by M. J. Trow
The man shrugged. ‘Wasn’t there when the babby was begun,’ he said, with no malice in his voice. ‘Don’t need to be there when it’s born. Any road,’ he said, as an afterthought, ‘Missus is certain it’s another girl. Carrying it low. Or was it high?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Still and all, none of my business.’
Batchelor was stuck for words, but Grand found plenty. ‘So, let me get this right,’ he said. ‘You know this child isn’t yours?’
‘Tha’s right.’
‘And yet you don’t seem to mind too much.’
‘Mr Dickens, he allus seen us right.’
‘Is the child Mr Dickens’s child?’ Batchelor almost groaned with the thought of yet another motive.
‘Nah!’ The man was horrified. ‘’Course not. I s’pect my missus knows who’m it be, but it ain’t Mr Dickens’s, no how. It’ll be one of them visitors of his, I s’pect. That funny little bugger …’
‘Wilkie Collins,’ Batchelor added out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Or that one with all the hair.’
‘Forster.’
‘Or that writer. Could be him.’
Batchelor was stumped; that was rather a large field, in this milieu.
‘Or it could be Butler again, feeling his oats. Any road, the missus, she does like to spoon and I don’t mind it. T’ain’t the little ’uns’ fault, is it? They didn’t ask to be born.’ He glanced up at the sun. ‘Well, I must be getting on. The cottage is down there aways. You’ll find Miss Georgy and Miss Caroline there, right enough.’ And he ambled away.
Grand and Batchelor walked off down a path which skirted the lawn and led in the direction of the gardener’s pointing finger. Before they had got very far, they heard the sound of voices, coming nearer and around the next piece of shrubbery, then saw Georgy Hogarth and, with her, Caroline Moptrucket. Grand rapidly caught Batchelor up with a potted history of the girl and greeted them both by name as they got within a yard or so.
‘Good news for Mr Brunt, I assume,’ Grand said, taking in their smiling faces.
‘Mr Grand,’ Caroline gushed. ‘I had never seen a child come into the world before. Such a beautiful thing. Beautiful.’
‘Brunt has a lovely daughter,’ Georgy said, rather less fulsomely.
‘Does he?’ Batchelor raised an eyebrow.
Georgy smiled knowingly and the daughter of the vicarage looked puzzled. ‘Well, someone certainly has, shall we say?’ she said. Then, she frowned. ‘Why are you gentlemen here again? Surely, last time …’
‘We have discovered rather more since we last spoke,’ Grand said, solemnly. ‘And I am not sure any of it is for Miss Moptrucket’s ears …’
‘Anything you can say to me, you can say to Caroline,’ Georgy said, linking her arm through the girl’s and pulling her close. ‘She is like a sister to me.’
Grand looked at the girl’s open, innocent face and wondered. Nevertheless, he had been given carte blanche, so he took it. ‘Shall we sit somewhere?’ he said. ‘The sun is a little hot here in the open.’
‘Perhaps the chalet?’ Batchelor suggested.
Georgy led the way. ‘The chalet will be being dismantled and moved soon, when dear Charles’s will is proved. He has left it to a friend.’
Batchelor grasped the opportunity. ‘Mr Dickens has been generous …?’ he began. No need to tangle with Ouvry again, which was a very real relief.
‘Charles has been very fair in his dispositions,’ Georgy said, flatly. ‘This house is to be sold, but only when we can arrange other accommodations for me and the staff. I understand Charlie may be considering it, but of course that will depend on the auction. I am to have …’ She shook herself. ‘I think you must ask Mr Ouvry for details.’
Darn! Grand looked at Batchelor and set his mouth in a rueful line.
‘But for now,’ she continued, ‘you are quite right. The chalet is cool and, happily, completely restored to order after our little incident.’
Caroline Moptrucket fluttered along beside Georgy, making noises of comfort and general confusion. Her father might well have advanced views on the education of girls, but she already had a feeling that much of this conversation was going to trawl waters new to her. She suppressed a delighted shudder. The handsome American was a welcome visitor and, if his friend was perhaps a tad on the weaselly side by comparison, he was not unattractive.
