The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  “We’ll start with Dickie Dunn.” Thompson’s grin went a bit tight. “I’ll shake evrythin’ ’ee knows out o’ ’im an’ then I’ll wring ’is scrawny little neck. Arter all, ’ee almos’ got my neck stretched, didn’n ’ee?”

  “Yew’ll do no sech thing.” Field yanked on the chain of his eager bulldog. “Yew’ll face down yer actor friend, but yew won’t beat ’im. ’Is job is ta take the message ta Palmer, the good doctor. We want ’em ta know that yew are out an’ on the case an’ it an’t o’er yet. Remember Thompson, there’s a bounty on yer ’ead. Queen’s Bench offers ten pounds for ’elp in the capture o’ any escaped convicts. That oughta stir up all yer ol’ mates in Rats’ Castle.”

  Thompson grinned wistfully at Field. Did I detect a trace of bitterness around the corners of his grin? You fool, I thought, his grin is always the same and yet you try to read it as if it were one of Dickens’s new novels! For some reason, since the heightening of my association with both Dickens and Inspector Field, I had become much more inquisitive as to the inner feelings and motives of the people I observed. Pity I couldn’t find a way to get that type of reality, those secret things going on beneath the surface often so contradictory to what we say or do, down on paper.

  “In the old days, among the ’eyewaymen,” that wistfulness had transferred itself from Thompson’s grin to Thompson’s voice, “we ’ad the cutter’s law. It wos a rule o’ trust an’ loyalty. The cutter’s law don’ work in the city. ’Ere they’ll sell yew off for a glass o’ gin,” he opined, drinking off his own glass of hot gin.

  “Aye, those were good days,” Captain Hawkins agreed in his soft schoolmaster’s voice. I gathered that at some point he too had ridden the dark byways of Shooter’s Hill and Hampstead Heath.

  “Those days are gone for good,” Field mocked their nostalgia, “an’ so is yer sacred cutter’s law. In case yew’ve forgotten, yew work for me, an’ I’m the law now, ’ere in London. But the time may come when I’ll need yew again ta ply yer trade on the heath.” Then, as if talking to himself in an aside, “Gawd knows, soon enough the heath will be part o’ London any’ow.” He paused to digest that thought, then pointed his terrible forefinger at Thompson as a way of punctuating his next: “An’ don’ forget one other”—he was clearly sending Thompson a message of warning—“yew can be back in Newgate in the snap o’ my fingers. Yew know ’tis true.”

  No one spoke. Thompson, finally, laughed his heedless laugh and, making a deep actor’s bow to Inspector Field, said mockingly: “Gawd knows this ’uns eternally grateful for yer springin’ me from Newgate an’,” he added ironically, “Gawd knows I’ll probly be payin’ off that debt eternally as well.”

  At that, Field could not fight off his own little inscrutable grin. He and Tally Ho Thompson seemed quite clear on the terms of their agreement. Both also seemed quite clear on their adversarial duty to either exploit or violate that agreement. I got the distinct feeling that Thompson did not plan to be long under Inspector Field’s thumb.

  “I needs ta see Bess,” Thompson added, almost as an afterthought. “She needs ta see me in the flesh, or she could muck us all up with ’er ’istericks.”

  “I’ll ’ave Meg bring ’er ta yew,” Field said, begrudgingly.

  Dickens, no longer able to contain his curiosity, pressed on. “Why was it so urgent to get Thompson out of Newgate?” he asked point-blank.

  “Yeah, guv, wot’s the game a’tter all?” Thompson chimed in. “Yew didn’t play res’rection man an’ dig me outa thet tomb jus’ ta sit ’ere in Cap’n ’Awkins’s an’ tidy up me pistol shot.”

  “Fear, ’at’s the game.” Field warmed to the conspiratorial enthusiasm of the company. “I want the others in this case, an’ there aren’t menny, only yer friend Dunn ’oo put yew up ta the crack, an’ the woman’s ’usband, the doctor. I want ’em afraid o’ yew, Thompson. I want ’em ta know the case an’t closed.”

  “But does not Thompson’s escape draw attention away from the case?” Dickens was totally caught up in the formulation of strategy now, a novelist editing his own text, poking holes in his own plot.

