In the coach, Field briefed me on the developments in the case.
“Your visit this afternoon seems to ’ave, with certainty, flushed our friend Ashbee,” he began.
“There has been a flurry of suspicious activity at the Ashbee estate since we left there this afternoon,” Dickens interrupted.
I listened intently as we clattered through the night streets. We had been scheduled to rehearse Not So Bad As We Seem later that evening, but Dickens quickly informed me that, through Wills, he had cancelled the rehearsal.
“Immediately after you left the estate,” Field continued, “all but one of the servants, a butler who lives on the premises, departed the ’ouse, dismissed through the weekend. One, under questionin’, described preparations for Milord’s departure for somewhere. No idea where. The country, perhaps. Perhaps the Continent. None could say for certain.” Field stopped but a moment to draw breath.
“Only moments after,” he proceeded on, “a closed coach, its top fully loaded with baggage, which gives one to suspect that the sudden withdrawal was not so sudden after all; at any rate, this coach, springs ’eavy against the road, galloped away from the vicinity of the Ashbee estate.” Again he paused for breath.
“Vicinity?” I had the temerity to interject.
“We are not sure where it left from,” Field continued, “though its ’aste was too suspicious to overlook. Gatewood was not caught up short this time. ’Ee followed. ’Ee ’as not yet reported in. It did not come from the carriage ’ouse behind Ashbee’s main ’ouse. It may ’ave come from the back reaches of the estate, perhaps some concealed outbuilding in the wooded park. Its curtains were drawn. We ’ave no idea who was inside. It ’it the ’eye-road at full gallop.”
“You feel it was Ashbee, yes?”
“Ah, but there is more,” he said, pausing for effect. “This afternoon, while we were watchin’ the Ashbee estate, Mrs. Peggy Ternan was picked up attemptin’ to sneak back into ’er temporary lodgin’s near Covent Garden Theatre. At first, she vows that nothin’ ’as ’appened. ‘Where’s your daughter Ellen?’ our man says. ‘Gone to visit relatives,’ the old bawd answers. ‘Not good enough,’ our man presses. The result, under rigorous questionin’, the old ’ore takes a fright, and admits that ’er daughter ’as, in ’er words, ‘left the city in the protection of a gentleman.’”
“That ‘gentleman’ being Ashbee.” There was pain in Dickens’s voice as he placed this coda upon Field’s narrative.
With that, the coach horses reined in at the Bow Street Station.
“Keep your seats, gentlemen. This won’t take long. Rogers!” Field sent his lieutenant into the building with a jab of his omnipotent forefinger.
“What do you propose to do?” I asked, with an outsider’s timidity.
“We must go back to Ashbee’s house, and see if she is there,” Dickens’s voice was stretched taut.
“She is not there,” Inspector Field answered decisively, “but you are right. We must search the premises now. No time to attain permission from the Queen’s Bench. A search might tell us where she ’as been taken.”
In mere minutes, Serjeant Rogers returned, accompanied by the redoubtable Mister Tally Ho Thompson, who climbed into the coach, and, with a jaunty wave and a grinning “Gents,” seated himself.
“If we’re goin’ ta be breakin’ an’ enterin’, might as well ’ave an expert along,” Field grinned across at us. Rogers climbed dourly up on the box.
Milord’s Secret Library
May 9, 1851—evening
We rattled over the cobbled streets, and soon emerged onto the moonswept high-road. Tally Ho Thompson seemed unable to suppress the singular bemusement, which kept twisting his face into a quite remarkable series of Pickwickian smirks.
“Mister Thompson is ’ere purely in an advisory capacity,” Inspector Field announced some minutes after the ne’er-do-well had taken his place in the coach. “You will gain our entry into the ’ouse,” Field said, giving Thompson his marching orders, “and then you will do your best imitation of Lot’s biblical wife.” Field punctuated that last with a stab of his forefinger into Thompson’s greatcoat, and seemed quite pleased with his little metaphor. “You will not remove any negotiable objects from the premises.”
“In other words,” Thompson smirked, “make the crack, and turn to salt.”
“Ah, a quick study,” Field approved.
