The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens

by William J Palmer

  “He looked as if he was looking right at me.” I grinned sheepishly, handing the monocular back to Inspector Field. In that one brief second when our eyes met, however, the countenance of Doctor Palmer made a lasting imprint upon my sensibilities. The only adjective I can raise to describe that face is “Satanic.” The dark black hair over dark black eyebrows over a dark black mustache and a tight black goatee presented a glowering image of an angry devil looking for revenge.

  “That’s ’im”—Field gave the monocular back to Dickens—“swarthy divvil ain’t ’ee?” .

  Dickens nodded and studied the man some more through the glass. With my naked eye I could mark that dash of red in the distance, assume that our Doctor Palmer, after his suspicious look around, had resumed his conversation with his riding-club friends.

  “I wants yew an’ Mister Collins ta go down there an’ talk ta ’im,” Field thrust directly to the heart of his reasons for summoning us.

  Dickens’s shoulders tensed momentarily at the excitement of that charge.

  “I don’t care wot yew tell ’im,” Field continued, “use the ploy about wantin’ ta change doctors for yer wife, say the Spaniard at the ’ospital sent you out ’ere, tell ’im yer writin’ a novel about doctors, like yew told Ashbee that time. Tell ’im anythin’.”

  “To what purpose?” Dickens, too, was more than capable of the sort of directness for which Field was renowned.

  “I need some sense o’ the man.” Field’s forefinger tapped slowly for emphasis upon the upholstered inner wall of the carriage door. “I think yew ’ave found out ’ow it wos done with the curare, an’ I think we knows why it wos done, for the insurance, but we still ’ave no means o’ provin’ ’ee done the deed. That’s why I needs yew now.”

  “Why us?” I started to protest, for Field evidenced no hesitation whatsoever to chucking us right into the lion’s den. Dickens silenced my small cough of protest with a withering look.

  “I needs ta know more about Palmer an’ ’is wife. ’Ee runs in some o’ yer same circles.”

  Here it comes, I thought, the “simply observe” speech he had used upon us before.

  “This time I don’t want yew ta simply observe our man. I wants yew ta stir the gentleman up, make ’im break cover if yew can. Be glad ta make ’is acquaintance, be friendly enough, but keep goin’ back ta the murders. Yew know, ‘terrible thing,’ that sort o’ rot. Remind ’im o’ Thompson, ‘wos our friend, turned on us,’ take thet line mayhaps. ’Ow yew would love ta find Thompson, thet sort o’ chatter. Just see if yew can draw ’im out.” Field finished and sat down as if that long speech had taken all the wind out of him.

  The whole time, as Field spoke, Dickens had remained standing in the carriage with the spyglass to his eye held unwavering on the tableau of those three men talking against that white fence below in the distance.

  “I know slightly one of Palmer’s companions down there,” Dickens informed us, bringing Field back up to his feet as if yanked upon by an invisible rein, “a young doctor I interviewed about a year ago for a Household Words article, name of Jekyll.” Dickens paused for a moment, thinking. “Yes, Jekyll, I’m sure on it. Surprised he would be in the company of one like Palmer,” Dickens now was thinking aloud. “Did not seem the horsey type to me.”

  “Wait ’til yew see ’oo rides in off the course next.” Field chuckled; he, too, was quite capable of springing surprises.

  We all gaped at Field, who milked the moment ruthlessly.

  “And who might that be?” Dickens was clearly amused at Field’s suspenseful antics. There was a subtle camaraderie between the two of them, as if they were both novelists or playwrights orchestrating their scenes and timing their dialogue for its most powerful impact upon the assembled audience.

  Field took the monocular out of Dickens’s hands and put it to his eye. He scanned the heath and woods around the Hampstead Hounds Riding Club for a long moment. “In just a moment yew’ll see.” Field lowered the glass.

  “Who?” Dickens was no longer amused by Field’s coy drawing out of his little game of “button, button.”

  “There”—Field handed back the spyglass to Charles and pointed toward some amorphous movement in the distance—“put yer glass on thet ’un.”

  Dickens looked through the monocular, focused it clearly, stepped back and exclaimed: “No!”