  “Not a’tall,” Field demurred. “Thompson’s so convenient arrest drew ’tention away from the case. We know ’ee didn’t kill those wimmin, but nobody else knows thet, an’ as long as they’ve got the suspected murderer in prison, nobody cares. Meanwhile, the real murderer is off as free as a kite on a ’eye wind. But as soon as the suspected murderer is out o’ keep, then the real murderer is worryin’ agin, ’cause ’ee knows ’ee’s goin’ ta be come after. There, yew see, Thompson is my bulldog. I set ’im upon my principals in the case, ’ave ’im growl at ’em ’til they break cover. In their fear, mates, they ’and me the evidence I need.”

  “All fine and well”—Dickens still was intent upon playing devil’s advocate—“but what if the police get to Thompson before he gets to the real murderer? They might kill him in the act of taking him.”

  “I am the police.” Field seemed bored with all this speculation. “Bleeve me, the Protectives will get no closer ta this case than I allow ’em. Nobody will try ta take ’im without consultin’ me.”

  Thompson rolled his eyes comically at that. He seemed less than comfortable with Field’s assurances of protection. He seemed quite aware of being caught between two worlds and welcome in neither. Field had contrived to press him into a position in which both the murderer and the Protectives wanted him and were not overly scrupulous about how they got him, whether dead or alive.

  “’Tis a pretty spot yew’ve got me in, Guv.” Thompson’s irrepressible grin taunted Inspector Field. “’Oo do yew think is gointa try ta kill me first?”

  “I’d be careful o’ Scarlet Bess, ’twas me.” Field played off his taunt. “Most murders is domestick.”

  The company could not help but laugh at Field’s ready wit. One had to get up quite early to best him.

  “She does ’ave a temper,” Thompson conceded, clapping Captain Hawkins a good one on the back.

  “’At she does,” that worthy, who had evidently had experience of the lady, agreed.

  “But really,” Dickens turned the conversation back to strategy, “who is to be feared and observed in this case?”

  “So far there are only two principals ’ere,” Field answered. “We’ve got yer actor friend”—he nodded toward Thompson—“’oo put yew up ta the crack the night yew got pinched, an’ we’ve got the woman’s ’usband. ’Ee’s my choice, ’ee is. But I’ve already been wrong in this case.”

  “About what?” In chorus Dickens and I voiced the startled concern that Field’s unexpected declaration had occasioned in the entire company.

  “The police surgeon’s report.” Field did not seem overly concerned. “It told us little. ’Ee found no signs o’ the common poisons in the corpses or in the champagne bottle, can’t rightly say wether wimmin were poisoned or no. Bodies all point to poison, but no sign o’ poison yet.”

  “Yet?” Dickens pursued.

  “They’ve given blood ta a chemist”—Field was laconic at best—“but ’opes are not ’eye.” His eyes moved from one to the other of us, from Dickens to myself to Serjeant Rogers to Tally Ho Thompson to Captain Hawkins, finally coming to rest on poor broken Bert. “That is why we must put pressure on those ’as done the murders,” Field went on. “Our only ’ope is their givin’ themselfs away.”

  “Themselfs?” Thompson missed little. “Yew think there’s more than one?”

  “Don’t think. Don’t know. Could be. Can’t tell,” Field again seemed thinking aloud and succeeded in further bewildering all of us.

  “Fock yer brains, bloody sots,” Bert’s second head parodied Field’s earnestness.

  There was nothing for us to do but laugh at the bird’s profane yet somehow apposite editorials.

  “If only the Medusa murderer would poison that infernal bird,” Thompson chided poor broken Bert, whose gapped teeth immediately took on a pained and protective look.

 
; “Wot we must do now”—Field drew all our attentions back from the parrot to these birds of quite different feather—“is begin again, start all over. That is why we’re ’ere, Thompson, ta ’ear yer story cleen, ta find wot we missed afore.”

  At Captain Hawkins’s order, broken Bert replenished our mugs of gin. Assorted stools and distressed chairs appeared out of the dim corners of the Shooting Gallery until we all sat in a ragged circle under the guns.

  “Tell it from the beginnin’,” Field ordered Thompson. “I’ll stop yew if I see fit.”

  “’Ee ’ired me ta teach ’is wife ta ride,” Thompson began. “’Ee’s a ’orseman, the man said, an’ ’ee wanted ’is wife ta learn.”

  “Wait. The ‘man’ yew say. Wot man?” Field interrupted straight off.

  “I thought you said that Macready introduced you to Palmer?” Dickens, editor that he was, interjected his query directly upon Inspector Field’s heels.

  “No. ’At’s not the way ’twas.” Thompson shook his head, now amused by this standing upon minimal detail. “’Ee sent ’is assistant, ’is laboratory man or wotever, a foreigner ’ee wos, ta put the arm on me for the job.”

