“Well, it is over, and you are safe.” Field’s gaze moved slowly from Ellen to Thompson to Dickens. “There is really not a thing we can do about this attack, is there, Morse?” and he turned to that worthy as if he actually had an interest in his opinion. “They seem to have gotten clean away.”
“No, sir, there isn’t.”
“Then perhaps we shall just keep quiet about it, eh? No need drawing undue attention to Miss Ternan. The only ones who will know about it are her attackers, and perhaps they will betray themselves.”
“Yes, sir,” young Morse, of course, agreed. What else was he to do?
“Good,” Field rubbed his hands together in satisfaction, “then we shall ’ang back on this. That is settled.” Field reestablished control over his detective world. “So, on to our business ’ere this night, afore this unseemly affair intruded.”
“And that would be?” I ventured to enter our midnight colloquy.
“Why, information, Wilkie. Information. The lifeblood of any detective investigation. That is why we have gathered here in this safe, quiet, holy place.”
I looked around, wondering if Field and I were looking at the world with the same eyes. A fanged gargoyle atop the baptismal fount was eyeing my throat. The gloom seemed to wrap us in a shroud.
“W-w-what information?” Dodgson stammered.
“We all ’ave information to share, I’ll wager,” Field rallied us. “Miss Ternan from the public ’ouse. Constable Morse from ’is inquiries. Each of us from what we ’ave observed the last few days since this investigation came to Oxford.”
There was a moment’s hesitation as to who should begin, but Miss Ternan stepped almost eagerly into the breach as if she wished to put behind her the attempted rape that had so darkly coloured the prior proceedings of this evening.
“I have noticed some things in the pub,” she began rather timidly. “I do not know if they are important,” she turned to Field. “That shall be for you to judge.”
Field nodded at her in acknowledgment of his willingness to accept that responsibility, and she continued on.
“Every night, the same ones meet at that same round table in the far back of the pub. Mike has promised to save it until one of them arrives to claim it, but no later than half seven. Someone is always there and most of them arrive by eight.”
“Every night?” Dickens interrupted her.
“They do not come on Saturdays, Mike told me. They do not like the week’s end crowd. The students out on a lark, you know.”
“Right.” Field tried to move her along to his valuable information.
“They tend to stop talking when I serve them,” Ellen became quite focused, as if she had thought at some length about this part of it, “as if they had something to hide and did not want me to hear. But, as the evening goes on and I keep serving them pints, they forget to stop, or they get careless and do not notice me as much, or they get drunk and just cease to care. I’ve heard many things. I’ve taken to lighting their cigars for them, carrying lucifers in my smock pocket. They seem to like a woman attending to them like that. Some of them wait for me to do it.”
Again, I could see the discomfort rising in Dickens’s face. The idea of Ellen acting as a servant to these other, most of them younger, men was utterly repellent to him.
“The cigars,” Field pressed her, “what about the cigars?”
“Two of them smoke the thin, twisted ones that you described to me,” Ellen answered him directly. “The little vulgar one.”
“Squonce of Balliol,” Dodgson supplied the identification.
“And the one who advises the rowing,” Ellen turned again to Dodgson for the name.
“That is Barnet, of Queen’s,” Dodgson promptly supplied it.
“But they trade cigars with each other as a matter of course,” Ellen added, “so they all might be smoking those little, twisted, foul-smelling ones at one time or another. Stadler rarely does, though. He likes the fat round ones.”
Ellen’s discourse on the Dons’ cigars seemed altogether inconclusive to me, but Inspector Field seemed quite pleased with it and had Serjeant Rogers taking notes the whole time.
“Wot do they talk about? That is, when their guard is down and you can ’ear them,” Field moved her in a new direction.
“Politics, I would say,” Ellen replied, after thinking for a moment. “They are always talking about what is going on in Parliament, how the country is in the hands of the Lords and the rich merchants. ‘Imperialist pigs,’ I heard the little vulgar one call them. They seem great admirers of Queen Victoria. They always seem to be talking about her. Fact is, the most inflamed argument I have observed was about her. They stopped talking when I came around, though, so I do not really know what it was about.”
