The Dons and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  Before long, Dodgson came scurrying out of his kitchen carrying a tray full of cups and saucers and a teapot. He was truly a rabbity fusspot, scurrying around with the tea things trying to bring order to the book-strewn chaos of his rooms. To this day, my overwhelming impression of Charlie Dodgson is of his youth. He always looked so young, almost frail. He was strikingly handsome and slender, utterly clear-eyed beneath his brushed straight back, jet black hair. He seemed so young, and yet he was soon to be Christ Church’s next Don, tutor to Queen Victoria’s sons. At Dickens’s question, he informed us that the gadget we had been puzzling over was his newest toy.

  “It is a c-c-camera for the t-t-taking of t-t-tintype photographs,” he instructed us. “I have been t-t-taking the likenesses, portraits if you will, of all of my friends and c-c-colleagues, anyone who visits here. I must have you and Mr. Dickens as my subjects before you leave, Wilkie.”

  “Of course, fascinating,” Dickens said. “I would love to have my likeness taken, if for no other reason than to see how this unusual machine works.”

  “Oh, it is interesting,” Dodo assured Charles with quiet animation. “Your likeness c-c-copied absolutely t-t-true t-t-to life with utter realism in only a matter of moments.”

  As they talked, I had wandered to a deal table at the side of the room beneath a high free-standing looking glass. Spread out on the table was a square thin varnished board, lined off in a grid of tiny squares. Piled on the board were dozens of small squares of wood, which appeared to be the exact dimensions of the gridded squares on the board. Each of these tiny wooden squares had a letter of the alphabet burned into it.

  “What is this, Dodo?” I could not help but ask, distracting his and Dickens’s attention away from the photographic machine in the centre of the room.

  “Oh that,” he laughed. “It is a little word g-g-game I invented for the amusement of Dean Liddell’s children. They like to visit here. They c-c-call this place their Wonderland, because of all of the toys and books, I suppose. The game t-t-teaches them their alphabet. We call the game ‘Jabber’ because that is all we do as we play it.”

  We sipped at our tea.

  I followed Dickens’s eyes as they prowled the room.

  Dodgson was studying us as well over the tilted edge of his teacup as we sipped, but he did not say anything or ask why we had intruded upon his shy, bachelor life. I finally stepped into the lull in our conversation.

  “Dodo,” I began, “we are here for a reason. We need your help. We are here on some criminal business from London.”

  “C-c-criminal?” he stammered softly, and his eyes went wide with alarm.

  “Criminal is not really the proper word,” Dickens took over. “‘Detectiving business’ better describes why we are here, I should think.”

  “Detectiving?” Dodgson was still puzzled. For a man with a reputation as a master logician, we were having a great deal of trouble making him understand.

  “Yes,” Dickens explained patiently. “We were sent here by Inspector William Field of the Metropolitan Protectives to ask you to help us identify a man who was murdered in London last evening.”

  “Murdered. Oh g-g-good Lord,” and Dodgson’s eyes just seemed to go wider and wider until the rest of his face faded away and all that was left were those two large saucers gaping at us.

  “Yes, murdered,” Dickens pressed doggedly on. “Wilkie identified the murder victim as an Oxford, ah, Christ Church, man by his neckpiece.”

  “He wore a Christ Church cravat, Dodo,” I interjected. “I thought you might know him.”

  “I might well,” Dodgson’s eyes had subsided, and one could see the logician’s fascination for the deductive world of the detective taking hold within him. “Yes, I would be happy t-t-to t-t-try, but how?”

  “We brought the body with us on the train,” Dickens explained.

  “You did, how charming,” Dodo said softly, as if he found the whole situation precious and amusing and unutterably bizarre.

  “It is in the surgeon’s room at the Oxford Police Station just down the road by the bridge,” Dickens explained. “We were hoping you would come with us to identify it.”

  “Yes, yes, of c-c-course,” he stammered. “It will only t-t-take me a moment to g-g-get properly dressed,” and he scurried out of the room like a flushed rabbit diving into his hole.

  Dodgson insisted that we walk down St. Aldate’s to the police station, so we left Sleepy Rob sitting in his growler wrapped up in blankets in front of the Christ Church gate.

