The Detective and Mr. Dickens (36 page)

“He’s not coming back. He’s been taken by Ashbee’s men.” The desperation had reasserted itself in Dickens’s voice. “We have to do something. Seven men have her in there.”

Field placed a firm hand upon Dickens’s shoulder, not a hand of authority, but the hand of a friend which seemed gently to say, “I know how upset you are but we are going about this the proper way. Calm yourself, it will all be over soon.” Field’s eyes moved from Dickens’s face to mine. His head gave a slight nod, as if ordering me to intercede.

I had no idea what to say. I put my hand on Dickens’s shoulder as Inspector Field withdrew his. My lips were mere inches from Dickens’s ear. I, for once, had his full attention.

“Charles, we must be sure. Rogers has, by now, got his men in place. We will move to find her as soon as Thompson returns. We can’t just barge in there not knowing what we are going into. That would endanger her as well as us. We shall get her out; I am sure of it.”

It was so dark that I could not detect any signs that my words had reassured him, but he said no more.

We waited silently only a few short moments, before Thompson, like a ghost, materialized out of the darkness. That incorrigible jokester had the aggravating habit of doing that, just popping up as if creating himself out of thin air.

“Gents, follow me,” he invited us.

The Skylight

May 11, 1851—night

Mister Tally Ho Thompson proved quite an accommodating tour guide.

“No need for concern, gents,” he whispered as we peered out of the deep shadow of the wall, “I met no guards on the grounds. Follow me. It’s a simple crack.”

We followed this demon jokester. Nothing could make the man stop grinning idiotically. Perhaps it was the idea of his giving orders to Inspector Field which amused him so. Perhaps he simply enjoyed burgling houses under the wing of the police.

He led us along the iron railings to a high gate which stood ajar. Its lock, clearly picked, hung open upon its chain. Like a magician displaying a bird plucked from his hat, Thompson grinned, nodded and led us through the gate. We crossed the lawn of the back garden at a run. The shadows of the rear wing of the house enfolded us. No alarum was raised.

It was as if Thompson had built a set upon a stage and we were his actors. All of his props were in place. He led us to a wooden ladder placed against the wall of the house.

“Pinched it from the coach ’ouse,” Thompson declared proudly.

From all evidence, this madman was proposing that the three of us follow him up this ladder. To my perfect amazement, Field and Dickens hesitated not one whit. They were well into their ascent before I even realized that I was expected to follow. It struck me as extremely dangerous and unconsidered, but, when they disappeared up into the darkness leaving me abandoned at the bottom, I reconsidered and followed with little enthusiasm. Housebreaking, climbing ladders, traversing dark rooftops is the stuff of Grub Street hacks and ha’penny novelists, not of real writers like Dickens and myself. Somehow, Thompson had drawn us so far into his romantic, risk-taking career that none of us was capable of turning back.

We crouched at the top of the ladder. Thompson whispered orders.

“Go softly across the roof to the skylight. They are directly below us. We can see it all. Inspector Field,” he said, with a professional politeness, “you’ve got your truncheon in your coat as ever, do you not?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good, I may need it to break the skylight if the scene gets dicey and the script calls for a surprise entrance.”

Field gave a silent nod of approval. Even he, I think, was rather impressed with the command Thompson had taken of the situation.

About halfway across the roof, the contour ceased to run flat, and ascended in a gentle slope to meet the side of the main house. From our vantage point near the edge of the roof, we could see the skylight.

On tiptoe, one by one, we traversed the flat expanse of the roof, until all four of us knelt at the base of the skylight. Because it slanted upward, we could kneel around its base, and, leaning slightly forward, look down into the room below. The skylight was directly over a long, high-ceilinged ballroom. We could see all that was taking place below, but, unfortunately, we could hear nothing. We spied through that skylight like spectators in an aquarium gaping through glass at exotic species performing in another medium.

