“Thank God,” I cried.
“From Ashford,” he continued, examining his patient closely the while. “I heard of the crash and made best speed. Sadly, too late for some poor wretches. This young man, at least, appears to be in no immediate danger. In such cases, however, there is always the fear of damage to the vital organs, haemorrhaging . . .”
“An emergency train is on the way from Charing Cross,” the guard interposed.
“Then a place must be found upon it,” the doctor said, straightening up.
“Any expense,” I cried, “I will defray. Not a single other soul shall perish if I can prevent it!”
It was at that moment I remembered the poor lady I had found earlier. I urged the surgeon to accompany me and together we found her, as before, gazing up at the cloudless sky.
“Madam,” I said, “forgive me. I had not intended to neglect you so long. But, see, I have fetched . . .” As I drew close, I perceived that the rosy hue had deserted her cheeks, that there were marks upon them I had missed in my earlier attempts to aid her. Anxiously, I reached out and touched her face. It was cold and waxy. “But how?” I cried. “She was breathing, reviving. I would not have left her else!”
The doctor knelt at her side. After a few seconds, he glanced up at me and shook his head. “Come, man!” he said, gently, “you have nothing to reproach yourself for!” Yet I could not refrain from wondering if I had not been remiss in failing to recognize the seriousness of her injuries. I was berating myself thus when a voice in my ear cried: “Oh, sir, I beg you . . . Have you, perchance, seen my wife?”
I turned. A few feet away, a tall, thin, pale man, of indeterminate age between twenty and forty, stood wringing his hands. “Your wife?” I asked.
“We were returning from our honeymoon,” he continued. “And in the crash . . . I was thrown free. I have only lately regained consciousness. But my darling Betsy . . . I cannot find her in all this . . .”
“And you, sir,” I replied, “hurt, I see.” His garments were spattered with blood and his face and hands laced with small wounds.
“A few scratches, only.”
“Your bride. I may have encountered her . . .”
“You would be sure to know, sir. Petite, with such pretty ringlets, the sweetest most innocent face, and a gown and bonnet of the palest blue . . .”
I was struck by a sudden awful realisation. Unable to speak, I led the way to one of the shattered carriages. On the floor, her head towards me, lay the young woman I had discovered during my descent from the bridge. No sooner did the poor groom see her than a long low cry of pain and disbelief escaped his lips and rent the air. Before I could stop him, he rushed, heedless, round and round the little meadow, his hands above his head, emitting such a piteous wail that I felt my heart, too, must burst. Then, as he drew near, he dropped in a dead faint. I hastened to his aid and, for a moment, feared that he, too, had expired. Then, he stirred, opened his eyes and said, “Mr Dickens, is it not? I am in your debt, sir!”
“By no means, young man,” I retorted, as gently as I could. “You have the advantage of me. Your name, I pray.”
“Stephen Bardock, sir. Of Clapham,” he replied, taking the flask and swallowing a little Brandy. “Forgive me. It is such a shock. To lose one so fair, gentle . . .” He fell to weeping, his hands beating the air, the ground, his own chest, with rapid fury. I did my best to soothe his grief, to restrain his wilder movements. Finally, his sobs subsided. He became quiet, almost supine. As I raised myself to my feet, and stooped to assist him, there came the sound of a whistle somewhere above, the hiss of steam and steady click click of wheels. At last! “Come, sir,” I said. “We can do no more, here.” With a deep sigh, he allowed himself to be led up the slope to where the emergency train from London was slowing to a halt. It was only then I realized that, in my haste, I had abandoned Mr and Mrs Boffin, Mr and Mrs Lammle, Miss Bella Wilfer and so many others, in their manuscript form, in the pocket of my overcoat. I clambered back inside the carriage and, despite the alarming sway as I walked, quite calmly rescued Our Mutual Friend from the seat where it had fallen. Then, overcoat and Gladstone bag in hand, I descended once more and joined my fellow passengers for the journey to town.
