The Last Dickens

by Matthew Pearl

  “Yes,” Rebecca replied, uncertain of Osgood's train of thought.

  Knowing he was not yet being clear, Osgood put a hand up for her patience. He took up a magnifying lens from the shelf and lowered it onto the quill pen, squinting as he examined it. Then he stood, sat back down, and moved the moderator lamp to throw the light from a different angle.

  “Do you have a knife?” Osgood asked.

  “What?”

  “A knife,” Osgood repeated.

  “No.”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn't. Can we find one?”

  Rebecca exited the library. A few minutes later, she returned with a small pocketknife secured from the captain.

  “Thank you.” Taking the requested tool, Osgood carefully put the blade to the end of the pen. “Hold the lens over this spot, please,” Osgood said.

  Peeling the surface of the nib, layers of blue ink fell away.

  “There!”

  The blue began to give way to layers of brown.

  “Look,” Osgood said excitedly. “Look what's underneath.”

  “It's brown,” Rebecca replied with disappointment after examining the underlayers of the tip under the light.

  “Just a moment, Miss Sand.” Osgood walked to a table at the other end of the library office and carried over a carafe of water and a stout glass. He poured a small amount of water into the glass, after which he swirled the tip of his finger until it was wet. He then removed that finger from the glass and rubbed the peeled nib of the pen. As it became wet, the dry brown slowly turned purple black.

  “See!” Osgood said, displaying the evidence.

  “It's black!”

  “That's iron gall, the same ink supplied at Parker's! When iron gall dries and hardens, it turns to a brownish maroon color. I think he used this pen in Boston,” Osgood declared. “This may very well show Tom Branagan was right! Drood ended before it began! When Herman went to Gadshill and Forster's office, he was looking for the wrong type of clue-he shouldn't have been looking for a piece of paper that might tell him what Dickens had planned for the rest of the book, but the very pen itself with which he had written it. This ink points us not back to England but right where we're headed!”

  “You think it possible he had written the second half first while still in Boston?” asked Rebecca.

  “When I asked him if there was any place he hadn't seen in Boston, he said he wished to see the Harvard Medical College where the infamous murder of Parkman had occurred,” Osgood mused. “He had also mentioned to us that he was preparing a new reading about Bill Sikes murdering Nancy from Oliver Twist. Perhaps the Chief had such murder stories on his mind, not only as a matter of local curiosity, but because he was already writing one himself! That is what brought Poe to his mind to begin with in his conversation on the train with Mr. Branagan and Mr. Scott!”

  “Mr. Osgood, You've done it!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Even if this is true, he didn't tell Mr. Forster or anyone else that we know of, where those pages are. We wouldn't know where to begin to look.”

  “Who else might he have told?” Osgood wondered out loud.

  “What about Mrs. Barton!” Rebecca cried out.

  Osgood looked over at her with surprise and shook his head. “The deranged reader? I can't imagine a less likely candidate for him to entrust his secret with, truly.”

  “I recall hearing at the office what Mrs. Barton had wanted that night. She was writing nonsense that she believed-in the disordered folds of her mind-was the next Dickens novel. She believed his next book had to be her next book: that they were one and the same, that the line between reader and writer had been erased. Mr. Branagan described Mr. Dickens having a gleam of sympathy in his eyes for the poor soul and he leaned in-after she had cut her own throat and it seemed every drop of her life was dancing out of her, she managed to ask about his next book-and he whispered to her.”

  “But Mr. Branagan said he hadn't heard what it was Mr. Dickens whispered.”

  “No, Mr. Osgood, but it might have been…” Rebecca said, bracing herself for the possibility, and willing herself the bravery to propose it. “If he was already writing Drood, it just might have been related to it, to put her at ease before she died. She may have received the answer we have been searching for-waiting for us back home in Boston!”

  Chapter 35

  Bengal, India

  THE RAIN HAD BEGUN AGAIN. AT THE JAIL IN BENGAL, THIS WAS a particular annoyance for the sentries on their rounds on the roof. On this day, the sentries were Officers Mason and Turner, of the mounted police patrol. As they passed each other, Mason paused to gripe.

