The Hoydens and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  “No! No!” she screamed back. “I did the blackmail and the séances, that’s all. The one to get my daughter back wot they took from me, and the other to make money to live. Ellen is mine, you see, and they”—she pointed vaguely at Dickens and me—“put her in a house of whores.”

  “’E made us do all of zose things.” The small voice of a sobbing Marie de Brevecoeur interrupted this onslaught. She spoke as if she was emerging from a strange haunting dream. “’E had a great power over all of us. ’E could make us do anyzing.”

  This unexpected outburst left even Field at a loss for words.

  “What was his power?” Dickens stepped into the exchange in a much quieter, almost cajoling, voice.

  “Zee power of zee ring.” Marie de Brevecoeur, frantic, turned her face to him in flight from Field’s violence.

  “Yes, the ring. It was the ring,” old Peggy Ternan, that opportunistic harridan, agreed, with the oily glibness of one happy to pass the heat of Field’s scrutiny on to her partner in crime.

  “How did he use the ring?” Dickens pursued his quiet line of questioning with an almost scholarly curiosity. His tone of voice seemed to calm Marie de Brevecoeur.

  “Zee ring led us down zee steps into ourselves.”

  “Steps?”

  “‘Close your eyes,’ ’e would say. ‘Close your eyes and see zee steps, zee steps going down into zee cave.’ Zen ’e would tell me to open my eyes and see zee ring, his blue ring, would be zere before me, on his finger, moving slowly back and forth as if drawing me toward him. ‘Now walk down zee first step,’ ’e would say, and zee ring would draw me toward him and I would walk down one step and zen anozer, and anozer, and all zee time zat voice would be luring me deeper and deeper into somewhere or somezing until I did not know where I was, did not care, could do only what zat voice told me to do. It was as if I had drunk laudanum or eaten lotus, as if I was floating utterly in its power, willing to do anyzing zat was bid of me.”

  “Extraordinary!” Dickens pronounced in an awed whisper.

  “Claptrap!” Field barked, breaking the quiet spell that the woman’s words had cast over the whole room.

  “No. It is true. I believe her.” Florence Nightingale leapt to Marie de Brevecoeur’s defense in the face of Field’s harsh skepticism.

  “’Tis true. It is, it is.” The Ternan hag was quick to jump to this excuse. “He could make us do anything once he cast his spell.”

  “And all you did paid him very well, didn’t it now,” Field growled, silencing her with a murderous jab of his brutal forefinger.

  Old Peggy Ternan glared back at him with her best actress’s hatred: “He paid us with promises,” she hissed. “He promised these girls, Liza Lane and Marie, he would free them from this world of men, free them from the beatings, the humiliations, the ill use.”

  Hers was a powerful speech, worthy of a professional actress who had played Shakespeare all her life. It was a speech coated in anger and filled with the venom of one who had herself always been ill used and exploited, and had learned to fight back with her own machinations of exploitation. What a novel power the man must have exercised, to turn these women’s lives to his own perverse purposes. I could see that Dickens was utterly spellbound by their story, and Florence Nightingale, who had taken the sobbing Marie de Brevecoeur in her arms and was consoling her as a mother would a frightened child, was in full empathy with them.

  Only Field remained undaunted.

  “He is a thief and a murderer, and you are his familiars,” Field charged in a voice as hard and unyielding as the stone steps of Coutts Bank.

  Marie de Brevecoeur’s body was quaking with sobs as she tottered in Florence Nightingale’s arms. But suddenly, as if desperately trying to pull herself back up one more time from the depths into which she had descended, she screamed out in a voice as fragile as blown glass.

  “No! ’E didn’t kill her. I was zere zat night and ’e didn’t kill her! It was zee other who did zat.”

  And, as if that desperate shriek of truth had drained every drop of resistance from her quavering body, she fainted dead away.

  * * *

  *In the case of “the Macbeth Murders” as described in The Detective and Mr. Dickens, Peggy Ternan had actually played one of the witches who opened the famous Covent Garden production of Macbeth, which was Macready’s farewell performance to the London stage.

