The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  Needless to say, Inspector Field had fully succeeded in garnering the sensationalistic coverage of his case that he desired. In that sense, Dickens’s and my escape charade had been unquestionably successful. When I had consented to be a part of Inspector Field’s plan, however, I had never envisioned being made a fool of in the popular prints.

  Accompanying the papers delivered by Sleepy Rob was a brief letter from Dickens:

  We are the talk of London, Wilkie. It seems that Inspector Field has pulled this one off. No word from him as yet. Has promised to summon us. It seems we are in the thick of it once again!

  Dickens’s excitement and anticipation of some new nighttime adventure veritably leapt from the terse note. He loves this intrigue more than all else, I could not help but think. More than our reputations. More than our very heads!

  After Sleepy Rob left, Irish Meg joined me for the perusal of our notoriety. She was impressed at how full the papers were of our names. My embarrassment at having been made to look the fool and then knocked on the head seemed not even an issue to her. “Yew’ve become a reg’lar item, yew ’ave, I’d sye.” Meg had that mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Pretty soon, yew’ll be a famous man jus’ like Mister Dickens.” Her face was all alight with the joy and the joke of it. “I’ll jus’ bet”—she pursed her lips in delight—“I could sell the secrets o’ yer sleepin’ ’abits ta one o’ these for a pritty penny.”

  She was wrapped in a cotton robe, and as she turned to flee I caught its tail in my lunging hand. The robe slid off her back as easily as cutting a page in a new book. She wore only red lace bloomers beneath. As I stood with her robe in my hand, she turned slowly to me, her hands cupped over her breasts. The eloquent dialogue of our eyes dictated our movements. I flung away the robe. She opened her hands and dropped them to her sides, revealing, inviting.

  I was in her arms in a breath. Her hands moved to my face, pulled me to her mouth. Our tongues engaged in a dialogue that predated words. I could read the imagery in her touch, her kiss. There was a wildness about her as if those words, my name in those newspapers, had inflamed her, fed her need to reassert her possession of me. Her leg wrapped around the back of my knee. Her naked body pressed against me.

  I could read her control over me in her eyes, in her lips, in the heat of her skin. She was like a book one simply cannot put down, its pace and passion carrying you away. I was helpless in Irish Meg’s arms. There was a terrible irony to it. She was acutely aware of her power over me, utterly confident in her ability to control and possess me in the labyrinth of her sexual world. And yet, naked in her arms, slowly removing those wisps of red lace from her opening body, I have never felt so free, so unbound from my imprisoning Victorian world.

  There are different sorts of prisons. Lord Byron wrote of this irony in his poem about Chillon. I realise now, looking back upon those days when we feared nothing, that Dickens and I were constantly shaking the bars of our cells trying to somehow escape all the restrictions and hypocrisies of the age of Victoria. And yet, our sexual possession was a prison as well. His beloved Ellen, my Meg, they were the pages of our passion to be free, and yet they made us prisoners of their fire. We write volumes with our bodies just as we weave webs with our words, and we are all caught within this mad twisting dance of freedom and imprisonment. Like Empedocles longing for his volcano, I tore free from the crabbed prudery of our age and threw myself into Meg’s sexual fire where I was once again imprisoned in the sweet bondage of her arms, her legs, her seductive voice.

  I had planned on joining Dickens at the Household Words offices that morning to discuss the newspaper hullabaloo and, under the auspices of working upon the next number of the magazine, to wait for Inspector Field’s summons back into “the thick of it once again.” All of those fine intentions, however, were forgotten in a trice for the sweet imprisonment of Meg’s more enticing diversions. Those days were so carefree between us, so unthinking and abandoned. Love blazed up so easily. A smile, a touch, and we would be in each other’s arms. We fed the fire, bathed languidly in the flames. I am not sure that either of us ever understood the intricacies of our attractions to each other. We would spend whole afternoons in bed, slowly caressing, exploring every secret place, reading the eloquent chronicles of our freedom and imprisonment written in the feel and the smell and the taste of our passion. I wish Meg understood my attraction to her as a repudiation of my world. In moments of helplessness under her naked spell, I often told her that it was in bed with her that I felt most alive. But I also know that she was fully capable of exploiting my weakness for her, and she frequently did, glorying in her power over my darker half. And yet, there was no more willing victim in the age of Victoria than I.

