The Dons and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  Almost before the flash had subsided, Field was out from behind the boats and standing over our boathouse Don. When Dickens and I emerged from our place of concealment and came around the corner of the stacked shells, Barnet was sitting up straight with Field’s murderous-looking knobbed stick poked into his chest. His trousers were still bunched around his ankles and his two hands were cupped protectively over his pitiful little member. It was abundantly clear that Field was quite comfortable carrying on his interrogation of his subject in this semi-naked state. Even Dickens, horrified as he had been only moments before, had to laugh.

  Our Don, Barnet, did not find it at all humorous.

  “What is this?” he protested.

  “You cannot do this!” he harrumphed.

  “How dare you!” he cursed.

  “Who are you?” He looked at Dickens and Dodgson and me as we all materialized out of our hiding place and stood staring at him.

  “Remember me? Inspector Field of the London Protectives,” and Field poked the naked Don once again in the middle of the chest with his stick, “investigating the murder of your friends, Ackroyd and Stadler. I think you know more than you are telling me, and if you do not tell me all, I shall display this photo all over Oxford. I shall nail it to the chapel door of every college in Oxford. I will drop it right on the desk of the Dean of Queen’s College, and you will be expelled for gross immorality before the fortnight is out.”

  Barnet actually began to shake and shiver, whether from the cold assaulting his nakedness or from simple terror of Field, I cannot say.

  “’Ere, you sniveling weasel,” Field withdrew his stick. “Pull up your breeches and we shall talk.”

  Our chastized boathouse Don did exactly what he was told, then proceeded to answer Field’s questions without a single grumble and with an economy equal to the extreme vulnerability of his humiliated condition.

  “Who killed Ackroyd and Stadler?”

  “We do not know. None of us do. Everyone is fearful. We do not know who or why, and all are afraid that he may be the next.”

  “Then why were they murdered?”

  “Because of the plot to frighten the Queen. It is all over this Turkish war with Russia. The New Gunpowder Plot is what Ackroyd used to call it before, before—” his voice trailed impotently off.*

  “Frighten the Queen?”

  “It was to be a prank, nothing more. We felt the Queen would be coming here sometime during the Christmas season. She almost always does. Set off a nice explosion somewhere along the Queen’s route, to Blenheim perhaps. Not to ever hurt anyone, mind you. Just to send a message was all. ‘Blow up all her bloody complacency!’ Wherry Squonce would say. ‘Show her she cannot simply wage war in the name of Empire.’”

  “Were you all in on it, all of the group in the Bulldog?”

  “We all knew about it. Some were deeper in than others. It was Ackroyd’s idea and he planned it all. Stadler was in charge of the explosion because that was what he did in his chemistry researches. He could get the explosives and he knew how to set them off clean and safe so that no one would get hurt.”

  “And the others?”

  “Norman, from Trinity, he is a political theorist. He has friends in London who are out with this P.M. in. He is the one who found out about the Queen’s plans to rest at Blenheim. The plot was really only in the talking stages until he heard that she might visit. Then he focused all his efforts on finding out when exactly and where exactly she would be.”

  “Others?”

  “Wherry Squonce and Bathgate—the Balliol boys, we call them—were in charge of writing the literature for afterwards, making the statements that explain why someone would want to blow up our beloved Queen Victoria, ‘that petulant little bulldog of a woman,’ Squonce calls her. He hates the Queen, the monarchy, the whole system.”

  “And you?”

  “Because I am in Engineering, I was to help Stadler set up his explosion so that it would go off at the right time in the right place and not hurt anyone.”

  “So, this was never a plot to assassinate the Queen?”

  “No, never. It was simply an attempt to make a political statement.”

  “Then why are Ackroyd and Stadler dead?”

  “We do not know. That is why we have abandoned the whole thing.”

  “You ’ave given it all up?”

  “Yes. We could not do it anyway without Stadler and his explosive chemicals.”

  Field looked at Morse and Rogers, who had joined us from outside at Field’s signal. Tally Ho Thompson had also made his way in. He stood off to the side, listening, next to his private charge, Ellen Ternan, whose performance this evening was over. Field’s look signalled that Barnet did not know that Stadler’s nitroglycerine had disappeared the night of the murder. The realization that the explosives were still out there, even though, if we were to believe Barnet, the plot against the Queen had been abandoned, dawned upon all of us in the mere moment of Field’s silent look.