  “Three days in a row to have guard duty! It's not right, Turner, when you're a mounted man! That superintendent Dickens is a damnable fool!” Mason cried, hanging on to his hat to keep it from blowing away with the wind. “I thought he was a good man, I vow I had, until now.”

  Turner stared up at the sky. Though it was the middle of the afternoon, it could have been midnight it was so dark; the flash of lightning, and then a fast peal of thunder shook the rooftop. The storm was as bad as they had seen all season. “There aren't good men in the public service, Mason, I suppose,” he said with a bitter tongue.

  “I'm going into the box until it stops. Won't you come?” Mason asked. “Turner, what's that?” Mason was looking at Turner's carbine, with its bayonet fixed. “You know you can't have the bayonet up here. It's in the rules. It can attract lightning.”

  Turner screwed his eyes and looked away from Mason. “That damned dacoit is in this jail. The one who stole the opium.”

  “So?”

  “They blame us for having let him flee in the first place, but he's more dangerous than they know. I'd like to speak with him.”

  “We're on duty! Now come on into the box!” Mason shouted to be heard over the sound of the storm.

  Before Turner could reach the door down into the prison, it opened and a man stepped out. The crackling light from the sky showed it to be Frank Dickens.

  “See here, Mr. Turner,” Frank said. “You will be glad to know we recovered the stolen opium chests from where they had been buried in the ground.”

  Turner's eyes showed signs of relief.

  “The case is not closed though, I'm afraid,” Frank continued. “You see, in the bungalow of Narain, the thief that leaped from the train window, I found several books-and annotations inside them. Records in the margins, actually, of transactions and bribes to officials, native and European. In another book was a record I have deciphered with great effort, of a recent bargain with you.”

  Turner shook his head vigorously. “I don't know what you mean!” Mason, coming back out into the rain from the shelter of the guard box, moved closer and listened.

  “You volunteered,” said Frank calmly, “after the opium convoy had been robbed, so that you could see to it that the thieves escaped. However, with Mason at your side, you had no choice but to arrest one of them. You told Narain, when you were alone with him on the train, that if he said your name to anyone in the police, you would kill him. You told him if he wanted a chance at survival, he could jump from the train. He had a one in ten chance to live, I'd say.”

  Frank removed a stone from his pocket and placed it in Turner's trembling hand.

  Frank went on. “Only the other thief, who goes by the name of Mogul, escaped. He had known nothing of Narain's arrangement with you until after the theft, and that was what their argument was about that detained them at the receiver's house. In fact, Mogul was so fearful of you that after I captured him, it was only when he saw you waiting outside the interrogation room that he confessed to the inspector. It was you that scared him far more than his trial on the chabutra. If you had caught him in the mountains, I have no doubt he would have met the same fate as his accomplice by your hand. I wish to know this. Was it Hurgoolal Maistree who was directing the scheme?”

  Turner evaded Frank's glance.

  “Ingenious,” said Frank admiringly. “Maistree, the rec
eiver, had instructed the thieves to take only a few of the opium balls from each chest, replacing the others with rocks like this one. This way, if the chests were found, we could consider the case finished and perhaps not even notice the rocks until later examination, when we were occupied with new excitements. Meanwhile, he had paid you to pass along information about when the convoy would be at its most vulnerable, and to ensure that his thieves were not captured. With the total number of opium balls he had received, for which he paid the thieves perhaps less than a third of their value, he would have enough to make a substantial sale to a smuggler, and a big profit for himself.”

  “What is this about?” young Mason demanded hoarsely. “Turner, tell Superintendent Dickens he's mistaken!”

  By this point in the narrative, Turner's face had hardened and his hand stiffened on his bayonet, as if he would run his superior officer through the chest.

  Frank clapped his hands. Two police officers rushed onto the roof from the stairway below. They surrounded Turner.

  “He was a darkie dacoit!” Turner shouted, his teeth grinding, his voice hollow.

