An Ensuing Evil and Others

THE PASSING SHADOW

The two men sat opposite each other, either side of a dark oak table in the dark, tiny snug of the Thameside tavern. There were no windows in the curious threecornered little room. A gas burner, jutting from the wall above the solitary table, gave a curious flickering light, reflecting reddish on the red oak paneling. The elder man was in his early fifties, small of stature, immaculately dressed and coiffured, his curly hair receding from a broad forehead. A small “goatee” beard and mustache gave him the appearance of an intellectual, perhaps a professor. The other man was younger, in his thirties, fair of skin, with wide blue eyes and auburn hair. His handsome features had an indefinable Irish quality about them, although when he spoke, his soft, wellmodulated tones were clearly those of someone educated in England.

There had been a momentary silence between them while a young girl had brought a tray into the snug on which reposed a decanter of port and two glasses. She had placed it on the table between them and left with a bobbed curtsy, for she was well aware of the identity of the older guest that now sat gazing moodily at the cutglass decanter as the gaslight caused it to flicker and flash with a thousand points of light.

“I think that you are worried, esteemed father-in-law.” The younger man broke the silence with a smile.

The elder man turned with a disapproving frown and commenced to pour the port into the glasses. “You know that I hate being addressed as father-in-law,” he reproved.

The young man shrugged. “Since I married your daughter, Kate, I have been at odds as to how to address you. Since I am called Charles and you are called Charles, it would sound like some echo in the conversation if we hailed each other with that mode of address.”

The elderly man’s eyes lightened with humor. “In that case, let us agree. I shall call you Charley, and you may address me as Charles; otherwise, we shall have to resort to the formal Mr. Collins and Mr. Dickens.”

He pushed the port across the table, and his son-in-law dutifully raised the glass. “Your health, Charles,” his son-in-law toasted solemnly.

“Yours, too, Charley. I hope your new novel sells well.”

“StraithcairnP” The young man laughed whimsically. “Alas, I will never succeed as a novelist like my brother Wilkie. He has made more out of his Woman in White than I have made out of both my novels. My art lies in illustration, as you know. I am more of an artist than writer, as was my father.”

“Although I believe that your grandfather wrote?”

“Indeed, he did, sir. But had to leave his native Ireland to come to this country in order to earn a living as a picture restorer. Being no man of business, he failed to provide for his family.”

“In that, we share a common background, Charley. That is what endears me to you. Moreover, I respect your critical opinion.”

“Which brings us neatly to my point. You are clearly worried. I suspect it is about this novel that you have been working on of late. I was wondering why you have brought me to this unfamiliar Lime-house region, away from our usual London haunts, where we might bump into friends and colleagues.”

Dickens sighed. “Unfamiliar? My godfather, old Christopher Huffman, sold oars, masts, and ships’ gear just round the corner from here in Church Row. It was in old Huffman’s house there that my father once placed me on the table and told me to sing to the assembled company-to show me off. No, Charley, this place is not so remote for me. Over twenty years ago, I used some of this very area as background”-he waved his hand to encompass the surroundings-”as description in my book Dombey and Son.”

Charles Collins was silent for a moment.

“But you are worried,” he pressed.

Dickens compressed his lips for a moment and then nodded slowly. “You are discerning, Charley. Yes. I am worried.”

“About the new book?”

Again, his father-in-law nodded.

“Care to tell me what the book is about?”

“I have a character who has been left a fortune provided that he marries a girl. I’ve called the girl Bella. Bella Wilfer. My character, I’ve called him John, has been out of England for fourteen years. Now, while the fortune is attractive, John has decided to return to London under an assumed name to assess the situation. If John doesn’t marry Bella, then a man called Boffin stands to inherit the fortune. John gets a job as Boffins secretary. John becomes the mutual friend of Boffin and the Wilfers. In fact, I have titled my draft Our Mutual Friend. The upshot is that John and Bella fall in love, and John declares his real identity and inherits the money.”

Charles Collins pulled a face. “It sounds like a romantic comedy of deceit with a happy ending.”

Dickens scowled and shook his head. “No, that’s just it. It seems to lack spontaneity. It’s become a sordid tale of deceit and money. It’s full of pessimism. I seem to hear the words of that confounded woman Mrs. Lewes-George Eliot-whatever her name really is, who said that I scarcely ever pass from the humorous and external to the emotional and tragic, without becoming as transient in my unreality as… Oh, damnation!” He cut himself short. “She’s right. It reads like a dry treatise on morals, not a story.”