  My curiosity piqued, watching Field’s and Dickens’s eyes meet, their mouths begin to break into simultaneous smiles. I grabbed the glass out of Dickens’s hand and raised it to my eye. What I saw, riding out of the woods and into the club on a lathered red horse, dressed up like a Regency gentleman as pretty as you please, was the last person I expected to see.

  “My God,” I exclaimed, “it is Tally Ho Thompson!”

  * * *

  *This, of course, was one of the early working titles of Bleak House.

  *There is almost universal agreement among critics that the minor poet and professional debtor Leigh Hunt was Dickens’ life-model for the character Skimpole in Bleak House.

  *This is a particularly apposite simile for Collins to use because Constable lived in Hampstead and did most of his landscape painting from vantage points like this one above the heath.

  The Horsey Set

  January 23, 1852—early afternoon

  “Intrestin’, eh?” Field ironically understated our surprise at spotting Thompson dressed thus and in such company. The smug look upon Serjeant Rogers’s face especially irritated me. It announced that he knew Thompson was on the premises all along and had coyly withheld that information from Dickens and me. “Both o’ our men seem ta ’ave surfaced out ’ere on the ’eath, an’ Thompson is playin’ quite a new role than ’is usual stage brigands.” Field chuckled merrily on as I watched Thompson dismount in the cold January sunlight through the monocular. Consigning his lathered horse to a waiting groom, he joined the group of conversing men by the training-ring fence. He looked as at ease in this gentlemen’s group as a young lord at court. Sensing Dickens’s impatience, I passed the glass to him and he took up the surveillance.

  “Talkin’ ta Palmer an’ t’other swells as pritty as yew please, I’ll wager,” Inspector Field provided the commentary even though Dickens possessed the glass. “Struck up ’is acquaintance this mornin’, ’ee did. Gawd only knows wot Thompson’s game is, wot ’ee told these toffs ta gain their ear.”

  “What is he up to?” Dickens, remembering his manners, handed the monocular back to Field who, without looking through it, passed it on to Rogers, who greedily stole his first look.

  “No tellin’.” Field shrugged. “Gettin’ close ta ’is prey, I’d say. Figures this Doctor Palmer is the one ’oo can clear these murders off ’is tick. Probly took thet idea from me. Plans ta stay close ta ’im in ’opes o’ makin’ ’im break cover.”

  “Han mebbe he just wants ta git him halone han bet hit hout huv him.” Rogers, handing the monocular back to Field, smirked.

  “Are you going to take him up? Thompson, I mean?” Dickens asked.

  “I think not,” Field hesitated not a whit in answering. “Let’s jus’ wait an see wot our Tally ’O ’as in mind.” That hard glint of the gamester engrossed by his game was in Field’s eye as his crook’d forefinger came up for its customary punctuating scratch.

  Dickens cast a quick glance at me as Field raised the monocular to his eye to devote his attention to Palmer, Thompson, and the horsemen’s convention below.

  I returned his look accompanied by a slight, expressive shrug of my mouth and shoulders, my indecisive sign that I had not yet really caught up with the game that was being played before us, around us, and with us. But it was in that quick exchange of looks that I realised that both Dickens and I were entertaining the same thoughts. Field Wants Thompson out there on his own, my line of reasoning went, wants him out there stirring everything up, distracting our good doctor, a loose cannon careening around on the stage of this murderous drama of Field’s scripting. That is why we
helped Thompson escape from Newgate, I suddenly realised. Field knew how he would use him all the time.

  “There ’ee goes.” Field provided a running commentary, holding the spyglass tight to his eye. “Packin’ it in for now is our Tally ’O. Smart o’ ’im, I’d say. Not movin’ in too fast. ’Ee’s learned somethin’ from our association, ’ee ’as.” Field chuckled at his private little joke.

  With our naked eyes, and sighting over Field’s shoulder along the line of the monocular which he kept aimed at the horizon like a rifle, we could see Thompson’s tiny figure walk to a waiting carriage, climb in, and trot away down the Spaniard’s Road toward the Vale of Health.

  “Now ’tis yer turn ta put in yer appearance.” Field turned to Dickens and me. “Remember, ’eavy’anded this time. Stir ’im up. Broad strokes.”

