The Dons and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  Young Morse nodded wide-eyed as he tried to chew his substantial mouthful of meat and answer Field at the same time. I was afraid he was going to choke, so eager was he to accommodate his detective idol.

  “Per’aps stirrin’ things up a bit will make one of ’em break cover,” Field went on, unmindful of poor Morse’s inability to reply. “Per’aps we can find out wot they are up to. If they are afeerd of us detectives findin’ them out,” and he tipped a conspiratorial wink to young Morse, who was still chewing violently, “per’aps they’ll forget that Miss Ternan is listenin’ in, too. They might let somethin’ drop to ’er just because they think we are the foremost threat.”

  “Yessir,” Morse finally was able to swallow and speak, but that was all that he could think of to say.

  “Also, this Barnet, who is so taken with Miss Ternan,” Field measured a thick slice of lamb on the end of his fork, then shook it deliberately at all of us around the table—Dickens, Dodgson, myself, Morse, and Serjeant Rogers—as if it was a pointer and he was some blunt teacher in a Ragged School, “’ee is their weakest link. We can exploit ’im, we can,” and Field punctuated his certainty by biting off about half of the strip of meat he was brandishing. “I’d like to get ’im alone and work on ’im, I would.” Field chewed speculatively, then lapsed into a long contemplative silence that made all of us believe he was hatching some new plan for the accomplishment of that task.

  “But there is other news from London,” Dickens cut through the silence which Field’s departure into his detective’s reverie had cast over our dining table. “Both the Queen and the P.M. are coming to Oxford in the next ten days.”

  “Something our fat little friend from the Home Office, Holmes, neglected to tell us,” Field sarcastically reentered the conversation.

  “Yes,” Dickens nodded in assent to Field’s emphasis upon Holmes’s impenetrability, “supposedly they are coming here separately, the Queen to Blenheim Palace for a brief respite from the city before all of the Christmas festivities begin, and the P.M. to speak to the Christ Church student body. But the speculation in the city is that they are here to hold a secret meeting on the problems with the Dardanelles.”

  “I can’t imagine that the Home Office didn’t know about that!” Field barked.

  “Nor I,” Dickens agreed.

  Then something that I am sure Dickens and Field had been discussing in the growler on the railway all the way from Victoria Station that afternoon suddenly came clear to all of us: a conspiracy of Dons, the Gunpowder Plot, nitroglycerine. Was the Queen (or the P.M.) the target of all this conspiring? Surely not. It was unimaginable. The supposed conspirators were Oxford Dons. Who would wish to harm Queen Victoria? She was England’s mum.

  “Do you really think that they’re goin’ to blow up the Queen?” Serjeant Rogers finally blurted out (in the crudest possible manner) that which all of us were thinking.

  “Not if I ’ave anything to do with it,” Field growled. “That is why we ’ave to find out wot this is all about, and find out quickly.”

  We finished dinner in near silence, broken only by the amenities of the table and the requests of the waiter. It was as if all of us suddenly realized that perhaps we were involved in something much bigger than simply the murders of two members of the Oxford community of scholars. For the first time in weeks, our thoughts on the case were wrested away from the hallowed halls of Academia and forced to look at things in the context of the wider world.

  We arrived at the Bulldog at half nine. Morse and Field, acting professional, marched in after Dickens, Dodgson, and I had been seated. Evidently, Rogers had been told to lay low, Field not wanting to give up the identity of all his associates in the case. Thompson was in residence at the tap, sipping noncommittally on a pint of dark Irish stout. The public house was not crowded, and when Morse and Field entered they gave no evidence of any acquaintance with us, but proceeded directly to the back room to beard the Dons in their den. No one paid much attention to them as they passed through. Ellen was collecting a tray of drinks at the tap from Irish Mike.