“Well, I have noticed that you have been growing increasingly pessimistic with life in general,” observed his son-in-law seriously.

“The story is too dry and dusty,” went on Dickens, ignoring the observation’. “I need to insert some drama, some excitement, some mystery-”

The door of the snug suddenly burst open, and a middle-age woman stood nervously on the threshold. She was a roundfaced lady who was, in fact, the proprietess of the tavern.

“Lud!” she exclaimed in agitation. “Mr. Dickens, sir, I am all of a tremble.”

The two men rose immediately for, indeed, the lady was suiting the words to the action and stood trembling in consternation before them.

Dickens came forward and took the landlady by the arm. “Calm yourself, Miss Mary.” His voice held a reassuring quality. “Come, still your nerves with a glass of port and tell us what ails you.”

“Port, sir? Gawd, no, sir.” ‘Tis gin that I would be having if drink be needed at all. But it can wait, Mr. Dickens, sir. “ ‘Tis advice I do be needing. Advice and assistance.”

Dickens regarded her patiently. “Pray, what then puts you so out of spirits? We will do our best to help.”

“A body, sir. A body. Washed up against our very walls.”

The tavern walls were built on the rivers edge, and those dark, choppy waters of the Thames could often be heard slapping at the bricks of the precariously balanced building.

Charley Collins grimaced. “Nothing unusual in that, Miss Mary,” he pointed out, adopting his father-in-law’s manner of addressing the landlady. In fact, every drinking man along the waterfront knew the landlady of the Grapes simply as Miss Mary. “Dwelling along the waterfront here, you have surely grown used to bodies being washed up?”

It was true that the Thames threw up the dead and dying every day. Suicides were commonplace; there were gentlemen facing ruin in various forms who took a leap from a bridge as a way out and the poor unable to cope with the heavy oppression of penury. Among the latter sort were a high percentage of unfortunate young women, unable to endure the profession that was their only alternative to starvation. Often there were unwanted children. And there were bodies of those who had met their ends by the hands of others for gain, jealousy, and all manner of motives. The flotsam and jetsam of all human misery and degradation floated along the dark, sulky river. Indeed, there were also unsavory stories of watermen, “river finders,” who plied their trade on the river, taking drunks from the riverside taverns to drown them in the Thames, though not before emptying their pockets of anything valuable, or to sell their corpses for medical dissection. Death and the river were not mutually exclusive. In fact, many along the riverbanks were called dredgers, dredging coal or valuables lost overboard from the ships that pushed their way along the river to the London docks.

“I would send for a constable at once, Miss Mary,” advised Dickens, about to be reseated.

Whereupon the lady let out a curious wailing sound that returned him to a standing position with some alacrity. “I would be doing that, but it be young Fred who be fishing out the body, and the peelers is just as like to say ‘e robbed the corpse. Now, if you were there to see fair play… they’d respect a man like you, Mr. Dickens.”

“If I recall a’right, Fred is your nephew?”

“Me own poor departed sisters son, gawdelpus.”

Dickens smiled skeptically. “What makes you think the police would believe that this corpse had been robbed?”

The landlady blinked and then realized what he meant. She looked defensive. “ ‘E only looked to see if there were anything to identify ‘im, Mr. Dickens. The corpse, that is. Fred, I mean,” she ended in confusion.

Dickens raised a cynical eyebrow. “I presume that there was no means of identification… nor any valuables on him?”

“Bert ain’t no dredger, Mr. Dickens. ‘E’s a lighterman. Makes a good living, an’ all.” There was a note of indignation in her voice.

Dredgers found almost all the bodies of persons who had been drowned and would seek to obtain rewards for the recovery of the bodies or make money through the fees obtained by bearing witness at inquests. But no recovered body and no corpse handed to the coroner would ever have anything of value on it. Dredgers would see to that.

“I am curious, Miss Mary,” interrupted Charley Collins, “why do you think that a policeman, seeing this body, might want to accuse anyone of robbing it? Plenty of corpses are washed up without anything on them and often without means of-identification.”

His father-in-law looked approvingly at him. “A good point. Come, Miss Mary, the question is deserving of an answer.”

“The man is well dressed, Mr. Dickens, and Freddie… well, ‘e thinks… that is, Fred thinks that ‘e was done in, begging your pardon.”

“Done in? Murdered?” asked Collins.

“Back of ‘is skull bashed, in, sez Fred.”

“And why would the constabulary think Fred might be involved?

