Tears of terror were running down the snivelling weasel’s face. His body was shuddering on the verge of collapse.
Abruptly Thompson pulled back the point of his sword, turned, and walked to the foot of the stage as if he were Hamlet about to deliver some tortured soliloquy. Then he shrugged with both hands, his right still holding the sword, to the darkened stalls. Inspector Field led us up out of the darkness onto the stage.
“We’re done,” Thompson complained to Field. “I think ’ee’s tellin’ the truth. Now we don’t know ’oo put ’im up ta it.”
“Patience, lad,” Field was almost fatherly in his consolation to Thompson, “every bit o’ news ’elps. We’ll find this ’ooded man if, indeed”—and he cast a baleful glance accompanied by a violent scratch of his crook’d forefinger to the side of his eye at the snivelling Dunn, who was still kneeling hopelessly on the floor of the stage—“there really is a ’ooded man.”
Evidently Field was less disposed to believe a practised actor than was Tally Ho Thompson.
“Mind you, Mister Dick Dunn,” Field growled, “my men will be watchin’ yer every twitch. Don’t vary yer routine one quid, or I shall ’ave yew in Newgate quicker’n yew kin say John Barsad.* Git ’im out o’ ’ere, Serjeant Rogers.”
Rogers, not at all pleased at having been dispatched upon what he surely considered a trivial errand, dragged the shaken actor from the proscenium.
A contemplative Inspector Field sat down on the front edge of the bare stage. We all, Dickens, myself, and Thompson, reluctantly joined him there, sitting shoulder to shoulder, our legs dangling into the shallow pit that served as a moat between the stalls and the stage, the real world and that of make-believe.
“We’ve ridden the course an’ lost the race, ’aven’t we?” Thompson was glum.
“Not a’tall,” Field reassured him. “In fact, we ’ave learned quite a bit.”
“Such as?” Dickens prompted.
“Well, if Dunn is telling the truth o’ it, then our man speaks with a Spanish accent an’ is some’ow connected ta the Covent Garden Theatre.”
“Wot?” Thompson exclaimed. He jostled me roughly by accident as he turned in surprise toward Field.
“I beg your pardon?” Dickens pressed.
“’Ee threatened ta ’ave Dunn fired, didn’t ’ee? Turned out on the streets ’ee said. Therefore, our ’ooded man must know that Dunn, like t’other o’ the fifth-business actors, lets a room belowstairs in the theatre. See, Mister Dickens, I too am doin’ my ’omework.” Field clearly took pleasure in surprising both Dickens and Thompson with this information.
“The fact o’ it is,” Field trotted on upon his little ratiocinative excursion, “that our ’ooded friend seems ta think ’ee ’as the power ta git ’im evicted. Now ’oo could do that? A blackmailer? Not likely. Dunn ’as no money ta squeeze, an’ only a limited usefulness. A powerful man in the theatre? Not likely again. Since the scandal of Paroissien,* Macready ’as ’ired only persons o’ impeccable character, that is, if those sorts are even ta be found in the actin’ profession, an’ certainly excludin’ Thompson.” Field pronounced this last with a mischievous pursing of his lips to subdue a grin. “But a man o’ some other sort o’ power then? Quite likely, in this case. Doctor William Palmer, the murdered woman’s ’us-band? ’Ee’s a patron o’ Covent Garden Theatre we ’ave found out, a new member o’ less than a year o’ Mister Macready’s governin’ board, right in there with Miss Burdett-Coutts an’ the Duke o’ Devonshire.”
Needless to say, all of us sitting on that empty stage were astounded by Field’s new information. Rogers had returned just in time to share in his master’s triumph. “I’d like ta see the look on Mister Dick Dunn’s face when this Doctor Palmer’s name is mentioned,” Rogers crowed.
“No. ’Tis much too soon for that,” Field cut him off. “We don’t want ta spook our Doctor Palmer jus’ yet. If Dunn is ’is creeture, t’will come out nat’ral in the course o’ things.”
“Does not his hooded man seem a bit melodramatic?” Dickens’s skepticism went in the face of Dunn’s obvious upset under Thompson’s blade. Dickens’s skepticism also embraced the highly unlikely possibility that Dick Dunn was one of the more convincing actors in England.
Field pondered that a moment.