  Frank Dickens nodded. “Yes, he was. This isn't about talking Narain into his jump-good riddance to him. You don't seem to recognize, Mr. Turner, that it is our responsibility to ensure that the opium trade moves freely and safely through Bengal and to China. In contributing to its disruption, you contribute to those who wish the European success around the world to fail. You leave room for smugglers and traders far less reputable than those our government chooses to make partners in these endeavors-harming not only the English, but the natives in India, in China, around the globe. It is Bengal's right to share in the prosperity of civilization.”

  Frank bowed with satisfaction, leaving his inferior officer prisoner of the other policemen.

  “Damn you!” Turner screamed over a peal of thunder. “Goddamn you and goddamn Charles Dickens for bringing you onto this earth!”

  ALONG THE RIVER GANGA, in the region bordering Bengal, was Chandernagore, a territory seized by the French years before. There in a palace sat a solemn Chinese man, called Maistree, in robes that sparkled as did the walls in delicate gold and silver leaf. Indian and Parsee servants brought him food and wine.

  One of the members of a Chandernagore criminal family entered and reported that the stolen opium balls had been repacked into sardine boxes and were ready for transport. He salaamed and left Baboo Maistree in peace. Maistree had lost two men, Narain and Mogul, through the course of this theft-Narain leaping to his death and Mogul sentenced to two years’ penal transportation. Plus a mounted policeman had been exposed. It was a large treasure, though, and there were always more men in wait for the next one. It required far more effort by the Bengal police to find one of his agents than it took Maistree to hire ten more.

  A tinge of worry might have been seen in a dull gleam in Maistree's eye as he swatted his spoon in his soup like an oar. He had not heard yet from the purchaser-whose name he did not know, for Maistree dealt only with the Parsee headman of the rugged sailors who came to take the disguised opium away. This man, Hormazd, Maistree knew, did not work on his own. He had always been reliable, though. Much of the palace where Maistree now sat had been built with money given by the unknown buyer. And as long as Maistree did not step one foot outside of Chandernagore, the English police in Bengal could not arrest him and the smuggling could continue.

  So what could be wrong?

  In fact, last time Hormazd had expressed a directive for Maistree to secure even more opium than the season before. Markets were opening, namely the United States. The purchaser wanted as much pure Bengal opium as could be smuggled out immediately, and the receiver should await their message with instructions for when they would pick it up.

  Yet here the next shipment was ready. Where was the purchaser?

  Chapter 36

  McLean Asylum, Boston, late at night

  WALKING BRISKLY THROUGH THE CORRIDOR OF THE HOSPITAL, Rebecca Sand had already braced herself for the bleak sights she knew to expect. It was hard, though, to keep that in mind, for the place seemed more like an English country home than a hospital for the insane.

  Osgood had not even stopped at his home at Pinckney Street first or to see Mr. Fields at the office-he was too eager and asked to go directly to the McLean Asylum in Somerville.

  “Are you certain you would not like to go home, Miss Sand?” Osgood had asked her.

  “I am no more tired than you must be, I'm sure, Mr. Osgood. Besides, I don't think you'd be permitted inside the women's wing.”

  “Of course,” Osgood said, and then paused wistfully. “I am lucky to have you with me.”

  The hospital was separated into its divisions for men and women, all of whom came from circumstances of great wealth and status except for the occasional pauper patient taken in charitably. No person of the opposite sex could enter a wing unless a medical professional. Rebecca could hear women screaming and crying, but others laughing and singing, and she did not know which set of noises most unnerved her soul. All the windows were barred, the walls inside the rooms muffled.

  Reaching the privilege room, Rebecca was given a comfortable chair by a stout female attendant with a muslin cap and rosy face. Inside the dimly lit but lavishly furnished room there sat a woman looping a finger through her thinned, graying hair. Much of it had been pulled out, the rest tied on top and dripping with sad, multi colored ribbons. A wide scarf was wrapped around her neck. She did not look up.