Miss Mary sniffed awkwardly. “Well, ‘e did three months in chokey last year. Po’lis ‘ave long memories.”

Collins frowned. “Chokey?”

“Prison,” explained Dickens. “I believe the derivation is from the Hindustani chauki. Well, Miss Mary, Mr. Collins and I will come and take a look at the corpse. Don’t worry. Fred will have nothing to fear if he is honest with us.”

They followed her from the snug. The tavern building had a dropsical appearance and had long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. In its whole construction it had not a straight floor and hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a bettertrimmed building, many a sprucer public house. Externally it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon the other as one might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden veranda impending over the water, indeed the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flagstaff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a fainthearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all.

The snug, which they had originally settled to savor their port wine, was a curious little haven in the tavern: a room like a threecornered hat into which no direct ray of sun, moon, or star ever penetrated but which was regarded as a sanctuary replete with comfort. The name Cozy was painted on its door, and it was always by that name that the snug was referred to.

Miss Mary, the proprietess, pushed her stately way through the taproom and into the dark lane outside. It was a long cobbled lane whose buildings towered on either side, almost restricting the thoroughfare. It was appropriately called Narrow Street, running parallel with the River Thames and separate from it only by such buildings as the Grapes, from which they had emerged. She took a lantern by the door and conducted them round the corner of the building, down a small slipway, which led to the bank of the river.

A young man was there, also with a lantern, waiting for them. At his feet lay a dark shape. “Thank Gawd!” he stuttered as they emerged from the darkness. “Thought I were gonna be stuck ‘ere.”

Dickens and Collins halted above the shape at his feet. Dickens took the lantern from the young man and, bending down, held it over the shape.

The body was that of a man of about thirty. He was well dressed in a suit of dark broadcloth and a white shirt that had obviously been clean at one stage but was now discolored by the dark Thames water and mud with bits of flotsam and jetsam that adhered to it.

“Handsome,” muttered Collins, examining the man’s features.

“And a man who took a pride in his appearance,” added Dickens.

“How so?”

Dickens raised one of the man’s wrists and held the lantern near the wellmanicured fingernails.

“The arms are not yet stiffening with rigor mortis, so he is not long dead.”

He searched for a wound.

“Back of the skull, guv’nor? Head bashed in,” suggested the young man.

“Fred, isn’t it?” asked Dickens.

“That’s me, guv’nor.”

“How did you find this body?”

“Came down ‘ere to empty the… the waste,” he quickly corrected what he was about to say with a frowning glance at Miss Mary. “Saw him half in and half out of the water. Dragged him up and then called Miss Mary.”

“And you searched him? Anything to identify him?”

“Not a blessed thing. Straight out.”

Dickens could not hide his smile. “Nothing on him at all?”

“Said so, didn’t I?”

“Very well, Fred. You cut along to the police at Wapping Steps. That’s the nearest station. Bring the majesty of the law hither as quickly as you can.” He turned to Miss Mary. “You best get back to your customers. There is nothing that you can do here.”

Left alone, Dickens began a thorough search of the man’s pockets.

Collins smiled skeptically. “You don’t expect to find anything, do you?”

“I never expect anything. In that way I am never disappointed. But it is always best to make sure.”

“The dredgers will have got to him before now.”

“Not so. This man is young. His body appears in good health and better dressed than most people in these parts. What dredger do you know who would leave the possibility of a reward for finding the body even if they have taken everything from the pockets? A rich person would obviously need an inquest, and there would be the fee from the coroner if they took it along. No, the man was killed, and the killer went through the pockets before tipping the body in the river. Ah-”

Dickens suddenly pulled from an inside waistcoat pocket what appeared to be a piece of narrow ribbon. It formed a small circle, tied in a bow.

“A woman’s ribbon?” asked Collins with a frown.

Dickens held it under the lamp. “A piece of red ribbon. Mean anything to you?”

Collins shook his head. “A lady’s hair ribbon?” he guessed.

“Come, man…” Dickens was indignant. “Think of law. This is the sort of ribbon a legal brief is tied up with. You’ll see this ribbon is still tied in a bow as if it has been slipped off a rolled document, a brief, without being untied, and thrust into our man’s waistcoat. Now look at the suit he wears; it appears to be black broadcloth. The man is without doubt a lawyer of some type.”

Collins gazed at his father-in-law in astonishment. “Next you will be telling me his name,” he observed dryly.

“Easy enough-Wraybrook.”