  I can only report from hearsay what conversation was exchanged when Morse and Field joined the Dons in the back room, but their tête-à-tête went on for some forty-five minutes as Dickens, Dodgson, and I amused ourselves over our pints discussing various subjects in which none of us had a great deal of interest. Dickens could not keep his eyes off of his Ellen as she moved about the room serving the pub’s sparse clientele. We had been directed by Field to surreptitiously direct Ellen to meet us in the church after closing to report on her progress. I could see that Dickens waited eagerly for the opportunity to speak to her, to impart that message certainly, but also just to hear her voice, to look into her face in close proximity.

  After the aforementioned time, their business evidently concluded, Morse and Field emerged from the rear room and passed out through the street doors of the establishment. Heads did not turn. No one seemed to notice, much less care about either their coming or going. We stayed on until closing time at Field’s direction to observe any reaction that the accosted Dons might have to the London detective’s visit. But, if anything, as they left the public house at closing time with the rest of us, which had shrunken to a rather small number, they did not seem excited or in confusion. Rather, they seemed more subdued than their usual drunken, arrogant selves. The Dons dispersed in different directions, heading for residences in their respective colleges as Dodgson and I crossed the street towards his rooms in Tom Tower. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Thompson sauntering up the hill. A man in a brown Mackintosh was following a few paces behind him going in the same direction.

  Dodgson and I entered the tower gate, greeted the porter, but did not go up. We waited until all of the Dons had dispersed, and then, checking the street to see that it was deserted, we made our way up St. Aldate’s to the High Street, then halfway down to the dark bulk of St. Mary’s Church.

  Plotting a Don’s Downfall

  December 8, 1853—Midnight

  St. Mary’s Church at midnight was no more inviting than it had been that night almost a week before when we had met there for the first time. Gloomy from its blackened pillars, mouldy with winter damp to its scenes of martyred saints staring down in pain from the stained-glass windows, it was an unwelcoming place. God may have been present in that church, but I got the feeling that at night He chose to frequent some cheerier places.

  Field, Rogers, and young Morse were waiting for us when we arrived.

  “Well, that was an interestin’ evenin’,” Field opened congenially as our two groups came together directly in front of the main altar. We commandeered two pews and ranged ourselves facing each other for the purpose of discussion.

  “For you perhaps!” Dickens growled. “At least you had the entertainment of talking about the case. We had to sit there drinking that awful treacle that Irish Mike serves and looking as if we were having just a splendid time.”

  We were just finishing this petulant exchange when Ellen Ternan arrived, followed in due course by her faithful shadow, Tally Ho Thompson.

  “Aha, we are all ’ere,” Inspector Field convened us as if we were the church choir come to rehearse. “Our exploratory foray into the lion’s den produced little of value,” he began his report of how he and young Morse had accosted our Dons in their pub. “But now they know that we are lookin’ at them.”

  He looked around at all of us as if he expected questions. None forthcoming, he asked one himself. “Wot do you think, Reggie?” he addressed young Morse. “Did we capture their attention?”

  “Oh yes, sir, we did, sir,” that worthy eagerly supported Field. “I think we made summat of ’em quite nervous, sir. In fact, when you announced who you was, sir, I thought that little Squonce one of Balliol was goin’ to choke on ’is bitter.”

  “They gave up almost nothing,” Field turned back to the rest of us, “which means that they ’ave a great deal to ’ide. When I asked about Ackroyd and
then Stadler, they fell all over themselves expressing their grief, their loss, and their total lack of even the slightest idea why anyone would want to kill their colleagues. Oh, that’s the way it went all right, and it was enough to make you want to cuff them ’ard about the ears. Oh, they’re a smug lot, they are. It’s goin’ to give me real joy to bring some of them down a peg or two, it is.”

  “Some of ’em, especially that little Squonce of Balliol, the Literature Don, and Carroll of All Souls, spoke quite a lot,” young Morse consulted his small notebook. “Some of the others ’ardly spoke at all. They seemed ’appy to let that little ponce, Squonce, be their spokesman.”

  “Our friend Barnet of the boat’ouses said very little.” Inspector Field shot a quick glance Miss Ternan’s way.

  Ellen flinched, as if she would have preferred to keep the representation of her fledgling relationship with that man for her own report, even though it was all part of the play that Inspector Field was directing.