The gentlemen, seven of them, were at dinner around a long table set elegantly in the middle of the room. They were dining off the finest silver plate. Candelabras blazed at three places upon their board. Bottles of fine wine stood on the table, were passed and poured by the gentlemen themselves. No servants were in immediate attendance.

At the far end of the room, toward the main body of the house, a space, ringed with overstuffed wing chairs, had been cleared, as if for a stage. It is to this small stage that, after our first glances down at the lavish eating scene, all of our eyes were immediately drawn.

Ellen Ternan was chained to the wall at the center of the stage.

My eyes, as if on a leash, snapped immediately to Charles’s face. His eyes met mine and were filled with chaotic emotions. I shall never forget that look of anguish. It left no doubt whatsoever how deeply he was involved with the girl inside his own mind. She was everything to him and seeing her down there…like that.

The girl leaned backward against the wall, her eyes wide open, yet strangely detached. She stared at the sumptuous table where the rakes sat, indulging themselves. She was, without question, drugged. The vacancy in her gaze, the docility of her stance, the lolling of her head, all attested to it. She was the complete victim, prisoner, possession of her chains, those men. Her hands, manacled, were stretched apart and slightly above her head. The manacles around her wrists were connected, by short lengths of chain, to heavy iron staples set high in the wall. Her ankles too were in irons, also connected to short chains, terminating in staples sunk in the floor. She was hung on that wall as if on a gallows, waiting for the trap to spring.

“She is safe for the moment,” Field whispered.

“We must do something!” Dickens begged.

Field raised his forefinger in a silent gesture of patience.

Dickens visibly sank backwards, defeated.

Lord Ashbee was up, moving around the table, clearing off the plate to a sideboard. He lifted away the carcass of a large bird picked clean. He circled the table, proffering cigars from a wooden box, then uncorking and pouring from a flagon of Madeira. The sumptuous dinner party had clearly reached its conclusion, and the rakes seemed merrily arming themselves for the dessert. They pushed back from the table, lit their cigars, rose from their chairs, carrying their crystal goblets filled with dark, blood-red wine.

I watched Dickens’s face. His eyes never left the girl. She was all he cared about in that room. He crouched, tense, like some predator waiting to spring. The others—Field, Thompson-watched the movements of the men in the room below, with the intensity and anticipation of men who knew that they were about to act. For the first time that evening, Thompson was not grinning. His mouth was drawn tight in a look of readiness as if he were waiting to do what he had known all along he was going to do. Dickens’s eyes remained locked on the girl chained to the wall. Everyone seemed ready except me. Everyone seemed eager save for me. Only I had not yet formulated our obvious plan of action.

Miss Ternan was dressed in what looked to be nothing less than randomly torn scraps of a red silken fabric. She was barely less than half-naked. The strips of cloth were wrapped around the upper portions of her body and gathered about her waist and hips, giving the effect of a scanty harem outfit, a slave girl’s tunic. Her well-formed legs were fully exposed from the tops of her thighs to her manacled ankles. She wore nothing on her feet.
Saint George shall have to carry his maiden to safety
, I, always the practical one, speculated.

Lord Ashbee ushered his guests to their seats in his theatre. The gentlemen, smoke rising from their cigars, moved beneath the skylight like fish swimming elegantly behind glass. Ashbee seated them in a semi-circle. He left the rakes admiring their captive, and moved to a side table to deposit his wine glass, and dress himself for his role in the performance.

He returned to center stage wearing a soft Australian or American hat with a wide ungovernable brim, and carrying a short riding whip.

Dickens started forward.

Field restrained him with a hand outstretched across Charles’s chest.

“He is going to whip her!” Dickens hissed between clenched teeth.

“Wait, she is unharmed as yet. They must commit some crime for which they can be brought before the court.” Field was calm, cold actually.

Ashbee turned to his audience seated about his impromptu stage. But it was no longer a stage; it was the auction block, the slave market in New Orleans. Ashbee extended his whip toward the cringing girl chained to the wall, moved it like a pedant’s pointer from her head down along the contours of her body to just below her waist.

