“Mister Dombey? Indeed, there is only one person in this tale that would then be the culprit other than John Carker . . . no, no . . . I cannot believe it. It means that it could only be Paul Dombey himself who pushed James Carker to his death.”
Captain Ryder leant back with narrowed eyes.
“On the contrary, sir. There was one other person who had the opportunity. Who arranged this entire charade, who actually helped James Carker embezzle and bank the money, using his business connection with Dombey and Son? Indeed, that person’s connection with Monsieur Solliec, the correspondent of Havas Agence, allowed him to pick up the intelligence as to the fact that John Carker was meeting the boat at Dover. There was only one person here in London who had access to the information and who James Carker had mailed that he was coming to settle with him and this person was able to stage the meeting at Paddock Wood. I do not have to tell you who that person is, sir.”
Mr Josiah Plankton was sitting back with a dreamy look on his face, nodding slightly. He was smiling but there was an expression of vindictive passion on his features.
“You had gone to Maidstone because, for obvious reasons, you did not want to be identified at Paddock Wood,” went on Captain Ryder grimly. “You probably waited until well after midnight and perhaps walked or more likely rode the ten miles to the Forester’s Arms. You had not realised that John Carker would take the first morning train to Maidstone, a local milk delivery train. And when you reached the inn, you observed some movement. There was Paul Dombey on the station platform. Then came James Carker. You took your opportunity and after the deed was done you vanished into the darkness. You return to Maidstone and arriving there in time for breakfast as if out for an early morning walk. And when you emerged from the hotel . . . that was then you fell in with the superintendent of police. Perhaps that had not been part of your plan, to be forced to go as Paul Dombey’s lawyer to the scene of your crime. Yet it was all quite clever. Too clever. But there were too many coincidences to make it believable.”
Mr Josiah Plankton did not answer.
In his mind’s eye he saw the onrushing black engine with its red warning lights, the shriek of its whistle and pounding roar of its wheels; saw the figure in front of him, soundlessly shrieking against the noise of the great engine, as, like some rag doll, the body was caught up, whirled away upon a jagged mill, struck limb from limb and cast into mutilated fragments in the air. He smiled as he remembered the blood soaked ashes spread across the tracks. How he hated the idea of having to share the wealth with a man like James Carker. But now he was rich. Now he did not have to share those riches with anyone.
He was still smiling absently when Captain Ryder rose, moved to the door and beckoned in the two uniform constables who had been waiting patiently outside.
The Divine Nature
Kate Ellis
A few months after the completion of Dombey and Son, Dickens’s elder sister, Fanny, died, at the age of only 38. It affected Dickens deeply and caused him to think again about his childhood and life’s vicissitudes. This manifested itself in his next (and last) Christmas book, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848), and in his efforts to write an autobiography, “My Early Times”, which remained unpublished until used by John Forster in writing his biography of Dickens. But these reflections also produced one of Dickens’s greatest books and his own favourite, David Copperfield. This began to appear in monthly instalments in May 1849 and Dickens was seldom more content than in its production.
It tells the story of young David whose father had died before he was born. His mother comes under the spell of the stern Edward Murdstone, whom she marries, only to die giving birth to his son. Murdstone and his sister Jane make young David’s childhood a misery and David eventually rebels and bites Murdstone. David is sent away, first to a strict, oppressive school and then to work in Murdstone’s bottling warehouse – just as Dickens had in the blacking factory. Copperfield lodges with the Micawber family, where the ever-optimistic Mr Micawber, based on Dicken’s father, struggles with his finances. The novel traces Copperfield’s trials and tribulations as he seeks to make good and to help his friends and his aunt, Betsy Trotwood, who has fallen foul of the calculating Uriah Heep. Copperfield also gets married in error, to the vacuous Dora Spenlow, who dies young, but eventually, after many problems, all comes good. Thanks to Micawber, Uriah Heep’s machinations are unveiled, Betsy Trotwood recovers her wealth and finances the Micawber family finding a new life in Australia. And Copperfield finds success as an author and marries his childhood friend, Agnes Wickfield, whom he realizes he has loved all along.
