Thompson’s bay horse was drinking calmly from a small ditch up the path and Dickens was dashing straight for it. Charles certainly was athletic and always kept himself quite trim, but, at that time in our acquaintance, I had no evidence whatsoever that he had ever sat upon a horse in his life. Therefore, I was utterly astonished to see him pull himself onto Thompson’s mount and ride off toward the Druid’s Oak in pursuit of Palmer.*
“Hi didna know hee could ride,” Rogers verbalised what we all were thinking as we stared off in astonishment after Dickens. On horseback, in pursuit, “the Inimitable” was galloping off into the highroad toward London.
* * *
*According to Peter Aycroyd in his biography Dickens (1991), Charles Dickens early in his career (1839) would do “his writing in the mornings, his riding in the afternoons, alone or with Forster” (p. 270). Thus, he was no stranger to horseback.
After the Fox
February 4, 1852—afternoon
Dickens, by some miracle managing to stay aboard Thompson’s horse at a full gallop, disappeared over the crest of Downshire Hill. With the same tenacity he tapped when writing his three-decker novels, he had ridden off unhesitating in pursuit of a conclusion.
It took long moments for our ragged company on the heath to gather its collective wits. Perhaps none of us possessed the inventiveness and imaginative drive that had mounted Dickens on that horse and so precipitously sent him off in search of his ending. Irish Meg rushed up and was designated nurse to Tally Ho Thompson by Field’s sharp order. Sleepy Rob and his cab were left at Meggy’s disposal for the transport of our injured friend to hospital. Indeed, Meg laughed later about Thompson’s insistence that they stop for a drink at the Spaniard’s Inn before proceeding into Hampstead proper to find a bone-setter. (Meg speculated, just between us, that Thompson’s bravado was but a ploy to gain sympathy and attendant mothering from Scarlet Bess, who was quartered there.) Our fallen comrade attended to, Field and I clambered into the black police post chaise and, with Rogers flogging the horse from the box, we set off in pursuit of Palmer and that miraculous neophyte equestrian, Dickens.
Because of the large wheels on our coach, we were forced to stick to the road, such as it was, with its deep wagon ruts and muddy holes. We were forced to take the long way ’round the Druid’s Oak in order to enter the highroad at the base of Downshire Hill. Because Dickens and his quarry were well out of sight by the time we joined the chase in earnest, what follows is not a firsthand account of events, as the bulk of this memoir has been. What follows is Dickens’s account, much of it in his own words (always more elegant than my own) narrated afterward in the Lord Gordon Arms, of his single-minded pursuit of our flushed poisoner.
“I rather enjoyed the horse-riding,” Dickens laughed with Thompson then. “Took to it rather well, I think.”
“Sirtennly quick, I’d sigh,” Thompson joked. “Satan’s suspenders! Yew jus’ climbed on an’ rode off like some buckskin postman in the American Wild West.”*
“I had no idea at the time why he rode off like that,” Dickens admitted, “but he seemed worth pursuing, for whatever reason.”
At that, Inspector Field gave Dickens one of his rare smiles. “I’ve always said yer instincts as a detective wos sharp”—he raised his crook’d forefinger to the side of his eye—“but yew were as mad as ’im ta ride off like ’at on a strange ’orse.”
“For what good it did”—Dickens shrugged—“you are certainly right.”
As Dickens told it, he had all he could do to keep Palmer in sight and hold on to Thompson’s horse. The chase thundered down the highroad to Highgate Hill, then up and over into Kentish Town.
“It was there, on Highgate Hill, that I began to gain on him,” Dickens took up the story. “His black horse, carrying at least a stone more than mine, began to tire, I think. The persons in the carriages we passed on the highroad must have thought us two wild Indians. Two well-dressed gentlemen chasing after each other on lathered horses.”
“As we crested Highgate Hill, Palmer realised it was I and that I was after him. I think it angered him all the more. Or perhaps his horse badly needed a blow. I know not why he stopped, but in the centre of the hovels of Kentish Town he reined in. He turned his horse to face me head-on as I galloped up. As for me, I was struggling to keep my seat on Thompson’s bounding devil.