“What am I bid for this ripe slave girl, gentlemen?” his lips moved but we imagined the words. We constructed the play’s dialogue in our minds.

The riding crop, like a serpent, slithered underneath her chin, raised her downcast eyes, her vacant face, up to confront the bidders.

The whip moved along her chin, along the white line of her cheek to the gentle incline of her neck, then down to the white slope of her shoulders. Ashbee handled this whip too lovingly for it to be simply a prop. It was an extension of himself which he had used frequently and well.

“What am I bid for this virgin slave?” Thus, we imagined his exhortation to the rich plantation owners. “Who will bid to take her first?” he cajoled, in our imaginations.

With a quick flick of his whip, Ashbee stripped the cloth from her breasts.

Dickens leapt to his feet. He could stand this exercise in humiliation—hers, his—no longer. “We must stop this now!” He clasped Inspector Field by the lapels of his greatcoat, and drew him to his feet over the skylight.

“Control yourself man!” Field barked in a whisper. “She is chained. We must wait until Ashbee unchains ’er. Can’t you see? Chained like that, if there is violence, she could be killed. Can’t you see what we are goin’ to ’ave to do, ’ow this scene is goin’ to play? Control yourself. We must wait until she is freed. No ’arm will come to ’er. I promise.”

Once again, Dickens had been subdued.

Lovingly, Ashbee ran the tip of his riding whip over and around Miss Ternan’s exposed breasts. He stimulated her brown aureola with the whip, while he cajoled the other rakes to bid upon the slave.

We watched as the rakes bid heatedly against one another for the opportunity to be the first to possess the chained girl.

The victim surely had been drugged. She reacted not at all. She hung silently from her bonds, unaware of the liberties being taken with her person, and the six sets of eyes feeding upon her naked breasts.

First one rake, Lord Bowes, raised his hand toward the stage, then another waved his cigar. Ashbee pointed at each in turn with his whip. Then another waved a hand, and shouted. Bowes sipped at his dark red wine, and pointed malevolently at the girl with the forefinger of the hand in which he cradled his glass. Another cast forth a bid. The cigar waved again. Bowes pointed once more. All the rakes, gathered in their circle, laughed at some comment upon the proceedings. We realized that they were bidding for the privilege of having her first, that they all expected a chance with her before the evening was out.

Only two bidders remained, the arrogant Lord Bowes, and the large, mustachioed gentleman who made bids with his cigar. We learned later that he was Denys Walder, the African explorer, and first cousin to Lord Buckingham of the Queen’s Privy Chamber. Milord Ashbee called these two surviving bidders to the stage. They approached the chained girl. He stopped them with the whip.

Milord Ashbee’s lascivious whip returned to her body. It moved slowly across her white flesh, to the remaining folds of red fabric hanging from her waist. The whip moved beneath that fabric, slowly descending beneath the gathered rag of cloth down between the captive’s legs.

I looked at Dickens. He still stood alone, above and behind us. He stared down over our shoulders at the scene, his face twisted violently with hatred, anger, pain and desire. My eyes jolted back to the captive girl. As the whip explored her body, as the rakes stood as if ready to pounce, life seemed to be returning to her drugged countenance. A start, a widening of her eyes, a stricter control of her head, asserted itself, as she looked desperately from side to side for some path of escape.

Ashbee’s whip, suddenly, pulled all of the remaining fabric from Miss Ternan’s body. She could not cover herself. She stood naked before the two rakes, who had come forward to claim their prize. Had they purchased her together? Would the two of them possess her at the same time? These perverse thoughts coursed through my mind as the two rakes approached the slave.

Lord Ashbee stepped between his two triumphant bidders and their chained property. “Allow me, gentlemen,” he must have been saying, though we could not hear. He drew a key from his jacket. He unlocked first her arms, then her ankles. By one wrist, he led her to the eager buyers.