This novel has inspired two stories. Kate Ellis is the author of the Wesley Peterson series of police procedural novels which also have an archaeological element and which began with The Merchant’s House (1998).
I am a fortunate man. My dear wife, Agnes, has given me much joy, and all England now knows me as David Copperfield, the renowned author. Being a thoughtful man, in idle moments I still think upon my youth and the painful events that formed my nature. However, I was quite unprepared for the unexpected visitor who arrived at our happy home almost a year ago to the day, to resurrect the dark shadows of my past.
Miss Jane Murdstone with her dark brooding eyebrows, hard as metal and forbidding as the iron gate of a prison, had blighted my childhood. And now she was in my house, standing in my hall like a nervous tradesman.
“This lady wishes to see you, Mr Copperfield.” My maidservant bobbed a curtsey. She was a small thin child whom my wife, Agnes, had lately taken pity on and employed in our household.
I smiled to put the girl at her ease. Agnes always observed that I was indulgent with the servants – perhaps it was because Peggotty, who had been my mother’s servant, was at one time my dearest and only friend. I have no time for those who do not recognise the humanity of those who serve them. “Thank you, Mary,” I said.
The girl scurried away like a small frightened creature and I looked Miss Murdstone in the eye. Her black looks had once filled me with terror and now, it seemed, little Mary had sensed the iron coldness that had always surrounded my stepfather’s sister.
I had been a young child when I had first made the woman’s acquaintance. She had come to the Rookery at the invitation of her brother, Edward, who had inveigled my poor, gentle mother into marriage. Miss Murdstone, with the encouragement of her brother, had taken control of the household, breaking the spirit of my unfortunate mother and taking away all the love and comfort I had ever known. How I had hated the Murdstones then. And now I was a man, the sight of Jane Murdstone still filled my heart with dread and I wondered what ill fortune had brought her here to disturb the peace of my house.
I looked at Miss Murdstone enquiringly, for I had no idea what could have brought about such a visitation. She made no attempt to ask after my health or my family; rather she came straight to the purpose of her visit.
“I have no friends, Mr Copperfield, and no relations neither. But, as you are now a man of some consequence and we are related by marriage, I . . .”
“Related, ma’am?” The remark surprised me. She had never acknowledged kinship of any kind in all the years of our mutual acquaintance.
“In short, sir, I have nobody else to turn to. Will you hear me out?” Her looks belied the desperation of her words. The bushy black eyebrows came together in a frown but her expression remained impassive, as if she was about to comment upon the weather.
I showed her into my study and invited her to sit, sensing this was a conversation best held in private.
“My brother is gone without a word, Mr Copperfield, and I fear some harm had befallen him.”
The face of Edward Murdstone emerged, unbidden from my memory. I saw him as he was when he had courted my mother with his abundant coal-black hair and whiskers. I saw his handsome face twisted with hatred as he beat me for what he called my stubborn disobedience and set in a mask of hypocrisy as he chided my poor, sweet mother for some imagined
failing or weakness. Then I saw the shock on that face as I sank my teeth into the hand that had wielded the cane, and I shuddered, remembering how Murdstone had ordered me like a dog in those far off days . . . and how I was forced to obey like one.
She looked up at me, a reproachful glitter in her small, dark eyes and I turned away, lest she should see the pain on my face. “What were the circumstances of your brother’s disappearance?” I asked, glancing out of the window at the garden, full of cheerful colour. Jane Murdstone had brought winter into the house where warmth and love ruled supreme. And I hated her for it.
“My brother, as I believe you know, married again – a poor weak thing close to madness.”
How strange, I thought, that both Edward Murdstone’s wives should be “poor weak things”. At least he had not driven my mother to madness. But then she had not lived long enough for that. Perhaps her untimely death had spared her a worse fate.
“My brother,” she continued, “is a pious and religious man. He gives public addresses and . . .”