  *These were the criminal minds that Dickens and Field had confronted in Collins’s previous secret journals, published under the titles The Detective and Mr. Dickens and The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens.

  The Stalkers

  August 14, 1852—Night

  “Wot?” Her desperate pronouncement brought up short even the redoubtable Inspector Field.

  “Didn’t kill her?” Serjeant Rogers, his jaw fallen, echoed his master’s consternation.

  Dickens blanched, went as white as an altar cloth, stood looking fearfully down at Marie de Brevecoeur’s fallen form as if she had just placed a death sentence upon his beloved Ellen’s head. I could almost see his thought processes at work. He feared she was going to accuse his love.

  We all stood by, staring in utter confusion.

  “Water. Find water,” Florence Nightingale ordered as she adeptly ministered to the stricken woman, rubbing vigorously at her cheeks, forehead, and wrists, twisting open a small glass vial magically extricated from some hidden pocket in her voluminous skirt.

  I quickly surveyed the room and spied a closed door in the corner where Barsad had set up his curtain, candles, and ropes for the séance. To my good fortune, it led to a small pantry where a Toby jug half-filled with water sat in its basin on a small dry-sink. I returned at a run with my prize to find Miss Nightingale applying restoratives from her tiny glass vial, some sort of smelling salts I presumed, to Marie de Brevecoeur’s nose, causing that worthy to begin twitching convulsively back into consciousness. Tearing the jug from my grasp, Florence Nightingale poured the water onto her own hands and applied it to the faint woman’s cheeks. It was this cooling application which restored Marie de Brevecoeur to life.

  I could see that Field and Dickens could hardly contain themselves as Miss Nightingale helped the distraught woman to a chair at the séance table and nursed her with further applications of water, both internally and externally, back to lucidity. After some minutes passed on this road to recovery, Field could no longer restrain his impatience. But he began quietly, cautiously, not wishing to frighten her into an excess of emotion which might occasion a reprise of her fainting spell.

  “You said that this Barsad did not kill Miss Eliza Lane,” Field gently coaxed her to attend. “Who murdered her then?”

  We all waited a long moment as she tried to marshal her wits for the story that we all knew she must tell no matter how fragile her condition.

  “I do not know.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, but seemed slowly to be gaining strength. “I do not know who killed Liza Lane, but I know zat John did not.”

  Her voice faltered, but Inspector Field would not let her drift away upon the flood of frightened tears that were streaming down her face.

  “You are certain?” Field pressed. “You are certain he could not have killed her?”

  “’E and I found Liza with zat scarf choked around her neck outside zee door of zee bank. She was already dead. When we came out of zee bank with zee money, she was lying zere behind one of zose high stone columns, strangled. John dragged her back inside, and we left her zere.”

  “Wot was she doin’ at the bank? Why was she outside the door?” Field pressed his advantage before the woman collapsed into another faint, which she gave all the appearances of imminently doing.

  “She was to keep watch for us, to warn us if anyone came while we were at zee cupboard with zee ripping chisels. Her duties were to get ze society out of zee bank by upsetting zere meeting, and zen to stand watch while we emptied zee day strongbox. But somebody killed her while we were at it.”

&nbs
p; “Who?” Field snarled at her, brutal, angry.

  “I do not know, I tell you. Please, I do not know.”

  We were about to lose her and Field knew it. He was casting about for anything that would keep her talking. He needed some change of tone or topic that would send us in some new direction now that the prime target of our suspicions, John Barsad, seemed to be absolved (at least in her mind) of the murder.

  “Who else knew of this robbery of Coutts Bank?” Field cajoled her now in a voice oiled by desperation. “Was there a fourth man in your gang? We have been informed that a fourth person, a man, or a woman dressed as a man, we do not know which, met with Barsad in his Lambeth rooms. Is that true?”

  Field’s memory, his mastery of the smallest detail, the briefest mention, was amazing. My mind raced back through all the evidences that we had gathered in the case. It was the amorous landlady at Barsad’s abandoned rooms in Lambeth who had mentioned that she thought she had seen four men meet with Barsad at different times.