  At the station, a rather thick-bodied, bright-eyed young man in a dark blue constable’s tunic rushed forward to greet us.

  “Reginald Morse, your honours. At your service, sirs.” He was so eager he almost bowled us over in his rush.

  We introduced ourselves all around as young Morse expressed his great admiration for Inspector Field, the Protectives, London (“a great, great city!”), Dickens’s novels (“wonderful stories!”), Christ Church (“the pride of Oxford, sir!”), and anything else he could gush on about.

  Still talking at the speed of a runaway carriage, young Morse ushered us down the hallway and into the surgeon’s room. Actually, his eagerness was really quite charming. He was about the most positive young person that any of us had ever met, clearly a young man who had decided he was going places and was putting forth all of his effort to get there.

  “I’ve taken the liberty, sirs, of opening the coffin and taking the murdered man’s body out so we can all get a better look at him,” he announced as we entered the tiny surgeon’s closet. “I hope that is acceptable.”

  “Very good. Very good,” Dickens affirmed his judgment. “Thank you.”

  Dodgson showed no timidity whatsoever in this affair. Upon entering the room, he walked right up to the corpse, which was lying on the flat dissecting table still in its bloody clothes, and looked right into its cold, white, death-frozen face. It took him but a short second to connect the face in death with what had been the face in life. Then he gave a tiny little gasp and stepped back.

  “My G-G-God, it is Ackroyd!” he exclaimed in a whisper. “He’s a C-C-Christ Church Don.”

  “A Don?” young Reggie found this news startling. “Well, now!”

  “Yes, he is a historian,” Dodgson explained quite seriously, “working, I think, on what was supposed t-t-to be a g-g-grand biography of Cromwell and the Revolution.”

  “Did you know him well?” Dickens asked.

  “Not really,” and Dodgson paused a moment. “In fact, I did not really like him very much. He ran with an odd crowd, t-t-too fast for me. Every now and then we would t-t-talk at high t-t-table, about a student we had in c-c-common, perhaps, or a university lecture that was c-c-coming up. That sort of thing. Quite t-t-trivial really. Mostly I saw him out with his drinking c-c-crowd. They haunt the back room at the Bulldog.”

  His breathless speech done, Dodgson suddenly began to totter as if he were about to fall over in a faint.

  Dickens quickly stepped forward and grasped him by the shoulders to hold him up. With the help of young Morse, Dickens proceeded to steer Dodgson out of that stuffy, death-permeated room.

  Outside in the corridor, Dodgson was apologetic. He professed himself unable to understand why this weakness in the face of death had suddenly overtaken him.

  Dickens and I exchanged knowing looks. In our adventures since becoming colleagues of Inspector Field, we had seen more than our share of dead bodies and neither of us had quite grown accustomed to it. Death was certainly no holiday for the dead, but death was also unsettling, disorienting, terribly troubling for the living, and that was what I tried to assure Dodo of as we fled the police station.

  “It is just that I have not eaten anything this morning,” Dodgson insisted. “My stomach just was not fortified for that shock.”

  “Well,” Dickens laughed, changing the whole morbid tenor of the scene, “we shall certainly remedy that. Where is this Bulldog that you mentioned? It must be a public
house. Can we eat a pub lunch there?”

  Old Dodo and I looked at one another and laughed.

  “Oh yes,” I said, “it is a public house indeed. We spent many a long evening there talking about our poems, didn’t we, Dodo?”

  “Indeed we did,” Dodgson whispered, the colour starting to come back into his face.

  “Then I propose that we repair to this fabled Bulldog and lunch on meat pies and English beer,” Dickens suggested, “and then perhaps you can tell us a bit more about this Ackroyd chap. He sounds like an interesting fellow and we have to find out why he was shot down in the street. Where is this Bulldog anyway?”

  Again Dodo and I exchanged a small laugh.

  “Why, Charles, it is right across the street from Dodo’s rooms. You can look right in its doorway from his front window.”

  “Well, splendid then,” Dickens joined in the fun. “We can walk there. Will you join me?” he included young Constable Morse in the invitation.