Aided in no small measure by the intervention of the surgeon from Ashford I managed to acquire a carriage for myself and a few others, including my travelling companions and the young man trapped earlier under the wreckage. He had revived, somewhat, and was able to speak, announcing himself as Mr John Dickenson, a commercial traveller from Epping. As we sped towards the Metropolis, he became more animated and proved to be a charming, cheerful fellow of easy disposition and ready wit. Yet, as I watched him regaling our fellow passengers with tales of his adventures on the roads and byways, I discerned that his eye was a little too bright, his skin had taken on a greyish hue, and his lips were more than usually rubicund. My fears for his health and well-being grew and it was with heartfelt relief that I greeted our approach to the terminus at Charing Cross.
There was such a hullabaloo at the Station that I was more than usually glad to see my dear faithful assistant, Wills, who hailed me as I stepped on to the platform. With his usual efficiency, he had procured a carriage and in it, with his assistance, I placed my young charge. From there we travelled the short distance to the nearby Hotel where I was fortunate to secure rooms for him. By then the impact of recent events was more evident. Mr Dickenson was, he confessed, “suffering from palpitations and a general lethargy of spirit, aches in all my joints and a sensation of weakness in my limbs.” Urging rest, and promising to visit him after the week-end to assure myself of his progress, I returned to my quarters in Wellington Street North. It was as I climbed the stairs that my self-possession and calmness deserted me. Now, safe in London, I felt quite shattered and broken up. I had a sudden vague rush of terror and started to shake all over. Even a strong draught of Brandy could do nothing to dispel the vivid images of the crash from my mind, the overwhelming sensation of horror. Again and again, the faces and cries of the dying and dead rose up to haunt me. So anxious was Wills to see me thus that he insisted on sleeping in the next room in case I needed him.
By the morning, I was a little recovered, though the sense of dread remained with me. I took a hansom to the Station. Again, visions of the accident plagued my sight. I felt faint and sick in the head and even the noise of the carriage distressed me so that, by the time I boarded the slow train to Rochester, I was much the worse for wear. My voice seemed to have deserted me as if I had unaccountably brought someone else’s out of that terrible place. The journey was well nigh unbearable. At every slight jolt I was almost in a state of panic. More than once I fell into a paroxysm of fear, trembled all over, clutched the arms of the seat and suffered agonies of terror. I saw nothing for a time but that most awful scene. In particular, my vision was haunted by the sight of the poor woman I had encountered under the oak. Her face was so clear I could see the livid bruises there and upon her neck. Indeed, such was my state of nervous apprehension that when asked how I did by the landlord at the Falstaff Inn, I said, in all earnestness, “I never thought I should be here again.” My dear son, Charley, sought to distract me with a ride in the basket-carriage. Yet, ever the fear was upon me. “Go slower, Charley,” I cried, even when we came down to foot-pace.
I had neglected many letters since my return from France and was grateful, that weekend as never before, to be doing something practical and useful to turn my brain from its constant obsession with those dreadful memories. I was determined that I should not on any account be examined at the inquest into the disaster. I could not bear to relive those events in so public a manner. In the event, the high esteem in which I was held, and the intercession of friends and acquaintances with influence in such matters, meant I was not called upon to give evidence though, I was subsequently informed, my attempts to assist the unfortunate victims were recorded. Indeed, some few weeks later, The South Eastern Railway Company honoured me with
a piece of plate in recognition. Be that as it may, I fretted at home while the proceedings took place at the Railway Hotel in Staplehurst itself.
Ever again, as I sat at my desk or strolled in my beloved garden, my mind would be filled with doubts. Why had I not observed those marks, done more to assist the poor creature? Why had I abandoned her when her very life, it seemed, was in the balance? I berated myself roundly at what I judged to be my neglect of a fellow creature. How often, I reflected bitterly, had I enjoined my own children to aid those in distress? And yet it was I, the great moralizer, who had proved so inadequate. Over dinner, Charley furnished me a full account of the inquest. He would have given me chapter and verse but I prevented him. “I beg you,” I said, “just the bare facts. My nerves are shattered enough without more of the grisly details.” Obeying my injunction, he rendered me a creditably detached report of the proceedings, concluding with the verdict that all ten poor souls who perished had been feloniously killed by the gang foreman on the line and the district inspector. The neglectful pair were to appear before a special magistrates court at Cranbrook in all probability to be committed for trial at the Kent Summer Assizes.