  The attendant nodded to the visitor for her to begin.

  “Mrs. Barton?” Rebecca asked.

  Finally, the patient twisted her head in her direction. It was only momentary. She quickly returned attention to the wall.

  “Succubus,” said the patient in an embittered register.

  “Mrs. Barton, what I have come to ask is quite important. Urgent, in fact. It is about Charles Dickens.”

  The patient's eyes slid upward. “They told me he is dead.” Her voice was creaky and whispery, not the vigorous shout it had been in Tom Branagan's encounters with her. Perhaps her injury had changed the range of her voice. As the inmate-or “boarder,” as patients were called here-leaned toward her visitor, she asked, “Is it true?”

  “Yes. I am afraid so,” said Rebecca.

  Tears filled the patient's eyes. “They won't let me keep any of his books in here, did you know that? These ill-mannered physicians here say it excites me too much. They wouldn't even tell me how he died, my Chief. How did the poor Chief's mortal parts die?”

  “We don't want to excite her, miss,” the attendant cautioned before Rebecca could answer.

  Rebecca heard in Louisa's voice a promise of something in return, if she could give her something satisfactory. Rebecca tried to recall all the details she could from Georgina Hogarth and Henry Scott and relayed them: Dickens coming in from the chalet after a long day's work, collapsing at dinner, being moved by the servants onto the sofa, the heated bricks at his feet, the doctors coming one by one and shaking their heads hopelessly as the family gathered and stood by him in his final hours.

  “Now, as for Mr. Dickens's last book…” Rebecca said after this.

  “A New Book of Job by Charles John Huffam Dickens!” Louisa howled out in her old yell. Clearly getting this close to the heart of the matter had put her in a different state of mind. Rebecca decided it was the wrong approach to try to tell her anything about her purpose.

  “He whispered,” Rebecca said confidentially. “Mr. Dickens did. The Chief whispered to you the night when you picked him up from the street in that coach, didn't he?”

  After Rebecca had repeated the sentiment with slight variation several more times, Louisa nodded and said it was true.

  “What was it he said to you?” Rebecca asked carefully.

  She was nodding again and then she giggled. This was the satisfied giggle of a rich little girl of Beacon Hill at being given her first puppy. Rebecca, frustrated to her core, was about to shout. B
ut it was not clear the other woman cared a fig about what anyone needed, even herself.

  The patient pulled off the silk scarf from around her neck. There was visible a white, almost translucent scar across the neck, deepest on the right end, in the shape of an unfinished smile, which gave Rebecca the urge to run her hand across her own neck to check that it was in one piece. “He was right. He looked like a poem,” Louisa said suddenly.

  “Who did?”

  “He looked like a poem, can't remember which poem though,” replied Louisa. Suddenly, she seemed to have an Irish accent, eerily like Tom Branagan's. “Too many poets in America today!”

  “Tom Branagan. What was Tom right about?” Rebecca asked gently.

  “The Chief and that actress,” she muttered. “Nelly. He said the Chief loved her.”

  “There have been many slanders about him in the press,” Rebecca said.

  Louisa suddenly spoke as though the center of attention at a Beacon Hill dinner. “All well’ means to come. ‘Safe and well’ means not to come. While that nasty old widow was trying steal the Chief away for herself, I took it so nobody else would steal it and print it in one of the profligate papers!”

  Rebecca waited for more, shaking her head. “I don't understand.”

  “No, you don't! I'm sure you couldn't ever have understood, you're such a nice girl and dim-witted.”

  Rebecca, frustrated, looked for help at the attendant, who was sitting patiently. In response, the attendant removed a pair of keys and silently motioned for Rebecca to follow her to a closet door on the other side of the room, away from Mrs. Barton.

  “This is where we place the materials that have proven too combustible to her mind, Miss Sand,” said the woman quietly, bending down and pulling out a red calf-leather book, only a few inches tall and wide, that could fit in a small coat pocket. “She claims this was Charles Dickens's diary. Said she had taken it from a trunk in the Westminster Hotel in New York.”