‘We have been engaged by a friend of your late brother-in-law,’ Grand told her. ‘I cannot say more.’
‘Trollope?’ she asked. ‘Wilkie Collins. It’ll be one of them. They were always envious of Charles. What writer would not be? They were all blinded by the light of his genius and were positively green with envy.’
‘I am not at liberty to say,’ Grand said, ‘but I assure you, my client has Mr Dickens’s best interests at heart.’
Georgy Hogarth chewed her lip. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘If I must relive the terrible moment again, I will.’
‘Could you show me the chalet?’ Grand asked.
For a moment, the housekeeping sister-in-law was taken aback. Then she recovered herself and stood up. ‘This way,’ she said.
The chalet was a summer house, its curtains drawn like those at the front of the house itself. Grand noted that it could be reached from the east and the south. It was visible from only one window of the house itself and its back lay to the dark foliage, rhododendron bushes banked high at the edge of the grounds. Georgy Hogarth hauled up her chatelaine and unlocked the door.
‘I’ve taken to locking it,’ she said. ‘There are ghouls abroad in Kent, Mr Grand. They are not creatures of the night, as dear Charles believed, but day-crawling monsters. I am sorry if I was a little frosty with you when you arrived, but I was pestered by a fellow countryman of yours only the day before yesterday.’
‘You were?’
‘Told me his name was Morford.’ Georgy swung the door wide. ‘Said he was from New York. I, of course, didn’t believe a word of it. He wanted to stand, he told me, on the very spot where … well, where you are standing now.’
Grand looked down. If this was the scene of a crime, it had been meticulously covered up. The furniture was in place. There was no ruck in the carpet, no stains. Everything was in order; perhaps too in order. ‘Did you let him in?’
‘I did not,’ Georgy said. ‘I have read of such people in your country, Mr Grand. Snake-oil salesmen, I believe they are called.’
Grand smiled. Had he been anywhere else other than the spot where Charles Dickens died, he would have laughed. ‘Indeed they are,’ he said. ‘So, on the day in question?’
Georgy closed her eyes, willing herself to recount it all again, as she had already, far, far too often. ‘It was nearly half past two,’ she said. ‘Charles had taken an early luncheon and had come in here to work.’
‘On Edwin Drood?’
‘I believe so. Chapter Twenty-One was giving him a little difficulty and he was out of sorts.’
‘Unwell?’
‘Yes. He barely touched his lunch.’
‘Why did you come here?’ Grand asked. ‘At half past two there was no real reason for you to bother him, was there, especially if – as you say – he was having difficulty with his plot?’
‘I was concerned for him. I thought perhaps a little beef tea? A little brandy?’
‘Mr Dickens partook?’
‘Beef tea, occasionally; brandy, rather too regularly, I’m afraid.’
Grand looked around him. There was a brass-bound tantalus in the corner, with a trio of cut-glass decanters. Alongside it, a box of very expensive Havana cigars. ‘You brought the tea from the house?’ he asked.
‘No. I merely came to ask if he would like some. He was … sitting over there, at his desk.’
Grand wandered across the room. The desk was empty. No papers, no scribblings; not even a pen and ink. Georgy read his mind. ‘I told you, Mr Grand,’ she said. ‘Ghouls. Did you know that when hangings were public in this country, people used to pay a small fortune for a portion of the rope used?’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of some horror fondling Charles’s things, selling his manuscripts, his pens, his inks. That revolting American offered to buy the last collar he wore. Can you imagine?’
Grand could. He had always moved in different circles from a housekeeper in Kent. He was a man of the world.
‘Charles looked frightful. I told him to come into the house and lie down.’
‘He was still alive?’ Grand blinked. This was not how George Sala had told it.
‘Of course,’ she sniffed. ‘Only those repulsive Spiritualists talk to the dead.’
‘Did he answer?’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Yes, he did. And I suppose they were the last words he ever spoke to anyone on this earth. He said, “Yes, on the ground”.’
Their eyes instinctively turned to the carpet.
‘I called Brunt and we got him on to the sofa, there.’
‘Brunt?’