Charley’s calm and measured tones did little, however, to ease my sense of guilt. Such was my agitation and, I freely confess, self-loathing, that sleep eluded me. I lay in my bed, returning again and again to my own failure. To not notice! I who was ever alert to the tiniest details in those around me, who laboured so diligently to apply those lessons in the creation of the characters who peopled my stories. How could I have missed such obvious signs? And then, in a moment of sudden clarity, somewhen in the dark recesses of the night, I knew. I had not seen them because they were not there! Not then, when I first found her. If that were so then it followed, inexorably, those injuries had not been caused by the accident itself, but by some event thereafter. By some person. Her murderer! And in that moment of certainty I vowed, to the spirit of that poor woman, that I would seek out that murderer and bring him, or her, before the bar of Justice. I could, in all conscience, do no less.
Yet there were so many people on that fateful train who could have found her resting there and hastened her end. How could I even begin to trace them all? The Railway Company would have no list of passengers. There were labourers on the track, guards. Even among those who had rushed to the scene from the neighbouring area there could have been someone with opportunity enough among all that chaos to take her life. If murder had indeed been committed, by whom and for what motive? I summoned all the detail I could of the events following the crash but could find no clear pattern to aid me in my quest. The task seemed impossible.
Once again in London, I set about keeping my promise to young Mr Dickenson. In seeing how he fared, I might, perhaps, glean from his recollections of the dreadful events of the previous week some small detail that might aid me in my quest. I found him propped up, colour once more in his cheeks, and a twinkle of merriment in his eye. Congratulating him, heartily, on obvious signs of progress, I sat beside his bed for some hour and fifteen minutes, chatting amiably, for the most part, and finding myself warming more and more to his open and frank character. His memory of the crash was, alas, still insubstantial. He recalled, vividly, the moment of impact then could conjure nothing until he woke up with the anxious surgeon bending over him.
Not wishing to tire him further, I bade him a fond farewell. Fearing the return of the shakes that had so held me in thrall I decided to walk rather than risk another journey by hansom, so arrived at my offices in Wellington Street shortly before noon. Wills was at his desk, poring over submissions for the next issue of All The Year Round. “Ah, Charles,” he said, “how are you? A restful weekend, I trust?”
“Alas, no. So many letters! As for my health, it mends, but slowly.”
“You are strong enough, I hope, to attend to a visitor? She has been waiting some little while but . . .”
“A visitor?” I exclaimed. “I was expecting no one today.”
“No,” Wills replied, quietly. “I have told her how busy you are at present. What with the magazine and Our Mutual Friend but she will not be deterred. She must consult you on a . . . personal matter and will brook no refusal.”
“Indeed? I am intrigued. And by what name am I to address this visitor, pray?”
“My apologies. I should have said. Miss Alice Mullender . . .”
The woman who stood as I entered my office was tall and of such a bony and angular appearance, with such a stoop of her narrow shoulders and such a pinched expression, that I at once thought of the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Yet when she spoke all such thoughts melted away, so rich and musical was her voice.
“Mr Dickens?”
“The same, ma’am. Please, resume your seat. You wished to see me?”
“Indeed. I was at the inquest. In Staplehurst.”
“Aah! As an interested spectator?”
“As a relative, sir, of one who died in that awful tragedy. You tried to save her, I am told. My cousin. Miss White.”
At once, the features of the lady under the tree returned vividly to my sight. “A very pleasant, soft-spoken lady of middle years?” I asked.
“Fifty-three, sir, though many accounted her much younger.”
“As I myself would have done, ma’am. You have no idea how much her death pained me. I had thought her recovering . . .”