“Oh, come!” sneered Collins. “I can see the logic which leads you to guess that the man is a lawyer… that has to be proved, by the way… but where do you get the name Wraybrook from?”

Dickens held the lamp up so that Collins could see that he had loosened the corpse’s starched high white collar.

“Laundresses are invaluable these days. One of them has had the goodness to write the name on the underside of the collar with some indelible marker.”

He refastened the collar and completed his search before standing up.

“Poor devil. A young lawyer, his skull smashed in and thrown into the Thames. I wonder why.”

“Robbery? That’s the usual form.”

Dickens stood frowning down for a moment.

There was a noise from the lane as a figure came hurrying around the corner of the tavern and down the slipway toward them. It was the figure of a heavy man. As he came into the light of their raised lantern, they could see he was dressed in the uniform of the Metropolitan Police. He carried a torch, which he shone on them both.

“I’m told there was a body discovered here?” he said gruffly.

Dickens smiled. “And you are?…”

“Sergeant, sir. Sergeant Cuff of Thames Division.” The sergeant suddenly peered closely at him. “Beg pardon, sir, aren’t you-?”

“I am.”

“Did you-?”

“No. The landlady of the Grapes called us to have a look. A young man, Fred, found it. He works in the taproom of the inn.”

“Ah, just so.” The sergeant nodded. “He came to the station to tell us, so I cut along here smartish while he made a statement.” The torch moved down to the corpse at their feet. “No need to bother you further, then-you and Mr.-?”

“My son-in-law, Charles Collins.”

“Right then, sir. I’ll take charge from now on.”

“Then we shall leave you to it, Sergeant-?”

“Sergeant Cuff, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“They reentered the Grapes and returned to the Cozy, and as Dickens handed back Miss Mary’s lantern, he informed her that a police sergeant had arrived to take charge of things.

To their surprise, a moment later Fred came in. He smiled with some relief. “Gave ‘em the statement and they told me to go,” he announced in satisfaction.

Dickens nodded with a frown. Then he turned to Miss Mary and asked: “I don’t suppose you have a Kelly’s Post Office Directory to hand?”

“Matter of fact, Mr. Dickens, I do have such a volume,” she said, and turning behind her bar, extracted the volume from beneath the counter.

Dickens took it into the snug, sat down, and began to turn the pages.

“Looking for Wraybrook the solicitor, I suppose?” observed Collins, finishing the decanted port and peering at his empty glass with regret.

“Except he is not listed. Lets see, this is last years and would have been compiled the year before. That makes it two years out of date. Perhaps our man, Wraybrook, only established himself within the last year or two.”

“Perfectly logical.”

Dickens put down the directory, pages open on the table, and sighed.

Miss Mary entered the snug at that moment.

“I just came to see if you needed a new decanter, gentlemen.” Her eyes fell on the directory. “Did you find what you were looking for, Mr. Dickens?”

Dickens shook his head. “Regretfully, I did not.”

Miss Mary glanced slyly at the open pages. “Lawyers, eh? Well, if you are in need of lawyers, there are plenty to choose from there. Personally, I always prefer to steer clear of them. My late husband said-”

“We were looking for a lawyer who does not seem to be listed there,” interrupted Dickens, who had no desire to hear the wisdom of Miss Mary’s late husband.

Collins nodded sympathetically. “Perhaps you can call in at the offices of Kelly’s. They might have a listing for Wraybrook in their next year’s edition.”

Miss Mary started and stared at him. “Wraybrook, you say, sir? You don’t mean Mr. Eugene Wraybrook?”

Dickens frowned suspiciously at her. “Do you know a lawyer named Wraybrook?”

“He’s a young gent, sir. A solicitor right enough. But he’s only been in the country six months. They say he’s from India. Not that he’s Indian, sir. Oh, no, English, same as you and me. Pleasant enough young man. He has rooms at the top end of Narrow Street here, and one of them is his office. Not that he gets much work, I’m told. Decent enough and polite and pays his bills promptlike.”

“Would you recognize Mr. Wraybrook?”

“I would, six.”

“And young Fred?”

“Fred, sir? I don’t think so. Fred works in the evenings, and Mr. Wraybrook only comes here for lunch now and again.”

“Did you take a good look at the body on the slipway?” asked Dickens curiously.

Miss Mary shook her head. “Not I, sir. Can’t stand the sight of corpses and… Why do you ask, sir?” She frowned, and then her eyes widened suddenly. “You don’t mean that… that…?”