In the chalet, all was tidy and it would need a practised eye to know what was different from when Dickens used it. The two women sat together on the small sofa, Grand perched on the edge of the desk, and Batchelor took the chair. Georgy Hogarth folded her hands calmly in her lap and smiled up at Grand. ‘What would you like to know, Mr Grand?’ she asked, her tone even.
‘First of all,’ Grand said, ‘we would like to know why you didn’t tell us that Mr Dickens was brought back here to die, having collapsed at Windsor Lodge, where he was spending some time with Miss Ternan?’
Caroline Moptrucket’s eyes were like organ stops as she turned to look at her friend.
Georgy took a deep breath in through her nose, her mouth clamped shut. ‘I see,’ she said, so quietly she could hardly be heard. ‘Who told?’
‘Does that matter?’ Batchelor asked.
‘It does to me,’ she hissed, leaning forward. ‘It does to me. So I can no longer speak to the snake in the grass, whoever it was.’ Then, remembering herself and her position, she straightened up and was calm once more. ‘The reason I didn’t tell you, Mr Grand, Mr Batchelor, was that it had no bearing.’
‘But, Georgy …’ Caroline Moptrucket might be an innocent abroad, but she could tell a hawk from a handsaw. ‘But Georgy, surely, if these gentlemen are investigating dear Mr Dickens’s death, it must …’
Georgy turned on her. ‘If you wish to stay, Caroline,’ she snapped, ‘I must ask you to keep your opinions to yourself.’
The girl shrank away as far as she could on the small sofa and tears came to her eyes.
‘Miss Moptrucket is quite right,’ Grand said, quietly. ‘It may have given the killer time to escape, while we have been chasing our tails.’
‘Killer? There is no killer!’ Georgy Hogarth had had just about enough. ‘Charles was … over-extending himself. He was racing hither and yon – here one minute, Nunhead the next; writing every hour God sent …’
‘And that’s the other thing,’ Batchelor said. ‘We understand from Miss Ternan that Mr Dickens didn’t in fact write his own books.’
Caroline Moptrucket shrugged her shoulders at that revelation. ‘Goodness me, Mr Batchelor,’ she said, at last given the chance to appear as a woman of the world. ‘We all knew that. Gabriel Verdon has been writing them for years.’ She blushed. ‘Dear Gabriel …’
‘… is dead,’ Grand said, rather brutally, Batchelor thought.
Caroline Moptrucket put a hand to her breast and fainted elegantly away, folding forward and pitching on to the rug at her feet.
Georgy Hogarth looked at Grand with real annoyance on her face. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Grand,’ she spat. ‘Caroline has carried a torch for Gabriel for years, despite the fact he could easily be her father. Like all of us here, she appreciates genius, and Gabriel was, indeed, a genius. But he lacked Charles’s story-telling flair and so, together, they became one perfect writer, each dependent on the other. Indeed, the original title for Barnaby Rudge was to have been Gabriel Verdon: their little joke. But we all advised against it; a nosy journalist,’ Batchelor bridled, ‘or just loose lips could have uncovered what was, at the end of the day, an innocent deception, and all would have been ruin.’ She poked Caroline lightly with an extended toe and the girl groaned, but didn’t get up. ‘As it was, we all made sure that the publishers didn’t know; it was easier that way and, if there had been trouble, they could have honestly claimed to be blameless. Henry Trollope knew, of course, because of his connections; his father had also helped dear Charles out from time to time, before he found his own fame and fortune.’
�
�But …’ Grand was puzzled. ‘Why did these other writers let it go on? Why didn’t they step out of the shadows and tell the world they had written the books? Then they could have all of the money instead of just … how much? Half?’
Georgy laughed. ‘Half? Mr Grand, how naïve of you. No, the usual stipend was ten per cent. Charles was the genius in the eyes of the public. Without his name on the cover, who would have bought the books at all?’ She leaned forward, ‘I must ask you to be honest,’ she said. ‘If Charles Dickens had not been the author, would you call Hard Times a novel of genius?’
‘Well …’ Grand was over a barrel, having never even heard of the book.
‘Barnaby Rudge?’ she persisted. ‘So, Charles’s name was vital. He did write his own short stories and articles, of course; he was actually a perfectly able journalist. But that didn’t put the gilt on the gingerbread and Charles did love to have all the trimmings.’