  The Shooting Gallery

  January 17, 1852—mid-afternoon

  Three days had passed. Dickens was regaining his good humour, throwing off that fit of melancholy occasioned by his nightmarish sojourn in Newgate. He was, however, having greater difficulty conquering a messy head ailment and barking cough contracted in that damp prison chamber. When I arrived at the Household Words offices at mid-afternoon, Dickens was treating his head congestion with a steaming cup of English tea doctored with a strong dosage of Tollamore Dew. “I do not know if it helps against these sniffles and sneezes, Wilkie”—he grinned—“but a toddy like this warms me all the way down and I do not pay near as much heed to the discomfort.”

  “The Irish make it so that you do not care.”

  “Exactly.” He laughed.

  We speculated briefly upon the murder case, which was uppermost in our minds. Tally Ho Thompson had disappeared as if tumbled into a hole. Even Scarlet Bess had no word as to his whereabouts. Through Irish Meg, she had been plaguing me daily for news of her beau. Both Dickens and I were certain that Field had sequestered Thompson in a safe place but we had not a clue as to where.

  We worked about the office for the next two hours or so—I was preparing an article on the need for more lighthouses off the Devon coast as indicated by Lloyd’s List’s shipwreck statistics of the previous two years. Dickens popped his head in about six, a large white handkerchief dabbing at his inflamed nose, and proferred a familiar invitation: “Wilkie, will you dine with me? And then perhaps a walk? Good heated exercise is what I need to rid me of this stuffed head.” I, as always, assented. Dickens, just as promptly, sent a street porter to The Bride and Weasel in St. Martin’s Lane for chops, clamshell potatoes, and ale.

  We were just finishing, having laid out the delicacies upon Dickens’s desk in the bay window, when a loud knocking on the below-stairs door fractured our well-fed camaraderie. The door opened, to our surprise, upon Field himself. Our usual agent of summons, Serjeant Rogers, stood one step off his master’s shoulder like some oversized parrot awaiting permission to speak.

  “We’ve not far ta go,” Field announced without preface or explanation. “’At’s why I came ta yew meself, didn’t send Rogers ta fetch yew. ’Ee’s only in Leicester Square, ’ee is. We kin walk. Well, ’ow is it then? Are we game, gents?”

  I stared, popeyed with confusion I am sure.

  Dickens was all questions and enthusiasm.

  “Who is in Leicester Square?”

  “Why Thompson, of course.”

  “Why have you come for us?”

  “I want yew in on this interview. If yew’re game, I think yew can ’elp me on this case. It involves yer class ’o people.”

  “My God, Field,” I finally jettisoned my surprise and broke up their colloquy, “haven’t we helped you enough? I mean, really, helping him escape from Newgate, our names all over the papers…” I sputtered.

  “Oh, don’t mind Wilkie.” Dickens darted a silencing look in my direction. “I am quite curious to hear Thompson’s side of the story and quite eager, indeed, to continue on with this case.

  “And besides, Wilkie”—Dickens turned back to me with that mischievous twinkle in his eye—“the ‘Medusa Murders’ has a nice ring, does it not? Who knows, s
omeday perhaps you will write a murder mystery.”

  It was the old Dickens argument, resorted to every time he wished me to risk life and limb in the pursuit of one of his ill-conceived schemes. A novelist must throw himself into life as if it were a volcano, must partake of every experience which offers in order to write about it later. According to Dickens, a novelist must be fearless, willing to risk all for art’s sake. I must admit that I was much more than skeptical as to the efficacy of his theory. Nonetheless, as Dickens was well aware, that novelist argument always worked with me. Clearly, I desired to be a writer more than I desired to be a conventional Victorian gentleman. Dickens was a master at exploiting that weakness in my character.