  Glancing at Charles, I could see that tensing of anticipation ripple through his being. “‘What larks,’ eh Wilkie?” he said, and laughed with that open enthusiasm of his, quoting one of his own characters.* In a mere moment, we were in Sleepy Rob’s cab and heading down over the hill to the riding club.

  Ten minutes later, when we disembarked at the front gate to the Hampstead Hounds, Palmer’s red coat was still loitering near the training ring in conversation with the other members of his horsey set. Dickens presented his card to the club servant stationed on the front porch. The man, duly impressed, extended to us a free run of the club and grounds after Dickens gave him some concocted story (accompanied by a half crown) about trying to find an old friend who was in residence. Those amenities of club-crashing attended to, we turned the corner of the building and set out in pursuit of our prey.

  Without the slightest hesitation, Dickens, with me in tow, strode up to Palmer and the two men with whom the doctor was conversing. I wouldn’t have been the least surprised if Dickens had opened the conversation with “Doctor Palmer, how nice to meet you, did you poison your wife yesternight?” That is how boldly he walked up and intruded upon them. But he did not address Palmer at all. Rather, he stuck out his hand to a younger blond-headed man of less than thirty years who made one of that trio conversing at the riding-ring rail.

  “Doctor Jekyll.” Dickens beamed. “How nice to see you again.”

  I learned later that Dickens had interviewed this young man more than a year earlier for a Household Words article about the training and admission procedures to the medical profession.

  “Why Mister Dickens, I say,” and the attentions of the other two leapt up at the dropping of that famous name.

  “This is my colleague, Wilkie Collins.” Dickens had utterly usurped any conversation the three might have been carrying on. “Doctor Henry Jekyll, Wilkie.”

  I shook hands with young Jekyll who was then not that much younger than myself and a medical student. He has in the intervening years become quite a renowned physician as well as a medical researcher into methods of chemically pacifying the violent criminal mind.* After we shook hands, there was a brief awkward pause as young Jekyll recovered himself from the surprise of being recognised and greeted by such an eminent man. Dickens and I waited expectantly. Finally, recover he did, and stepping back and drawing himself up a bit, he did the expected thing.

  “Doctor Palmer, Mister Guiliano,” he began the introduction which Dickens had so audaciously choreographed, “Mister Charles Dickens and Mister Wilkie Collins.”

  At the mention of Palmer’s name, Dickens fairly jumped skyward, then stepped forward, hand outstretched, gushing: “Doctor Palmer, what an extraordinary coincidence”—and he took the man’s hand—“not five days ago I spoke with your assistant, Doctor Rodrigo, ah, ah…

  “Vasconcellas.” The red-coated doctor supplied the remedy to Dickens’s affected confusion.

  “Yes, of course,” Dickens said soberly, “he apprised me of the recent terrible loss of your wife. My deepest sympathy.”

  At that Palmer was startled. His face darkened and he stepped back to recover himself before bowing his head silently to Dickens in acknowledgement. Up close, Palmer was even more forbidding than his dark visage, seen through the monocular from the top of the heath, had predicted. Only a bit shorter, yet quite thicker, than Dickens, the two of them side by side presented a severe contrast.

  Dickens, with his ready smile, presented a bright open appearance. Palmer, to the contrary, looked as closed as a pirate’s keep. His glowering black-browed, black-bearded visage had a murderous look about it. Deep furrows under his eyes, yellowish as if diseased, gave his face a wolflike cast. He was, in physique, a younger man than Dickens, about thirty-five years of age I surmised, but he looked older, more worldworn. Yet he was also an imposing man in his dark, brooding way. He reminded me of the villains of Mister Godwin’s or Mister Walpole’s gothick novels.* One could see how a woman like his dead young wife could be attracted to him. But perhaps I am being too melodramatic in my description. Field would surely laugh at the idea that murder can be written upon a man’s face. But, if it could, it was written here.

  “Mister Dickens”—Palmer recovered himself politely enough—“it is, indeed, a pleasure to meet you. I have, of course, as has everyone in England, read a number of your stories.” At that, it was Charles’s turn to bow politely. “What brought you to consult with Rodrigo?”