She paused to think, to remember.
“It sounds to me as if they’re plotting something,” Field speculated.
“Politics. Parliament. Imperial pigs. The Queen. Vehement arguments. Is that all they talk about?” Dickens gently pressed her.
“This evening they were talking about you.” Ellen smiled radiantly, the first light to pierce the gloom of that infernal church. “When Stadler came back from the front room, he was boasting about having met you, about ‘consulting’—that is the word he used—with you on your next story. Oh, they were all very much impressed. Walrus-face made it seem as if you had come all the way from London just to talk to him.”
“Were they at all suspicious of my motives?” Dickens inquired.
“No, they did not seem to be,” and a mischievous glint crept into Ellen’s eye. “The Walrus described you as a ‘queer duck,’ tall and thin, with ‘a neck like an ostrich,’ his exact words. They all had a good laugh at that.”
Dickens did not find that description the least bit humorous.
“But when they talk of politics,” Field pointed her back to the main road, “wot do they say or ’ow do they say it? Do they argue? Do they all agree?”
“I just catch snatches as I walk close to them. Yes, they argue. They stare and point at others across the table when they disagree. One time when I brought a tray of pints to the table, I think they were talking about their friend who was murdered, but they stopped as soon as I put the first one down. They seem very confused in their discussions, as if nobody knows what to do.”
“’Ave any of them approached you?” Field asked. “In a, um, ahem, social way, I mean?”
“Actually, in a joking way, almost half of them have. Of course, it is clear that some of them do not like women at all,” and this time she glanced mischievously at Tally Ho Thompson. “In fact, I think that little vulgar one spent half the night looking across the room at you.” Ellen actually seemed to be enjoying her role as spy.
“The tall one that Irish Mike told me directs the Oxford Crew, the fast rowers on the river, that one is the most insistent. He likes me. Once he even came away from the table to talk to me, asked me if I would like to see the boathouses some evening when I did not have to work all night in the bar.”
Dickens looked as if he might choke on his effort to suppress his strong emotions. Whether of jealousy, or anger, or concern for her safety, I cannot say, but they were strong emotions indeed. Ellen seemed oblivious to the effect her revelations were having upon him, though I think she was quite happy to feed his insecurity as a means of strengthening his devotion. When it came to Dickens, who it was so abundantly clear was utterly in her thrall, she had become a powerfully agitating little minx.
Inspector Field, sensing that his interrogation of Ellen Ternan had gone about as far as it could go and that it was going to take more time for her to build the confidences that would prove fruitful for his investigation, turned to the rest of us at last.
“Miss Ternan ’as only been in the public ’ouse for three days and nights,” he began his own report. “She ’as done well, but it is going to take some time. I say we leave ’er to ’er work.”
“How about this?” Dodgson spoke
up quite unexpectedly. “It is not unusual for a c-c-common p-p-person without name or wealth, t-t-to approach a Don for p-p-private t-t-tutoring, often in return for some work or favor,” and Dodgson almost blushed at the illicit suggestion he knew was implicit in his suggestion. “A letter that one has been t-t-tutored by an Oxford Don c-c-carries great weight in p-p-provincial circles. There are many p-p-people of the t-t-town of Oxford who have c-c-come here for just that p-p-purpose. Though ineligible for entrance into any of the c-c-colleges, nonetheless they c-c-come here seeking an education and attempt t-t-to g-g-get it any way that they c-c-can. P-p-perhaps Miss T-T-Ternan c-c-could p-p-profess herself such a p-p-poor scholar.”
Dickens looked as if he wished to strangle Dodgson for his suggestion.
Field was delighted with it and expressed his approval to Ellen on the spot.
All that kept running through my brain was that warning, “Beware the boathouses!” which Dickens had coined from our earlier conversation on the courting habits of the Oxford Dons. Ironically, Dickens’s half-serious warning portended to become reality, at least in the case of the most pressing of Ellen Ternan’s suitors, Barnet of Queen’s College and the Oxford Crew.
