The Last Dickens

by Matthew Pearl

  Grip! Grip! Grip! was called out from all sides. Front and center was a glass case holding a stuffed raven called Grip that had been Dickens's favorite pet and the prototype for a talkative bird of the same name in his novel Barnaby Rudge. The cacophony of spirited voices quoted their favorite Grip sayings from that novel. The bidding was ferocious, and the hammer did not fall before 120 pounds were pledged.

  A wild round of applause followed, and “Name!” was called out for as a way of honoring the purchaser. “Mr. George Nottage, of Cheap-side!” the man complied heartily.

  “What's the matter?” Osgood asked his confidant when the audience began to moan and hiss.

  “Nottage,” his neighbor replied, “he's the owner of the Stereoscopic Company. Why, he'll simply use the bird to make stereoscopic photographs to sell for profit!”

  Osgood realized what an oddity it was: at an auction house, a crowd of moralists who in the name of Charles Dickens sneered at profit. After a few more sets of lots, they had finally come to the next item circled in his catalog: the plaster statue of a Turk seated smoking opium. The grotesque he had seen in the Swiss chalet at Gadshill by Dickens's writing desk that could hold clues they'd be able to use. But the auctioneer skipped to the subsequent items. As Woods described them, Osgood stood up and raised his hand.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Woods, but I believe you have forgotten lot eighty-five. The Turk-”

  “Lot eighty-six…”

  “But, respectfully, sir,” Osgood continued, “eighty-five is supposed…”

  Osgood's sweaty neighbor was pulling at his sleeve, his squeaky voice more high-pitched than ever. “If you don't be quiet…”

  Down smashed the hammer. “Eighty-six!” Woods pronounced with divine authority, as though the number eighty-five had been generally eliminated from genteel arithmetic. “Night and Morning, a pair of reliefs after Thorwaldsen in gilt frames!”

  Osgood sat back down defeated. The gatherers had begun to mutter inquisitively about the skipped lot but were soon placated by watching an entertaining squabble between two dealers over the framed reliefs. Osgood regretfully prepared to leave with the tazza in hand.

  There was a stocky man with hands deep in his pockets inching his way through the mob of people. He was looking down at his feet, but at intervals, Osgood noticed, he would look directly at the publisher. It must have been Osgood's imagination, fueled by his displeasure at the auctioneer's omission. But then Osgood turned to look over his other shoulder. The exit was blocked by a larger, scowling man with a face like a whetstone, gazing right at Osgood. He began to move closer.

  For a few more seconds, Osgood kept dismissing the idea that these two men were as threatening as they appeared. Telling himself to be rational, he decided to perform a test. As he rose to his feet slowly, they both paused, looked at each other, then resumed their paths toward him more aggressively, like two ends of a vise. The stocky onlooker was no longer hiding his gaze. Meanwhile, Osgood was penned in everywhere else by the immense population of Dickensites packed in the room.

  Then a hand was on Osgood's shoulder.

  “Beg pardon,” Osgood said in firm protest. “Is there something wrong, sir?”

  “We'd like to take you upstairs,” the stocky man replied.

  “Who are you?” asked Osgood. “I insist on knowing what you gentlemen want before I go with you.”

  Giving no reply, the man pulled Osgood up by the arm and began to drag him toward the exit behind the auctioneer.

  Osgood threw his hand up.

  “Do you bid, sir?” Woods asked Osgood, clearing his throat nervously.

  The auctioneer's assistant was holding up a sad little salt cellar that had thus far attracted little notice. “Ten shillings value, sir,” Woods said.

  “What bid are we at?” Osgood asked loudly.

  “Nine shillings, sir.”

  “Ten guineas,” Osgood said, then raised his own bid: “Ten and a half!”

  The crowd gasped at the remarkable amount for the salt dish. This suggested that the rest of the crowd had overlooked its worth, and other bids bounced around the auction hall until Osgood finished at eighteen and a half guineas. The spectators exploded into cheers to commemorate the extravagant purchase. Osgood threw his hat into the air. This sent the audience into paroxysms of excitement and everyone around the room stood and applauded. In the meantime, he used the attention and the confusion to slide from the man's grasp.