“Your neighbour, Mr Chillip, the doctor, told me some time ago of your brother’s . . . er . . . gift for oratory.”
Jane Murdstone pressed her lips together. Mr Chillip, it seemed, was not a recipient of the Murdstones’ approval.
I looked her in the eye. “I heard that your brother has driven his wife quite mad. I was also informed that your brother has set up an image of himself which he calls ‘The Divine Nature’ and that he is in the habit of consigning everyone around him to perdition.” I watched her, unable to keep the amusement from my lips. The idea of Murdstone as a ranting, megalomaniac who mistakes himself for the Almighty was rather sweet to me. But I checked myself. I, who have had such good fortune, must show some Christian charity.
Jane Murdstone bit her thin lip. “You wished to know the circumstances of his disappearance.”
I made my apology, insincere though it was, and she continued. “There is nothing to tell. He went out for a walk one evening and he never returned. That is all.”
“Is he in the habit of taking a walk in the evening?”
“My brother takes much exercise. The body is a temple and the Lord wills that we must not let it fall to ruin,” she said with a cloying piety that made me sick to my stomach. “In truth, Mr Copperfield, I am exceedingly worried for Edward. I fear that . . .”
“You fear he has met with some accident?”
“In short, sir, yes. And as my only relative, I implore you to aid me in my quest for the truth about . . .”
“I do not see what I can do,” I said with uncharacteristic brutality. “I am working on a book at present and my family commitments . . .”
Miss Murdstone, her face hard and impassive as metal, thanked me for my time and swept out with a swish of her bat-black skirts. And as she left I found myself hoping that I would never see her again.
But I should have known that the Murdstones – that name my aunt Betsey Trotwood had once mistaken for “murderer” – would cling to me like seaweed to a drowned corpse.
I received a letter from Mr Chillip the very next day. I was rather surprised that my old friend – the doctor who attended at my birth – should make contact so soon after his name had been mentioned by Jane Murdstone, for I had not heard from him for more than a year. But it is ever thus in such matters.
It was Mr Chillip who had told me how the Murdstones were disliked in the district of Bury St Edmunds, where they resided, and how Murdstone’s wealthy young wife – who had only just been of age when they married – was reputed to be quite mad and kept as a prisoner by her husband and his sister. Chillip had also informed me about Murdstone’s religious activities – the public talks and the image he had made of himself as The Divine Nature – and his handful of gullible followers. Murdstone, I knew, was possessed of dark good looks and could charm the female sex when it suited him. As he had once charmed my dearest mother, that charm masking his true nature which was far from “divine”.
The previous night I had lain awake thinking of Jane Murdstone’s visit. Because of the history between us, I had been ready to dismiss her plea for help without sympathy. However, on reflection in the small hours of the morning, listening to my dear Agnes breathing softly beside me, my curiosity grew.
I had been reluctant to aid Miss Murdstone in any way, but the receipt of Mr Chillip’s letter rather changed my mind in this respect. “My dearest David,” he began and after expressing his good wishes concerning my family’s well being and assuring me that his dear wife and his daughter were in the best of health, he came to the matter that most concerned him.
“I must tell you, David, that your step-father Mr Murdstone is vanished – disappeared without trace – and it is the talk of the neighbourhood. I spoke with his sister and she said she was most anxious to consult you as, with your present fame which has indeed spread to our part of the country, she feels you may be in a position to help her. I told her you were busy with your work and family but she was most insistent so I am writing to warn you that you may receive a visit from the lady Mrs Chillip (and Mrs Chillip is a great observer) describes as ferocious. If you should be intrigued by Miss Murdstone’s little problem and should decide that a visit to Suffolk would satisfy your curiosity, Mrs Chillip and I would be delighted and honoured if you would stay with us. Mr M’s disappearance is, I must say, a most puzzling mystery.”