  “Oui, oui.” Marie de Brevecoeur’s voice was little more than a quaver. “’E put John onto zee robbery in zee first place. ’E found zat John worked at zee bank. ’E was all ears. I met him only once. ’E was shy of meeting eizer me or Liza.” Her voice faltered badly. “’E planned zee whole zing. ’E told John how to do it. ’E…’E…”

  “Who?” Field was only a breath away from her tear-stained face. “Who?” he hissed at her in a barely controlled whisper.

  But the beleaguered woman fainted dead away in Florence Nightingale’s arms before she could answer Field’s desperate plea.

  After a long moment, Field regained his voice and broke one of his cardinal rules of detectiving.

  “But why?” he asked. “How in heaven did this happen?”

  Field had once told Dickens and me that he had no concern for the why of any of the crimes he investigated, but only for the who and the how. He called it reading the book of the case. Unfortunately, no more reading of this case was to be done at the moment. Marie de Brevecoeur was shattered and unconscious. It was abundantly clear that this interrogation could not, and should not, go on. If Field had any inclination toward pursuing it further, one look at Miss Nightingale, who had enfolded the unconscious witness in her protective custody, scotched that idea.

  Angela Abducted

  August 14, 1852—Night

  “I’m not sure I believe any of this”—Field turned to the rest of us, his crook’d forefinger scratching at the side of his right eye in the deepest concentration—“but for now, till we can talk further with this woman, we must find this Barsad.”

  “Why do you not believe her?” Dickens, ever curious, inquired.

  “For God’s sake, who knows if she is tellin’ the truth. She is this devil’s familiar. She would probably say anything to save him.” Field’s frustration resounded in his voice.

  “I believe her,” Dickens said, risking Field’s wrath.

  “So do I, damn her,” Field grudgingly admitted, “and it makes everything that much more difficult.”

  “That it does.” Rogers had to put in his tuppence as a contribution to the proceedings.

  “But no matter if we believe her or not,” Field galloped straight onward, “we must catch this Barsad and catch him now. He will run. He will dart for France. That is where they came from, he and his Marie de Brevecoeur. We must do what I said, close down the city, cut off his escape.”

  “But how?” Rogers voiced what all of us were wishing to ask.

  “We must put men at every way out of London. On the river. At the railway station. On the high roads.”

  “But sir, we’ve never done nothin’ like that,” Rogers said skeptically. “We don’t have enough men at Bow Street.”

  “We will get Collar to help, and the River Police.” Field was carried away with the grandeur of it.

  “Collar?” Rogers dumbfounded.

  “Collar?” Dickens skeptical.

  “Collar?” Me wondering if Field was serious.

  “Yes, Collar, for God’s sake,” Field barked at all of us in frustration. “I will talk to him. He will go along. Now, Miss Nightingale, you go with Rogers and me in the post-chaise. We will take this woman to Bow Street Station for safekeepin’ until she can tell us more about this Barsad cove.” He turned to Dickens and me to explain. “And you two follow along to Bow Street. Barsad will try to run. We must close down the city tonight. Close it tighter than a Scotsman’s purse.”

  With that, Field and Rogers ushered their charges out and left Dickens and me to follow along.

  When we arrived at Bow Street, Field’s plan was already set in motion. He had dispatched a constable to fetch Inspector Collar from St. James and was in the process of sending Rogers out in the post-chaise. That worthy’s charge was to collect all of his constables from off the streets and to roust the others out of their off-duty haunts. Collar arrived within the hour. Dickens and I listened with great curiosity to their exchange.

  Field earnest: “Inspector Collar, thank you for coming. I need your help.”

  Collar suspicious: “Help for wot?”

  Field eager: “For catching John Barsad, who I suggest murdered the woman in the bank.”

  Collar defensive: “I already have my murderer.”

  Field helpful: “I think this Barsad is a better choice.”

  Collar adamant: “I have solved that murder. The woman strangled her with her personal scarf.”

  Field cajoling: “But can we ever be certain? I have evidence, equally strong, that Barsad could have done it.”