  Each new turn in my narrative steps off with Dickens and me being summoned into the fray by Inspector Field, usually with Serjeant Rogers serving as his messenger. Thus summoned, we invariably follow along, caught in the pull of the plot. More interesting, perhaps, might be some accounting of the procedures that Field and his minions had exercised in order to reach our point of summons and precipitate the next break in the case, and carry forward the plot. I have written it before and must again: If Dickens is indeed a realistic novelist, then Field is a novelist of the real, in control of the plots of real life in the London streets. In the three days following the escape of Thompson from Newgate, Field and his constables had ascertained the whereabouts of one Dick Dunn, play actor; had received the surgeon’s report on the corpses of the two dead women; and had attended the funeral of Missus Palmer, the doctor’s wife, where they had unsuccessfully attempted to interview the grieving husband. As we prepared to accompany Field and Rogers on this foray into Leicester Square, we knew nothing about those preparations that had attended our summons back into Field’s plot.

  We stepped out of the Wellington Street offices into a regular “pea souper” as those too few lightkeepers on the Devon coast might call it. It was that typical London fog that spread itself over the city like thick frosting on a Bavarian cake. It coats you, fills up your pores, cuts off your air. We struck out into that suffocating fog like Livingstone into Africa. Nonetheless, Field actually seemed to know his way, and, as he had said, Leicester Square was not far. We tramped one direction and then another and then turned another way until I felt as if I had been soundly spun in a fogbound game of blindman’s bluff. Suddenly, however, we emerged out of the darkness of residential streets into the eerie gaslit haloes of a commercial oasis in that desert of fog.

  In those days, much different than it is now, the vicinity of Leicester Square was a twisted labyrinth of gaming dens, houses of low repute and ill fame, tattoo establishments, drinking rooms, pawnshops and billiard parlors frequented by street sharpers, more discreet swindlers of the moneylending sort, practitioners of the fencing of property sort, and mercenary soldiers of the murder-your-husband-or-wife-or-rich-uncle-for-ten-sovereigns sort.

  “Over ’ere ’tis,” Field’s voice floated out of the fog. I had simply been following close to the odd glimpse and the steady sound of his heels on the paving stones as we marched. “Down this alley ’ere, I’d say.”

  Amidst all of those shady dives of the disreputable sort and those gaslit houses of the gaming sort, Field led us to a doorway sporting a sign under a gaslit halo: CAPTAIN HAWKINS SHOOTING GALLERY. It looked to be a run-down warehouse of the low-rent sort.

  There was no indication whether that gallery was open or closed to sharpshooting business. Inspector Field assaulted the door with three knocks, then scratched the side of his eye with his crook’d forefinger as he waited for his answer. None was forthcoming. When the door did not open, Field did nothing, displaying more patience than a lawyer on a Chancery case. His exceedingly sharp forefinger continued to scratch at the side of his exceedingly sharp eye. As the wait lengthened and Field showed no inclination toward further communication between his knuckles and that door, I realised that those three hard knocks must have been a prearranged code.

  At long last, the door swung to and we were escorted in by a twisted apparition out of some pirate chronicle of Captain Cook’s voyages to the South Seas or Phillip Quarl or some like book. The man who bade us enter was less a man than a meeting place for spare parts. He stood upon one wooden leg with a smooth leather knee. He leaned upon one wooden crutch with a bright fabric armpiece curved nicely to fit the contour of his hunched shoulder. One eye was covered with a dark patch and one hand was shrouded in a dark glove. His back was humped like a Greenland Sea whale and his shoulders sloped like a decrepit stile. He was altogether one of the more pieced-together specimens of hurried surgery that any of us had ever encountered. I could not help but wonder how his body had come to such a state. But by far the most unsightly appendage to his mangled body was a dirty-green parrot, which appeared to be growing like a second head out of his canted right shoulder. The parrot, as if it too had been surgically connected to that miracle’s body, never teetered even as this agglomeration of artificial limbs lurched around the premises.

  “Welcome to Cap’n ’Awkins’ Shootin’ Gowry, Mince Lane,” that worthy greeted us, shooting a hilarious gap-toothed grin in our direction. It was, however, somewhat difficult to distinguish which of those two heads, his or the parrot’s, was doing the talking. “I knows yew an yew”—he rolled his heads at Field and Rogers as we filed into the dark hallway—“but ’oo is these two ducks?” He cocked his heads at us and grinned like poor Yorick’s skull squared.

  “Fock theer beerds, bloody poms!” his other head chirped gleefully. This wonder immediately ducked his occupied shoulder and took a swipe at his profane parrot with his gloved hand, but missed.

