Dan Simmons - Drood

“Drood gathered ’round him some others—most ’gyptians, some Malays, some Lascars, some free niggers off the ships, some dirty Irish, some mean Germans—but mostly, as I say, other ’gyptians. They’ve themselves sort of a religion and they live and worship in the old Undertown.…”

Not understanding but afraid of interrupting again, I looked first at Dickens and then at Hatchery. Both men shook their heads and shrugged.

“One day, or night it were, maybe twenty year ago,” continued Sal, “Drood went to waylay and sap a sailor; some say ’is name was Finn, but this Finn waren’t as drunk as ’e seemed nor as easy a target as Drood thought. The ’gyptian Drood used a skinning knife for ’is dark work—or maybe it was one of them curvy bonin’ knives you see up at them Whitechapel butchers, what with their cry of ‘prime and nobby jintes for to-morrer’s dinner at nine-a-half, and no bone to speak of’ … and it was true, gentlemen and Constable ’Ib, that when Drood was a’finished with ’em on the docks, there was money for smoke in ’is purse and no bone to speak of for the sailor whose ’ollowed-out corpse was then dumped like so many fish guts into the Thames.…”

There came a low moaning from one of the adjoining rooms. I felt the hair on my neck rise, but this other-worldly moaning was no response to Old Sal’s story. Just a customer with a pipe in need of a refill. The crone ignored the moaning and so did her rapt audience of three.

“Not this night twenty years ago,” she said. “Finn—if Finn was ’is name—wasn’t no regular customer for Drood’s blade; ’e got Drood’s arm before it done ’im harm and then he got the bonin’ knife, or skinnin’ knife, whichever, and cut off the ’gyptian’s nose. Then ’e cut ’is would-be murderer open from crotch to collarbone, ’e did. Oh, Finn knew ’ow to wield a knife from his years ’afore the mast, is how ol’ Lascar Emma tells it. Drood, all slashed but still alive, yells no, no, mercy, no, and Finn cuts the blackguard’s tongue out of his mouth. Then ’e cuts off the heathen’s privy parts and offers to place ’em where the missin’ tongue had been. And then ’e done what ’e offered.”

I realised that I was blinking rapidly and breathing shallowly. I had never heard a woman talk this way. One glance towards Dickens told me that the Inimitable was equally enthralled by the tale and the teller.

“So finally,” continued Sal, “this Finn—this sailor by any other name who knew ’is knife-work—cuts Drood’s ’eart out of ’is chest and dumps the ’gyptian’s dead body into the river from a dock not a mile from this ’ouse. So ’elp me God, gentlemen.”

“But wait,” interrupted Dickens. “This occurred more than twenty years ago? You said earlier that Drood was your customer here for seven or eight years, up until about a year ago. Are you so dazed with the drug that you are forgetting your own lies?”

The Puffer Princess squinted evilly at Dickens and showed her clawed fingers and arched her bowed back while her wild hair seemed to stick out farther from her head and for a minute I was certain that she was transmogrifying into a cat and would begin spitting and clawing within another second or two.

Instead, she hissed—“Drood’s dead is what I been tellin’ you. Been dead since ’e was carved and tossed into the Thames by the sailor nigh onto twenty year ago. But ’is band, ’is group, ’is followers, ’is co-religionists—them other ’gyptians, Malays, Lascars, Irishmen, Germans, Hindoos—they fished ’is rotting, bloated corpse out of the river some days after ’is murder and did their heathen ritules and brought Drood back to life again. Lascar Emma says it was down in Undertown, where ’e dwells to this day. Old Yahee, who knew Drood when ’e was alive, ’e says the restorrection was over across the river in the mountains o’ ’orse and ’uman shit what you gentlemen so politely call ‘dust ’eaps.’ But wherever they done it, ’owever they done it, they brought Drood back.”

I glanced at Dickens. There was something both thrilled and mischievous in the author’s eye. I may have mentioned earlier that Charles Dickens was not the man one wants to stand next to at a funeral service—the boy in the man could not resist a smile at the least appropriate time, a meaningful glance, a wink. Sometimes I thought that Charles Dickens would laugh at anything, sacred or profane. I was afraid that he would start laughing now. I say I was afraid that he would start laughing, not just because of the embarrassment of the situation, but because I had the most uncanny certainty at that moment that the entire opium den around us, all the poor wretches buried in rags and secreted in corners and hidden under blankets and draped on pillows, in all three filthy, dark rooms there, were listening with all of the attention that their drug-addled minds could command.

I was afraid that if Dickens started laughing, these creatures—Old Sal first among them, fully changed into a huge cat—would leap upon us and rend us limb from limb. Even huge Hatchery, I was sure in that instant of my fear, could not save us if it came to that.

Instead of laughing, Dickens handed the crone three gold sovereigns, setting the coins gently in her filthy yellow palm and closing her curled and twisted fingers around them. He said softly, “Where can we find Drood now, my good woman?”

“In the Undertown,” she whispered, clutching the coins with both hands. “Down in the deepest parts of Undertown. Down where the Chinee named King Lazaree provides Drood and t’others the purest pure opium in the world. Down in Undertown with the other dead things.”

Dickens gestured and we followed him out of the smoke-filled room and onto the narrow, dark landing.

“Detective Hatchery,” said the writer, “have you heard of this subterranean Chinese opium dealer named King Lazaree?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you know of this Undertown that Sal talks about with such trepidation?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it within walking distance?”

“The entrance is, yes, sir.”

“Will you take us there?”

“To the entrance, yes, sir.”

“Will you go with us into this… Undertown… and continue being Virgil to our questing Dantes?”

“Are you asking if I’ll take you down into Undertown, Mr Dickens?”

“That I am, Inspector,” Dickens said almost gleefully. “That I am. For twice the rate we agreed upon, of course, since this is twice the adventure.”

“No, sir, I won’t.”

I could see Dickens blinking in amazement. He raised his stick and tapped the giant gently on the chest with the brass bird’s beak. “Come, come now, Detective Hatchery. All joking aside. For three times our agreed-upon sum, will you show Mr Collins and me to this and into this tantalising Undertown? Lead us to Lazaree and Drood?”

“No, sir, I won’t,” Hatchery said. His voice sounded ragged, as if the opium smoke had affected it. “I won’t go into Undertown under any circumstances. That’s my final word on that, sir. And I would beg you, if you value your souls and sanity, not to go down there yourselves.”

Dickens nodded as if considering this advice. “But you will show us the… what did you call it?… the entrance to Undertown.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hatchery. His low words came out like someone tearing thick paper. “I will show you… regretfully.”

“That’s good enough, Detective,” said Dickens, taking the lead down the dark stairway. “That’s fair and more than good enough. It is past midnight, but the night is young. Wilkie and I will press on—and down—by ourselves.”

The huge detective lumbered down the steps behind Dickens. It took me a minute to follow. The dense opium smoke in the closed room must have affected my nerves or muscles below the waist, because my legs felt heavy, leaden, unresponsive. In quite literal terms, I could not force my legs and feet to take the first step on the stairs.