‘So … Edwin Drood … was Gabriel Verdon writing that?’
‘Well, no,’ the woman replied, with another fruitless poke at her recumbent companion, ‘Charles actually was writing that one. He was finding it nigh on impossible, though, what with his commitments and Ellen, of course. He also didn’t have the staying power and had come to the end of his imaginative road; he had no idea how to end it. He and Gabriel had had a falling out and, apart from that, he was too proud to admit he was wrong.’ She sighed and put her head in her hands. ‘I can hardly believe that everything has gone so wrong, so fast. Poor Gabriel. I kept the news from poor Caroline. She had such hopes. But Gabriel didn’t just write like Charles. He had the same … appetites.’
‘Mrs Brunt?’ Grand ventured.
She looked at him sharply. ‘You’re not an enquiry agent for nothing, I see,’ she said. ‘Yes, Mrs Brunt had caught his eye. That was one of the reasons for the argument. Charles … came upon them and, for a man of his tastes, he could be something of a prude. He threw him out of the house.’
‘I see.’ Grand looked down at Caroline Moptrucket, who was beginning to stir. ‘Well, thank you for your candour, Miss Hogarth.’
Batchelor put in his oar. ‘If indeed this time you have told us everything.’
‘Mr Batchelor,’ she said, quietly. ‘My life is in ruins. The only man I ever loved or will love is dead. No doubt his sordid failings will soon be a matter of public record. His books will cease to sell. Frederic Chapman, a decent person who has done nothing wrong, will be ruined. We will all be ruined. So, if you wouldn’t mind, I would be grateful if you would go now, while I tend to my friend.’
On cue, the girl at her feet gave a groan and began to struggle to her feet, hampered by her enormous skirt. In the interests of decency, Grand and Batchelor averted their eyes and left the chalet, their minds whirling. There would be a lot to add to their wall of paper tonight, and no mistake.
In America, they called it ‘casing the joint’. In Britain, it was loitering with intent. Either way, Henry and Beulah Morford spent most of the day doing it. On the trail of Dickens as they were, they had discovered a great deal about the great man, and among their discoveries were Messrs Grand and Batchelor of 41 The Strand. The rumour went that there were some questions about Dickens’s death and that Grand and Batchelor were asking most of them. Perhaps, then, Grand and Batchelor had what the Morfords were looking for.
Number 41 posed no problems. It was locked, but Beulah Morford had cut her teeth on Elder and Crutchley Impregnables and once again gave the lie to the company’s advertising by picking the lock and walking in. She was wearing widow’s weeds she had hired from a costumier near the Adelphi, and had a convoluted story ready should either Grand or Batchelor turn up. As it was, they didn’t, and she took an hour to ransack the drawers, scatter the contents of filing cabinets and clean out the safe. Nothing. But there was another address; further along the Strand to the east, in the area known as Alsatia. With his years of nosing into other people’s business, the man from New York instinctively knew that this was another Bowery, another Hell’s Kitchen. There were murkier people wandering the sidewalks here and, as dusk was falling, there were no lights shining in the home of Grand and Batchelor, enquiry agents. The Morfords assumed they were out turning stones and, with a flick of her nail file, Beulah was inside, Henry her shadow in the passageway.
It was nearly dark by the time the pair had concentrated on the study under the eaves. The heat of the day still lingered here and they could see the lights of Southwark winking at them from beyond the river, the wharfs and warehouses black against the purple of the sky. There were pieces of paper stuck to the wall with incomprehensible scribbles all over them. Some referred to Charles Dickens, but they were not what they were looking for.
They were just about to go down to what seemed to be an office-cum-sitting room on the floor below when they heard a click. Morford reached the door in one stride and grabbed the brass knob. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge.
‘We’re locked in,’ he hissed.
Beulah had got out of tight places before. There was only one other exit – the skylight overhead. She hauled a chair into place and gathered up her skirts. Not dressed for a rooftop getaway, she had to admit that this wasn’t going to work.
‘They’re in here!’ they heard a female voice shriek from beyond the door. ‘I’ve locked them in.’
Feet thundered on the stairs and the door burst open. A large man with a gun stood there. And the gun was pointing at them.