Dickens rose quickly. “Do you know where this Wraybrook has his rooms? What number in Narrow Street?”

“I only know it’s the top end, sir. But-”

“Would you give us about fifteen minutes, Miss Mary, and then go out and tell the policeman who is loitering outside with the corpse where we have gone?”

Dickens hurried from the tavern with Collins hard on his heels.

At the darkened top of Narrow Street they came to a cluster of tall tenement buildings crowding over the cramped lane and shutting out all natural light. A few gas lamps gave an eerie glow, and beneath these were some street urchins playing five stones. For a threepenny piece, one of them indicated the tenement in which he knew the solicitor resided. The rooms were on the second floor. There was a single gas burner on every landing, and so it was easy to find a dark door on which was affixed a small handwritten card bearing the name E. Wraybrook, Bachelor of Law.

Dickens tried the door, but it was locked.

Collins watched with some surprise as Dickens reached up and felt along the ridge at the top of the door and grunted in dissatisfaction when his search revealed nothing. He stood looking thoughtfully.

“What is it?”

“Sometimes people leave a key in such a place,” Dickens said absently. “I expect Sergeant Cuff to be here soon, and I do not want to force the door. Ah…”

He suddenly dropped to one knee and pushed experimentally at a small piece of planking near the door, part of the skirting board. It seemed loose, and a small section gave way, revealing the cavity beyond. Dickens felt inside with his gloved hand and came up smiling. There was a key in his hand.

“Strange how people’s habits follow a set course.”

A moment later they entered the rooms beyond. There was a strange odor, which caused Collins to sniff and wrinkle his features in bewilderment.

“Opium? The smell of dope?”

“No, Charley,” replied his father-in-law. “Its the smell of incense, popular in the East. I think it is sandalwood. Find the gas burner, and let us have some light.”

The first room was plainly furnished and was, apparently, an office for prospective clients of the solicitor. On the desk there was a rolled sheaf of papers. Legal documents. Dickens absently took from his pocket the red ribbon, rolled the paper, and slipped the ribbon over it. He shot a glance of satisfied amusement at Collins. He then removed the ribbon, put it back in his pocket, and examined the documents. It was not helpful.

“A litigation over the ownership of a property,” he explained. “And a cover note from an agent offering a fee of a guinea for resolving the matter.”

He returned the document to the desk and glanced around.

“By the look of this place, it is hardly used and indicates that our Mr. Wraybrook had few clients.”

A door led into the living quarters. There was an oil lamp on a side table. It was a sturdy brass-based lamp, slightly ornate, and a very incongruous ornamented glass surround from which dangled a series of globular crystal pieces held on tiny brass chains.

“Light that lamp, Charley,” instructed Dickens. “I can’t see a gas burner in this room.”

Collins removed the glass and turned up the wick on the burner, lighting it before resetting the glass. The crystals jangled a little as he picked it up.

Beyond the door was a bed sitting room. Collins preceded Dickens into the room. Again the furnishings were sparse. It seemed that the late Mr. Wraybrook did not lead a luxurious life. There was little that was hidden from their gaze. A tin traveling trunk at the bottom of the bed showing that its owner was a man recently traveled. The wardrobe, when opened, displayed only one change of clothes and some shirts. The dressing table drawers were empty apart from some socks and undergarments.

“Gene! I thought that… Oh!”

A voice had spoken from the doorway behind them. They swung round. There was a young woman standing there. She was not well dressed and was not out of place among the residents of Narrow Street.

She stared at them, slightly frightened. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, silently strident. “Where’s Gene… Where’s Mr. Wraybrook?”

Dickens assumed a stern and commanding attitude. “We will ask the questions, young lady. Who are you?”

The girl seemed to recognize the voice of authority. “Polis ain’t cher?”

“Name?” demanded Dickens officiously.

“Beth Hexton. I lives ‘ere.”

The East End accent did not seem to fit with the delicate features of the girl. Collins could see that whatever her education, she was very attractive, a kind of ethereal beauty that his artist’s eye could see in the kind of paintings that Millais and Rossetti and Hunt indulged in. She would not be out of place as a model for an artist of the High Renaissance.

“Here? In these rooms?” he queried.

“Naw!” The word was a verbal scowl. “In this ‘ouse. Me dad’s Gaffer Hexton,” she added, as if that might mean something.

“Ah, Gaffer Hexton.” Dickens smiled, “And he might be-?”

“Owns two wagerbuts on the river. Thought all you peelers ‘ad ‘eard o’ me dad.”