  “Who proposed that you give it up?” Field mercilessly pounded his questions at the cowering Don.

  “I do not know. Norman of Trinity perhaps. He was totally shaken when Ackroyd was murdered. He wanted to give it up then.”

  “Did all agree?”

  “No. Not at all. Not when Stadler was killed. Squonce and Bathgate wanted to go on even after that. Wherry Squonce, that evil little Sodomite, wanted to break in and steal the chemicals from Stadler’s laboratory.”

  The irony of this rake’s morally righteous tone was not lost on Inspector Field, who turned and rolled his eyes at Dickens and the rest of us before resuming his relentless questioning.

  “Did ’ee steal them?”

  “No. I do not think so. He would not know what to steal. He is a Literature Don, for God’s sake!” Barnet clearly held Squonce in the highest degree of contempt.

  “Could this Squonce ’ave killed them?” Field was standing over Barnet and growling down at him like a mastiff. Barnet was terrified of him; that was clear. He was shaking, hugging himself around his shoulders with his arms crossed over his chest, and rocking back and forth as if caught in the clutches of a palsy.

  “Answer me, you snivelling little twit!” Field screamed right into his terror-stricken face. “Answer me or that picture will be ’anded out on broadsheets on the ’Eye Street in the morning. Your John Thomas will be more famous around ’ere than the Oxford spires.”

  “Wherry Squonce is queer, a woman,” Barnet leapt to answer. “I do not think he could kill them.”

  “What about ’is friend Bathgate?”

  “He is a quiet one. I think he is Squonce’s man. They are both Balliol. They are always together. Perhaps. I do not know. Please. Please.” The broken Don was begging Field to leave him alone.

  “Where was the bomb to be set?”

  Barnet was an empty shell. His eyes darted left then right like a cornered animal. His eyes moved from one of us to the next, pleading, hopeless.

  “Answer me,” Field slapped him across the face with his open hand. “Where? Where?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t,” Barnet utterly broke down, bursting into tears.

  “Do not lie to me!” Field raised his hand, threatening to strike him again. “Tell me where.”

  “I don’t know, dear God, I don’t know,” he wailed. “We did not know her path yet when Stadler was killed. Norman had not got her path yet, I swear. None of us knew where the bomb would be; then we gave it all up. Please. Please leave me be.” He was slobbering from the mouth in fear.

  “Morse,” and Field turned to that worthy, “take this snivelling piece of dung away. Put him under lock and key. Keep him close somewhere until this affair is over.”

  Young Morse led Barnet away. Field blew out the flickering candle which had provided the light for this brutal contretemps and led us out of the boathouse. Outside, on the docks, Field waved for Morse to take our docile prisoner on ahead. The rest of us milled around him waiting. Clearly
, he was thinking through his next move in this dangerous game of “Button, Button, Who’s got the Button,” except it was “Bomb, Bomb, Who’s got the Bomb?”

  “Ellen,” Field finally broke the silence, his voice low and thoughtful, “go about your business at the pub as though nothing at all ’as ’appened. Keep a close watch on this Squonce and Bathgate pair. It will take a day or so for them to figure out that this Barnet ’as gone missin’. That should put a scarer on them. If they are our killers. They’ll wonder who is cuttin’ in on their game. If they are not, they’ll fear that another member of their little plot to blow up the Queen ’as been done. Watch them close. They’ll give themselves away. Thompson,” and he turned to Tally Ho, “take ’er ’ome,” he ordered, turning back to Dickens’s Ellen for one last word. “You ’ave done good work this night, Miss Ternan, as fine an actin’ job as I ’ave ever seen. Go on ’ome and get to sleep. You ’ave earned it.”

  Escorted by her faithful bodyguard, Ellen departed, leaving the rest of us there on the riverside by those ghostly boathouses. Field watched her go and then turned back to us.