The coach bounced and lurched with each rut and curve in the high-road. The night was clear, and the moon was full and white. Light pooled like fog in the open spaces. It was not a very good night for housebreaking.
“An’ wot ’appens if we get caught, Cap’n? If the country sheriffs descend on us from Shooters ’Ill with pistols an’ blunderbusses? They don’t never go habroad without their barking persuaders. Wot will my hadvisory capacity be then, eh?” Thompson brought up the possibility calmly, fighting off his irrepressible grin of bemusement. He was clearly enjoying the discomfiture of Field at having to treat him as an equal.
Field’s forefinger came up for a familiar scratch at the side of his eye. “You are under my protection,” he assured Tally Ho Thompson.
“Sure I am, but just for fancy’s sake, ain’t it possible I’m present ’ere as a convenient way for all you gents to hedge your bets?”
With studied sarcasm, Field said: “Why, what, pray tell, can you mean?”
“I mean, Cap’n, you brought me along so that if you get caught breakin’ into this posh bloke’s digs, you can say it wos me, and you wos on my trail, and you come out sharp as nails, and I come out prime for a dance with Jack Ketch. That’s wot I mean.”
Field smiled a benevolent smile. “Why, Mister Thompson, you are too suspicious. You are on the right side of the law now.” Suddenly Field’s face went hard. “You are storin’ up favors in ’eaven, Thompson,” he said, as the forefinger scratched threateningly at the lower lip. “Don’t forget that I am the Father who bestows those favors.”
I was somewhat taken aback at Field’s blasphemous analogy, but the redoubtable Inspector just chuckled at his own extravagance. The coach pulled up in a back lane, sheltered from view of the Ashbee estate, and from the relentless moonlight, by an overhanging arch of ancient elm trees.
The moonlight filtered through the branches of the trees, as we five housebreakers, in faith to Field’s lead, traversed the forested park toward the Ashbee manse. Field led, with Thompson immediately behind; Dickens and I came next, with Rogers serving as our rearguard.
Thoughts of alarm and apprehension raced through my mind. I wondered if Field and Rogers were armed with pistols, or “barkers,” as Thompson called them. As we moved through the trees, I seemed surrounded by a tumult of sounds—the noises of scurrying animals, the wind, the moving branches of the trees overhead, the pounding of my own heart. I had to stop and take a deep breath to compose myself. When I stopped, Rogers coughed a short sharp signal, and the others paused also.
“What is it?” Field whispered back at his serjeant.
“Mister Collins is blowed,” Rogers whispered, with what I imagined to be a great relish. Indeed, he was right. I felt as if we had been rushing headlong. I later realized that it was the anxiety I was feeling, not the exercise, which had so winded me. We went on at a slower pace, until abruptly the forest park ended, and we reached the edge of the rolling lawns. We stopped inside the shadows of the treeline.
Tally Ho Thompson stepped forward. “When I get it open, I’ll show a glim. You come straight to the light. No ’esitation. Got it?” He took great pleasure in giving orders to Field and Rogers. “Well, gennulmen, and you, too, Inspector Field,” he said, his face convulsed with mischieviousness, “success to the crack.” He saluted us and was gone.
We waited. The house, white in the moonlight, loomed fifty metres away across an expanse of carefully manicured lawn. Surely we will be seen approaching the house, my nervous mind speculated. Surely we will make exemplary targets for the “barkers” when we attempt t
o cross that lawn.
I did not have long to brood on those threatening possibilities. Thompson’s light popped up almost immediately in the deep shadows of the verandah. Behind Dickens and Field, we started across that open moonlit expanse at a full run.
Only the crunch of the grass beneath the quick pad of our feet marred the marble silence of the moment. We reached the shelter of the verandah, and flattened ourselves against the wall of the house. My eyes were riveted upon Dickens and Field. Neither seemed the least bit ill at ease. As I think back upon it, both would probably have made excellent cracksmen or highwaymen, if they had not already taken up law-abiding professions. As for me, there could have been no worse cracksman in all of England. My imagination burned with images of alarm and flight and capture and public humiliation, if not death or wounding.
Yet all was perfectly quiet and serene.