  But the man was behind him in a flash and the crowd was still too thick to get around.

  In a remarkable deliverance, before he knew what had happened, Osgood was hoisted on two men's shoulders. Wriggling off of them, he nearly tumbled right over the head of the other pursuer while desperately clutching his newly purchased glass tazza. Osgood balanced the tazza safely under his arm and ran, escaping the crowd only to lose his balance, tripping as he crossed over the threshold into the anteroom. The tazza went flying.

  “No!” Osgood cried, caught in the helpless moment of waiting for it to shatter.

  A man stepped out of the shadows and caught the tazza before it could hit the floor.

  Osgood exhaled in relief. The tazza had survived. The man who looked up from underneath his wide-brimmed hat had intelligent, dashing eyes. A floppy purple flower leaned out from his buttonhole.

  “They're still behind you!” he said. “Follow me.”

  Chapter 19

  HIS RESCUER LED OSGOOD THROUGH A BACK CORRIDOR OF Christie's into a basement and out the street door. The two men came out into a small lane that led them into the cover of the boisterous London crowds.

  “Whatever did you do to make them so keenly interested in you?” asked the man, after they looked around and decided they had not been followed.

  “I honestly don't know,” Osgood answered. “I inquired to the auctioneer about that item they had left out-item eighty-five. It's here in the catalog. I had noticed it at Gadshill that day you were there-I even saw it being wrapped up by the auction workers the next day.” Osgood handed him the catalog.

  The man nodded as they walked across the busy square of brick and mortar buildings. Every passerby in London, even the poorest newsboy, had a flower in his coat, though no one else boasted an opium poppy. “If you saw this plaster statue taken out of the house, and it was printed in the catalog, we know it made it to the auction rooms. Why would they skip over it, then? There is only one strong likelihood to suspect. That it was stolen from Christie's rooms after the catalog was printed but without enough time to correct it-shortly before the one o'clock auction, then. That explains why they were after you.”

  “Do you mean they thought I was the one who stole the statue?” Osgood exclaimed.

  “Unlikely enough! But you were calling attention to the fact it was missing. Think of it through their eyes. If a theft from Christie's auction house were to be reported in the papers, all the finest dealers in London would hear of it. They'd note, too, that it occurred from a prize sale like Dickens's. How many customers would be lost to rival auction houses?”

  Osgood thought it over. He recalled that Mr. Wakefield from the Samaria had mentioned using Christie's for his tea business and decided he would write to Wakefield asking him to inquire into what had happened to the statue. For now, Osgood studied the steady gait and bearing of the man who had acted so unaccountably strange in the chalet at Gadshill.

  “I have wanted to speak to you, sir,” Osgood said cautiously.

  “I know it,” said his walking companion without breaking stride.

  “You do?”

  “You have looked for me at the Abbey.”

  “You saw us going back there then? You have been following us!” Osgood exclaimed.

  “No, this is without making the least investigation. There is much to know by simply opening the eyes, though, my friend.”

  “How then?” Osgood asked, genuinely curious but also as a test of the man's sanity.

  “First, I saw you keenly interested in
my flower when we were both at Poets’ Corner together.”

  “The opium poppy.”

  He nodded. “Then, on another day, I had seen that one of my flowers had been removed. I surmised it was likely the same person who observed it attentively on the first occasion: you.”

  “I suppose that makes some sense.”

  “Have you received any responses about me from your letters to the mesmerism experts?”

  “What?” Osgood's jaw dropped. “But I left my bookkeeper at the inn writing those letters of inquiry as we speak! I instructed her to do this only this morning, thinking that without Mr. Dickens you may have sought those services elsewhere. How did you possibly know about that?”

  “Oh, I didn't! I merely surmised it as well, which is a rather more convenient way of obtaining information than actually knowing it.”

  Osgood was impressed. “Have you seen another mesmerist?”

  “Mr. Dickens cured me quite thoroughly. I have no need.”

