The Dons and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  “So the porter was really no help?” Dickens asked. I sensed that he was starting to become bored by this meticulous policeman’s narrative.

  “Oh no, not at all,” young Morse shook his head. “The porter’s answers told us much about Ackroyd, ’is ’abits, ’is comin’s and goin’s. The porter remembered that Ackroyd went out early in the afternoon that Thursday, but came back carryin’ a bag of goods, greens or meats, food for ’is rooms, the man thought, but then ’ee remembered that Ackroyd did not walk in the direction of ’is rooms. But ’ee did not know where ’ee went.”

  “Per’aps ’ee went to this Stadler’s rooms with ’is bag of whatever,” Field added. “It was Thursday afternoon.”

  “I also asked him who Ackroyd’s frequent visitors were, and this added to our list.” Young Morse returned to our interchange with the porter.

  “List?” Dickens looked to Field.

  “We ’ave made a list of all the people who knew Ackroyd or spent any significant amount of time with ’im.”

  “Hit’s not a very long list,” Rogers remarked wryly.

  “Yes,” Field nodded to his serjeant. “Ackroyd did not ’ave many friends.”

  “The porter said that very few people ever visited Ackroyd in ’is rooms. We mostly made our list from Irish Mike telling us who ’ee drank with in the pub. The porter merely verified those names.”

  “Who is on this list?” Dickens posed the logical next question.

  “It is ’ere, on the slate.” Field pointed to a column of names written down one side of the black slate in white chalk.

  We all turned our attention to it. Beside each name was noted that person’s college affiliation and academic discipline.

  “Ackroyd, David—Christ Church—History” headed the list. I do not know whether it was because his name began with an “A” or because he was the focus of the investigation, but his was the first name. Tactlessly, or brutishly, or perhaps just matter-of-factly, written next to his entry was the rather obvious word “DEAD.” I remember wondering if that commentary upon its referent’s present whereabouts implied that other similar annotations might be expected to go up next to some of the succeeding entries on the list. My restless mind pictured words like “wounded,” “maimed,” “lost,” “drunken,” “drowned,” “hell,” “heaven,” “London” going up next to the other names on the list. Those names were:

  Stadler, Horace—Christ Church—Chemistry

  Crenshaw, William—Oriel—Biology

  Norman, Gerard—Trinity—Chemistry

  Bathgate, John—Balliol—Literature

  Squonce, Wherry—Balliol—Literature

  Watson, Martin—Brasenose—Physical Science

  Carroll, Welsey—All Souls—Philosophy

  Barnet, John—Queen’s—Engineering Science

  Hayman, Alan—Exeter—Physiology

  Dickens and I stood pondering the list. The others waited expectantly as if they had already tried to predict what our reactions to it would be and had placed their bets.

  “Mostly scientists,” Dickens finally said. “That’s rather curious, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” I answered. “Oxford is renowned for the physical sciences, probably more so than any other study, even religion.”

  “Fine, then,” Dickens seemed to be trying to work this all out by talking aloud, “but what are a historian, a philosopher, and two literature Dons doing with all these scientists, and why was the historian killed?”

  “We don’t know,” Field confessed. “Per’aps they all just ended up in the same pub. Per’aps something else ’olds them together. This is something that I ’ope Miss Ternan’s listening can answer for us. Per’aps it’s political, or ’as to do with the University?”

  “Who sought out whom? That might be the way to understand this list.” Dickens had been thinking hard on it and inserted the hitherto most sensible comment into the speculation. “Did the historian and the philosopher go out seeking the scientists? Who started this Bulldog drinking society? Per’aps Irish Mike can answer that one for us.”

  “I took the liberty of doing some preliminary interviews,” young Morse piped up, “just to give Inspector Field some idea of the lay of the land, so to speak.” The young policeman was apologizing for his resourcefulness. “Irish Mike tried to remember who the first regulars from that crowd ’ad been, and Stadler and Ackroyd were the ones that popped into his mind, the Christ Church Dons who lived closest to the Bulldog. Mister Dodgson said the same thing, that Ackroyd and Stadler had been goin’ to the Bulldog ever since he could remember.”