  It was Dickens who broke the awkward silence. He reaffirmed his support for his Ellen. “Ellen, Wilkie tells me that you have been successful in gaining the confidence of this Barnet.”

  Now it was my turn to flinch under Ellen Ternan’s sharp glance. Dickens had thrown me to her as the spy, the Peeping Tom.

  “I asked Wilkie to keep you in his sight, Ellen,” Dickens leapt to my defense when he observed the momentary awkwardness between us, “sort of a backup for friend Thompson here, in case Tally Ho would get overpowered or deceived. For your protection.”

  “Well, then,” and there was a mischievousness in her voice, “perhaps I should just let Wilkie or Tally Ho give my report of the last few days.”

  She was teasing Dickens, and it was obvious to everyone. Her sarcasm actually lightened the gloomy atmosphere of that infernal church. Field certainly was right about picking St. Mary’s at night as our meeting place. Nobody in their right mind would ever disturb us there.

  “No, I think you can tell us yourself,” Field played along. “From what I ’ear, things are moving along quite nicely, eh?”

  “They seem to like me,” Ellen Ternan began. “They do not stop talking right away any more when I come to serve their pints. I have heard all sorts of things. I do not think they know who killed the other two because they all seem affrighted by it. If it is one of them, he is alone in the killings, because all of them could not be acting their panic and fear that well. One of them could be an actor, but not all. And they are all terrified, afraid that they will be the next. Beyond their fears, they are hiding something, or planning something. I do not know what. I have heard them say: ‘Should we go on with it? Should we see it through?’ Things like that make me think that these murders were not part of their plan.” She paused for a brief moment to catch her breath.

  “And then there is Barnet, out boat’ouse Don, wot of ’im?” Field prompted.

  “Ah yes, John Barnet; a real man about town, he thinks he is. Unlike the others, he drinks absinthe in the pub. It gives him his courage and makes him think he is God’s gift to womankind. He has promised to tutor me in the sciences. He likes the idea of me walking out with him, especially to his beloved boathouses. I have already survived their evil reputation once, though Tally Ho was stumbling around us playing drunk while John was trying to seduce me.”

  “Oh, it’s John, is it?” Tally Ho Thompson taunted her.

  “Yes, we went for a walk to the boathouses at the height of the day and, and,” she faltered, “and I just let him kiss me, but it went no farther.”

  “Go on, go on,” Field prompted her eagerly.

  “That is all of it. He tried to get me into the boathouse. To do more perhaps. Oh, I do not know.” This was proving difficult for Ellen because she had to tell it all right under the silent gaze of Dickens, her lover. “I got away from him. I told him I had enjoyed the walk, but I had to get back to the pub. He tried to argue me out of it and into the boathouse, but I would not go. But he is going to want me to go back there. I know he is.”

  “Good,” Field pounced. “That is exactly what I want you to do.”

  “What!” Dickens leapt to his feet. “You cannot be serious! It is too dangerous. No! I will not allow it. My God, man, anything could happen to her once he gets her inside and out of sight.”

  “Oh Charles, calm yourself.” Field treated him like some minor annoyance, a persistent fly, or a loud noise in the street. “We will already be inside the boat’ouse watching ’is every move, ’earing ’is every word. In fact, once Ellen gets as much out of ’im as she can, I might ’ave a little talk with ’im myself.”

  Now Field took the stage, getting to his feet and walking out in front of the pews in which we were all sitting, dismissing Ellen Ternan as just one of his minions, and taking over all the attention for himself.

  “’Ere is ’ow we will do it. Early this evenin’, I sent young Morse ’ere to reconnoitre the boat’ouse that friend Barnet seems to favour. ’Ee reports that it is well appointed for our purposes, and this Barnet’s. We can set up surveillance behind the rowing shells, which are rather tightly stacked on racks. It seems that friend Barnet ’as a small space in the front of the boat’ouse furnished for ’is purposes. A sofa, a table, a rug on the floor, nothin’ fancy at all, you see, but good enough for a seduction. That is where ’ee will take ’er. We will be able to see and ’ear all that goes on. Per’aps we may need to intervene if things get out of ’and or finally to obtain the information that we need. But first we will let Ellen try ’er best with ’im.”

