Again, Holmes did not give Field a chance to answer. “Not the Queen. They had their chance to blow her up. Good Lord!” and he turned to Field, who merely nodded. “The P.M.?”
“Yes,” Field finally got a word in, “that seems the logical target. All of this fuss about blowing up the Queen was just a diversion to distract us from this terrorist’s true intentions.”
“It is the P.M. they are after,” Holmes tested the idea as if it was too young and inexperienced to trust, “and we don’t have a double for him!”
“The Queen was but a decoy,” Dickens repeated. “But then, who has the nitroglycerine? And who has kidnapped Ellen?” Dickens’s mind and young Holmes’s were clearly running in the same direction though towards different destinations: Holmes intent upon saving his country, Dickens upon saving his love.
“If I am seeing it all clearly now,” Field said quietly, “there is only one person it can be. My God, I ’ave been such a trusting fool! ’Ee ’as been there all the while, since the very beginning, and we ’ave never noticed ’im, looked right past ’im.”
“The P.M. is addressing the college in the Sheldonian Theatre at this very moment,” Holmes, utterly preoccupied with the assassination that he foresaw, had not even heard Field’s confession. “We must go there at once. They could blow up the P.M.’s carriage. They could throw the nitroglycerine into the crowd around the P.M. My God, they could blow up the stage of the theatre!”
“If I am right about our man,” Field led us out of Squonce’s parlour at double-time and down the Balliol steps, “we shall find ’im in the crowd at the Sheldonian, and,” turning to Dickens, “your Ellen will be with ’im.”
Suddenly Dickens stopped in his tracks and whirled in disbelief upon Field. “No!”
“Yes, ’im,” Field nodded as if some secret mental message had passed between them.
“For God’s sake, who?” I heard myself shouting at the two of them in utter annoyance.
“Yes, who is it?” young Morse echoed me, smashing out his words as if he was about to burst.
“Irish Mike’s the one,” Inspector Field finally let the cat out of the bag. “’Ee ’as been lurking around in the middle of this case since the first day we came to Oxford and I never paid any attention to ’im. But ’ee’s the one who knew all that was goin’ on. ’Ee’s the one who knew all of what the Dons were up to. ’Ee’s the one who knew that Ellen was the spy and that’s why ’ee tried to get ’er out of the way. ’Ee’s been the one all along, and we never saw ’im.”
“Stop! I Am Charles Dickens!”
December 14, 1853—Evening
All of us in a ragtag group—Field, Dickens, myself, Holmes, young Morse, and Tally Ho Thompson—ran helter-skelter toward the Sheldonian Theatre. The gas lamps were all ablaze as we ran out of Balliol and up St. Giles, then right down the center of Broad Street at full tilt, disregarding the odd carriage or cab, pedestrians dodging out of our way as we bore down upon them and burst past.
The Sheldonian’s end of Broad Street was full to brimming with people, a curious crowd gathered in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Prime Minister. As we reached the outskirts of the mob, first a shout, and then a cheer went up, signalling the Prime Minister’s emergence out of the front door of the theatre, where he paused at the top of the high stone steps to wave to the admiring throng.
“He is already out of the theatre,” Holmes gasped in panic. “We must find that villain before he attacks the P.M. Go through the crowd, all of you. We must stop him!” And Holmes plunged into the crowd in search of Irish Mike.
All the rest of us were prone to follow his example and search the crowd, but a cooler head prevailed.
“Wait,” Field stopped us. “Let ’im go. Thompson, go about the fringes of the crowd that way and look for Ellen and Irish Mike. Do not accost them. Simply stay close to them and observe. If ’ee looks as if ’ee’s going to do anything dangerous, jump ’im. Morse, you go that way and do the same.”
Those two quickly moved on Field’s order and were gone.
Field turned to Dickens and me: “Charles, ’ee ’as the nitroglycerine. ’Ow would ’ee use it to kill the man?”
Dickens thought for a moment: “Well, he probably would not throw it into the crowd. Everyone would see him do it. It would draw too much attention to him. He would try to blow up the P.M. in a way that would allow him to escape.”