‘You’ve got three seconds,’ he said, clicking the hammer back.
The Morfords had their hands in the air. ‘My name is Henry Morford,’ he gabbled. ‘I’m a journalist from New York. This is my wife, Beulah. We were looking for Mr Grand, a fellow American.’
‘One,’ the fellow American began his count.
‘We always look up fellow Americans when we’re on our travels, don’t we, Beulah?’
‘Two.’ The man wasn’t listening.
‘Just like finding a friendly face, you know. Shoot the breeze, that sort of thing.’
‘Three.’
The hammer clicked on to an empty chamber.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Morford hissed, his heart still firmly in his mouth.
‘Give it up, Henry,’ Beulah advised. ‘I say, give it up.’
‘I’m Matthew Grand,’ Grand said, ‘and I never shoot the breeze with anybody caught ransacking my rooms by my housekeeper.’
The Morfords saw her for the first time. Peering out from the darkness of the stair, her face flickering in the candlelight, Mrs Rackstraw scowled at them both. James Batchelor was checking the notes on the wall, to make sure nothing was amiss.
‘And I’m going for the police,’ she hissed at them, and was gone.
‘An empty gun,’ Morford was still complaining. ‘Son of a bitch.’
‘Suppose you tell us,’ Batchelor said, ‘what you’re doing here.’
Grand may have had no bullets in his gun, but he was still blocking the door, and Henry Morford saw no safe, painless way past him.
‘The police are already on their way,’ Batchelor said.
‘London’s finest,’ Grand added. ‘I don’t know what experience you’ve had of the inside of jail cells, Morford, but here, I got to tell you, they throw away the key.’
‘The crank, eh, Matthew?’ Batchelor sucked in his breath.
‘I was thinking more the treadmill, James,’ Grand nodded with a knowing look. ‘Three hundred and sixty-five steps to nowhere.’
‘One for every day of the year,’ Batchelor was philosophical. ‘Of course, there is a way out of this, Matthew, for our American friends, I mean.’
‘What?’ Morford blurted out. ‘Tell us what.’
Grand’s eyes narrowed and he took a step forward. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘you tell us the truth.’
Morford looked at Beulah.
‘Like I said, Henry,’ she said, ‘give it up. I got nothing.’
Morford sighed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Beulah and I we
re already in London when we heard of Dickens’s death. And we really are fans.’
‘We are,’ Beulah agreed.
‘We heard that Edwin Drood was left unfinished, that Dickens hadn’t completed his instalments before he died. Can you imagine the prestige, the kudos?’ Morford looked up, his eyes bright; he could see his name writ large, flickering in the limelight over a thousand stage doors. He sketched it out with a wave of his arm, ‘Henry Morford, the Man Who Finished Drood.’ He sighed and looked around the room, flushed with pleasure.
Grand and Batchelor looked at each other. Both of them could think of a thousand better epitaphs to leave to the world.
‘We’ve seen you before,’ Grand said. ‘You made a ruckus outside Westminster Abbey at Dickens’s funeral.’
‘’Fraid so,’ Morford said. ‘I figured if I could talk to the family and friends, I’d find out where Dickens kept his notes – some clue as to how he intended to finish the God-damned book.’
‘Nobody’d talk to us,’ Beulah threw in. ‘I say, nobody’d talk to us, Henry.’
‘We … er …’ Morford was searching for the right words, wringing his hands in a perfect Uriah Heep. ‘We’ll have to ask for a few other incidents to be taken under consideration, in the court, I mean.’
‘Oh?’ Batchelor raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, Dickens’s chalet at Gads Hill for one,’ Morford said.
‘I done that,’ Beulah confided.
‘Then, there’s your offices along the street, there.’
‘You’ve ransacked our office?’ Batchelor was furious.
‘Well, now, ransacking’s a bit strong, Mr Batchelor. Mr Grand, you’ll understand this – I’d say Atlanta was ransacked, wouldn’t you?’
‘No, Mr Morford,’ Grand shook his head. ‘I’d say Atlanta was destroyed.’
There was a thunder of hobnailed boots on the stairs and a fierce and red-faced woman was at the still-open door, two very large bobbies at her back.
‘Ah,’ Grand beamed. ‘The cavalry.’