‘The gardener.’ Grand looked puzzled and she smiled, despite the sorrow she was living with. ‘Oh, I can see that you have read somewhere that the gardener’s name was Bob Cratchit. Well, we did have a gardener with that name once, and of course, as soon as it became famous, all the gardeners here at Gads Hill were called that, for nostalgia’s sake.’ She looked around. ‘Nostalgia will be our lot, now, for ever, I suppose.’
While she composed herself, Grand looked around. The sofa looked as untouched as the rest of the chalet, as though the whole place was already a museum.
‘Isaac went for a doctor, the nearest one, I mean. Steele. But it was too late. We sent for Dr Beard and Dr Steele waited until he arrived. I suppose the two of them compared notes; I don’t know. Katie and Mamie arrived later – it must have been midnight by then.’
‘Katie and Mamie?’
‘Charles’s daughters. They insisted on putting hot bricks by his feet, just over there on the sofa.’
Grand noticed that the woman was moving around the room, touching the furniture where her brother-in-law had been. ‘His feet were like ice by then, of course. The whole thing was pointless. They were in shock. They weren’t behaving rationally.’
She turned to face Grand. ‘He died at six o’clock,’ she said. ‘A single tear ran down his cheek and he just stopped breathing. We put flowers in the dining room where the body was laid out – geraniums red and lobelias blue. Charles always loved them and Brunt was such a dear.’
‘Who else turned up during the day?’ Grand asked.
‘Er … John Forster, of course, Charles’s greatest friend in all the world. Charley, Charles’s eldest, the Snodgering Blee. He was distraught, as you’d imagine. Oh, and George Sala turned up. God knows how he got himself involved.’
God and George Sala, Grand thought to himself, but he said nothing. ‘And the funeral?’
‘Tomorrow, Mr Grand. Close friends and family only. The ghouls, you see. They mustn’t be allowed anywhere near.’
‘No,’ Grand said softly. ‘No, of course not.’
There were things about Georgy Hogarth’s memories of Dickens’s last day that Matthew Grand was unhappy with. The woman had given him the time of day, had answered his questions firmly and with resolve. Perhaps a little too firmly; perhaps with rather too much resolve. Little things didn’t add up. Sala’s version was not the same as Georgy’s. There were no screams, no hysteria. There had been other women in the house – Catherine the cook and Emma the maid, but there was no mention of them in the housekeeper’s account and no sign of them today. There was a groom, George Butler, but he too was invisible on both occasions.
Grand was still pondering all this as he crossed the lawn. The sun was still high and his shadow was sharp on the grass lovingly mown by Cratchit; Grand had no idea who Bob Cratchit might be, but he had labelled the gardener thus in the filing system in his head and preferred this to Brunt, who didn’t sound half as pleasant. There was no sound now, only Grand’s own footfalls padding on the green. Yet there were sounds: the rustle of leaves, the snapping of a twig. Someone or something was trailing Grand through the shrubbery to his left. It wasn’t Cratchit, who was sitting alongside a heavy roller with Isaac, the two of them munching on hunks of bread and cheese. If it was the invisible groom, why was he creeping about in the shrubbery and why was he watching Grand? There were ghouls in Kent County; Grand was ready.
The American had promised Inspector Tanner of Scotland Yard that he wouldn’t carry his pistol, as it had been known to frighten the ladies. Did Grand realize, the inspector had asked him, that this was England and not the Wild West? Yes, Grand realized that, but the carrying of arms was an American’s God-given right; it was enshrined in the Constitution. Inspector Tanner had narrowed his eyes and told Grand, with a wink of one of those eyes, that as far as he was concerned, Constitution was a hill in London. And there the matter had dropped. But Matthew Grand felt naked without his pocket Colt, even here in suburban Kent, and he eased the leather catch on his shoulder-holster, just in case.
He turned slowly alongside the stable block and ducked behind the buttress. A large, brown-suited man, surprisingly light of foot, followed him, and Grand leapt out, the Colt gleaming in his fist, the muzzle cold against the man’s forehead.
‘Well, you don’t see many of those in Higham of a Monday.’
‘Who are you and why are you following me?’