  “Don’ mind ’im, lads,” he apologised with the gaps in his teeth spreading into a fractured grin. “Bad infloonces shipboard when lamin’ the langwidge. Niver bin able ta cure ’im o’ it.”

  “Fock yoor eyes, bloody knockers!” his second head protested that patronising apology for its social shortcomings.

  This startling two-headed wonder ushered us into a large, long room with a high ceiling inadequately lit by a dingy skylight overhead. Four gaslamps illuminated the room. Two illuminated a long, narrow table holding an assortment of pistols and military muskets, which bisected the front half of the room; two more, at the far end of the room, lit up a number of objects lined up on a shelf (such as balls, bottles, playing cards, and paper circles) and effigies (such as birds, rabbits, lions, tigers, and bears) all made of paper and mounted upon sticks rising out of the floor.

  Waiting at the gun table were two men. One, a tall, broad-shouldered brute with an utterly bald head, either naturally so or meticulously shaved for intimidating effect, was quite frightening to look at. The other was Tally Ho Thompson, grinning his maddening grin of unconcern. No matter what his surroundings or circumstances, Thompson never seemed to care enough or be threatened to the point of not grinning. As soon as I saw him, my hand instinctively went to my fob to check upon the continuing presence of my watch.

  The bullet-headed brute stepped forward with his hand outstretched in the most friendly manner as we approached. My inclination, if I were being totally honest, was to shrink back, but Dickens took the frightening man’s hand and I stood ready to do likewise.

  “George ’Awkins ’ere,” he introduced himself in the most jovial of voices, rather quiet actually, not at all fitting his Thuggee appearance and intimidating size. “Yee’ve met Serjeant Moody I takes it.” He nodded to that twisted agglomeration of parts who had escorted us in. “Bert, we calls ’im. Short for Philbert, but ’ee ’ates the Phil. Wee’re just two ol’ sojers keepin’ on.” He was certainly hospitable enough despite his murderous appearance. As I took in the bluntness of his head, however, the broadness of his shoulders, the deepness of his chest, the thickness of his wrists, and the muscular tightness of his frame, I felt utterly convinced that I never wished to have that man angry at me.

  Thompson, likewise, was upon us immediately with outstretched hands. “Mates! Me mates!” He took one eac
h of our hands and stood as if looking for something to say, but unable to take himself seriously enough to say it. “Sorry ’bout those taps behind the eers,” he finally said, “’ad to do it, realism an’ all, yew know.” We sensed his sincerity. He truly wanted to thank us for abetting his escape but simply could not find the proper words.

  “All for realism, eh? We certainly know how that works, do we not, Wilkie?” Dickens laughed and clapped Thompson on the shoulder.

  “Bert, bring the gin bottle,” the hulking Hawkins ordered in an almost tender voice.

  “Aye Cap’n.” The little pieced-together man sidled off to obey.

  “The streets are almost clear, Thompson,” Inspector Field announced. “They’re losin’ interest in lookin’ for yew. Yer beerd an’ mustache are still a bit on the ragged side, eh?”

  Thompson laughed at that and rubbed his scraggly chin. “Another week or so”—he grinned—“an’ Scarlet Bess will scream rape when I sneak inta ’er room.”

  “There’ll be none o’ that for a while,” Field cautioned, “but we must begin puttin’ the fear inta the principals afore we lose the purpose o’ the play.”

  “I’m a’ready for that.” The eagerness spilled over in Thompson’s voice.

  Broken Bert returned with mugs of steaming gin.

  “Fock yoor bellies, bloody jack tars!” the parrot (whose name I learned later was Walter) shrieked.

  “Musn’t mind him,” Captain Hawkins apologised in that soft, accommodating voice that was so poorly matched to his huge intimidating body. “Grew up on a bad ship.”

  “What do we do now?” Dickens was just tossing his question into the centre of the assembled group, but then he turned on Inspector Field. “And why was it so necessary to get Thompson out of Newgate?”

  “Friend Thompson’s task”—Field’s forefinger crook’d across the corner of his eye—“is ta put the fear o’ God inta our murderer or murderers or whoever is spreadin’ this epidemic o’ Medusa death. Meantimes, I try ta find out ’ow those two wimmin died.”