  I could see on his face that Dickens did not like Field’s plan, but he chose not to speak out.

  “This Barnet is the weak link in this little conspiracy,” Field forged on. “If we can break ’im, then we will ’ave them.”

  “But why must Ellen be the bait for the trap?” Dickens finally made his weak protest. “It is her, her”—he seemed to struggle for the fitting word—“her virtue which is at risk.” He intoned that word “virtue” somewhat sheepishly, as if, in light of Ellen’s own past and his relationship with her, he was himself skeptical about just how fitting it might be. Or perhaps it was just a sense of himself sounding pretentious or prudish that made him hesitate on that word.

  “Come, Charles, she is an actress,” Field’s voice was all pacification and assurance, “and a damn good one, I would say. Why, she ’as the gigolo of a Don eatin’ out of ’er ’and, she does. And ’ee ’olds all the information we need, the answer to our questions. We needs to turn ’im, one way or another, to doing our bidding, not theirs.”

  “He thinks that I want an education, Charles.” Ellen turned to him to try to explain. “Since Oxford is all men, he thinks that I’ll do anything to get him to teach me the secrets of his science. He thinks he owns me because of his knowledge. It will give me great pleasure to turn the tables on him, to unmask him as the Parson Square that he is.”*

  Everyone laughed at her allusion. Even Dickens could not help but see the situation as it really was. Ellen was doing the acting job that Inspector Field had sent her to do (and Dickens had pledged to support), and she was doing it quite well. This was no time for Dickens to balk or become faint-hearted simply because that acting role involved the ostensible proffering of sexual favours for knowledge. Ellen was simply playing Faust to Barnet’s Mephistopheles.*

  Dickens acquiesced, subsiding into a somewhat sullen silence.

  That settled, Inspector Field proceeded to set out his plan. Ellen Ternan would accept Barnet’s next invitation to walk out and would tip Thompson as to the time and place. Prior to the appointed time, we—Field, Dickens, Dodgson, and myself—would secrete ourselves in the boathouse. Ellen would lure her Don to the place of assignation, and as he attempted to seduce her, she would try to catch him off guard concerning the plots of his fellow Dons.

  “Fine. Wonderful. Now let’s git out of this infernal dark cellar,” Thompson suggested none too shyly. “I’m freezin’ and my teeth are chatterin’.”

/>   No one raised any objection. I think we all felt oppressed by the gloominess of that church.

  As we filed out of St. Mary’s Church into the moonlit courtyard of the Radcliffe Camera, Dodgson fell back to have a brief word with Field. I overheard him say, “Inspector Field, I have an idea about this surveillance at the b-b-boathouse,” but the rest was lost in the clatter of all of our feet on the cobblestones of the courtyard.

  * * *

  *The allusion is to a prominent character in Henry Fielding’s novel, Tom Jones (1749).

  *The allusion is to Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.

  Parson Square Exposed

  December 10, 1853—After Closing

  It was two nights later, Saturday night in the Bulldog tavern, when our opportunity arose. The Dons were not in attendance, as was usual, since they did not frequent the pub on the weekends. The public house was crowded with people out celebrating their temporary freedom from labour and study and the sheer dreariness of winter. We had eaten supper at the Bulldog, mutton pie and Irish stout followed by apples and cheese. Then, with no Dons in sight, we had retired to Dodgson’s rooms to smoke cigars, drink a brandy, and otherwise amuse ourselves as we waited for something to happen. Dickens and Dodgson soon entangled themselves in a discussion of the London publishing scene and how it might receive a rather elaborate children’s story complete with illustrations which Dodgson was proposing to both write and draw.

  I soon grew bored by their conversation and took to entertaining myself with the telescope, watching the people crowding into the pub and moving through the street down below. It was almost ten of the clock when a familiar face caught my attention. Stopping in the centre of my eyeglass to light his cigar, he shouldered his way into the pub.