Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

Suddenly, he felt an arm wrap itself around his neck. The shock of the attack knocked the breath out of him for an instant, but there was no strength in the attack. After a brief struggle Dickens thrust his elbow into the midriff of his assailant. Winded, the fellow lost his footing and Dickens seized his chance. Before the man could right himself, Dickens knelt upon his chest, and gripped his captive’s wrists as though his life depended on it.

“Listen! I do not want to arrest you. I just want to talk.”

The man said nothing; although strongly built, there was no fight left in him. He was wearing a ragged coat and had a beard and, although in the darkness it was difficult to make out his features, his breath smelled foul. This was the tramp Clarissa had described in her letter to Elizabeth, of that Dickens had no doubt.

“I am Charles Dickens. Do you know my name?”

“Dickens?” the tramp gasped. “What – what are you doing here?”

“I am helping my friend Mrs Gaskell to…”

“Mrs… Gaskell?” The tramp’s shock was palpable.

“Yes.” Dickens leaned over the man’s face. “You know of her? She is a well-known author from these parts and her friend is Mrs Clarissa Pettigrew of Canute Villa.”

“Not Pettigrew!” the man hissed. “Do not call her that!”

“Ah!” A thrill of triumph coursed through Dickens. His guesswork – no, his deduction! – must be correct. “You know Clarissa?”

“I… I knew her. Long ago.”

“And you ventured to renew the acquaintance?”

“No – I wanted to save her from that beast Pettigrew. That is all.”

“Did she recognize your name, Datchery?”

“Of course not. She knew me as someone else.”

A shiver of excitement ran through Dickens’ body.

“You dared not tell her your real name. What is it?”

The man groaned. “Mr Dickens, I am dying. Let me leave this world in peace.”

Dickens frowned in the darkness. It took no more than an instant for him to make up his mind.

“I believe I may hazard a guess at your true identity.”

A soft gasp. “You cannot!”

“You are John Stevenson, are you not? Elizabeth’s brother.”

A long silence. “How… how did you know?”

Dickens could not resist a smile of triumph. “Murder by strangulation is a crime often associated with the sub-continent. I wondered if the murderer had learned his craft there. He might have been a past associate of Pettigrew’s, but I also remembered that Elizabeth’s lost brother spent time in India. And if John had by some miracle remained alive – that might explain Datchery’s apparent familiarity with the town and his interest in Pettigrew’s wife. As well as explaining why Clarissa, having met him secretly, tried to throw us off his scent.”

“Dear Clarissa,” the man whispered.

“As for your sister…”

Stevenson raised a trembling hand. “She must never know.”

Within a few minutes Dickens had teased out the whole story. John had been a free mariner on the private vessels working the Indian Ocean, but one terrible day in the winter of 1828, shortly after arriving at the port of Bombay, he had been attacked by the bosun, who had conceived a deep dislike for him following an argument over a game of cards and had started drinking heavily the moment they reached dry land. A brawl ensued and, in falling to the ground, the man had cracked open his skull and died. Two of the bosun’s cronies had accused John of starting the fight and, terrified that he might fall victim to summary justice, the young man fled into the back streets of the city. There he quickly discovered that, in order to survive, he had little choice but to become much more ruthless and dangerous than the cheerful, God-fearing young fellow that Elizabeth, twelve years his junior, had so admired. He became a creature of the shadows, coining the name Datchery as a mark of his decision to become a different man.

Stevenson said little of what he had done over the years, but gave Dickens to understand that the bosun was not the only man who had died at his hands. He had learned the technique of strangulation favoured by the murderous Thugs prior to their suppression. Twelve months earlier, he had finally worked his passage back to London. Whatever crimes he had committed, they were too serious for it to be possible for him, even after such a lapse of time, to dare to assert his true identity. When he learned, with much astonishment, of his sister’s celebrity, it made him all the more determined not to bring dishonour upon her by revealing that he was still alive. Although Dickens protested fiercely, the old man was adamant. Elizabeth might have been heartbroken by his supposed demise, but at least she entertained nothing but good thoughts of him. He could not contemplate shattering her faith in his decency.

The privations of a misspent life meant that he fell sick with increasing frequency. On one occasion he collapsed in Covent Garden and a nurse had assisted him. He gathered from her that his heart was fading. A relapse might occur at any time, with fatal consequences.

Thus he had decided to make one last journey to the North. Not to see his sister, that was impossible, but someone whose memory he had cherished for more than thirty years. He had always worshipped Clarissa, but had been too shy to make his admiration known to her. Now it became a matter of obsession for him to look upon her one last time before he died.

After journeying north to Knutsford, he quickly discovered that the woman he had for so long adored was kept virtually as a prisoner in her own home by an avaricious and violent husband. A husband, moreover, of whom he had heard tell during his years in India. Pettigrew had, after a drinking bout, raped a servant girl. Although his superiors did their utmost to hush up the scandal, the story became well-known and Pettigrew was forced not only to leave the sub-continent but also to resign his commission. Stevenson resolved that he would at least do one last good thing in his life. He would free her from the brute.

It took a little while to pluck up the courage to talk to her. He kept watch on the house and eventually hit upon the idea of asking her to meet him. She had not kept the assignation behind the Lord Eldon on the day he sent her the message, but the next evening, terrified lest her absence be discovered by her husband, she dared to venture out. His faith in her innate bravery had been vindicated. Stevenson said that, once she had recovered from the shock of meeting a man she had believed was long dead, she had begged him not to do anything rash. But his mind was made up.

He had lured Pettigrew out of Canute Villa the previous evening by the simple expedient of a scrawled note saying I know the truth about your time in India. The stratagem succeeded. Stevenson had confronted his enemy, but on his account the Major lashed out at him. Illness had ravaged Stevenson’s body, but the urge to save Clarissa had given him the strength to overcome Pettigew and slowly squeeze the life out of him.

“You must come forward,” Dickens insisted. “An innocent man is under arrest for the crime. Besides that, your sister and Clarissa must know the truth!”

The ailing tramp shook his head. He had lost all his strength now and Dickens had to bend forward to catch what he said.

“No. You swore you would keep the secret, Mr Dickens. And you must.”

“But…”

The old man raised a knobbly hand. “No. I shall not leave Knutsford, Mr Dickens, never fear. Soon they will find me here, dead, and in my coat they will discover… this.”

He withdrew from inside his coat a thick, knotted cord.

“You see that stain? It is Pettigrew’s blood, Mr Dickens, from when I pulled it so tightly around his throat…”