A wagerbut was a slight sculling craft often used for races along the Thames.

“A dredger?” Dickens said softly.

“Ain’t we all got a livin’ t’ make?” replied the girl defensively.

“How well do you know Mr. Wraybrook?” he demanded.

Her cheeks suddenly flushed. “ ‘E’s a friend, a real gen’leman.”

“A friend, eh?”

“Yeah. What’s ‘e done? Where yer taken ‘im?”

There was a movement in the other room, and they swung round. They had a glimpse of a stocky, dark-haired man making a hurried exit through the door.

Dickens frowned. “Who was that?” he asked.

“ Tm? That’s Bert ‘egeton.” The girl spoke scornfully.

“And he is?”

“ ‘E’s the local schoolteacher. Fancies ‘imself. Thinks I fancy ‘im. I don’t think!” she added with sardonic humor. “ ‘E’s out of ‘umor since Gene… since Mr. Wraybrook asked me to step out wiv ‘im.”

Dickens glanced at Collins with raised eyebrows. Although Dickens was certainly no social prude, it seemed a little incongruous that a solicitor would “step out” with a dredger’s daughter. But then, she was an attractive girl, and if a local schoolteacher was seeking her favors, why not a solicitor?

A movement at the door, and a dry, rasping cough interrupted them again.

It was the thickset policeman, Sergeant Cuff. “Well, Mr. Dickens… for someone who did not know the corpse, you seemed to have reached here pretty quickly.”

There was a little scream from the girl. She had gone pale, the back of her hand to her mouth, staring at the detective.

Dickens made an irritated clicking noise with his tongue. “Miss Hexton was a friend of Wraybrook,” he admonished.

“ ‘E’s dead?” cried the girl in a curious wail.

“Murdered, miss,” the policeman confirmed without sympathy.

The girl let out another wail and went running out of the room. They heard her ascending the stairs outside.

“Congratulations on your diplomatic touch, Sergeant,” Dickens reproved sarcastically.

Sergeant Cuff sniffed. “The girl’s a dredgers daughter. Gaffer Hexton. He would rob a corpse without thinking any more about it. In fact, he was going to be one of my next port of calls. He and his daughter probably set Wraybrook up to be done in, if they didn’t do it themselves. Wraybrook was a godsend to these river thieves. Whoever did him in has made themselves a fortune.”

Dickens frowned. “You seem very positive that it was a robbery.” Then he started. “You’ve just implied that you knew Wraybrook and knew that he had something of value on him. Look around you, Sergeant Cuff. Would a rich man be living in these frugal rooms?”

Sergeant Cuff had a superior smile. “We’re not stupid in the force, Mr. Dickens. Of course I knew Wraybrook. Been watching him for some months. I recognized the body at once but had to wait for a constable to arrive before I came on here. I suppose that you haven’t touched anything?”

“Nothing to touch,” retorted Dickens in irritation.

“I don’t suppose there would be. How did you come to know Wraybrook?”

“I didn’t. His name was on his shirt collar. A laundry mark. I deduced he was a solicitor by the cut of his cloth and went to look him up in Kelly’s. Miss Mary at the Grapes saved me the trouble as she knew of a Eugene Wraybrook and indicated where he lived. It was as simple as that.”

“Very clever. Had you confided in me that you had seen the name, I would have saved you the trouble of coming along. Wraybrook arrived in London six months ago from India. We had word from the constabulary in Bombay that Wraybrook was suspected of a theft from one of the Hindu temples. The theft was of a large diamond that had been one of the eyes in the statute of some heathenish idol. But while he was suspected, there was no firm evidence to arrest the man. He was allowed to travel to England, and we were asked to keep a watch on him. It was expected that he would try to sell the diamond and make capital on it. He was a clever cove, Mr. Dickens. I suppose, being a solicitor and all, he was careful. Settled in these rooms and plied for business. Not much business, I assure you. Seems he was eking out some living from his savings. We’re a patient crowd, Mr. Dickens, we watched and waited. But that’s all…. Until tonight. I guess someone else had found out about the diamond. He must have kept it on his person the whole time, because we searched these rooms several times, unbeknown to him.” Sergeant Cuff sighed deeply. “I suspect the girl and Gaffer Hexton, and that’s where my steps take me next.”

He touched his hat to Dickens and Collins and turned from the room.

Dickens stood rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.

Collins sighed and picked up the lamp. Its crystal hangings tinkled a little as he did so.