  “Yew mean to say yew’ve nivver met this Doctor Palmer?” Rogers, this time, asserted his presence.

  “Never met the bloke.” Thompson shrugged. “Seckertary ’ired me, sent me money over each time by street porter. I’ve only met the dead wife, never the live ’usband.”

  “Then yew kin stop growin’ those silly whiskers.” Field winked at Rogers. “No fear of the good doctor reckernizin’ yew then.”

  “None indeed.” Rogers agreed like the toadying little martinet that I always viewed him to be. Both Dickens and I were quite puzzled at the two policemen’s interest in Thompson’s not having met the murdered woman’s husband. Evidently, Inspector Field already had some scenario percolating in his “novelist of the real” mind that hitherto had required Thompson to play his part in whiskers.

  “Sorry. Go on.” Field chose not to enlighten us just yet.

  “Not much to it ’til last week.” Thompson seemed a bit tentative as if expecting to be interrupted at every word. “As directed, I’d meet ’er at the stables at ’Eyde Park. ’Ee’d given ’er a ’orse, small brown gelding, looked a good lady’s jumper, looked fast too, but too low ta the course for me. She’d ’ire me a nag. Those skins wosn’t much ta speak of. An we’d ride. Don’t think she liked it much. Animal seemed ta fright ’er a bit.”

  “Wot wos she like?” Field asked. “Did yew talk as yew rode? Wos she ’appy, sad, for’ard, shy, ever mention ’er ’usband?”

  “Shaky woman. Learnin’ ta ride ’cause ’er ’usband told ’er to. No pet name for ’im, no Bill nor Willy, always William this or William that, once said ‘If I learn ta ride p’raps I’ll see ’im more.’ Gave the idee ’usband wos off ridin’ a bit.”

  “She ever show any intrest in yew?” Field’s questioning got more touchy. “In more than a mistress ta servant line, I mean.”

  “I wos ’er ridin’ teacher, no servant.” Thompson bristled at Field’s characterisation, which produced a short chuckle from that worthy. “’Andsome woman”—Thompson took a short pause to either stimulate his memory or speculate on the possibility or merely bedevil Field and Rogers with a touch of suspense—“but she made no advances in a gay way.” He grinned as if he couldn’t believe she could resist such a specimen as himself.

  “Quite.” Field abandoned this line of questioning. “Wot next then?”

  “’At’s it. We rode, three times I think, until that twit Dickie Dunn come ta me with ’is recovery scheme.”

  “Did ’ee say ’oo the ’ooman wos?” Field’s forefinger worked contemplatively at the side of his eye.

  “Not a word. Said ’ee’d been havin’ it off with a gentleman’s maid an’ wanted some sparklers ’ee’d given ’er retrieved.” It was at this point that Tally Ho Thompson evidenced slight discomfort, embarrassment I should say, at being so easily duped. “’Twas the price made me do it,” he protested. “Said ’ee’d stand me twelve guineas, ’alf on the table right then. I ’ad rent to pay for me an’ Bess. ’Twas more than I’d make in three months o’ ’orse ridin’ onstage.”

  “It wos monumental stoopid!” Field showed him no sympathy. “But that is by the by now. Wot else?”

  “Yew know the rest. I cruised the ’ouse an’ made the crack. When I got in an’ saw I’d been done, I bolted. I didn’t even reckernise the dead woman. ’Er face wos all twisted an’ I wos too busy leavin’.”

  “Quite so. I’m not surprised.” Field seemed quite philosophical about the whole affair.

  Thompson relaxed somewhat. The strain of story-telling drove him to his gin.

  Captain Hawkins nodded solemnly as if he wished to console Thompson for such ill luck.

  Dickens and I waited for Field to digest the narrative and give us further direction.

  “Fock her head, bloody arse!” broken Bert’s profane appendage broke the delicate surface of our contemplation and sent ripples of laughter out of all of us at Thompson’s expense. His strained grin emitted an inclination to twist off the head of that disgusting bird.

  “’Ow did yew get in the ’ouse?” Field was not finished.

  “’Ee gave me the servin’ girl’s key. Said she’d given ’im it so ’ee could git ta ’er at night after the ’ouse ’ad retired.”

  “Quite,” Serjeant Rogers parroted his master.