“Child’s play,” an elfin voice chuckled out of the darkness. “No bars. Small matter of pickin’ one quite undistinguished lock, an’ we are in, gennulmen and public servants.”
Thompson was waiting for us, calmly smoking in the darkness. The beacon light he had struck was nothing else but a Lucifer off of which he lit the stub of his cigar. “I’ve already been inside,” he whispered. “No sign of anybody on this side of the ’ouse. Step lightly, though. You never know when they are goin’ to step out of the woodwork.” With a flourish he ushered us through an open door and a set of flimsy curtains into Ashbee’s house. Field ordered Rogers to remain at our point of entry as a rearguard and lookout.
We stole in through a large sitting room with rugs covering the floors. Away from the windows and the moonlight, all was dark as pitch. We were forced to proceed slowly, feeling our way across that room populated with heavy malicious furniture. I barked my shin sharply upon a small table, but I did not cry out, though I cursed inwardly.
Thompson led us to the door of the room. “It opens onto the main entrance ’all of the ’ouse,” he whispered. With that, he withdrew as if to say, “I’ve done my part, gents, now we’ll see ’ow game you are.”
“I know where we are. I can find the way from here,” Dickens assured Inspector Field in a whisper.
What am I doing here in someone else’s house in the middle of the night with these two madmen, was the unsettling thought which rooted itself in my frightened consciousness. Nevertheless, I was there, and those two seemed bent upon proceeding with this insane misadventure. It had been a terribly unsettling day for me—first Irish Meg, and now, my first felony.
We moved slowly across the foyer, boots scraping softly on the marble floor.
“Very quiet now,” Field imprecated in a fierce whisper. “No stumblin’ up against each other.” He motioned for Dickens to take the lead down into a black tunnel, the long passageway off of which opened the rooms through which Ashbee had conducted us that afternoon. The library, if my memory served, stood at the very end of this passage. “The library,” Field directed Dickens. “Both of you remarked it. We’ll start there.”
At the end of the hallway, Field stepped in front of Dickens, and tried the door to the library. It opened silently, and we plunged into the sort of deep blackness that exists only in windowless rooms. For a long moment, the three of us simply stood still in the silent dark immediately inside the library door. Field was probably trying to decide whether or not to strike a light. I heard a quiet movement in front of me. My eyes had not yet accustomed themselves to the impenetrable darkness. I presumed it was Field on the move.
“The picture you remarked,” he whispered with some urgency. “Where?”
Neither Dickens nor I knew whom he was addressing. You could not see a thing. Consequently, we both answered almost in unison.
“Straight in from the door at eye-level,” Dickens answered.
“There,” I pointed stupidly, realizing, even as I did so, that Field could not see my upraised arm.
I heard Field moving again—a Lucifer struck—tiny halo of light casting monstrous shadows on the wall of books—light moves to the solitary picture hung amongst the shelves—light circles the picture—Field’s hand touches the picture, moves tentatively around its edges, finally grasps the frame and pulls—picture, much to Dickens’s and my surprise, tilts sideways like a lever—then something occurred for which none of us were prepared.
The whole wall began to move, and artificial light spilled into the room in which we stood. A gasp of surprise accompanied by a “Wot the bloody ’ell!” and a “Ooo in ’ell har…?” greeted us as the wall pulled back to reveal a quite large book-strewn room, and an equally large startled footman staring at us. He was sitting on a large overstuffed settee, with a large oversized book on his knee. We had, evidently, surprised him in the perusal of this book.
Surprised him indeed! When he leapt to his feet, the book dropping to the oriental rug, his trousers were seen to be bunched around his ankles and his sexual member stood rampant in the grasp of his large right hand.
I must admit that my first impulse was to laughter. I am sure that Dickens and Field were equally surprised. My eyes darted from the hulking man with the drooping moustache, standing there so in flagrante, to the book discarded on the floor, to the bottle of Scots whiskey next to the book. We had evidently surprised this worthy in the act of amusing himself in the private perusal of one of his master’s books.