“Dickie Dunn is diff’rent, ye know,” Tally Ho Thompson interrupted Field’s reverie. “They says ’ee goes with wimmin an’ men. That’s just wot I’ve ’eard.”
“Hello! Now there’s a reason for blackmail.” Field seized upon it. “Per’aps the ’ooded man story wos a lie, or ’alf a lie, just a desperate ruse ta ’ide the identity o’ some’un Dunn fears even more than Thompson’s sword.”
“And yet the man was crying and trembling in fear,” I reminded them. “Those are not easy emotions to counterfeit.”
“No, an actor kin do those things.” Thompson’s voice was regretful. “I never should ’ave let ’im up. I should ’ave sliced off ’is ear. We must git ’im back up ’ere an’ go at ’im again.”
“In time,” Field said, as he tried to calm his excited highwayman, “all in good time. Let ’im recover from this shock. Let ’im think ’ee ’as gotten away with it. We will talk ta ’im when needs be. ’Oo I wants ta talk ta now is the ’usband, this Doctor Palmer. Wot time is it anyways?”
I reached for my gold repeater hanging on its gold fob in my vest coat pocket, but it was gone.
“Two o’ the clock,” Serjeant Rogers beat me to the honours as I searched all of my pockets for the missing timepiece. In my bewildered turning of my pockets inside-out, I failed to note the look of amusement that crept up out of Field’s shirt collar and took his face into custody.
“Thompson?” Field finally prompted, even as I still wondered where I had misplaced my ticker.
Everyone turned to Tally Ho Thompson.
Sheepishly he fished my shiny gold repeater out of his trousers pocket. “Gots ta keep me ’and in, mate,” he, utterly unremorseful, shrugged to the others and apologised to me, the injured party. “I’d a given it back ta ’im, Guv,” he pled his case with Inspector Field. “Can’t blame me, wos jus’ sittin’ right out there beggin’ ta be lifted,” he justified himself with another shrug to the assembled company as he handed it back to me.
Everyone laughed heartily at this little diversion. Everyone but me, that is. I was sick of being the repeated butt of Thompson’s slick-fingered jokes. Serjeant Rogers laughed greatly to excess.
“Palmer’s surgery is at Bart’s.” Field was on his feet. “Per’aps we can still catch ’im there this afternoon.”
Dickens’s face was positively animated at the prospect. Now we’re getting somewhere, I could see him thinking, beard the lion in his den.
As we exited the theatre by the stage door, Inspector Field stopped Dickens and myself, drew us back inside for a brief conferral: “This case smacks o’ that last we worked together, don’t it gents?”
Dickens did not answer. Perhaps, like me, he was not quick enough to follow Field’s flow of thought. Field sensed this from our silence and elaborated: “Nothin’ is ’arder for me ta stomach than a swell ’oo thinks ’ee kin git away with murder jus’ because ’ee’s a swell. Rich men seems ta think they’re exempt from the laws just because that ’as always been the case. But ’at don’t mean it always will be the case. Or that ’tis the case right now, even though our friend Ashbee an’ all ’is fancy solicitors ’ave proved so far it ’tis.”*
* * *
*A stage term for those actors who play all the nameless supporting parts.
*See Collins’s first secret commonplace book.
*After researching the newspapers and broadsides of the day, I have been unable to unearth the source of or explain the allusion to this name. The fact that the name “John Barsad” appears later, appended to a character in A Tale of Two Cities, intimates that it was a recognizable name and allusion for its time, but has since lost its meaning and dropped out of use.
*In Collins’s first commonplace book, Paroissien was the sinister stage manager of Macready’s farewell production of Macbeth.
* That previous case, as described by Collins in his first commonplace book, came to an unsatisfying disposition. The rich antagonist, one Lord Henry Ashbee, was never brought to trial for his crimes. This misfiring of justice, however, was less due to Ashbee’s clever solicitors than to Dickens’s and Field’s unwillingness to press a prosecution, which would surely have incriminated the young actress, Miss Ellen Ternan.
A “Spainiard” at Bart’s
January 18, 1852—late afternoon
Bart’s, as it always had been familiarly known, or Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, as it is formally designated, is an island marooned in the encompassing shadow of Newgate, a shadow that seems to loom darkly over my entire memoir. The black Bow Street Station post chaise, which ferried the five of us from Covent Garden Theatre to Bart’s by way of High Holborn, glided to anchor at the Newgate Street entrance to the hospital.