The Prime Minister was descending the steps of the theatre.
The crowd was cheering and pressing close for a glimpse of power.
Dickens and Field stood in silence for a long moment, lost in thought, searching their minds and imaginations for the answer.
“’Is coach!”
“His coach!”
They both solved the problem at the same time, Field’s voice saying it a mere wisp of a breath before Dickens.
“That’s it.” Field clapped Dickens on the back. “’Ee will try to throw the explosive into the P.M.’s coach.”
“Or,” Dickens grasped a handful of Field’s greatcoat, “he has already attached the nitroglycerine to the P.M.’s coach and will blow it up as soon as the man is inside.”
“That’s it.” Field clapped Dickens on the shoulder once again so hard that it knocked Charles backward. “To the wheel. When the coach starts up, it will crush the bottle of explosive and the whole carriage will blow up!”
Our heads turned to the rear of the crowd outside the gate of the Sheldonian courtyard. The stone heads on their pillars frowned down at us. There were three closed carriages pulled up on the far side of Broad Street. Their coachmen, in the Queen’s livery, loitered beside their horses. The footmen were two fully kilted Scots Guards who were responsible for the protection of the Prime Minister. The P.M. was slowly descending the steps of the ancient theatre on the way to the security of his coach. The coachmen were taking their seats and picking up their reins in preparation for departure. The Guards came to attention, ready to open the door of the carriage and help the P.M. in.
Field was pushing his way through the cheering crowd with Dickens close behind. Field was actually throwing people out of the way in his progress through the mob. I became separated almost immediately from Dickens and Field as the crowd closed up angrily behind them after they had passed so roughly by. This turned me into little more than an observer of the action.
Field and Dickens broke out of the crowd and onto Broad Street just as the P.M. was clearing the Sheldonian gate. Thank God, the mob, jostling for a view of him, was still holding him up, blocking his way to the carriages.
As Field and Dickens broke through the crowd, they began running directly at the waiting coaches.
The two Scots Guards, vigilant for any possible threat towards their charge, moved to meet these two running men.
“Inspector Field. Metropolitan Protectives,” Field was shouting as he bounded towards them. “Police. Police.” He was waving his arms in the air like a madman. “The Prime Minister is in danger!”
Dickens was right at Field’s shoulder.
Seeing the two Guardsmen advancing militantly upon them, Field stopped dead in the middle of the street, holding up Dickens with an outflung arm, then raising both his hands in the air, palms outstretched towards the advancing soldiers in surrender and appeasement.
“I am Inspector William Field of the Metropolitan Protectives of London,” Field explained at the top of his voice, “please hear me out. There is a bomb in the Prime Minister’s coach.”
Only then did the Guardsmen cease their advance upon these two intruders.
Meanwhile, I was still trapped inside the uncomprehending crowd, whose eyes were on the P.M. and whose backs were turned to the drama being played out in front of the waiting carriages.
All except for one couple. This couple was facing in the opposite direction from all the rest of the crowd.
I caught sight of them out of the corner of my eye as I slowly advanced. They were moving in the same direction as I was
, with their eyes riveted upon the confrontation in the street between Dickens and Field and the Guardsmen.
It was Irish Mike, pulling Ellen Ternan by her wrist in his wake. She was clearly a prisoner, under duress, yet unable to resist his superior strength. He dragged her towards the carriages, elbowing people out of his way as he went.
“You must keep the P.M. away and keep the people clear of the carriages,” Field was explaining to one of the Guardsmen who had approached him to negotiate.
The P.M., however, had already cleared the crowd and was proceeding at much too fast a pace across the street towards his carriage.
“Get ’oot ’o the street,” one Guard ordered, not understanding at all what Field was trying to impress upon him. “I doo na care ’oo yoo har, get ’oot ’o the street.” The P.M. was almost to his coach. I think that Dickens and Field simultaneously realized that they could never convince the Scotsman of their good intentions in time. Almost instinctually, as if they could read each other’s minds, they darted around him, one to the left, the other to the right. They were past him and the other Guard before those two behemoths could react, and running toward the P.M.’s carriage and the P.M. himself, whom they stopped in his progress toward the coach with a shout.