  That worthy said that he would be happy to join us, but first he had to make arrangements to properly store the body until the family could be found and notified. It being winter, he did not see this as much of a problem. He said he would join us at the Bulldog as soon as he could tend to these details.

  All that resolved, Dickens and I walked the still unsteady Dodgson up the street to the tavern.

  “Charlie, me boy, you look a wee bit peaked!” The bulky Irish publican bustled over to greet us the moment we passed through the doors of the tavern. He helped Dodgson to the nearest open table. “And lor ’amighty, you got Mister Collins with you, whom we ’aven’t seen for all these many years.”

  “Yes, indeed, Mike,” Dodgson was nearly recovered, “it is Wilkie Collins back to visit us, and I am fine, just had a bit of a shock on an empty stomach. That is why we are here in dire need of some of your exceptional food.”

  “Well, London gentlemen,” he had arrived at this conclusion by taking an inventory of Dickens and me from head to toe, “Dodo ’ere ’as brought you to the right place. But,” and he paused, smiling, “I’ll bet you’d first like a drop to warm you from the winter chill. What say you?”

  There was no mistaking this Mike for an Englishman or a Scot. He was so Irish that four-leaf clovers might have been growing out of his ears. His hair was as reddish-orange as a sunset over the Irish Sea and his face was as fair and freckled as the coat of a young deer. He was short and wide, with the shoulders of a bear, the chest of an ape, and the forearms and wrists of a strangler. He never had any difficulty keeping order in his public house. The story goes that he had come over to England from his beloved Ireland some ten years before after some accident had befallen his family and caused him great grief. But I remember him as one of the best-humoured men in all of Oxford, his eyes always a’twinkle with a greeting and always glad to see you, no matter what. And he remembered me (and by name) after years of absence. Now that is a publican who knows his business!

  “Michael,” Dodgson seemed fully recovered, “draw me one of those beastly black Irish stouts that you are so inordinately proud of.”

  “Inordinately or not, whatever that means,” Mike returned his raillery, “my Irish stout comes in barrels by boat straight from Dublin. In Dublin they say, ‘stout for strength,’ ’cause it’s rich in the iron of the Irish mountains.”

  “Yes, and made by leprechauns or pookas or banshees, I’m sure,” Dodo laughed.

  “No, sir,” Mike the publican growled, “by good Irish lads right in the heart of Dublin.”

  After that jolly exchange, Dickens and I had no choice but to order two more of the same just to sample the source of Mike’s national pride. He left happy, as if he had just converted a pack of heathens to the Irish religion.

  When he returned with our drinks, he remembered that Dodgson had experienced a shock and he inquired into it.

  “One of your t-t-tapsters, Mike, David Ackroyd, the History Don. He is d-d-dead.” Dodgson spoke the news a bit too loudly to the whole pub. I observed Dickens wince at the manner in which the ears of so many of the other drinkers seemed to go on point, listening for more information.

  “I just saw his body.”

  “No!” Mike reacted. “Why, ’ee was just in ’ere Saturday last, in the back room with his usual crew.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps we should order our lunch,” Dickens changed the subject rather abruptly, in an attempt, I am sure, to keep the pointed ears of the rest of the pub from hearing too much.

  And so we did. Veal pies with carrots were the order of the day, and Dickens, ever vigilant, ordered two extra. One with a small bucket of beer to be carried across the street to Sleepy Rob’s black growler, which he pointed out through the front window and which had not moved an inch since our arrival at Christ Church College. The other for our young Constable Morse when he should arrive.

  “’T’will only be a few moments for warming gents,” Irish Mike assured us.

  “Mike,” Dickens was fully in control of the situation now and had detained the publican by a tug at his apron. He spoke in a low voice that no one beyond the boundaries of our table could hear. “When the food is ready, might you be able to join us for a short time? I would like to ask you a few questions about this man Ackroyd who has been murdered. I think that you can help us in this affair.”

  “Murdered!” the startled barman exclaimed in a whisper, looking questioningly at his friend Dodgson as if he had been betrayed. “You didn’t tell me ’ee was murdered.”

  “Yes, he was, in London,” Dodgson too had caught the necessity for whispering, “and Wilkie and Mr. Dickens are up here to investigate the murder.”