“He was standing in the stirrups astride the highroad glaring murderously with his whiphand ready to strike when I rode up. But I was not able to stop the horse. I rode right by him and he watched me go with a look of astonishment upon his face. I must confess, it took twenty more strides before I got the animal under control.”
At this point in Dickens’s tavern narrative, the whole company, led by Tally Ho Thompson, burst out in uncontrollable laughter.
“‘Damn you, you bloody fool!’ Palmer screamed as my horse bolted and jumped backward and forth as I tried to control it with the reins.”
“’Ee is a puller,” Thompson lent factual support to Dickens’s narrative.
“At that,” Dickens went on, “Palmer spurred his horse straight toward me and, screaming ‘Why do you plague me, you bleeding sod? You cannot even ride that horse!’ or something like, took a murderous swipe at me with his whip.”
“I felt as if I had been cast unarmed into the midst of some latter-day medieval joust. I was utterly helpless before his rush. Thank God for the bay! Your horse is, I think, more intelligent than you and I together Thompson.”
That aside occasioned another volley of laughter from the assembled company as Dickens warmed to the absurdities of his story. I marvelled at how, in his inimitable style, he had transformed this life-threatening encounter into a comical narrative.
“As he bore down upon me, to strike me from the saddle, your horse, at precisely the right moment, shied away, almost tossing me into the roadway, but saving me from the blow of the upraised whip.”
Dickens took a needed draught from his pint, the showman, I am sure, building the suspense of his narrative, as we all waited eagerly for him to continue.
“Even as he overshot me and misfired with that slash of his whip, the devil was pulling hard on his reins. He wheeled the black around and I was sure he was preparing for yet another charge. He glared and cursed, but suddenly he seemed to alter his murderous intention. His horse was pawing the dirt some five or ten strides from a narrow indentation in the ground, which cut across the roadway like the bed of a shallow stream. Palmer was looking to his left in the direction of a growing sound, a low growl or whine like that of some mammoth beast charging down upon us.” The earth began to tremble. The poor patchwork hovels began to rattle on both sides. Palmer shot one last hateful look at me, wheeled his horse away, and put the spurs to the black beast.
Dickens’s comical style had given way to the virtuosity of his representation of pure horror. The whole company hung upon his every word and gesture. It was the murder of Nancy, the wild and twisted death of Quilp, bearing down upon us like a juggernaut.
“The ground shuddered and bucked. A huge fiery devil, spewing forth smoke and fire, spitting hot cinders in its wake like poison darts, bore down upon us.
“He spurred his horse and rode straight into its growing roar. A rush of fiery air blew off the rushing dragon’s smoking flanks. At the edge of its narrow sunken path, Palmer dug in his knees and spurred the black into a desperate jump over that narrow iron road. And then he and the great black horse were gone. That iron monster rushed by burying all existence in its sound and fury.”
Dickens had us all, he knew. With a maddening pursing of his lips, he fell silent. He reached for his pint, took a slow sip, then glanced ’round mischievously at the whole company, as if to say, My little story has captured your attention, has it?
“It was the morning mail to Scotland,” Dickens, after working us all up into this horrific suspense, spoke as calmly as a midwife. “He jumped the track and got away. At first, I thought he had ridden the horse right into t
he path of the onrushing train, but when it had passed by, horse and rider were nowhere to be found. As for me, I was flat on my back in the mud of the road with hot cinders raining down upon me. Your bay may be sharp, Thompson, but the steam engine’s rush and roar were too much for him. He tossed me like a skimmity witch.*
When we—Rogers, Field, and I—in the police carriage came upon Dickens, he was sitting dazed in the mud of the rail crossing with the haughty bay calmly grazing at his side and the urchins of the Kentish Town hovels timidly venturing out to peruse the oddity of this long-legged, unhorsed, quixotic gentleman brought to ground in their midst.
* * *
*Thompson’s reference is to the Pony Express riders of the American frontier who, by 1852, had been widely celebrated in the penny dreadful press.