The man’s hands were instinctively in the air, but he lowered one slowly. ‘I’m going to reach inside my coat,’ he said, ‘That’s where I keep my card.’
Grand had not moved. The hammer was back on the pistol and he eased the weapon slightly to accommodate the man’s movements. He edged out a white card and passed it to Grand.
‘Inspector Charles Field, Chief of Detectives,’ Grand read aloud.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Field smiled. ‘That’s an old one. Allow me to update you.’ He reached again inside his coat and produced a second card.
‘Field and Pollaky,’ Grand read, ‘Thirteen Paddington Green.’ He frowned. ‘You’ve crossed Pollaky out. Deceased?’
‘Might as well be,’ Field said. ‘We parted company, Ignatius and I. Investigational differences. Can I put my hands down now and can you put that pea-shooter away?’
Grand eased the hammer forward and slipped the gun into his holster.
‘One good turn deserves another,’ Field said, letting his hands fall.
It was Grand’s turn to produce a card.
‘Well, well,’ Field said. ‘Competition. It’s what made Britain great, after all. Are you Grand or Batchelor?’
‘Grand,’ Grand said.
‘From the colonies, by your accent.’
‘I can see why you were chief of detectives,’ Grand said, straight-faced. ‘But none of this explains why you’re following me.’
‘Charles Dickens and I go way back, Mr Grand. You’ve read Bleak House, of course?’
‘Well, I …’
‘Inspector Bucket in that opus? Well, that’s me, that is. Oh, Charles always denied it, of course. I don’t suppose you’ve read any Blackmore?’
‘Um …’
‘R.D. Blackmore? Lorna Doone chappie? No, well, he’s not a patch on the master, of course. He’s written this load of tosh called Clara Vaughan. There’s only one decent character in it – Inspector John Cutting. That’s me as well.’
‘So, you’re a fictional detective, Mr Field?’
Grand didn’t know what hit him. He felt a slap around his head, his coat was wrenched open and he was suddenly staring down the bore of his own .32.
‘I wouldn’t underestimate me, Mr Grand, not if I were you. Now, I don’t appreciate having a gun pulled on me in the pursuance of my enquiries.’ He clicked back the hammer.
‘Easy with that,’ Grand shouted. ‘It’s got a hair trigger.’
‘No, it hasn’t,’ Field said. ‘It’s one of the clumsiest guns Colonel Colt ever churned out. Handy, I concede, to slip into your coat. Short barrel, etcetera. I was confiscating these things when you were still shitting yellow. Now,’ he let the hammer go and spun the pistol, handing it butt-first to Grand. ‘Now that we’re on a more equal footing, so to speak, suppose you tell me what you’re doing here.’
The garden of the Olde Oak was empty that evening. Empty except for the two private detectives who sat there, each of them nursing a pint of the landlord’s finest. The pub was, in fact, shut, but ex-Inspector Field knew the man of old, had got something on him from the good old days and, when it came to Mr Field, nothing was too much trouble.
‘You’re a cagey one, Mr Grand.’ Field wiped the froth from his thick lips. ‘We’ve sat here now for half an hour and you’ve told me precisely nothing.’
‘Goes with the territory, Mr Field,’ Grand said.
‘All right,’ Field leaned back in his chair, lighting up the clay pipe he produced from his coat. ‘I’ll put my cards down, then, shall I?’ For the briefest of moments, his puffy face lit up with the flare of the lucifer and he blew smoke rings to the sky. ‘I think that you think that some ill befell old Charles Dickens and you’re investigating his murder.’
Grand smiled. ‘Now, why would you think that?’ he asked.
Field looked around him to make sure the trees did not have ears. Far beyond those trees the setting sun was kissing the mellow stones of Rochester Castle and the Medway was solid with lighters and barges laden with the goods of the empire, glowing in the evening. The old and the new stood side by side in that part of Kent, just as the old and the new detectives sat opposite each other in the Oak’s garden. ‘Because I think it too.’
‘You do?’
‘That’s why I was at Gads Hill today. Checking on things.’
‘Have the family called you in?’ Grand asked. ‘Miss Hogarth didn’t mention you.’
