Matthew Pearl - The Last Dickens

He now removed the booklet from his pocket, and his suspicion was confirmed. He was holding the latest installment of The Mystery of Edwin Drood , the same installment he had seen shipped out of Chapman & Hall on Magazine Day.

“Drood!” he said to himself. How in the land had it come to be here, too? Charles Dickens truly was read in every corner of the earth.

Returning up the stairs, gripping the handrail very firmly, Osgood felt his vision blur again as he neared the dark opium room. The entrance now seemed to be one solid block of smoke. He felt blind as he took two steps inside and then stumbled over something. Looking down as he plunged forward, he realized he had just tripped over Datchery, sprawled out on the floor. Osgood was caught and pushed against the wall, where he was held erect by the Lascar sailor, who threw a fist into Osgood's stomach.

“Stop! Ripley!” This cry came from Datchery, who pulled himself up from the floor and stumbled toward Osgood's attacker. Datchery wrestled with the Lascar, but Booboo, the Bengalee, shook him away and threw him back to the floor, where Datchery landed on his head and was knocked out cold.

Osgood, blinded by tears and blood, tried to feel his way out of the room, but the Lascar grabbed him and pitched into him with his fists, again and again, left then right, crushing him against the wall. Then the Lascar ripped open Osgood's waistcoat and frisked his pockets. Osgood could hear Booboo squatting on the floor similarly ransacking the unconscious Datchery.

As his body slumped down, Osgood felt himself slam against the wall and his head hitting it hard. Then, suddenly, it all came to a halt. Screams. The Lascar collapsed, his head rolling limply on the side of his neck. Booboo seemed to fly across the room splattering blood as he did. Sally had scrambled to the ladder and scurried like one of her mice up its rungs out of sight. Then Osgood was grabbed by both of his arms by someone new.

Through the blur, Osgood thought he could see the figure who'd seized him.

“Impossible!”

He knew this assailant. How could he be here! The giant figure loomed over him, grasped the top of his arm roughly. Seconds later, Osgood hit the floor and everything around him went black.

The next thing Osgood could remember, he awoke covered by darkness. His clothes were dripping wet and tattered. Strangely, he felt a state of dreamy peacefulness, the call of sleep, the crash of oceans, still starry skies-these pulled at him. The air had turned thickly blue, and he reached out to touch it.

Then a vague thought pierced the peace. Danger: he had to reach for the word-although it should have been self-evident. He was in danger. A snake, black and yellow and then all yellow, slithered by, nearly touching him; it spoke, or someone else spoke, now ten, fifteen, fifty voices could be heard at once trying to drown him in an incoherent chorus.

He thought about Rebecca, who had warned him… Rebecca who had been loyal and believed he could succeed in their mission… Rebecca whom he knew now that he had loved from the first time he saw her. He felt like crying-he felt as though this would relieve some of his bleak frustration-to produce tears but he could not manage. Without rising-for that seemed beyond his means-he looked for any sign of Datchery.

His eyes wanted to close but he felt if he allowed them, he would not be able to open them again. Struggling, his eyes won and Osgood tumbled backward into the dark.

THE SEWER HUNTER STEPPED carefully into the lowest section of the tunnel. Unlike most sewer hunters, Steve Williams had been able to secure the expensive leather boots that went up to the knee. This gave him a giant help as he waded through the bubbling offal and mud that filled the two thousand miles of brick sewers under London.

Armed with a long iron pole, with a flat hoe at the end, Steve dug through a crevice where something was lodged. He opened the slide on his lantern, which hung from his belt, so he could see more clearly through the dim, noxious air.

“God bless!” he said to himself, reaching out his arm and pulling up two silver table knives. “God bless, silver!” he exclaimed, stuffing them in his pocket. This, along with the gold milk jug found a day be-fore, gave Steve an ancient air of heroic triumph. He noticed a bulge in the muddy floor near the drain out to the east end. Poking the lumpy mud with his pole, a flurry of rats the size of small cats rushed past him. Steve stepped forward two boots’ lengths and coughed. He did not cough at the awful air, punctuated by the waste of the butchers thrown into the drains, which he was used to after three years hunting in sewers, but at the sight of another dead body washed up in the tunnels. Though their treasure seeking was illegal, the police were permissive of the sewer hunters as long as they reported dead bodies and human remains. This one wore a nice suit.

But on closer inspection, he found that the prostrate man was not dead. He was even breathing.

“Now come along, fellow, how'd you get in this place?” Steve called out, pulling up the man's arm. “Get along, you beasts!” he said. There were massive rats clinging to the man's arms, legs, head, and body and chirping at a deafening volume. “Get along!” Steve used his pole to knock off the rats and fight off others trying to climb on his discovery. He removed a pouch and forced a powdery substance into the man's mouth.

“Take these Epsom salts-take some of this. It will draw the blood from your head.”

Rising to his feet, finally, hugging his sides in pain, the man stumbled forward and found himself falling down again into the filth.

“Rebecca! Tell her!” he cried out.

“What do you mean? What is all this choke-pear?” answered Steve.

“Stop him! I saw him! You must…!”

“Who? Who ever did you see, gov'n'r?”

“Herman,” Osgood groaned. “It was always Herman!”

Boston, December 24, 1867

BACK AT THE PARKER HOUSE, IN THE PARLOR OF GEORGE DOLBY'S hotel room, Tom Branagan sat in a state of dejection. Dolby had put him in a worn oak chair that faced the fireplace, which was overrun with Christmas stockings and mistletoe; it was a hard punishment to be forced to watch the ashes fall one by one into the grate when there was too much to do. Tom's mind was on the woman who had caused all this. His insides burned hot, not with anger so much as with desire for the truth. Suddenly every detail he could remember about her took on significance. Suddenly the coming new year became portentous.

Dolby was walking up and down the room, and James Osgood, there to dutifully represent the outrage of the Boston publishing firm sponsoring the tour, was sitting diagonally across from Tom. Christmas gifts left at the hotel for Dickens-which could not all fit in the novelist's own rooms-were in careless piles under the furniture.

Tom's attention snapped back to the present. Dolby was shouting, “I know not what to say. Did I not-remind me now, perhaps my own memory fails me-did I not instruct you specifically to forget about playing hide-and-seek with that hotel intruder after it happened? I cannot but conclude I erred in trusting you, boy, was swayed by my duty to your father. Is this your Celtic excitability displaying itself?”

“Mr. Dolby, please understand…” Tom tried to interrupt.