Dan Simmons - Drood

“Have you had reason to change your opinion since you observed these things, Mr Collins?” I found Field’s soft but somehow peremptory and insinuating voice as irritating as I always did.

“They were not my opinions, Inspector. Simply my professional observations at the time.”

“But you no longer believe that a man or woman—say, someone trained in ancient arts of a long-forgotten society—could levitate ten feet in the air to peer in Charles Dickens’s window?”

Enough. I had had enough of this.

“I never believed in such a thing,” I said harshly, my voice rising. “Fourteen or fifteen years ago, as a much younger man, I reported on the… events… of certain drawing-room mystics and on the credulity of those gathered to watch such things. I am a modern man, Inspector Field, which in my generation translates to ‘a man of little belief.’ For instance, I no longer believe that your mysterious Mr Drood even exists. Or, rather, to state it more positively and in the affirmative, I believe that both you and Charles Dickens have used the legend of such a figure for your own different and disparate purposes, even while you have each endeavoured to use me as some sort of pawn in your game… whatever that game may be.”

It was too long a speech for a man in my condition, at this hour of the morning, and I buried my face in the glass of steaming sherry.

I looked up as Inspector Field touched my arm. His florid, veined face was set in a serious expression. “Oh, there’s a game all right, Mr Collins, but it’s not being played at your expense. And there are pawns—and more important pieces—being put into play, but you ain’t a pawn, sir. Although it’s almost certain that your Mr Dickens is.”

I withdrew my sleeve from his grasp. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you wondered, Mr Collins, exactly why I have placed so much importance on finding this Drood?”

I could not resist a smirk. “You want your pension back,” I said.

I thought this would anger the inspector and therefore was surprised by his quick, easy laugh. “Bless you, Mr Collins, that’s true. I do. But that’s the least of my goals in this particular chess match. Your Mr Drood and I are on the verge of becoming old men and we’ve each decided to put an end to this cat-and-mouse game what we’ve been playing these twenty years and more. Each of us has enough pieces left on the board to make our final move, it’s true, but what I believe you do not appreciate, sir, is that the end of this game must… must … result in the death of one or t’other of us. Either Drood dead or Inspector Field dead. There’s no other way for it, sir.”

I blinked several times. Finally I said, “Why?”

Inspector Field leaned closer again and I could smell the warm sherry on his breath. “You may have thought I was exaggerating, sir, when I said that Drood has been responsible, personally and through those mesmerised minions he sends out, for the deaths of three hundred people since he come here from Egypt more than two decades ago. Well, I was not exaggerating, Mr Collins. The actual count is three hundred and twenty-eight. This has to end, sir. This Drood has to be put a stop to. So far, all these years, in my service to the Metropolitan Police and out of it, I’ve been skirmishing with the Devil—we’ve each sacrificed pawns and rooks and better in this long game—but this is the true End Game, Mr Collins. Either the Devil checkmates my king or I check his. There’s no other way for it, sir.”

I stared at the inspector. For some time I had been doubting Charles Dickens’s sanity; now I knew for certain that there was another insane man affecting my life.

“I know that I’ve asked for your help with no other offer in recompense than my assistance in keeping the knowledge of Miss Martha R— from your lady Caroline, sir,” said Inspector Field. I thought that was a very polite way to describe his blackmailing of me. “But there are other things that I can offer in exchange for your help, sir. Substantial things.”

“What?” I said.

“What is your biggest problem in life at the moment, Mr Collins?”

I was tempted to say “You” and have done with it, but I surprised myself by uttering another syllable. “Pain.”

“Aye, sir… you’ve mentioned the rheumatical gout you’re suffering from. And it’s visible in your eyes, if I may be so bold as to mention it, Mr Collins. Constant pain is no trifling thing for any man, but especially for an artist such as yourself. Detectives depend on deduction, as you well know, sir, and my deduction is that you’ve come this awful March night to Opium Sal’s and this filthy neighbourhood just in some hope of further assuaging your pain. Is that not so, Mr Collins?”

“Yes,” I said. I did not bother telling Field that Frank Beard, my doctor, had recently suggested to me that the “rheumatical gout” I’d long suffered from might very well be a virulent form of a venereal disease.

“It bothers you even as we speak, Mr Collins?”

“My eyes feel like bags of blood,” I said truthfully. “I feel that every time I open them, I run the risk of haemorrhaging pints of blood down my face and into my beard.”

“Terrible, sir, terrible,” said Inspector Field, shaking his head. “I don’t blame you for a moment for seeking some relief from your laudanum or the opium pipe. But if you don’t mind me telling you so, sir, the grade of product at Opium Sal’s simply will not do the trick.”

“What do you mean, Inspector?”

“I mean that she dilutes the opium far too much for someone who is in your level of discomfort, Mr Collins. And it is not a pure product to begin with. It is true that a judicious combination of your laudanum and the opium pipe might have salutary—perhaps even miraculous—effects on your affliction, but these Bluegate Fields and Cheapside opium dens simply don’t have the quality of drug to help you, sir.”

“Where, then?” I asked, but even as I spoke, I knew what he would say.

“King Lazaree,” said Inspector Field. “The Chinaman’s secret den down in Undertown.”

“Down in the crypts and catacombs,” I said dully.

“Yes, sir.”

“You simply want me to go back to Undertown,” I said, meeting the older man’s gaze. There was a dim, cold light filtering through the red-curtained windows of the Globe and Pigeon. “You want me to try again to lead you to Drood.”

Inspector Field shook his balding and grey-cheekwhiskered head. “No, we’ll not find Drood that way, Mr Collins. Mr Dickens undoubtedly told you the truth last autumn when he said that he’s been returning regular to Drood’s lair, but he’s not gone back through the nearby cemetery. We’ve had men posted there for months. Drood has told him of some other route to his underground world. Either that or the Egyptian Devil is living aboveground all this time and has revealed one of his locations to your Mr Dickens. So your writer friend don’t need to enter Undertown by that route any longer, Mr Collins, but you can if you wish the relief of King Lazaree’s pure opium.”

My glass was empty. I looked up at the inspector through eyes suddenly grown watery. “I cannot,” I said. “I’ve tried. I cannot move the heavy bier in the crypt in order to gain access to the stairs.”

“I know, sir,” said Inspector Field, his voice as professionally smooth and sad as an undertaker’s. “But Hatchery will be most glad to help you whenever you wish to go down there, day or night. Won’t you, Hib?”

“Most glad, sir,” said Hatchery from where he stood nearby. I confess that I had almost forgotten that the other man was present.