*In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when the inhabitants of an English village wished to humiliate one of its women caught in adultery they would organize a “skimmity ride” in which a rag effigy of the offender would be tossed on a blanket while being paraded down the village streets.
The Murder House
February 4, 1852—evening
“Where ’as ’ee gone?” Inspector Field was, once again, communing with himself. “Why is ’ee runnin’ away?” Though Dickens, Irish Meg, and I were there, Field gave no indication that the questions were addressed to us.
With Serjeant Rogers on the box, we were all in the black Bow Street post chaise proceeding down the Hampstead highroad toward London. After helping Dickens up out of the mud where Thompson’s red horse had unceremoniously deposited him, and after dusting him off and otherwise restoring him with some brandy that Field kept handy in the police coach for just such emergencies, we felt obliged to return the bay to its owner at the Spaniard’s Inn and to ascertain the extent of that worthy’s injuries.
Among assorted bruises and whip welts, Tally Ho Thompson had sustained a broken collarbone, which a country sawbones had so securely trussed up that Thompson could barely raise his right arm. Due to this unfortunate incapacitation, Scarlet Bess seemed compelled to wait hand and foot upon her highwayman beau. One might have supposed that Thompson might grow grim from the pain of his broken bone, or frustrated from the failure of his ploy to draw out Palmer’s guilt, or embarrassed at having been unhorsed, but it was quite the opposite. When we peeked in upon his convalescence in an upstairs bedroom, he greeted us with a wink and, feigning great pain, implored Bess to provide us all with a tumbler of hot gin. She dutifully sprang to Thompson’s request as that worthy favored us with yet another wry wink. Having thus ascertained that Thompson was in good hands and having warmed his heart and our own with that aforementioned tippler of hot gin, the rest of us set off for London.
It was nearly five of the clock, and, spread out before us, a cold white winter sun was readying itself to set over the dome of St. Paul’s as we crested Holborn Hill and rolled down into the smoke of the city. Much to our perplexed amusement, Inspector Field was still muttering to himself. Bent forward on the edge of the black leather carriage bench, his forearms on his knees and his forefingers to his temples in a pose of intense concentration worthy of a sculptor’s art, his eyes boring holes in the horse-blanketed floor, our detective genius was, in unintelligible whispers, still puzzling out his next move.
“’At’s it!” he suddenly exclaimed, tapping his forefinger hard upon the leather of the seat between Dickens and himself. Meggy and I, occupying the opposite bench facing him, jumped at his sudden animation.
“What is ‘it’?” Dickens maintained enough composure in the face of Field’s violent declaration to pose the obvious question.
“’At is why ’ee ran.” Field’s head came up, his eyes wild with the possibility. “There is still somethin’ left, some last loose end ’ee ’asn’t tied up.”
“What?” Dickens pressed.
“I don’t know. Somethin’ incriminatin’. Letters? A diary? The poison, per’aps! It could be anythin’, but wotever ’tis, ’ee knows it could ’ang ’im.”
“His house,” we could barely hear Dickens say it. “The murder house in Cadogan Place,” he said it softly, speculating even as he spoke, like Field before, speaking more to himself than to his auditors. “You remember what Thompson said? ‘There is a secret in that house that we haven’t found yet.’ All along what Thompson said has been sitting in my mind waiting to be remembered. Palmer’s house, that is where I would look.”
Field levelled his gaze upon Dickens for a long moment. It was a taking-your-measure look, a just-how-serious-you-truly-are look. Field must have found what he was looking for in Dickens’s open gaze, for he again tapped his decisive forefinger on the stiff leather seat and, shouting up to Serjeant Rogers on the box, ordered; “To the murder ’ouse, Rogers. At a fast trot now.”
Serjeant Rogers drew us up, turned us around, and with a shout down of “Done, sir!” sent us hurtling off through the gathering dusk toward Knightsbridge.
The house was dark when we pulled quietly up on the narrow green in front.
“He is in there,” Dickens whispered, purely upon instinct (but Field had always averred that Dickens had excellent and uncanny instincts). Creeping around the house in Inspector Field’s wake, the five of us strung out in a line like an exploring expedition into the dark continent. We found Palmer’s black horse eating oats in a small stable in the mews to the rear.