‘Catherine,’ Field said.
‘The cook?’
‘The wife. Mrs Dickens.’
‘I’d heard they were separated.’
‘By a literary mile,’ Field said. ‘Oh, I never cottoned to Catherine much, but Charles was less than kind to her. Told all and sundry that she hated her children and that the children hated her.’
‘Not true?’
‘Not a bit of it.’
‘Then, why …?’
‘Why would Dickens make it up?’ Field laughed. ‘Come on, Mr Grand, the man made his living by doing that.’
‘Was there somebody else, in Dickens’s life, I mean?’
Field’s pipe had gone out and he relit it slowly. ‘What have you heard?’
‘Miss Hogarth,’ he said. ‘Rumours …’
‘Hmm,’ Field clicked his fingers to order another round. ‘Single, attractive housekeeper seeks lecherous old writer for frolics and fun.’
‘Was that how it was?’
‘No.’ Field roared with laughter. ‘God, no. Oh, I daresay if Charles had set his cap at Georgy in the first place, rather than Catherine … But all that was years ago. Georgy was just a slip of a thing. And Charles wanted to slip his thing elsewhere …’
‘You mean …?’
‘Mr Grand,’ Field said, leaning closer and speaking quietly. ‘You and I are men of the world. Or at least, I am. I used to be one of Charles’s night guides; did you know that?’
‘Night guides?’
‘When I was in Lambeth, and later, when I joined the Detective Branch, Charles would go on patrol with me around the streets. Many’s the time Sergeant Thornton and I would have to drag him out of places, if you catch my drift.’
‘Places?’
‘How long have you been in this great country of ours, Mr Grand?’ Field asked.
‘Five years, why?’
‘Well,’ Field waited until the host had brought them two more pints and taken away their empties. ‘What with that length of time and your professional calling, I’m surprised you haven’t noticed the one outstanding thing about Great Britain.’
‘I’ve noticed many things,’ Grand said. ‘But, in particular …?’
‘In particular, its outstanding hypocrisy,’ Field chuckled. ‘I know gentlemen with loving families, who go to church on Sundays and give handsomely to charity. Those same gentlemen can be found of a Friday night in Wapping, or Whitechapel or Westminster, making a selection from a wide range of little girls and boys who should be tucked up safe in their own beds. I’m sure I don’t have to draw you a picture.’
‘You mean, Dickens …’
‘No, no, no,’ Field frowned. ‘Nothing like that. He had the odd lady of the night when he was younger, like we all did. Sucker for a pretty face, was Charles. But no, it was the danger he loved, the dark alleys, the rattling kens, the opium parlours …’
‘Opium?’
‘Oh, yes. Deadly stuff, that is. You’ve never come across it?’
‘No,’ Grand shrugged. ‘Can’t say that I have.’
‘Read your Dickens, Mr Grand,’ Field advised. ‘It’s all there. Fagin’s based on an old Jew we both knew, Ikey Solomon. Bill Sikes – well, he’s a mixture of many a villain in my old manor. And as for Nancy … well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ And he patted the side of his nose. ‘No, Charles and I go way back. And I’m proud to call him friend. So, when Catherine Dickens, estranged or not, calls me in, I’m bound to do my bit for the old hack, ain’t I? And here you are, doing the same thing.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Just one question, Mr Grand. You know who I’m working for. How about you?’
For a moment, Grand hesitated. Then he threw caution to the winds. ‘George Sala,’ he said.
‘Who?’ Field blinked.
Grand smiled. George Sala would be mortified that this doyen of detectives had never heard of him.
Field screwed up his face, thinking. ‘What say we pool our resources, so to speak? You’ll never interest the Yard in this – since I left, they haven’t got a detective force, not really. What say we work together? Trade information? I’m between sidekicks, as you colonials say, at the moment, so time is money and I’m spending too much of mine on shoe leather. You and whatsisname – Batchelor – can be my legs.’
‘What?’ Grand laughed, clicking his fingers for two more pints. ‘And you can be our brain?’
Field laughed softly. ‘Something like that,’ he said.