  “What about the cigar you found in Ackroyd’s rooms?” Field prompted his new young protégé once again.

  “They all smokes cigars, sir. What gentleman doesn’t these days? The young lady who is workin’ at the Bulldog is alert for small cigars like the one I found, but they are pretty common, sir, and I would not depend on them as evidence of anything.”

  “In fact, Mister Morse, you could say that of all of this”—and Field, with a sweep of his hand, indicated the cluttered table and the full scrawled-over slate. “None of this is any evidence of anything. We really know little more about this murder than when we started.”

  Rogers perked up. Was his master going to put this young pretender in his place?

  “Yes, sir, quite true,” young Morse was unabashed, “but all of this ’as certainly directed us ’ow to proceed.”

  “And that would be?” A mischievous glint had come into Field’s eye.

  “Well, sir,” and Morse hesitated just a moment, glancing around the circle of his auditors from Field to Dickens to myself. “Well, sir, you see,” and he decided to forge ahead nonetheless, “I thinks we should pay close attention to this Stadler, the Chemistry Don, as well as try to find out what this whole group of Dons is up to, if it’s more than just meetin’ in the Bulldog to drink ale at night.”

  “Quite right.” Field smiled benignly at the young man. “Quite true. I think Mr. Stadler might be a fitting target for you, Charles and Wilkie.”

  Both of us suddenly went on point, flushed from our state of complacent observation by the challenge that Field was pressing upon us.

  “You can make up some story, can you not, Charles, that will get you an introduction to this Stadler through Wilkie’s friend, Dodgson?” Field’s stony gaze fell heavily upon us. “After all,” he joked, with all the light and playful sarcasm of a Jonathan Swift, “you do occasionally make up stories, do you not?”

  Dickens could only smile and bow silently to Field. Of course he would fabricate some story in order to talk to Stadler. Of course he would obey Field in any task that worthy assigned us. Of course Dickens would play the eager and willing Mephistopheles to Field’s implacable Satan.*

  That settled, Field turned back to young Morse. “There is one other aspect of this case that intrigues me, Morse,” he began, “and that is the opium. I want you to go back to Ackroyd’s rooms and search for any evidence of ’is drug use. The Chinaman in Lime’ouse ’Ole said that sometimes ’ee brought other men to partake of the evil smoke. Per’aps they were these Dons, or some of ’is Oxford students. Per’aps there are drugs secreted in ’is rooms. Go over them from floor to ceiling and see what you find.”

  Morse accepted his commission brightly. I almost expected him to salute like some respectful young midshipman.

  “And as for Serjeant Rogers and myself,” Field drew to the end of his assignment chit, “I think we shall be policemen down from London trying to solve the murder of an Oxford Don. I think we shall interview friend Ackroyd’s colleagues one by one just to see what they ’ave to say about their good friend’s death. It was only announced in the broadsheets this morning, you know,” that last being for Dickens and me, the new arrivals in Oxford. “I think we shall stir things up with a little touch of real detective work while all this play-acting is going on around us.” And with that summary pronouncement, Inspector Field made it abundantly clear that we were
dismissed.

  Dickens and I merely walked up St. Aldate’s to Tom Tower and knocked on Charles Dodgson’s door. Sleepy Rob had already delivered our luggage, two small grips each containing enough clothes for a short stay and our shaving kits. It was to be an almost military bivouac. Dodgson had been waiting expectantly for us to arrive and was all enthusiasm and curiosity as to the intricacies of the case. Old Dodo installed Charles and me in his guest bedroom. He had somehow dragged a small couch in from his parlour (its presence was not missed in the least from that cluttered room) to complement the single sleeping bed already occupying that guestroom. As soon as I saw the arrangement, I entertained no doubts as to who would be sleeping on that couch and who would be enjoying the comparative luxury of the bed.

