Matthew Pearl - The Last Dickens

ONLY DAYS AFTER HIS HOME HAD BEEN RANSACKED, SYLVANUS Bendall had arrived to work one morning and found his office in similar condition. Just as at home, nothing had been removed. The lawyer no longer could attribute the original assault on his property to being a Back Bay pioneer since his office was in a more conventional district. No, the crimes were personal. Perhaps the petty revenge of a client Bendall had failed? There were enough names in that category.

Bendall had questioned a number of his more reliable underworld connections for clues. Then one day he came to his office to find two men waiting in the anteroom. One was a young riffraff, the likes of which often frequented his offices, and the other was a gentleman. The gentleman was dressed in fine clothes and had a fresh, brave face that was instantly admirable and thus suspect in its openness.

Sylvanus Bendall did not ask who had been waiting longer; he simply introduced himself to the young gentleman as attorney-at-law and invited him into his inner office.

“I wish we had set an appointment for our interview another day, Mr. Osgood, so that you would not have had to share the waiting room with such class of people.”

“I make no complaints about the company. It is important I obtain certain facts as soon as I can.”

“I see. Important to a court of law, I suppose.”

“Not exactly,” Osgood said. “Important for myself. I have come to ask about Daniel Sand, a man in my employ who died a few weeks ago.”

“I do not believe I had the opportunity to be acquainted with him,” said Bendall. “Though I am counsel for many a poor and ignorant young man.”

“He may have begun life poor, Mr. Bendall, but he worked industriously and was not ignorant in any field he was given the chance to learn. He was killed in an omnibus accident, and I believe you were present.”

“Oh?”

“The policeman told me the name of the omnibus, and the driver remembered that you announced your name and profession.”

“Did I?” Bendall asked, bewildered.

“Several times. They recalled that you stood close to Daniel's body.”

“I see.” Bendall nodded with a new stiffness to his expression. “I suppose I did, now that you remind me. That was a tragic scene, Mr. Osgood. I hope you have been able to fill the young man's vacancy well enough and, if not, that I might suggest a candidate or two needing work. You shall hardly guess they had ever been to prison.”

“Did you see the accident, Mr. Bendall?”

“I merely heard the whap! I mean,” Bendall said, “the sound as we struck the unfortunate young man.”

“The driver said he believed Daniel was holding something when the accident occurred, but that it was gone by the time the police arrived. Mr. Sand, I should explain, was to be delivering some papers belonging to our firm.”

Bendall involuntarily caressed his waistcoat where he still kept his treasured advance sheets of the Dickens story, then chewed at his thumb's nail. He had grown uncommonly fond of these pages; so fond, come to think of it, as of his thumbnail. The last story of Dickens! Of course, the publisher sitting across from him would no doubt already have sent for a duplicate of the advance sheets from England. So what harm was there in keeping his souvenir?

“No,” Bendall answered Osgood's query blandly. Then, after waiting a moment to see the reaction in Osgood's face, added, “He wasn't holding a piece of paper, Mr. Osgood. Not even, to speak between gentlemen, the smallest dirt-coated scrap of thin quality stationery.”

“The driver must have been mistaken,” Osgood said with disappointment. “I only wish there were more clues. The police believe that my clerk was suffering in a narcotic state, and I do not want to- I cannot believe it.”

“Pooh! I cannot say, really. He was speaking mumbo jumbo, certainly-”

“What?” Osgood interrupted with a revived attentiveness. “Do you mean Daniel Sand was alive when you reached him?”

“For a few seconds only,” Bendall replied.

“The police didn't say anything about it.”

“Well, they didn't-I mean, the police! They are often so negligent. I myself have suffered break-ins twice of late, you know!”

“Please. What did Daniel say?”

“Nonsense! Gibberish, that's what. He looked at me and said ‘God’-that's right, imagine my breathing very shallowly if you will, when I say that, and a hoarse whisper as suits a man fading from the mortal state of life-‘It is God's,’ said he. It was much like a sentimental novel.”

“That was all he said? ‘It is God's’ what?”

“He did not finish the statement, I fear. It is God's will. It is God's desire, perhaps. Intention? No, too long winded. To tell the truth, if he had said more, I think I would have chosen not to hear, for to eavesdrop on a man making his peace with his maker is to do a disservice to both those parties. At any rate, I took his hand after he spoke and held it there tightly as he expired.” Bendall had not in fact taken Sand's hand after Daniel spoke his final words, but this embellishment had appeared in his retelling and the lawyer by now believed in it more sincerely than if it had occurred.

SYLVANUS BENDALL could be seen toiling around the streets of Boston for several more hours that day after meeting James Osgood, hurrying distractedly between his office, the courthouse, the bleak expanse of the Charlestown prison, then running heroically through the rain to board the horsecars on his return home. As he read the evening newspaper in his seat, he began to feel the pungent breath of a tobacco-chewing man sitting behind him and, upon leaning back in the seat, feel the man's fingers pressing against his neck. “It is not polite,” said Bendall into the air, for he was determined not to turn around, “to infringe on another person, no matter how cramped the space.”

The fingers withdrew slowly from the back of his seat. Satisfied, Bendall read on, though through a filmy lens of distraction. Ever since his meeting with Osgood, a thought was growing inside Bendall's mind. Those final words of the clerk's- it is God's. Now that his mind returned to that moment, he could not avoid feeling a helpless sense of misunderstanding. Had the poor lad actually been trying to say something in particular, to convey some kind of warning to Bendall?

Black liquid showered down on the floor by his feet.

“It is not polite to spit tobacco inside the cars, either!” the lawyer exclaimed. He heard his voice shake with a lack of control and hated that it did.

But he would not give any satisfaction to the rude imp by turning around in his seat, even when the disgusting black ooze continued to spray his neck and the man's wet umbrella dripped on him. Were the slimy head of Medusa presented to the lawyer's view, he would still not divert his gaze. Instead, Bendall got out at the next stop-three stops early. The summer rain had given way to wind and a thick, hot mist that filled a man's mouth with bitterness.

This was an empty stretch of land. Bendall's plot was far west, almost approaching the corner of Exeter Street, beyond which there was not a soul.

Unseen by Bendall, the man who had been sitting behind him also had exited the cars, only a moment before the door closed again. The heavy, wet footfalls followed just behind him until there was no way to ignore them.

Bendall, realizing he was shivering, stopped. “What is your purpose, sir?” he said sternly, this time finally turning around to face the wretch.

The stranger's umbrella was open and along with a thick fur hat, it shadowed his face. He glared, allowing his eyes to rove across Bendall's suit and down to his rubber boots. The stranger laughed with a deep, discordant bass movement of his throat. The man's sheer bulk was imposing, and his skin was dusky without being quite Negro- perhaps a Bengalee or some sort? From under the shadow of the umbrella it could be seen that he dangled an ivory toothpick on the top of his lower lip.