In the coach on the dash crosstown, Inspector Field relayed to Dickens and me full instructions as to how to conduct ourselves at Doctor William Palmer’s surgery. Field desired ours to be a private inquiry. Palmer, Field presumed, would surely have read of Dickens’s and my connection to the escape of Tally Ho Thompson, and thus would be somewhat suspicious of our visit. Field was gambling, however, that Palmer would not be nearly as threatened by our coincidental visit as he might be if Thompson in the flesh accosted him. We gathered that Field was keeping Thompson in reserve, in the manner of a general holding back his cavalry for some fortuitous moment when he meant to spring him on the “swell,” Palmer. Field also theorised that we could not be sure that Palmer had never observed Tally Ho Thompson from afar, either onstage or by some other spying arrangement, and thus he did not wish Palmer to recognise Thompson right off and become skittish. Pursuant to all that speculation, when we arrived at Bart’s, Inspector Field immediately dismissed Thompson in Serjeant Rogers’s custody, sending them in the post chaise back to Captain Hawkins’s Shooting Gallery. Rogers took the news like a man ordered transported to the colonies of Australia. The bitter resentment that opined Why do these writer swells get to stay on the case while I am sent off to baby-sit? bloomed in his face like a huge weed in a rock garden.
As the carriage trotted off with its unwilling passengers, leaving us standing on the narrow stone steps of Bart’s, Field bestowed upon us our final instructions.
“I’m not goin’ in with yew, gents,” he informed us. “At this point, ’tis still ta our advantage ta not declare that ’ee is under official suspicion. But yew two kin still let ’im know that someone is interested in ’im.” What followed was a somewhat shortened version of Field’s aforementioned “simply observe” speech, which he seemed to dust off for our instruction whenever he conscripted us to go on duty for him. His plan was for us to confront Doctor Palmer, inquire as to whether he knew Tally Ho Thompson or Dick Dunn, and observe his reactions. It all seemed simple enough, and we left Inspector Field waiting in Bart’s outer doorway as we entered the hospital.
An Indian gentleman with one leg leaned precariously against the wall of the foyer. This teetering sahib directed us to an officious mountain of a woman with a wart on her nose stationed behind a low counter at the foot of the hospital stairs. This overstuffed mountain of pretension in turn ordered us to climb three flights of said stairs whose ascent delivered us to the outer holding area of Doctor William Palmer’s surgery. On a low bench against the wall sat an assortment of what appeared to be paying patients, persons of both sexes, holding their hats, babies, bundles, or purses upon their laps as they waited to be admitted to the doctor by a thin, sallow, sharp-faced woman dressed in an official-looking jumper of white cotton, and guarding a single wooden door leading into the inner sanctum of the hospital. With Dickens in the lead, we approached her congenially. She answered our greetings with the hostile scowl of an abandoned soldier guarding the last outpost of Empire.
“Doctor Palmer?” she answered our inquiry with a patronising amazement. “Good Lord no, oh no sirs, ’ee only visits the surgery on Weds’day morns. ’Ee calls on the most o’ ’is patients in their ’omes, ’ee does.”
“Well then, who are these people waiting for? Who is in charge of the surgery?” Dickens pressed a somewhat perplexed inquiry, although why he was perplexed, or why either Field or we expected to find a doctor of Palmer’s stature in his surgery in the first place, merely evidenced the naïveté on our part and, at that time, toward the Hippocratic dedication of the medical profession. Now, twenty years later, it is taken for granted that few doctors ever really attend their surgeries or are available when needed, certainly not a physician of the wealth and stature of a Doctor Palmer.
“Doctor Vasconcellas administers to the surgery patients.” She made a sour face even as she spoke, as if either that name gave her indigestion or speaking to us did.
“I realise that we do not have an appointment,” Charles’s voice dripped sugar as a hopeful antidote to the sour aspect of this guardian of the gate, “but it is most important that we speak to Doctor, ah, ah…?”
“Vasconcellas,” the hag reminded him with relish, though there was still almost an instinctual shudder of distaste in her voice as she spoke the name.