  But Dodo was proudest of his personal contribution to our detective intrigues. After showing us our room, he ushered us eagerly back to the parlour with its low windows opening out over the street below and led us to two chairs, which he had placed in front of the window looking out onto the street and directly behind his beautiful copper telescope.

  “What d-d-do you think?” he asked expectantly.

  “About what, Dodo?” I questioned his question.

  “The t-t-telescope.”

  “It is, indeed, a very nice telescope.”

  “I know that, it’s m-m-mine, you b-b-boob!”

  “Then what?” I asked in exasperation.

  As we were sparring, Dickens sat down in the straight-backed college chair with its little royal blue velvet tie-on pads, which was placed directly behind the telescope for the obvious purpose of viewing. Out of simple curiosity, he bent down and looked through the telescope. What he saw made him straighten directly up with a smile of delight on his face. “Why, Dodgson, it is perfect,” Dickens gushed. “Perfect! Wilkie, here, have a look.”

  One usually expects a telescope to be pointed at the stars, but this one was pointed at the open door of the Bulldog tavern.

  “Why, you can look right in the door, Wilkie.” Dickens was carried away with his excitement as he literally grasped me by the shoulders and ushered me out of that chair so that he could regain his seat. “You can see halfway inside the place. Oh Dodgson, this is an inspired idea. Perfect for our spying on the tavern.”

  “I thought you would l-l-like it.” Dodo nodded his head like some oversized caricature of the extinct bird whence his nickname was derived.

  “Look, look, there is Ellen. She’s sitting down on the steps with some man.” Dickens fell silent, his gaze riveted to the eyepiece of the telescope, spying upon his mistress. “Why, he has rolled up a cigarette and given it to her.” He spoke as if he were in awe of this revelation.

  “Here, Charles, let me see.” I startled him out of his strange reverie and he got up from the chair to let me sit and spy upon his Ellen.

  It truly was a miraculous instrument, and upon first looking through it and seeing the clarity and the closeness of the people so far below in the street, I too was somewhat awed at its power. There was Miss Ternan, sitting on the steps, and a mustachioed gentleman in a flat townsman’s hat standing over her, both smoking cigarettes and conversing in the freest, most unaware way. Looking through the telescope, I felt as if I was standing right next to them on the street. It could only be better if we could have heard what they were saying.

  “I did not know that she smoked cigarettes.” Dickens was once again pushing me out of the chair so that he could sit back down.

  “Perhaps she doesn’t,” I speculated as I vacated my seat. “She’s probably just doing it so that she can converse with that man.”

  “I have never seen her smoke a cigarette.” Dickens couldn’t get over it.

  In the days that followed, that telescope trained on the front door of the Bulldog would become almost an obsession with Dickens. He would sit there for hours on end reporting on who went in and out of the front door of the establishment and who was sitting at the front tables under the windows just inside the front door. Actually, his grotesque novelist’s descriptions of the patrons of the tavern were often really quite comical. I must acknowledge that Dodgson’s idea for monitoring the comings and goings of the patrons of the tavern was a good one; but as I watched Dickens playing the spy, or perhaps more appropriate, the Peeping Tom, I began to think that what he was doing was unhealthy, perverse. He seemed caught up in his spying upon his young mistress, as if he wanted to know more about her life or even to catch her in some indiscretion.

  * * *

  *John Manning, husband of Maria Manning, was hung with his wife at a public hanging in London in 1850. It was at this hanging that Dickens and Collins first made the acquaintance of William Field. The scene is described in Collins’s first commonplace book, titled The Detective and Mr. Dickens.

  *Collins seems to be getting carried away in this chapter with his literary allusions. His earlier sarcastic reference to the heavy-handed satirist Jonathan Swift is followed by this reference to the reigning devils in Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.

