Matthew Pearl - The Last Dickens

Sylvanus Bendall froze. He came to an immediate and urgent conclusion: not only was he in danger, but this swarthy mustachioed man with the dark eyes and the baritone laugh- this very man -was his worst enemy. It is God's vengeance, that is what the lad had meant to imply!

Bendall said, his instinct outracing his logic, “It is you, isn't it? It was you who tore my home to pieces and then my office?”

The stranger shrugged his shoulders and continued to laugh.

Bendall demanded, “What do you want with me? Why do you trifle with a gentleman? Come, now. Speak, man!”

“What… do… I… want? Dickens!” The man repeated: “Dickens!” He pronounced his words like an Englishman-or perhaps a “dude,” that particular species of American that imitated English manners-though the rumbling gruffness sounded more exotic. “You didn't give those pages back to Mr. Osgood, did you?”

Bendall answered righteously, furrowing his brow, “Pooh! Did Osgood hire you to find those papers?”

“Did you tell him of the papers, sir?” asked the man.

“It is none of his concern, nor yours. This is a free country. I kept it to myself.”

“Good fellow. Yet they are not anywhere in your office or at your home, which means…” The stranger grabbed him by the arm as the attorney felt the blood drain from his head in terror. Methodically, the man patted Bendall's waistcoat until he located the paper bundle. “You try to order me? Give them here before I make you swallow them!” He yanked out the pages and pushed Bendall hard, sending the lawyer right into a puddle.

Bendall drew a first breath of relief to have suffered only scrapes, but only a moment later, grew incensed. He'd been assaulted and muddied in the middle of the street and by the man who had also ransacked his home and office. I shall root out the source of this evil myself , he had told his housemaid, and here he had done so! Now was the time to grab the moment by the throat. Bendall, recovering his courage, rose to his feet and chased after the thief.

“Wait!” Bendall cried.

The stranger kept walking.

Bendall caught up, waving his fist. “If you don't come back and give an account of yourself, I shall go directly to the police, and complain to Mr. Osgood at once. Tell me your name!”

The stranger slowed down. “Herman,” he responded in a compliant voice. “They call me Herman.” As he said it, in one unhesitating motion, he turned around and slashed Bendall across the throat with the fangs of his cane head. Bendall gasped for air before he fell. In the dreary landscape of the New Land, there was no one around to see Bendall take his last, struggling breath.

Herman bent down and lodged a knife into the neck several times. He kept the toothpick and umbrella in place even while the knife sawed through the lawyer's bone.

Bengal, India, June 18, 1870

THESE LAST TWO WEEKS FOR OFFICERS TURNER AND MASON OF the Bengal Mounted Police could have been measured out in drills, parades, and treasure escorts. Since the bullock cart convoy had been robbed, they still had not traced the second fugitive that had escaped their raid in the jungle. Worse, they had yet to recover the chests that were each filled with one picul, or 133⅓ pounds, of valuable opium that had been stolen that day.

Their supervisor in the mounted patrol, Francis Dickens, was agitated. He called the two officers to his desk. “Gentlemen, headway?”

“We received intelligence from one of the native patrolmen on some of the thief's comrades,” said Mason excitedly. “In the hills. He could be hiding there, waiting for us to abandon our investigation.”

“I rarely trust information from the native men, Mr. Dickens,” Turner interjected, countering his junior's optimism.

“There is corruption to be found in native officials, Turner, I under stand that well enough,” said Frank Dickens, a light-complexioned and slender twenty-six-year-old man wearing a flaxen mustache. He spoke with an air of one too rapidly hardened by his own authority. “That dacoit is the only fellow we know of who can lead us to the stolen opium-which I daresay they have not been bold enough to try to sell on the illegal market. We've had guards at the border to the French colony watching for just that.”

“Yes, sir,” answered back Turner.

“You understand our interest, gentlemen,” Frank Dickens added sternly. “The peace of the district depends greatly on our police department's appearing effective. We mustn't tempt thieves into thinking they are free to operate in Bengal, in our jurisdictions. The railway police and the village police are on the alert. I have an appointment today with the magistrate of the village where the escaped thief lived. I daresay he will inquire into our progress, and I rely on your service.”

The officers saluted and were dismissed. Before they exited, Frank asked to speak privately with Turner.

“Officer Turner. This dacoit -should you find him-be certain he arrives here.”

“Sir?” Turner bristled.

Frank crossed his arms over his chest. “With Narain dead, that thief may be the only way we can trace those opium chests. I want you to ensure his physical safety. You take the seat by the window.”

“By all means, Superintendent Dickens.”

As the two mounted policemen rode on their mission, Turner could not stop curling his hands into fists. He knew, everyone knew, Francis Dickens was only superintendent because of his name. Why, Turner could hold a command every bit as well as Dickens! The bloke's father, dead this month, was a poor cockney from the back country who happened to know how to pick up a pen. And how respectable was the family, in any case, with a wife in banishment from her own home, and a pretty actress having taken her place, according to the gossip Turner had read in the London columns? The great genius himself was dead and buried. It galled Turner to be ordered about by the son of such a man. And for what reason? All because Charles Dickens could sketch out maudlin stories that made women cry and men laugh. Was that all there was to becoming a rich and popular author?

He'd said to Mason more than once, “I'd rather be a son of Charles Dickens than the heir of the Duke of Westminster when it's time for promotions.”

FRANK DICKENS, MEANWHILE, rode to the magistrate's bungalow. Finding the bungalow empty, he crossed the compound to enter the cutcherry , a building of mud walls and a thatched roof. The magistrate was only a year older and his study at Calcutta University had resulted in English that bore hardly a trace of his native accent. Frank and other English officials had become rather fond of him.

Passing across the compound, Frank noted with satisfaction the newest lamps and footpaths. The more signs of civilization spread around the native villages, the less trouble. Natives rose and salaamed to him as he walked, placing their hands to their faces and bowing low. Some were lying down across the grass in the shade. One, sitting with his elbows balanced on his knees, shuffled away at the sight of the visitor-perhaps it was because Frank was European, perhaps it was the uniform.

As the Englishman entered the court, the Indian attorneys and guards also salaamed. The magistrate was sitting at a table on a platform before a dimly lit room crowded in every corner with impatient natives. Dressed in ornamental costume with gold and silver patterns, the magistrate walked around the table and took the police supervisor's hand warmly.