  “Sir, I owe you my thanks today for what transpired at the auction house. My name is James Ripley Osgood.”

  The man turned toward the publisher with a military air. His lank white hair was combed with perfect care this time, although his clothes were disheveled and loose. His sun-scarred features were handsome, large and chiseled. It did not surprise Osgood that Dickens would have accepted the farmer into his home-his pride in helping the working poor had been almost as strong as his pride in his writing, for he remembered his own humble childhood.

  “I fancy you are ready, Ripley,” the man said with an enigmatic, crooked-toothed smile upon adopting an immediate nickname for the publisher.

  “You said the same thing at the chalet. But ready for what?”

  “Why, to find the truth about Edwin Drood.”

  Osgood took care not to show excitement or even surprise at the startling pronouncement. “May I take the liberty of having your name, sir?” Osgood replied.

  “I apologize-I was in one of my unnatural spells when you saw me at Gadshill and not acting right. I did not present myself. What you must think!” He shook his head in self-recrimination. “My name is Dick Datchery. Now that you know who I am, we may talk openly.”

  Chapter 20

  REBECCA HAD RECEIVED WORD FROM A MESSENGER WITH A NOTE to wait for Osgood in the coffee room of the Falstaff. When he arrived, she sat patiently as he hung his hat and his light coat on the peg and put his satchel and a paper-wrapped package carefully on the table. He looked to be in a state of quiet excitement and anticipation. He poured out the whole story of the auction, his escape, and what had been revealed by his meeting with the mesmerism patient.

  “Then he is a madman,” Rebecca declared, throwing up her hands. “I suppose that decides it. He'll be no help in remembering anything he heard from Mr. Dickens.”

  Osgood made a noncommittal gesture.

  “Mr. Osgood,” she pursued, “is it not the case-did you not just explain to me for a quarter hour, that this poor farmer believes himself Dick Datchery, a character from an unfinished novel?”

  Osgood crossed his arms over his chest. “What would the novel's state of completion matter in terms of his sanity, Miss Sand?”

  Rebecca looked at her employer with a decidedly practical air, but her usually even voice wavered with emotion. “It would be somewhat more reasonable to believe oneself a character in a book that is finished. At least, one would know if one's fate is dire or grand.”

  Osgood smiled at her chagrin. “Miss Sand, I admit your skepticism is well-founded, of course. This man calling himself Datchery has suffered a type of mental strain, as we saw with our own eyes at Gadshill. He does not seem to remember anything about a time before he began the sessions, or where he came from. But what if-just think of this-what if the mesmerism sessions performed by Dickens had some unintended effect on an already-shattered constitution, one that could prove to be to our benefit? What if in the process of mesmerism, Dickens transfered, by some profound exposure, the skills of investigation displayed by the fictional character of Datchery onto this man. The man even spoke like Dick Datchery! Look at these.”

  Rebecca watched dubiously as Osgood removed from his satchel some books he said he had purchased in Paternoster Row on his way back to the hotel. Each tome examined an element of spiritualism or mesmerism. “These books speak of the fluid of life passing through us. The ability to chase away pain and repair nerves through magnetic forces-”

  Rebecca, incredulous at hearing this terminology from her employer, put the cup she had just raised to her lips down with a bang.

  “What's wrong, Miss Sand?”

  “Some of these are the same titles from Gadshill's library.”

  “Yes, they are!”

  “Mr. Osgood, you didn't wish me to examine those books at the Gadshill library. You said then that you do not believe one whit in phenomena.”

  “Nor have I changed my mind. But Mamie Dickens and her sister Katie confirmed at the Abbey how much Charles Dickens believed in it. Mamie even testified that the mesmerism worked on her. If Dickens, intentionally or accidentally, exposed this man to more information about the novel, even if he doesn't consciously know it, this may be our chance-the best chance to quit England with more knowledge than when we entered it. This man's mind-however disordered-may carry inside it the last strands of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “To treat him as Datchery. Let him continue the investigation. He wishes to meet tonight at the Abbey. He promises to take me to a secret location he says will provide the answers we seek.”