  An Evening in the Bulldog

  November 30, 1853—Evening

  Dickens’s fascination with Dodo’s telescope as a tool for spying upon his Ellen entertained him throughout the afternoon. As for Dodo and me, we occupied ourselves with catching up on our histories of the two and a half years since we had seen one another. I, of course, did not tell him all the intimate secrets of my London life, and I am sure that he did not tell me all the details of his rise to imminent academic glory. What he did describe, however, was his migration towards God, based not only upon his theological studies but also upon his aesthetic consciousness of the godliness of art, which had been awakening in him even when we were young poets of Oxford years before. Dodo had always been drawn to Oxford’s wealth of choirs and concerts of liturgical music. I remember him talking of how beauty manifests itself to all of the senses as God’s messages to men. We whiled away the afternoon talking of these philosophical things as Dickens played with Dodo’s telescope.

  The Bulldog, of course, closed at three, but Ellen spent the afternoon cleaning and preparing for the evening’s business. Twice she came and went through the front door on tavern errands. Each time Dickens would shout, “There she is!” and snap erect in his chair, swivelling the telescope slowly to follow her up the street until she turned a corner or moved out of the instrument’s ken. The public house opened again at half five and I was certain that it would not be long thereafter before Dickens would want to go there. But he surprised me.

  “We shall not go to the Bulldog until some of our Radicals are in residence,” he declared. “Perhaps even this Stadler will come and you can introduce me to him,” Charles alerted Dodgson to his evening’s responsibility.

  That afternoon, Dickens had taken enough respite from his telescope spying to concoct his story for meeting Stadler. He was to be, indeed, Charles Dickens, down from London doing research for his next novel, which involved poisons and drugs. Since Stadler was one of the few chemists with whom Dodgson was acquainted, Dickens suggested that chemistry be an entrée to gain this introduction, perhaps even in the pub if the chance presented itself.

  Six of the clock passed, and then seven. The only light that illuminated the street in front of the Bulldog came from the two gas lamps mounted on the facade of the building on each side of the door. We ate a lunch (even though it was the dinner hour) of bread, cheese, and wine right there in Dodgson’s rooms because Dickens insisted upon maintaining his surveillance. His eye glued to the telescope, he gave us a running narrative of everyone who entered or left the Bulldog’s premises.

  “Aha, two tweedy gentlemen smoking cigars and wearing soft hats. Must be Dons.”

  “What makes you think that?” Dodgson taunted him.

  “Middle-aged, forties, I’d say. It’s the soft hats gives them away. Frenchified,” Dickens answered, as if he were Field. “And they stride in with authority as if they own the town. As gentlemen or bankers do in London.”


  Time passed. We ate. Dickens kept watch.

  “There’s Thompson going in.”

  “Three hatless students on a spree.”

  “Mousy man in spectacles and a brown Mackintosh.”

  “More college chums.”

  “Two more students with a plump girl between them. All laughing.”

  “Fat couple. Just come from dinner. Both had large stuffed capon, I’ll wager.”

  “Two plump widows dressed in black. Out for toping with the college boys?”

  It was amazing and amusing how Dickens could bring to life complete strangers walking through a distant doorway. He gave them character and motive and a whole fictional life in a mere moment of observation and a quick line of commentary.

  “What ho! Dodgson, come here quick. Is this he? Tall man, walrus mustaches, you said, did you not? Is this our Stadler? Come quick, he’s lighting his cigar in the doorway.”

  Dodgson moved with surprising agility for an academic and slid into the chair even as Dickens was sliding out of it. His eye was to the telescope before Dickens’s subject had savored his first puff and proceeded into the pub.

  “That’s him all right,” Dodgson confirmed it. “With those must-t-t-achios, friend Stadler is rather hard t-t-to miss.”

  “Well then, gentlemen, our fox is in the field. Let us ride to him,” Dickens declared gleefully.

  Pulling on our waistcoats and greatcoats, for it was a bitter November night, battening our hats down hard on our heads, for the wind was whistling down the narrow streets with the speed and heedlessness of De Quincey’s murderous coachman,* tugging on our gloves, we descended Tom Tower, crossed the street, and entered the front door of the Bulldog.

  The tavern this Saturday night was roiling with revellers. After all, the Christmas season was already upon us and the college term was almost up. The students’ responsibilities, such as they were, were almost nonexistent and it was, indeed, a Saturday night in a University town.