  “Charles,” Field addressed Dickens speculatively, “this Squonce and Bathgate are literary Dons. These ponces would probably muddy their britches if a literary man down from London saw fit to call on them. Find some pretence, fashion some story, it is what you do best, and see if you can get into their digs. Dodgson ’ere can introduce you, I’d wager. See what you can find out. Don’t do anything reckless,” Field cautioned. “Do only what is possible, only observe.”

  He always gave us this same “only observe” speech when he sent us out to consort with dangerous criminals, and Dickens never heeded it.

  “Rogers will stay ’ere, but I must go up to London. I will be back as soon as I can. Who knows, per’aps the nitroglycerine will turn up in their rooms.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and led us on a forced march through the grove of trees and back out to St. Aldate’s. He bid us goodnight at the Tom Tower gate, and that was the last we would see of him for three days (but we did not know that at the time). The whole situation did not inspire a great deal of confidence in me. Dickens, however, was downright exuberant. “Wilkie,” he said with a bounce in his voice as we walked up to Dodgson’s rooms, “we are off once again!”

  * * *

  *This reference is to what would eventually become known as the Crimean War. Turkey had declared war on Russia in October 1853 over a dispute about the rights to control the Palestinian Holy Places, which Russia claimed and France felt that it had secured in 1852. England was concerned that this war would cut off its trade routes through the Dardanelles. In fact, in December 1853, at the time of the events of this case, the decision was being made to send an English fleet to the Black Sea. By March 1854, when England and France also declared war on Russia, that fleet was already in place. England’s motives in this war were perceived as economic and necessary to support the trade routes of Empire.

  The Balliol Boys

  December 12, 1853—Afternoon

  Inspector Field left for London on the next morning’s railway.

  It seemed rather strange to me that just as this Oxford investigation appeared to be reaching a critical point, he should dash off to London for no immediately discernible reason.

  “He is going up to report to Holmes of the Home Office,” Dickens speculated. “All of this talk of bombing the Queen is quite troubling. He must warn Holmes and his frock-coat gang. One must not tarry when it is a question of endangering the life of Queen Victoria.”

  Dickens was so smugly certain that I prayed that he was wrong. But he was not, as we shall see.

  Field left on the morning train, and Dickens was eager to get on with our part of the bargain. He was after Dodgson right away, as soon as that poor fellow was up trying to cook our tea and roast our morning toast at the hearth.

  “Do you know this Wherry Squonce or this Bathgate, Dodo?” Dickens had taken to calling him by our college name as if they had sat for exams together. Dodgson did not seem to mind in the least, but I found it rather presumptuous and familiar. Dickens an Oxford man? Really!

  “I have met them at University do’s, mostly p-p-poetry g-g-gatherings. They are somewhat notorious. Always together. A queer c-c-couple. Everyone around Oxford accepts it. No one thinks much of it. They do not p-p-parade their p-p-perversion.”

  “What shall we tell them that will make them let us in?”

  “T-t-tell them the t-t-truth”—he paused and held up the toasting fork with two thick pieces of bread steaming on it—“or something like it,” he grinned, “something they will want to b-b-believe.”

  “How about the theatre?” Dickens suggested. “We are getting up a play and we are looking for a place to stage it.”

  “Oh yes, that’s it.” Dodgson brandished his toasting fork as if he were directing an orchestra. “Squonce is very b-b-big on theatre. They have front-row seats for every Shakespeare that shows its d-d-doublet in Oxford. Oh yes, theatre is a sure t-t-tack.”

  “Then theatre it is,” Dickens decided. “Can you send a note around to their rooms requesting an audience to talk about theatre? You know: ‘Remember me. Famous friends down from London. Can we meet? Your rooms? When?’ That sort of thing.” Dickens was actually writing Dodgson’s missive for him, but again, Dodgson did not seem to mind. He delivered us our toast and tea, and set right about the task that Dickens had given him.

  The note written, Dodgson rang for the porter, gave him a shilling and asked him to dispatch it to Balliol by one of the street urchins who hung about the Tom Tower gate hoping for just such work.