  “Mr. Dickens!” Irish Mike exclaimed again, each new revelation seeming to hit him harder than the last. “Not the Mr. Dickens,” and Dodgson nodded solemnly. “You didn’t tell me this was Mr. Dickens. I am honoured to have you in my establishment, sir.”

  Dickens assured him that the feeling was mutual and he assured Dickens that he would return as quickly as his warmers permitted with our food. In a conspiratorial whisper, he confided that he would be honoured to join us for what he quaintly termed “some murderous conversation.”

  The dark Irish stout was tasty, much stronger yet smoother than our English beer. I have ordered it ever since when I can find it in our country. I suppose one should not be surprised that the Irish would know how to make good beer.

  * * *

  *All of the Oxford colleges are built on the quadrangle system: four massive stone walls or buildings enclosing the college courtyard. Each wall served a college function. One housed the library, one the chapel, one the sleeping rooms, one the lecture halls. This fortresslike arrangement dated back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the townspeople would regularly attack the students who had invaded their provincial market town.

  *All of Dickens’s novels were sold serially in monthly numbers bound in green paper covers.

  The Murdered Man

  November 26, 1853—Afternoon

  Mike the Irish publican was true to his word. In the space of no more than ten short minutes our solid wooden table was steaming with meat pies and our pints of Irish stout were in the process of being topped off in creamy foam. In the interim, young Constable Reggie Morse arrived as promised, and when Irish Mike returned with our pints and sat down with us, the cabal was complete.

  “Tell us, Charles and Mike,” Dickens began the interrogation, “what do you two know about this Ackroyd?”

  “As I told you, he is, ah…was, a historian,” Dodgson began thoughtfully. “He lived c-c-completely at the other side of the c-c-college in the Meadow Buildings, so I did not see a g-g-great deal of him. He held the undergraduates in c-c-complete c-c-contempt. They hated him. They c-c-called him ‘batty Acky’ behind his back. He was a respected historian, had published monographs on our own English history in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.”

  “I didn’t like ’im much,” Dodgson had paused for a draught of beer and Ir
ish Mike took up the characterization.

  “’Ee was a dark, scowly one, ’ee was.”

  “Very political,” Mike and Dodgson had become like a single voice finishing each other’s thoughts. “He ran with a fast c-c-crew. While Wilkie and I and a few others t-t-talked about literature, all they t-t-talked about were p-p-politics and how bad things were and how change had to c-c-come.”

  “Radicals, the lot,” Irish Mike slapped the table demonstratively. “I never saw a more negative crew of rascals in my life. Radicals and Anarchists!”

  “You say they, this group of political radicals, spent a great deal of time in here drinking?” Dickens waved a forkful of steaming veal at Dodgson as if to punctuate his question, but Irish Mike answered.

  “Drinkin’ and plottin’ and even cursin’ each other. Why no more than a fortnight ago, this Ackroyd and another one, sixteen-stone bloke with the walrus mustachios...” and he looked to Dodgson for a name.

  “Stadler, a Chemistry D-D-Don.” It took Dodgson only a moment’s thought to come up with it.

  “…Yes, Stadler, the two of ’em got into a real shouter with the others, stomped out mad as two foaming dogs.”

  “Political argument?” Dickens asked.

  “I suppose,” Irish Mike shrugged. “That’s all I’d ever overhear them talkin’ is politics when I’d drop off their drinks.”

  “Who were the others in this group besides this Stadler?” Dickens seemed perfectly at ease asking questions of these perfect strangers, and, wonder of wonders, they seemed perfectly content in answering him.

  “Well, there is B-B-Barnet from Queen’s,” Dodgson began slowly to recover their names from his memory.

  “Jack Bathgate and little Wherry Squonce from Balliol,” Mike was gleeful, as if it were all a game of trumps.

  “And Carroll from All Souls,” Dodgson added.

  When Mike was no longer forthcoming with any additional names, Dodgson leaned forward over the table with too evident curiosity: “Those are the m-m-main ones of that g-g-group. There may b-b-be a few more. Do you think that one of them is the m-m-murderer?”