“Well, all well and good,” Dickens finally blustered, “but I am sure Ellen is hearing enough information being passed amongst these men during her working hours in the public house that it is unnecessary for her to court any further danger of the sort that brought her under attack tonight.” His brows knitted tightly together in seriousness as he spoke. “I do not think that private tutoring sessions are a good idea at all.”
“Yes, Miss Ternan,” Field spoke more for Dickens’s benefit than to her, “you must use your own best judgment in these affairs. Do not place yourself into a situation where Thompson cannot guard you,” and with that, Field turned abruptly to young Morse. “Reggie ’as been quite busy these last few days,” he announced. “There is something going on with these men, there is, and ’ee ’as been checking into their ’abits.”
“I ’ave been lookin’ into the opium angle,” young Morse reported. “The dead Don, Ackroyd, was sorely addicted. I talked to some of ’is students, who I gathered were themselves not unacquainted with the pleasures of the drug, and, to a man, they gave evidence that Ackroyd was a slave to the evil smoke. ’Is weekends in London were notorious and absolutely regular. Opium can certainly be ’ad in Oxford, as can every other sensual vice, but this Ackroyd would not risk the indiscretion of being regularly seen frequenting those places, mainly ’ouses of ’ores, where the drug is readily available. ’Ee must ’ave gotten the drug ’ere somewhere, but ’ee kept it private ’ere in town. ’Ee preferred to take the train to London on Saturdays to pursue his pleasure in the public ’ouses.” His report dutifully presented, young Morse blinked his eyes and waited for Inspector Field’s reaction.
“Did any of these other Dons favour the drug? Did any of them accompany Ackroyd to London, share his pipes at the Chinaman’s in Lime’ouse ’Ole?”
“Yes,” young Morse was just as quick to answer. “A number of them smoke opium, and a number of them seem inclined to the vices of London: women, boys, opium dens. The most frequent companions were Stadler, Bathgate from Balliol, Squonce, who seems to like young boys, and Barnet of Queen’s College. I learned this from the ticket clerk at the train platform.”
“Stadler again,” Dickens signalled his prime suspect.
“Yes, ’ee seems to be everywhere in this affair, don’t ’ee,” Field agreed.
“I’ll wager he’s our man,” Dickens spoke with a grim conviction, “even though he seems to be the dead man’s closest colleague.”
“He certainly is not acting like a guilty murderer on the surface of things,” I ventured.
Dickens frowned at me.
“Yes, quite true,” Field agreed. “If ’ee murdered ’is friend, ’ee certainly is puttin’ ’is best face on it.”
Dickens sulked.
Serjeant Rogers nodded in sycophantic agreement with his master.
Young Morse just looked around at us, not really knowing what to think.
Ellen yawned. She suddenly looked exhausted and rightly so, considering her adventure of the evening.
Thompson was sitting in the pew rubbing his ankle that looked as if it were beginning to swell.
“That is enough for this night,” Field finally took charge of the moment. “Miss Ternan needs to rest. Rogers will escort ’er ’ome. The rest of us will disperse singly or in pairs from this place. Who knows, ’er assailant may still be lurkin’ about. It is best that we all not be seen together.” With those unassailable instructions to the full assembly, he turned to Dickens: “Charles, you must let Miss Ternan play her role unobstructed, else it will be to no avail. She will be found out and that will place ’er in much greater danger.”
I understand, Dickens silently signified with an acquiescent bow of his head.
Everyone arose and turned to leave, but I could not help but notice how Dickens and his Ellen did not move. Their gazes seemed locked in longing, in a terrible need to speak to each other with their eyes, in a look of wanting that could not be spoken in words in the company of all these others, these invaders of their private island of intimacy.
“Wait. Just a moment, please,” Dickens throwing discretion to the wind, stopped us in our attempt to escape this place of gloom. “Can we have but a moment, please?” he petitioned Field even as he was taking Ellen by the hand and drawing her into the private darkness behind a thick stone pillar. “Only a moment,” he said again as they disappeared into a gloomy side chapel.