  Collar interested: “Wot evidence?”

  Field relieved, in the knowledge that the hook is set: “A new witness.”

  Collar very interested: “Wot new witness?”

  Field triumphant: “Marie de Brevecoeur, this Barsad’s whore. The woman who dresses as a man.”

  Collar confused: “Dresses as a man?”

  Field moving on: “Yes, but we must move quickly. I propose to close off the complete city of London so that Barsad cannot escape. I need your help, all the men in your station.”

  Collar flabbergasted: “Close off London?”

  Field impatient: “Yes; listen, you must marshal your men. We will need every one of them.”

  Collar utterly at sea and sputtering: “Close off London? Close off…”

  Field losing patience rapidly: “Yes. Can you not see? The Protectives have never done anything like this before. It is a first in our line. We are goin’ to close off all the ways out to catch our killer.”

  Collar reluctant: “But I have already got my killer.”

  Field the rationalist: “But wot if you do not? There is nothing to lose. At worst, we catch an accomplice in the murder, or another witness. This can only help your case.”

  Collar again confused: “Accomplice? Wot accomplice? Wot witness?”

  Field, whose face was reddening at this absurd functionary’s obtuseness, and who was beginning to look like an anxious teakettle, started to answer, but was interrupted by a furious pounding at the outer door. Since Rogers had taken the desk constable with him, I hastened to answer those insistent knocks.

  Tally Ho Thompson burst in upon us, breathless, bleeding from the nose, and sporting a darkening bruise on the side of his face.

  “He has taken her,” Thompson exclaimed, collapsing into one of the chairs by the cold hearth.

  He looked to have run halfway across London with his cryptic message. He was utterly blown, yet his voice was all chagrin and apology. It was unlike Thompson. He was completely serious.

  “He surprised me at her door when I answered his knock and hit me with a stick. He has taken her!”

  “Who, man? Who?” Collar, as usual, had not perceived what Field and Dickens and I already knew with dread.

  “Miz Angela. He took Miz Angela and left this on the floor.” Thompson was holding his head with one hand, in obvious pain from the blow, and listing heavily in the chair. With his other hand he
passed to Field a hastily scrawled note on a scrap of foolscap.

  Field read it aloud: “I have the stone bank bitch. Free passage to France with the money or I’ll throw her into the sea.”

  “Wot money?” Collar was beginning to sound like Broken Bert’s parrot.

  We ignored him and looked to Field.

  “She is his hostage,” Field said as he stared at the note, reading it again, and yet again.

  “’E is all zee zings you zay,” Marie de Brevecoeur pleaded feebly, “but ’e is not a murderer!”

  Inexplicably, she chose that moment to rouse herself from her faint and defend her master and exploiter.

  “No, he is not a murderer.” Field silenced her with a grim look upon his hard face. “But if this is to be believed”—and he waved the scrawled note at us—“he threatens to become one.”

  Once again Field read the note slowly, aloud, not for our enlightment at all, but for the triggering of his own deductive processes.

  “He is makin’ for France, he is.” Field was thinking aloud.

  “‘Throw her into the sea. Throw her into the sea,’” he repeated the words of the note.

  He thought a moment, his crook’d finger scratching thoughtfully at the side of his eye. Once again he was reading the text of the case.

  “Bloody hell! That’s it!” He finally saw what it all meant. “He’s makin’ for Dover. The sea. To get across to France. We must cut him off before he gets out of London.”

  “He left his horse tied in front of Miz Burdett-Coutts’s house when he run off with her,” said the guilt-stricken Thompson, trying to be helpful. “I rode it here, but it broke down only halfway and I had to run the rest.”

  “He is on foot with Miss Burdett-Coutts in tow.” Field, as if in some sort of deductive trance, was thinking aloud again, putting it all together. Suddenly, he turned on Collar like a wolf baring his fangs. “We must seal off the city, Inspector Collar. We must block the Dover road and all other roads that feed into the Dover road outside the city. Can your men do that?” His voice was so grim that his last query was more a challenge than a question.