  Rebecca's eyes narrowed at the package on the table.

  “Have a look,” Osgood said proudly. “This is what I purchased at the auction, before I was chased out for asking about the statue.”

  She unwrapped the edge of the paper. “The glass tazza from the Gadshill mantelpiece!”

  “I wanted Miss Dickens to have it back. I thought it would be a small token of our gratitude to the family.”

  Rebecca's heart beat at the kindness of the gesture, but her feelings were conflicted and her mouth felt dry. “That is,” she swallowed, “very gentlemanly of you.”

  “Thank you, Miss Sand. I must prepare for my outing. This sort of suit would be a phenomenon where we must go tonight, says Datchery.” He cited his new acquaintance approvingly. “I'm afraid I didn't bring anything quite appropriate. But you've been shaking your head so much your bonnet strings are coming loose.”

  “Have I?” she returned innocently. “It is only the idea of not knowing where it is you will be going. With a man of an unstable, and potentially shattered mental state, as guide, in a city unfamiliar to you. Consider!”

  Osgood nodded. “I thought of consulting with Scotland Yard to secure a police escort, yet it would likely drive away the very man who can guide me. I am a publisher, Miss Sand. I know what it means. It means I must find a way, very often, to believe in people who believe in something else-something I often may not be inclined toward in the least. A story, a philosophy-a reality different from one I have known or will ever know.”

  As Osgood readied himself for his expedition, Rebecca sat and stared into the leaves of her tea as though they, too, were endowed with the spiritual or prophetic attributes her employer seemed to want to find in his new acquaintance. She could not help somehow feeling stranded by the decision and how he had come to it.

  Osgood returned in a suit only a little less formal. “I am afraid I shall still stand out,” he said, smiling. “We have a letter from Fields today, by the way,” Osgood went on, branching away from the topic with a comfortable businesslike tone. He put a troubled hand at the back of his neck. “Houghton and his man Mifflin, they are like two halves of a scissor, you know. They have formed a journal to compete with our juvenile magazine and are pouring money into it. And the Major announces the Harper brothers will open an office in Boston, no doubt in order to try to drive us into deeper trouble! Harper is not w
rong. I cannot shield myself from business realities, not if I want to continue what Mr. Fields has built. And to show that I can be a publisher of the same caliber, that I can find the next Dickens. Miss Sand, I must try everything I can think of.”

  “You must,” she said.

  “Yet you disagree,” Osgood said. Seeing her hesitate, he said, “Please, speak freely to me about this, Miss Sand.”

  “Why did you ask me to come to Chapman and Hall with you the other day, Mr. Osgood?”

  He pretended not to understand. “I thought we might need to copy documents-if he had given us any to see. What does that have to do with this?”

  “Pardon my saying, but it seemed to me like I was present there only to be, well, womanly.”

  Osgood looked like he wanted to move on, but Rebecca's strong gaze would not let the topic go away. “It was true,” he answered finally, “that I had noticed on my previous visit to their firm that there were no female employees there and thought Mr. Chapman just the type of strutting man to speak more easily in front of a pretty woman. You did say you wanted to help by coming to England.”

  The color in Rebecca's cheeks flushed carelessly by his untimely compliment. “Not by being pretty.”

  “You're right, I shouldn't have done that with Chapman, not without explaining myself to you, at least. Still, I must notice that you are upset all out of proportion about this.”

  “Perhaps I am not as talented as Mrs. Collins at speaking bluntly, making suggestions of marriage upon first meetings,” Rebecca said, standing with hands on her hips.

  “Miss Sand…” Osgood said, nervously flustered in a way that upset her even more. “This whole conversation is unfathomable to me.”

  Rebecca knew that signaled the end of the exchange and that she should not speak to her employer in this manner. But her gaze kept shifting to the glass tazza, her distorted reflection urging her on like an inner demon.

  “I can see why Mamie would be far more persuasive than I can be,” she added. “She would be a good match for any man. She is a Dickens.”