This footman, whom we later assumed to be the sole remaining caretaker of the premises, was clearly startled. Yet, he kept his wits about him. He was not so startled that he was unable to reach to a nearby deal table, from whence a loaded pistol leapt into his quivering hand. To our great good fortune, he also maintained the presence of mind to only point it in our direction, not to immediately fire it wildly at us. The man, indeed, made a bizarre, quite laughable, figure standing there with a look of panic on his face, his trousers bunched around his ankles, and both hands on a duelling pistol which was jumping and jerking like a Punch and Judy puppet.
“Now.” It was Inspector Field’s voice. “Be calm with that,” he spoke soothingly. “This is not what it seems to be. We mean you no ’arm. Please do not shoot. We are not ’ousebreakers. No bloodshed is necessary ’ere. I am Inspector Field of the Metropolitan Protectives.”
“Hin huh pig’s heye, you har,” the moustachioed man barked as the pistol quivered precariously. Its barrel, as it bounced from Field to Dickens to myself, seemed as large and black as the new Hammersmith railway tunnel.
“Now, don’t shoot. It’s true. We are the detectives authorized to investigate Lord Ashbee’s ’ouse,” Field cajoled the man, whose half-naked state was becoming somewhat of a greater embarrassment with each passing moment.
“Master don’t like no one hin ’is room,” the man said, waving the cocked pistol wildly.
“Why don’t you escort us out, then?” Inspector Field suggested.
With one hand, the man stooped, and pulled his trousers up. With a snap, he got one of his braces over a shoulder.
“Just escort us out, and no ’arm will be done.” Somehow Field had talked himself into a negotiating position with this dolt. “Your master need never know that we got in without your knowledge, or that we found you in ’is private room.”
The burly footman thought long and hard on that. It looked as if his deliberations were causing him great pain about the lips and eyebrows.
“Don’t nobody move.” He kept the gun pointed at us as he edged toward the door. “Cuntstables har hown the heye-road. They’ll do you!”
From this gibberish, I deduced that he meant to lock us in, and summon the local authorities to arrest us. Field darted a glance at Dickens and myself, which I found very reassuring. He seemed to be saying, “Don’t worry; all that this can be now is an embarrassment.” I almost felt as if I were the one who had been caught with my pants down.
Ashbee’s servant circled around us, the firearm still shaking in his hands, as if he were afflicted with some palsy. “Don’t ye move a whit,” he ordered, with
out conviction, as he edged toward the doorway. Field slowly nodded his head in acquiescence.
As the man with the pistol slowly backed through the doorway, his eyebrows suddenly shot up, his eyes went wide, he uttered a low, gutteral grunt, and proceeded to collapse face forward onto the oriental carpet. The pistol dropped from his hand as he fell, and bounced weakly to the side on the ornate rug. Dickens, Field, and myself stared stupidly at our fallen antagonist. Tally Ho Thompson, the source of our sudden deliverance, stepped grinning through the doorway thwacking a black gutta percha equalizer against the meat of his palm.
“Just a slight tap in the right spot behind the ear does surely relax one, wouldn’t you say, gents? ’Ee’ll just ’ave a good ’eadache in the mornin’,” he assured us with a puckish wink.
“’Ee must not be loose in the mornin’ to warn ’is master,” Field was thinking aloud, nothing more. “The man knows who we are, and if Ashbee finds out we’ve been ’ere, ’ee’ll be all the more skitterish. We must take this idiot into custody. Thompson, fetch Rogers.”
Before Thompson left, he turned to Field and said, “I’ve checked the whole ’ouse. ’Ee” (nodding to the unconscious man) “must be the only one ’ere.”
“Well,” Dickens said to Field, as we all turned our attention to Ashbee’s secret library, “what do you make of this?”
Ah, dear reader, how do I tell this part? There were surprises in that secret room much more startling than a frightened footman caught perusing his master’s books. This memoir shall never be published in our time; thus, I should not hesitate to write candidly of what we found; and yet, by habit and instinct, I do hesitate: our age shrinks from the sort of realism which Henry Ashbee had collected there in his secret library. I was repelled by it, yet strongly attracted, let us say “fascinated,” by what we found therein. It was much like my own fascination for Meggy Sheehey. I could not admit to it, yet neither could I deny it.
The Detective and Mr. Dickens Page 20