“’Ee ’as been ’ere an’ gone or ’ee is still in ’ere.” Field clapped Dickens upon the back in reverence to both of their “instincts.”
“Too bad Thompson is not here,” Dickens whispered. “He would have us in the house in a breath.”
Inspector Field looked at Dickens as if insulted. “No need for Thompson,” Field growled. “I’ve kept the key we took off ’im the night o’ the murders.”
He ordered Rogers to stay with Meggy by the black horse. Rogers drew in a quick breath and we could see his disappointment. “Remember the Ashbee affair,” Field cautioned him. “Don’t come rushin’ ta our rescue no matter wot yew ’ear. Yer job is ta cut off ’is escape if ’ee gits by us.” Then Field grinned: “Chance ta use yer fishnet agin, this is.”
Rogers, of course, acquiesced to his superior’s plan and Irish Meg offered not a word of protest about being left behind. To be honest, I think she thought we were all deranged at best.
When you are breaking into a house where a murderer may be waiting, you long to be as invisible and as silent as a curious ghost. Field let us in with the key at the garden door. The high house was utterly dark and we stood still inside the door for long moments, in the kitchen, listening.
Nothing. Not a sound. Not the creak of a floorboard or the tick of a clock. Not a man crying or the scuttle of a rat. Only a trace of a sharp acrid smell in the air as if that weak scent were something—a gas? a fire’s fume?—seeping up out of a grave or a cellar.
“Smell ’at?” Field whispered. “’Ee’s ’ere an “ee’s burnin’ summan.”
Neither Dickens nor I answered. I was fighting to accustom my eyes to the utter darkness of the house. Since its mistress’s murder, it had been closed up, the windows shuttered, the furniture sheeted, the gas cocks all closed off. We listened another long moment. Field was getting his bearings, plotting his course. That smell had a chemical tint to it, the smell of the jugs in an undertaker’s embalming room.
When you are an amateur housebreaker standing in the dark of a strange kitchen of a house where murders have been done, a pressure starts to build within your chest, a heat begins to gather behind your eyes, a fear begins to dash frantically about in your mind. It is the feeling of a man lost in a labyrinth, his air giving out, the darkness impenetrable, and the sense that other animals are prowling those same confused corridors. With every sound, every smell, every breath of musty air, my chest was tightening, my fearful imagination starting to pulse. Needless to say, I was most uncomfortable waiting there in the dark of our good doctor’s kitchen. I had no sense whatsoever of w
here this whole heedless adventure was going. It all seemed like a novel willfully resisting resolution, refusing to offer that orderly ending of the sort for which Dickens was so famous. When Field lit his ever-present bull’s-eye, the sudden light in that black pit of threat startled me almost out of my wits.
“Step lightly,” Field whispered as he moved across the kitchen. We followed like the other two blind mice in the tow of their leader with his cane. Field’s cane of light, moving first from side to side on the floors and then up the walls and ’round the furniture arrangements of the rooms, led us slowly through doorways, down corridors, up stairways and into each room on the three ascending storeys of that narrow house. All was quiet, empty. Undisturbed dust had collected on the window sills and any other unsheeted surface.
As we moved through that murder house, that smell—or combination of smells, rather—became more prominent. No one seemed to be there, yet that sweet, acrid, burning musk was rising through that house as if someone, only moments before, had released it from its jar or set it afire in its iron barrel.
“’Ee’s ’ere,” Field repeated himself. “Yew kin smell ’im.”
I almost laughed aloud at Field’s way of putting it. It was a strange chemical smell that we had encountered in that dark, but it couldn’t be Palmer we were smelling. Or could it? There had been strange tales from America of the spontaneous combustion of human beings in The Times of late. Or perhaps he had doused himself with some chemical and set himself afire in some secret subterranean area of that house. Evidently we were all thinking the same things as we descended the stairway, and blindly followed the tapping beam of Field’s bull’s-eye back into the kitchen where our crack of Palmer’s house had commenced.
“There must be a secret cellar,” Dickens voiced our shared suspicion.
The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens Page 25