“That’s that. I think we should return to our decanter of port.”

Dickens was staring at the lamp. There was an odd expression on his face.

“Let’s take that lamp into the office where we can have a look at it under the gaslight.”

Collins frowned but did not argue.

Dickens stood, appearing to examine the dangling crystals for a while, and then he grunted in satisfaction. He instructed Collins to put the lamp on the table, turn it out, and then he bent forward and wrenched one of the crystals from its slight chain with brute force, wrenching the links of the chain open. He held up the crystal to the gas burner. Then he walked to the window and drew it sharply across the surface. The score mark had almost split the glass pane.

“And that, dear Charley, unless I am a complete moron, is the missing diamond. By heavens, it’s quite a big one. No wonder anyone would get light-fingered in proximity to it. I suspect that on the proceeds of a sale to an unscrupulous fence, even allowing for such exorbitant commission that such a person would take, one could live well for the rest of one’s life.”

His son-in-law frowned. “What made you spot it?”

“Look at the crystals-clear, pure white glass. When this bauble was hanging by them, it emitted a strange yellow luminescence, a curious quality of light. If it was crystal, then it could not be the same crystal, and it is entirely a different shape. Round and yellow. When I peered closely at it just now, I saw that its fitting on the chain was unlike the others. My dear Charley, if you are going to hide something, the best place to hide it is where everyone can see it. Make it a commonplace object. I assure you that nine times out of ten it will not be spotted.”

Collins grinned. “I’ll tell Wilkie that. My brother likes to know these things.”

“Well, let’s follow the redoubtable Sergeant Cuff. I think that this will take the main plank out of his theory that Wraybrook was murdered for the sake of the diamond.”

As they left the late Eugene Wraybrook’s rooms, a thickset man was hurrying down the stairs. He moved so quickly that he collided with Dickens, grunting as he staggered with the impact. Then, without an apology, the man thrust him aside and continued on.

“Mr. Bert Hegeton,” muttered Dickens, straightening his coat. “He seems in a great hurry. Oops. I think he’s dropped something.”

Indeed, a small thin leather covering of no more than two and a half inches by three and a half inches lay on the top stair where it had fallen from the man’s pocket.

“What is it?” asked Collins.

Dickens bent and retrieved it. “A card case, that’s all. Visiting cards. Not the sort of thing one would expect a schoolteacher in this area to have.” He was about to put it on the wooden three-cornered stand in the corner of the landing when he paused and drew out the small pieces of white cardboard inside. He grimaced and showed one to Collins.

They were cheaply printed and bore the same legend as on the handwritten pasteboard on Wraybrook’s door. Dickens smiled grimly.

They ascended the stairs. They could hear Sergeant Cuff’s gruff tones and Beth Hexton’s sobbing replies.

Sergeant Cuff looked annoyed when they entered the room unannounced.

“You’ll excuse me, Sergeant.” Dickens smiled, turning directly to the girl. “Does Mr. Hegeton live in this tenement?”

The girl stared at him from a tearstained face.

“Mr. Dickens…,” began the sergeant indignantly, but Dickens cut him short with a gesture. “I need an answer,” he said firmly.

“On the next floor above this,” the girl said, trying to regain some of her composure.

“A jealous type?”

“Jealous?”

“Come, Miss Hexton. You said that he was attracted to you and you rejected him. Isn’t that so? In turn, you were attracted to Mr. Wraybrook?”

The girl nodded. “Gene was a gen’leman.”

“So you have told us. But Bert Hegeton was not?”

“He was a beast. Yes, he and Gene had an argument this morning over me.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Bert said he would do for Gene. ‘E said that. Told Gene that he wouldn’t stand for him pinching ‘is girl. I was never Berts girl. Straight out, I wasn’t.”

Sergeant Cuff was shaking his head. “Come, Mr. Dickens, this won’t do at all. We know that whoever killed Wraybrook robbed him and the cause was-”

He stopped because Dickens was holding out his hand toward him. On his palm lay the diamond.

“It was where we could all see it, in the crystals of the lamp,” explained Collins.

Dickens then held out the visiting card case. “Hegeton just brushed past me on the stairs and dropped this. I think he killed Wraybrook in a jealous passion, removed certain items from the corpse to make it look like the work of dredgers, and left him in the river. He came back here, and then he found Sergeant Cuff and us in the house and panicked. Instead of hiding the things that he had taken from the body in his room, he decided to go to dispose of them in the river. Fortunately, for you, Cuff, he dropped Wraybrook’s visitors cards on the way out.”