It all had the feeling of some Gothic novel, of The Castle of Otranto.*
Outside the church, Field dismissed Thompson, who limped off into the darkness.
As Dodgson and I left, Field and Rogers were still cooling their heels in the vestibule waiting for Dickens and Miss Ternan to reappear.
It was more than an hour later that Dickens let himself in at Dodgson’s door. Dodo had already retired for the night and I was dozing over my brandy when Dickens sneaked softly in.
“Ah, Wilkie, I went for one of my night walks,” Dickens apologized by way of explanation in lieu of the lateness of the hour. “By the river. Quite pleasant, actually. Stars and moon and all. Though not many. Suddenly clouds. I am sure Ellen will be safe. I have decided to return to London on Sunday.”
And with that, he took himself off to bed, leaving me sitting on the loveseat with my mouth agape. I tossed off my brandy in one long gulp, a toast to the quicksilver emotions of my friend. I honestly do not think I will ever understand Dickens, no matter how long I shall live.
* * *
*The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole is generally considered the first major work to signal the romantic subgenre of the “Gothic novel.”
Gothic Death
December 2, 1853—After Midnight
The Meadow Buildings of Christ Church College. The scientist’s rooms in the dead of a winter’s night. The moon full and bright through the leaded casement, but disappearing in and out of the scudding clouds. Bright moonlight chased by utter blackness across Christ Church meadows and over the dark waters of the wintry Thames.
The laboratory. Beakers and jars and burners and tubes. Vials and powders and liquids and crystals. A rough bookcase with the secrets of chemistry handy to the reach between the covers of its tattered tenants. Strange racks of wood and hammocked rope for the storage in slings of fragile containers. A laboratory out of Mrs. Shelley’s Gothic tale.*
A large worktable just below the fickle light of the high casement. That table cluttered with books and strewn papers (the scientist’s notes on his latest experiment?) and glass slides and glass beakers. That table’s centre commanded by the familiar angularity of a microscope and the familiar bulk of a large metal water pitcher.
The scientist sitting at the table consulting his copious notes.
A dark figure moving silently through the low doorway. A mere shad
ow. A trick of light passing through the membrane of the clouds.
Hours later, the scientist still seated at his laboratory worktable. His head down. Has he fallen asleep at his work? The midnight oil has guttered out. Moonlight and hopeless blackness take turns intruding through the high casement. The shadowy light plays over the sleeping form at the laboratory table. But, as the moonlight comes and the darkness goes, that figure never moves, and the light catches something very much out of place. The scientist sleeps without his hands beneath his head on the rough table. The scientist’s head is turned to the side as if he were looking up out of the casement at the fickle moon. The scientist sleeps with his eyes wide open. His bushy downturned mustachios give the impression that he is frowning. The microscope and the metal water pitcher are both overturned on the table before him. The thin water from the pitcher mingles with the much thicker dark liquid leaking slowly from its much more fragile vessel.
And, as the bright moonlight through the high window suddenly plays across the sleeping form, either God or the Devil looking down from the dark clouds could not help but notice the thick hasp of a butcher’s knife protruding from the broad back just below the neck and directly between the shoulder blades of the murdered man.
December 2, 1853—Mid-Morning
At least that is how I imagine it must have looked in the dark of the night at the time of our chemist friend Stadler’s Gothic death. We, Dickens and I and Charlie Dodgson, saw it all just as it has been described, utterly undisturbed (by Inspector Field’s order), but in the bright light of day. After the rigours of our long night before, we were all sleeping late when Serjeant Rogers came violently knocking on poor Dodgson’s door at just before ten of the clock. I answered since I was bivouacked on the loveseat in the parlour, closest to the door.
“The Chemistry Don, Stadler, ’as been stabbed!” Rogers announced with no preamble whatsoever as I was still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Dickens, ever alert, joined me as I ushered our blunt Serjeant into the room. It was good that Dickens, always clearheaded, was there to deal with this situation.
The Dons and Mr. Dickens Page 13