“Mr. Prime Minister. Your honour. Stop!” Dickens shouted, running straight at him. “I am Charles Dickens. Please stop. You are in danger!”
I think it was the name more than the warning that stopped the Prime Minister in his tracks. It was probably the only name in the kingdom as famous as his own and the Queen’s.
Meanwhile, Field made a beeline for the coaches. He ran up to the P.M.’s coach, and grasping a handful of the coachman’s greatcoat, pulled him bodily down off the box.
As the coachman was pulled off, his reins snapped from his hands, and the pair he had been holding in waiting shied and skittishly reared away from their stationary position. The carriage moved only a short distance out into the centre of the street, but it was enough.
I watched in horror from the edge of the crowd. It seemed to happen very slowly, though I know it all took but a whisper of time.
I saw Dickens knocking the P.M. to the ground and covering him with his own body. I saw Field dragging the coachman away from the shying horses. Then the whole scene tore apart. The P.M.’s coach exploded in a hellish fireball. Flames shot straight up in the air and the concussion ripped across the street like a broadside from one of Her Majesty’s ships. The gaslit night turned into lurid day. People and horses were knocked to the ground. Flaming debris cartwheeled through the air.
I stared in horror, then covered my head and dived for the ground as everyone else in that crowd was also doing. But I was fascinated by the spectacle of it. I could not take my eyes off the scene. Yet the drama was not yet done. Even as the fragments of the explosion were still falling in the street, I saw Irish Mike with Ellen Ternan still in his tow and a large black revolver in his free hand, advancing upon Dickens and the P.M., who were still lying prone on the ground, stunned perhaps by the concussion of the explosion.
Wilkie on the Spot
December 14, 1853—Evening
I do not remember even thinking about what I was doing. I must have picked myself up off the ground and found my legs rather quickly because I was running full tilt right at Irish Mike’s broad back as he dragged Dickens’s Ellen across the street. Another man was running at them as well. I caught a glimpse of this one to my right out of the corner of my eye. It was a man in a brown Mackintosh wearing a porkpie hat. Irish Mike must have seen this fellow running towards him because of a sudden he raised his revolver, levelled it at the running man in the Mackintosh, and ordered him to “STAND!”
That running man obeyed. He stopped short and raised his hands in appeasement, palms out, in a gesture that screamed “PLEASE DON’T SHOOT!”
But I was at Irish Mike’s back, and, as he levelled his gun at the man in the Mackintosh, he could not see me coming. As I drew near, the sound of my footfall, or the motion of my approach, must have captured his attention, because he suddenly wheeled and the huge black barrel of his gun came swivelling around and levelled off right between my eyes. Looking into that gun barrel was like looking into a dark cave.
But I was already upon him. He had turned too late. I launched myself at the last instant and careened into Irish Mike’s chest just as the gun went off and the sound exploded over me.
I was sure that I was dead. I was certain that I had been shot between the eyes and Tally Ho Thompson was picking my body up off the street of either heaven or hell. I facetiously hoped it was the former, but dreaded it was the latter because of the sharp smell of burning wood and gunpowder that seemed all around.
“Well done, Mr. Collins!” Tally Ho Thompson was babbling at me for some incomprehensible reason. “You laid ’im out like ’ee’d been ’it by a beer barrel.”
“Bravo, Wilkie!” Inspector Field was also brushing me off for some reason. “On the spot you are.”
It took me a long moment to realize that all of this adulation was aimed at me and that I was very much alive and being treated like some sort of hero in the middle of Broad Street, Oxford. In another moment I remembered what I was doing when the gun went off, and I looked around and saw Irish Mike lying on the ground with the two Scots Guardsmen hobbling him. Dickens was there too, with his arms around his Ellen, who was sobbing into his chest. And Holmes of the Home Office was standing with the Prime Minister of England, with the crowd gawking and gaping at the lot of us.