“Yes, Doctor Vasconcellas it is. I am sorry. I am Charles Dickens”—he handed her his card—“and this is Mister Wilkie Collins. It is not a medical matter, and will take only a minute or two.”
At the famous name, immediately reiterated and confirmed by the prized card, that pinch-faced Cerberus metamorphosed into the most accommodating of humanitarian practitioners. “Oh Mister Dickens, sir, I ’ave read all of yer stories”—not much of a recommendation for his readership I could not help but think—“especially that of Little Nell, poor thing,” the woman gushed with a sincerity and tenderness that belied the sour hostility of her previous address. “I will tell the doctor yew are ’ere. I am sure ’ee will be able to see yew soon.” With that, she scurried backward through that lone door like a mouse ducking into its hole.
Within moments, she emerged from that inner sanctum, and, without speaking, not wanting the waiting patients to hear, we presumed, she signalled for us to follow her down a dingy corridor and through another lone door where she deposited us in a shabby office furnished with a heavily scarred desk, two straight-backed wooden chairs, and a desk chair with its padding spilling out of a split seam. An oil lamp complemented the dim light struggling through a single filthy casement above the desk. It did not at all seem the office of a wealthy society physician. Perhaps it was merely his assistant’s workroom?
When the woman had left, after gushing some more sentiment having to do with “poor little Paul Dombey and the tragedy of Little Em’ly at the ’ands o’ that scoundrel on the boat,” I turned to Dickens quite puzzled: “What are we doing?” I asked. “Palmer is not here. What good does it do seeing his assistant?”
“I don’t know,” Dickens admitted. “I have no idea. I just thought we might learn something that Field could use. I hate to go away empty-handed.”
“But what do we say to this man?”
“I shall think of something,” Dickens was assuring me when the door opened.
The man who entered was short and wiry of stature, dark of brow, high and sharp of cheekbone, black of mustache and actively nervous about the eyes. His cheekbones and the deep copper of his skin signalled his Latin heritage, but if there was any doubt in either Dickens’s or my mind it was dispelled as soon as he began to speak. “Gentlemen,” he pronounced it slowly in the manner of one speaking a strange word with an illogical inflection in a newly learned language, “I Doctor Rodrigo Vasconcellas, Doctor Palmer’s assist. How do I help you?” The man’s voice was soft and passive even as he struggled with the unfamiliar words. Despite his wiry stature, which intimated a fit and muscled body beneath his morning coat, his delicate hands moved nervously as he spoke, and his
eyes never stopped darting from one of us to the other.
“Doctor Vasconcellas”—Dickens stretched out his hand. The man’s delicate gesturing hand swept up and was rather cruelly engulfed by Dickens’s paw—“I am Charles Dickens.”
“Ah yes, I been told. A great author I been told.”
Dickens bowed at this recognition, then charged on: “I had hoped to talk with Doctor William Palmer, but I am sure that you can answer my questions.”
“I weel try.” This Doctor Rodrigo Whatever was quite accommodating. He sat down at the desk and crossed his legs at the knees waiting for Charles to continue. I had not said a word, because, to tell the truth, I had not a single clue as to where this unscripted conversation was going.
“Missus Dickens, my wife,” Charles began, “is presently, and has been for some three years, under the care of Doctor Southwood Smith of Great Malvern. I am sure he is a fine doctor”—Dickens said this in a way that intimated quite the opposite—“the Queen places great confidence in him”—again Dickens said it in a way that questioned the Queen’s sanity—“but Missus Dickens is not getting any better and Great Malvern is not getting any closer.” He chuckled at his little joke. “Therefore, I am seriously considering placing her in the care of a London physician. Your Doctor Palmer’s name was brought immediately to my attention.” With that little canter over the fantastical ground, Dickens momentarily reined in to allow Doctor Rodrigo of the Spanish accent some time to ruminate. “I would very much like to discuss this with Doctor Palmer,” Dickens went on, before Doctor Rodrigo had opportunity to reply. “Could you possibly arrange an appointment for me to meet and talk with him? At his convenience, of course.”
“Sí. Yes, señor. I would be, how you say, pondered and incited to set down such a meeting.” The man was smiling idiotically as he spoke. I hesitate to speculate whether it was nervousness with us or with the language that made him so jumpy.
The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens Page 14