  We idled away that day. We went for a pub lunch at the Bulldog so that Dickens could get his required afternoon dosage of his beloved Ellen. The reply, in the form of a hand-delivered note, arrived from the Balliol boys at about half past five. “By all means,” it read, “I would love to meet with the eminent Mr. Charles Dickens to discuss Oxford theatre.” It was signed “Wherry Squonce Esquire, Balliol College.” It proposed Squonce’s college rooms the next day at one in the afternoon.

  That evening also passed uneventfully. At about nine, Dickens proposed that we all go out for a brisk walk. Dodgson begged off, something that I was not allowed to do. If I had tried to beg off going out in the bitter December wind to hike at forced-march pace through the streets of Oxford, Dickens would have sulked over it for days on end. And so, I tried to keep up with Dickens’s long strides as we traversed the High Street, crossed Magdalen Bridge, and struck off along the river towards the Queen’s Deer Park. It was a rather gloomy walk, even though the signs of Christmas were beginning to make their appearance. We crossed back over the river at the cattle ford and came back into the town through the University Parks. It was not like our night walks in London at all. We saw very few people out, and those we saw were either scurrying to get indoors out of the wind or bundled up so closely that it was almost impossible to tell if they were man, woman, sheep, or cow.

  Dickens finally gave up on encountering anything of interest, and as we came through the park, suggested: “Let us stop at the first pub we hit, Wilkie, and have a hot gin. It will be a pleasant change. I am sick to death of that bloody Bulldog every night.”

  I could not have been happier. That first pub could not be encountered soon enough for my taste. It was the King’s Arms, one of the oldest pubs in Oxford, dating back to the billeting of the troops of King William, that took us in out of the cold. It was all decorated for Christmas with greens and mistletoe, a welcome refuge that offered light, warmth, soft couches, and burned gin. It did not take long for the ambiance and the gin to warm us through and through. Dickens was right. It was a pleasant break from the pressures of the case and the tension of constant surveillance that marked our nocturnal visits to the Bulldog.

  The next day at half noon we set out under Dodgson’s escort to invade the fortress of the Balliol Dons, Squonce and Bathgate. Balliol is the second oldest of Oxford’s colleges
after University College. It was founded in the thirteenth century and sits on St. Giles behind massive wood and iron gates as tall as the tallest windmill in Don Quixote. The porter sent his lackey to inform Squonce of our arrival. After a short wait, the porter directed us to go up.

  Wherry Squonce was waiting in the hallway two storeys up, while his friend Bathgate stood behind him lounging in the doorway. Attired in a purple smoking jacket and a flowered silk ascot cravat and smoking an ostentatious Meerschaum pipe, Wherry Squonce, fluttering towards us with arms outstretched, looked as if he were a peacock somehow escaped from the palace grounds.

  “Oh Dodgson,” he squealed as we breasted the landing to his floor and our heads rose up out of the stairwell, “it is so good to see you again, old fellow, and so good of you to bring Mr. Dickens along to meet us. Oh dear boy,” and he ran his hand lasciviously over Dodgson’s shoulder and upper arm, “we really cannot thank you enough for thinking of us and introducing us to your friends.”

  Through this whole display, Bathgate, in the darkest of suits, stood utterly taciturn, looking at us hard as if trying to see right through us.

  “Come in. Come in,” little Squonce flounced all around us like some old neglected mum whose children have finally come to visit, “we’ve got tea and cakes, a regular tea party, I’d say. Come right in.”

  Bathgate retreated, still silent and suspicious, as we were escorted through the door and into an extremely elaborate sitting room that looked as if it would be more at home amongst the orientalist extravagances of the Prince Regent’s Pavilion in Brighton. That room was truly something out of the Arabian Nights or the Tale of the Genji. The floors were bathed in Oriental rugs, the walls flowing with bright silks and exquisitely woven tapestries. The furniture was all brightly colored pillows and oddly shaped divans. Carvings in ivory and wood—Chinese, Indian, Malaysian—of naked men posed on every table and mantle and shelf in the room. It was the most indulgent exercise in interior decoration that I had ever encountered, and when we first entered that room and it all descended upon us like some Oriental dream, both Dickens and I were struck momentarily speechless. How does one react to something so out of the ordinary, so reckless, so shockingly sensual and unnerving?