  “It was about my own wife.” Dickens’s slightly inflected allusion once again to the man’s murdered wife startled even me in its crudeness. I noticed a slight tightening of Palmer’s black brow, a flinch as if from a feinted blow. “She has been ill for more than a year and has been taking treatments from Doctor Smith in Great Malvern, but she is not recovering as expected. I am seriously considering bringing her back into town and placing her in another doctor’s care. Your name was given the highest recommendation to me by Macready of Covent Garden.”

  Palmer made a slight bow of the head to this compliment, but, not giving him leeway to reply, Dickens sailed right on: “Strangely, it seems that Mister Collins and myself were involved rather distantly in the sad affair of your wife’s murder.” Like a vulture at carrion, Dickens kept pecking mercilessly at the poor woman’s death.

  “Oh? How is that?” Palmer’s voice was guarded, but I could see the rage building in the tightness over his cheekbones and behind his eyes.

  “The housebreaker who murdered her, victimized us as well,” Dickens answered, as if it were a comical story being told in a men’s club. He was playing to the hilt the role of a tasteless, overtalkative buffoon. His vulgar persistence was stoking an impotent rage in Palmer.

  “About your wife,” Palmer abruptly changed the subject, “I would be glad to consult with her. When you bring her up to London, please do not hesitate to contact me. Here is my card,” and he handed it over to Dickens, preparatory to fleeing our company and ending this conversation.

  Dickens took it and turned it over in his hand: “Ah, M.R.C.S.,”* he said, stalling, groping for some way to carry on this tactless conversation about the man’s murdered wife, “ah, but you can help me in a much more immediate way.”

  “Oh? Just what is it that brings you out here to the heath in winter, Mister Dickens?” Palmer, on the lean to escape, yet held back by Dickens’s mindless persistence, looked as if he wanted to go for Charles’s throat.

  “I am out here poking around in search of detail—the lingo, you know—that necessary authenticity for a riding-to-the-hounds scene I shall soon be writing for my new novel. I am looking for some advice from some real horsemen. Would you gentlemen help me?”

  “I would certainly like to,” Palmer huffed, still fuming at Dickens’s rude audacity, “but I must be back—”

  “That was the reason Mister Collins and I were interviewing that man Thompson in Newgate the night he knocked us on the head and made good his escape,” Dickens cut off Palmer’s escape with this gabby ramble. Palmer glowered all the more. “Ex-highwayman—reputed a miracle with horses, Macready put me on to the fellow—was Covent Garden’s horse-riding man. Oh, excuse me, you kno
w all of this,” Dickens rambled on as if his head were as empty as Mister Dick’s,* “after all, you did hire the fellow to give your poor wife riding lessons, did you not?”

  Once again, Palmer was caught utterly off balance and that wolfish rage began to well up behind his eyes. “Yes, perhaps, but—now listen here Dickens, I don’t know what your—”

  “But that is why we are here today, you see,” Dickens cut the man off once again, blithely ignoring the obvious rage that made our black-bearded friend look as if he were about to spontaneously combust. The other two men, young Jekyll and the Italian, stood there as aghast as I at the lunacy of this conversation. “This Thompson made good his escape before I could get anything out of him. So now I must find someone else to help me with my scene.” Dickens threw his hands comically up in the air at the inconvenience of it all.

  Doctor Palmer stared at Dickens a long moment as if he hoped that Charles would disintegrate in a fireball before his hateful gaze. “Well it will not be me, “Palmer growled and, without another word, stomped off toward the refuge from lunatic nonmembers of the club’s inner sanctum.

  “Well that’s odd.” Dickens watched him go, still smiling stupidly. Then, never missing a beat, Charles turned back to the others and, as if nothing had happened, asked, “Perhaps you two would help me with this?”

  Young Jekyll and the Italian looked at each other at a loss. Both were, I think, rather stunned at the vulgarity of Dickens’s insistence on dredging up the unhappiness of the murder of Palmer’s wife to the man’s face. Needless to say, I, too, was astonished at what Dickens had just done, and relieved that he had lived through it.

  The Italian mumbled some “excusa, excusa” in pidgin palaver and left the three of us standing there by the fence rail. Dickens, continuing to smile stupidly, looked as if he could not be happier if the Lord Mayor of London had just dedicated a building in his honour.