He paused while Sergeant Cuff digested his words.

“Jealousy, over the girl?”

“Exactly so.”

Sergeant Cuff was thoughtful.

There came the sound of footsteps ascending.

“Then we won’t have long to see if your theory is a reality,” Sergeant Cuff said grimly. “I have had a couple of constables outside with strict orders not to let anyone leave the house until I gave permission. If Hegeton has Wraybrook’s personal possessions on him, then he would have been unable to discard them, and he should still have them on him now.”

They turned as a police constable came through the door, ushering the white-faced Hegeton before him.

“What’s all this?” he cried angrily. “You can’t-”

“I can and I do,” Sergeant Cuff said calmly “Empty your pockets.”

Hegeton needed a little persuasion, but after a short while a number of items lay on the table before him, including a silver hunter watch.

Cuff picked it up and glanced at it. “Bert Hegeton? That’s your name?”

The thickset man nodded resentfully.

“Then you would not be bearing the initials EW, would you. The inscription on the watch is ‘EW from his friends, Advocates Club. Bombay’ You are right, Mr. Dickens. This is our man.”

Beth Hexton gave a little scream and lunged toward the schoolteacher but was held back by Sergeant Cuff.

“You killed him, you swine. You killed him!” she cried.

Bert Hegeton turned a pleading face to her. “I did it to protect you, Beth. He wouldn’t marry you. Not him with his high-and-mighty airs. He only wanted one thing. He would have discarded you after that. I love you, Beth. I-”

The girl again leaped forward, beating at him with her fists.

The constable and Sergeant Cuff separated them.

Half an hour later Dickens and Collins were back in the Cozy of the Grapes, sipping their port. Dickens had been frowning in concentration ever since they had returned. Suddenly his features dissolved into a rare smile of satisfaction.

“Damn it, Charley! I can feed parts of this little drama into my book and use it to make the tale come alive.”

Collins was cautious. “You’ll need to change the names, surely?”

“Nothing simpler. Bert Hegeton now…” Dickens paused in thought. “Why, I do believe that is easy enough. Hegeton in Old English means a place without a hedge. Do you know there is such a place name in the county of Middlesex, which has now been corrupted into the name Headstone? So let us have Bert… no Bradley, sounds more distinguished, Bradley Headstone.” He smiled in satisfaction.

“Eugene Wraybrook?” queried his son-in-law.

“Even easier. Just change the ending of Wraybrook into another word meaning exactly the same thing-brook becomes burn. Wrayburn. The name still means the place of the remote stream.”

Collins grinned. His father-in-law enjoyed etymology and playing with words. “So what about poor Beth Hexton?”

“Beth is Elizabeth, so we make her Lizzie. Hexton can become Hexam. And there we have my new characters. I can get on now, build up some enthusiasm about rewriting my book. I can even bring in Beth’s father, the dredger. Gaffer Hexam. Ah, to hell with those critics who would say my work is becoming full of dry moral rectitude. Away with such shadows.”

He struck a pose. Collins knew that his father-in-law liked to perform.

Hence, horrible shadow.

Unreal mockery, hence. Why, so being gone.

I am a man again.

Collins nodded slowly. “Well, there was no detective needed in Macbeth, but this has, indeed, been a neat piece of detection.”

“These shadows passing before us, Charley, are the substance of the writers craft,” mused Dickens. “You can let time slip by you with its shadows, who have the agility of a fox, now you see them, now you don’t. The writer must capture them before they disappear. Mind you, I think I can dispense with the character of Sergeant Cuff.”

Charles Collins grimaced. “I felt sorry for poor Sergeant Cuff, off on the wrong track about the diamond and the reason for the murder.” He suddenly grinned. “I’ll have to tell this story to my brother, Wilkie. He’s been saying that he wants to write a novel in which a policeman is called upon to solve a theft of some enormous diamond and subsequent murders. This might give him some ideas.”

Dickens chuckled with a shake of his head. “A policeman solving crimes of theft and murder in a novel? I’ll have to have a word with your brother. No one will believe a policeman as a detective hero.”

“I seem to recall that when Sir James Graham set up his detective department twenty years ago, it was you who used your campaigning journalism to break down public hostility to having a dozen Metropolitan Police sergeants working among them in plain clothes solving crimes.”

Dickens pursed his lips in irritation. “That’s different,” he snapped. “You are talking about a police detective in a novel. The reading public will never buy such a book.”