“Then you will be moved, as I was, by her last letter to me,” she interjected, drawing a small white envelope from her reticule and placing it on the desk in front of me. A cursory examination showed it to be of the finest vellum, likewise the three sheets of notepaper within. As I unfolded them, there was the faintest hint of lavender. Miss White’s hand was precise, her style confident and well judged. Of the contents there was little to remark until the penultimate paragraph, which I read and reread until I was sure I had not misinterpreted its import. There, at the end of an easy flowing narrative detailing recent events in the life of a much younger relative came the intriguing words: “She will admit nothing but the most extravagant praise of his virtues. Yet my heart misgives me. I fear his motives are far from pure, sinister even. Pray God my doubts are misplaced.”
“Of whom does she write, may I ask, Miss Mullender?”
“Lydia, Caroline’s nearest living relative. When the sweet little thing lost her parents, she took her into her own household, as her companion.”
“And the other person she mentions?”
“A leech, by all accounts. George by name. In trade, I believe.”
“And your cousin’s tragic death. I confess I fail to see a connection . . .”
“As did I, Mr Dickens,” she interjected. “Until the inquest!”
“Yes?”
“He was there! In sombre black, looking for all the world as if his mother’s milk was scarce out of him. But I saw, Mr Dickens, when the verdict was given out. Such a smile. Grim, smug satisfaction. I knew then, as certain as there is breath in my body, that he killed her, sir. I swear it!”
“And what can you tell me of him?”
“Little, I fear. I saw him but once at one of Caroline’s entertainments, paying court to dear Lydia, but we were not introduced. A slight young man, with dark hair and paler eyes, I seem to recall, spectacles, olive skin, something of the foreigner about him. Italian, I thought, or French perhaps, but I did not gain a very vivid impression.”
“Vivid enough, ma’am. But nothing beyond the physical that might identify him?” I asked, imagining how many Georges there must be in these islands.
“There was one singular event. The singer for the evening, a wonderful soprano, had just stepped up to the pianoforte and the company were falling silent when I heard him say something about a floating academy. The meaning is obscure to me but I turned at the sound, and it was clear from his expression that he had not intended the remark to be overheard.”
“No, indeed he might not,” I said, increasingly convinced that my earlier suspicions were well founded.
“Yet, Miss Mullender, I am at a loss as to motive,” I continued, after a brief pause. “Why should this George, however unpleasant he may seem, wish to take your cousin’s life?”
“Greed, sir, shameless naked greed! Caroline was a wealthy woman, a spinster. Some ten days ago, I visited her at home in Clarence Place. I found her pale and agitated. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she cried, ‘what am I to do?’
“‘Pray, compose yourself, my dear,’ I said, taking her trembling hands in mine. ‘What troubles you?’
“‘They are fled,’ she continued. ‘Eloped! To Venice. The maid, it seems, was party to the plan. I had to be round with her to elicit the truth but there is no doubt. Lydia’s bed has not been slept in, her boxes are gone. She is ruined! And for such a scheming wretch! Oh, it is beyond endurance!’
“At that point Queedy, the butler, entered, letting Caroline know that the carriage was outside and her cases were ready. At once, Caroline rose and made for the door. ‘Where are you going?’ I cried.
“‘To bring her back, before . . . You know how frail she is. Her poor heart. All this . . . turmoil . . . and dissension . . .’ She was clearly struggling to find words to describe her fears. Yet, after a few seconds, she said, her tone calmer, more resolute: ‘I have instructed Browndress to draw up a new will in my absence. Whatever else happens, that man will not profit by this
“And you think, Miss Mullender, that he killed her before she could sign the document?” I asked.
“There is no doubt. Under the terms of the existing will, which I myself witnessed, apart from a few small personal bequests, the bulk of her estate was left to Lydia.”
“And may I be so indelicate as to enquire as to the value?”
“In land and property, securities, around two hundred thousand pounds.”
“Indeed a sum for which an unscrupulous man might commit murder! But if you are correct in your apprehension, why come to me? Surely, you should more profitably report your suspicions to the police . . .”
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 49