  For a long moment silence pooled over the gathering of auditors in the Shooting Gallery. All seemed cogitating upon the details of Thompson’s narrative. In reality, we were all trying to see into Inspector Field’s mind. He was the detective genius. What clues are important to him? we speculated. Are the maid’s keys the key? Why is Field so pleased that Thompson and the dead woman’s doctor-husband have never met?

  “If we are, indeed, ta make an ’onest man o’ yew, Thompson”—Field chuckled, breaking our speculative silence—“which I’m not convinced anyone could ever do, mind yew, we must do three things.”

  “Yes, three.” Rogers nodded sagely, as if fully possessed of the full details of Field’s plan, which I sincerely doubted.

  “First,” Field began, “we must find out ’ow the two wimmin were killed. The police surgeon’s report offers not a clue. Per’aps the chemist’s analysis will supply the answers. If not, we must somehow find out ourselves. I personally feel that the two wimmin were killed by some sort o’ exotic poison.” He paused and we all looked at each other expectantly, but no one had anything to add.

  “Next,” Field went on, “we must beerd and grass* yer traitorous mate Dick Dunn. ’Ee probly wos not the arkiteckt o’ this elaborate entrapment o’ Thompson, but rather the creature o’ a more powerful mind, yet we must force ’im ta spill the identity o’ ’is master.”

  Thompson’s grin broadened and we could all sense the anticipation building in his tall and wiry body. Field also smiled at Thompson’s instinctive reaction.

  “Yes, lad.” Field leaned in and tapped him on the knee with his fatherly forefinger. “That worthy will be yer assignment. Any way yew wish, I want yew to scare the bejabbers out o’’im so as ’ee’ll run straight ta ’is master. But”—and he raised his cautionary forefinger in the air in front of Thompson’s face—“I don’ want yew confrontin’ Dunn alone. I not only need witnesses, but I want yew backed up. The man may be dangerous.”

  “I kin be summat dangerous meself.” Thompson bristled.

  “Oh psaw!” Inspector Field smiled benignly. “We all know yew are no more than a sticky-fingered, playactin’ tabby cat,” Field jibed him, causing all of the rest of us to laugh. Bert and his obscene bird virtually howled in unison.

  “And lastly”—Field tempered that momentary hilarity—“we must somehow obtain an interview with Doctor Palmer, even violate his mourning if we must.” As he placed this third step in the investigation before the group, his eyes shifted ever so slightly beneath his dark brows tow
ard Dickens and myself. That subtle signal assured me that we were still very much on duty for Inspector Field.

  “I want ta go back into that ’ouse.” Thompson smacked the Shooting Gallery table with a sharp whack, causing every rifle to rattle down its length. Fortunately, none seemed to be loaded, thus none discharged by accident. “There is a secret there, I’m sure on it.”

  Field’s crook’d forefinger leapt nervously to the corner of his eye as if questioning himself. Could the lad be right? Could I ’ave missed something? Slowly he nodded, as if in agreement with Tally Ho Thompson’s impulsive statement.

  It was almost eight when that jolly group dispersed from Captain Hawkins’s Shooting Gallery in Leicester Square, but each of us had a full evening of possibilities to contemplate. I, for one, took my speculations home to Irish Meg’s bed.

  * * *

  *A boxing term meaning “to knock one’s opponent to the ground” in the parlance of the Victorian sporting scene.

  A Savage Consultant

  January 17, 1852—late evening

  No sooner had the gaslight in my sleeping room been trimmed, sending dancing shadows over the lavender walls; no sooner had our teacups, which moments before had steamed with a fine chubwat and hot gin, been set aside on the small secretary beside the bed; no sooner had Meg’s secret things (black lace this night) slid silkily to the floor; no sooner had she enfolded me in her arms and murmured her first words of perverse suggestion than there came an insistent knocking upon the outer door.

  I sat bolt upright in the bed.

  Meg collapsed in frustration upon the pillows.

  “’Oo the fock is ’at?” she growled in her rough idiom.

  I, of course, knew immediately who it must be. It could only be Dickens or Field, or both, come to collect me pursuant to some new twist in the murder case. Or, I suppose, it could have been that toady, Serjeant Rogers, sent by the other two to fetch me. Or, perhaps (the possibilities do tend to multiply when recollected in tranquillity, do they not?) it might have been Scarlet Bess come once again in search of information and consolation about that rogue Thompson. My first instinct proved correct. It was Dickens that I saw through the small peephole in my outer door. He was muffled in his greatcoat and scarf, and was banging excitedly upon the wooden panels with his stick.