“We’ve got ’im, Wilkie!” Field seemed to be shouting right into my face. “You knocked ’im right off ’is pins.”
And that is when my knees began to buckle and the air seemed to go all furry around me. I looked to Dickens and Field for help, to steady me, but they were dancing like madmen in my vision. Alas, dear reader, I fear I fainted.
Around the Wassail Bowl
December 15, 1853—Evening
It was only later, the evening of the following day, that we finally sorted it all out. It had been a long day for Field and Morse and Holmes of the Home Office, writing it all down, recording and preserving all of the evidence against Irish Mike and the conspiracy of Dons. At half six, we gathered, all the principals in the case—Field, Rogers, young Morse, Dickens, myself, Ellen Ternan, even Tally Ho Thompson and Sleepy Rob—in Dodgson’s rooms at his invitation. Holmes sent his regrets, saying that he could not attend because he was called back to London on pressing affairs of state. “More like pressing Prince Albert’s trousers,” Serjeant Rogers laughed, and we all joined in.
Despite the gravity of the recent events and the discussion of such serious topics as murder, assassination, conspiracy, blackmail, and drug addiction, it was really quite a convivial party. Dodgson felt that it was high time we were given a taste of the Christmas spirit. Of course, no one was more enthusiastic about this little Christmas party than Dickens. He loved Christmas. I think it brought out the child in him that he always seemed to be pursuing.
We gathered around a large wassail bowl warming on Dodgson’s hearth. He had even gone to the extravagance of hanging and draping some Christmas greenery about. Pine boughs and sprigs of holly decorated the books and furniture and various machines about his parlour. The pungent smell of the wassail punch, its nutmeg and clove scents, filled the room. A few cups of it brought smiles to our faces and loosened our tongues. Cigars were lit. Cakes were consumed. Many questions were answered.
“What I simply c-c-cannot understand,” Dodgson made the opening gambit, “is why Irish Mike d-d-did it all, k-k-killed Ackroyd, Stadler, and Squonce, and attempted to assassinate the P.M. He d-d-did not seem like a p-p-political zealot.”
“’Ee wasn’t,” Field leapt to the answer. “’Ee didn’t give a ’ang for politics. ’Ee did it all out of love and ’ate and grief and revenge. Seven years ago, by mistake, some English soldiers killed ’is daughter in a skirmish with some Irish rebels in Waterville. The provos ambushed the English
boys outside a pub that Mike owned. ’Is little daughter, only eight years old, was sleepin’ in an upstairs room and an errant ball killed ’er in ’er bed. It drove Mike’s wife mad, and two months later she drowned ’erself in a millpond. After that, Mike sold everything up and skipped out for England with revenge festerin’ ’in ’is ’eart. ’Ee bided ’is time and waited on ’is chance, and these political Dons and their scheme to scare the Queen was just what ’ee was waitin’ for.”
“But why did he kill Ackroyd?” Dodgson, who had missed out on almost everything whilst making his way out of the Cumner Hills on foot, finally had his opportunity to exercise his curiosity.
“Irish Mike was selling drugs, opium, to Ackroyd,” Field picked up the story, “and blackmailin’ ’im to boot. Most of Ackroyd’s money went to Mike. We found a ledger book in Mike’s rooms at the Bulldog.”
“But Ackroyd would not have much money to pay Irish Mike,” Dodgson was puzzled. “An Oxford Don, especially a historian, makes a very small stipend. Believe me, I know, mathematics is not much better.”
“The ledger shows that Ackroyd paid a regular sum each month to Irish Mike by cheque. But you are right,” Field bowed to Dodgson, “the sums were not large. Morse and I feel that these regular sums were for the opium, to support Ackroyd’s addiction. The blackmail was of a very different sort.”
“What do you mean?” Dickens interposed. “Blackmail is blackmail, especially in these times.”*
“Ah,” Field raised his formidable forefinger to correct Dickens, “but this was an uncommon sort of blackmail.”
“In what way?” Dickens’s, and all the rest of our curiosity was piqued.
The Dons and Mr. Dickens Page 22