Chillip went on to list Murdstone’s recent activities and when I had finished reading the letter, I went to my study and perused my manuscript. Perhaps a short rest from writing would do me good. I could spend a few days in Suffolk – provided I had Agnes’s blessing – and return refreshed, perhaps with new ideas. Besides, I was rather flattered at being thought a worthy detective . . . even by the ferocious Miss Jane Murdstone.
And so it was that three days later, I arrived at the house of that trusted doctor and steadfast friend, Mr Chillip and his good wife. But I had no inkling then of the danger I would face.
After spending a congenial hour in the company of Mr and Mrs Chillip, I walked the half mile to the Murdstones’ house which was a large, forbidding place shaded by tall laurels, with a black front door and dark curtains at the gloomy windows, giving a house a look of permanent mourning.
An elderly servant with a watchful face opened the door and when Jane Murdstone greeted me I was led into a drawing room of unremitting darkness – a room whose furnishings appeared to absorb any weak sunlight that dared to creep in through the tall windows.
Without further pleasantries, she began her narrative. Edward Murdstone, it seemed, had set out for his usual walk at seven o’clock precisely on the evening of Wednesday 9 May. He usually came back an hour later but that night she waited in vain for his return. When I enquired about Murdstone’s wife, Miss Murdstone said that she kept to her room, shut in for her own safety. She spoke of Edward’s wife’s confinement as though it was something quite ordinary and when I asked to speak to the woman, whose name was Dorothea, I was told that she was sick in mind and body and was not fit to receive visitors or answer questions. I offered to call Mr Chillip to examine her but was informed with icy formality that bothering the doctor was quite unnecessary. Dear Dorothea was quite beyond the help of doctors. It was only because of Edward’s devotion and his sense of Christian duty that she hadn’t been committed to an asylum. The words filled me with foreboding for the unfortunate woman.
However, I managed to ascertain the basic facts of the case. On the day of his disappearance Edward had received a visit from a Mr Passnidge – an old business acquaintance. They were closeted in the study for over an hour before Passnidge left, saying farewell to Jane Murdstone in the most amiable manner. Ten minutes after that, Edward Murdstone had left to take his customary walk, without a word to his sister or to the servant whose name, I learned, was Dawkins. Murdstone was never seen again after that and neither, it seemed, was Mr Passnidge. Passnidge was known to live in Lowestoft and Jane had sent Dawkins to enquire at his addre
ss, only to be told that Passnidge too had not been seen since the night he had called on Murdstone.
The name Passnidge was familiar to me but it took me some time to recall the circumstances of my encounter with the gentleman. Eventually, I remembered: it was in those distant days when Murdstone was courting my mother. Anxious to impress her, that man with the ill-omened black eyes had taken my young self to an hotel by the sea where we met with two gentlemen. They were, I think, business acquaintances rather than friends for they seemed nervous in his presence – I was a watchful child and I sensed these things. One of them, I later learned, was his business partner, Mr Quinion. The other was a Mr Passnidge, although I never knew anything of his dealings with my stepfather. I remembered little of Passnidge except that he had seemed an amiable sort of man. And now he too was missing. Passnidge had left the house and vanished. Ten minutes later Murdstone had done likewise and it seemed implausible that the two events should be unconnected. Did somebody lie in wait for both men, perhaps mistaking Passnidge for the hated Murdstone? Or had one killed the other and fled? I resolved to set my mind to the problem.
There was no sign of Dorothea Murdstone at the house. I saw her in my mind’s eye, locked in some far off attic, wearing rags and fed on scraps. She had been little more than a child when Murdstone had used his charm to persuade her to marriage. And she had been an heiress. As I left the house I looked back, hoping to catch a glimpse of the unfortunate woman at an upstairs window but there was nothing and I imagined that her spirit was so broken that even the rare arrival of a visitor elicited no curiosity.
I walked back to the house of Mr Chillip with a heavy heart but upon my arrival, I was distracted from my melancholy by Mrs Chillip, who rushed out to greet me. A body had been found in the river by some schoolboys who’d been fishing, she told me, her pale eyes sparkling.
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 25