The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens (11 page)

A hackney carriage brought Catherine and myself to our respective homes, stopping first at her father's residence and then my own. It was a lumbering square vehicle with small windows. The straw with which the seating cushion was stuffed protruded from the canvas in several places.

“You spoke inappropriately tonight,” Catherine chided as the carriage neared her father's residence.

“I did not.”

“You were needlessly confrontational, and you flirted with Mrs. Wingate for the entire evening.”

“That is untrue.”

“It is perfectly true. I had my eye upon you the whole time.”

I was unsure as to what I should say next and uncertain whether the carriage ride would end with my being embraced or scratched. Either possibility seemed equally disagreeable.

The preceding days had brought turmoil to my emotions. The visit to Florence Spriggs and all that surrounded her had taken my thoughts back to the year I had spent in the blacking warehouse. With that came ruminations on the uncertainties of fate and the thin line that separates one kind of life from another.

More unsettling, I was aware that, during the conversation at dinner, Amanda Wingate and I had been more as husband and wife should be in their thoughts than Catherine and I had been.

CHAPTER 6

Shortly after Catherine and I dined at the Wingate home, I posted a letter to Geoffrey thanking him for a lovely evening and offering assurances that I still intended to make him the subject of a sketch by Boz. My work at Doctors' Commons had acquainted me with certain aspects of finance and law. But after further investigation of Wingate's dealings, I understood only that there was a business in which people invested money and Wingate then reinvested their money in various financial instruments by means of a complicated series of assignments, conveyances, purchases, and settlements.

Meanwhile, there were reporting duties to discharge at
The Evening Chronicle
, and I was writing the first installment of
The Pickwick Papers.

Two weeks after my meeting with Benjamin Ellsworth, I went back to the station house as he had suggested. I
expected little or no satisfaction. Ellsworth came downstairs to greet me and introduced me to Bartholomew Dawes, whose name I recognised as the constable whose report had exonerated Wingate of the horrific crimes committed against Florence Spriggs and James Frost.

Dawes was heavily moulded with half-whiskers, a sallow complexion, and dark eyes set deep in his head. The yolk of an egg had run down his coat, and yolk of egg does not match any coat but a yellow coat, which his was not. I saw also that he had a gold pocket watch and ring of a kind beyond what one would expect his station in life to warrant. He made it clear in greeting me that a smile was not part of the bargain for his salary.

There is a vast quantity of nonsense about how a bad man will not look you in the eye. I do not believe that convention. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance every day of the week if there is anything to be gained by it. That said, Dawes and I were introduced, and our mutual inspection was brought to a close when he averted his eyes.

Ellsworth led me upstairs to his office and offered me a chair opposite his desk. There were more papers than had been there before. Otherwise, the room seemed unchanged. We were alone.

“I have been to see Miss Spriggs,” he said.

I had not expected that.

“How did you learn where she lives?”

“I have my ways. I am not as slow of mind as you might think me to be.”

“How do you view the situation?”

“Miss Spriggs spoke in a manner bearing the imprint
of truth,” the inspector answered. “I told her that I could make no promise regarding the outcome of the investigation, but that I will pursue the matter.”

“What will you do next?”

“I have located Lenora Pearce, the widow of Geoffrey Wingate's deceased business partner. She lives several hours north of London. The authorities there have arranged for me to visit her on Friday of this week.”

Ellsworth paused, as though weighing a matter of importance, which is precisely what he was doing.

“You may accompany me if you wish.”

The offer was unexpected—a fact that I conveyed to him in the same breath as my acceptance.

“I have learned to trust my instincts and do things in unconventional ways,” he said. “But our conversations are not for the newspaper. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“Clearly understood.”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then. Meet me outside the main entrance to police headquarters at Four Whitehall Place on Friday morning at ten o'clock. It would be best if you refrain from discussing this matter with anyone. Including Constable Dawes.”

Throughout my life, I have been habitually early, particularly in matters of travel. Benjamin Ellsworth shared that trait. He was waiting when I arrived at Four Whitehall Place on Friday twenty minutes before the appointed hour.

There were no other passengers on the stagecoach as we journeyed north, which allowed us to speak freely.

“My father was a footman,” Ellsworth told me. “Then a butler, then an innkeeper. He lived universally respected and died lamented. He said often to me that service is an honourable career.”

Bit by bit, the inspector revealed more about himself and asked questions that explored my own character. Then the conversation changed.

“I had best prepare you for our meeting with Lenora Pearce,” he said as we neared our destination.

I waited for what would come next.

“Owen Pearce was shot dead on the street at night after leaving the office that he shared with Geoffrey Wingate. The authorities were brought in and took possession of his body. His wallet and watch were missing. The motive was presumed to be robbery.”

I sat still.

“The similarity between the deaths of James Frost and Owen Pearce and the fact that Geoffrey Wingate can be linked to both men raises an obvious inference,” the inspector continued. “Unfortunately, inference falls short of proof. The science of police work is evolving. In the not too distant future, we will have a class of detective police skilled in science and deductive reasoning. Some day, I believe, we will be able to assign guilt by studying the tips of men's fingers and the bullets used in the commission of crimes. But we have not yet realised that goal.”

Lenora Pearce lived in a little market town with two churches separated by a winding river. The journey from London took just under three hours. When we
arrived, Ellsworth announced, “Appetite is the best clock in the world.” The next forty minutes were devoted to his clock.

In due course, we made our way to Lenora Pearce's home. It was a neat little house with a room in front for reception and a small back room for sleeping. The furniture was simple. A few rough chairs, a table, and a corner cupboard in one room. A small bed and chest of drawers in the other. Adornments had been placed throughout the house and arranged in such a manner that the effect was charming. The fireplace was old and paved at the sides with tiles meant to illustrate the scriptures. Three little white crockery poodles, each with a black nose and a basket of flowers in its mouth, stood guard on the mantel shelf.

Mrs. Pearce was a woman of orderly appearance, who looked about forty years old. Her dress was sewn where it had been torn, and her shoes were mended.

“Do not be alarmed by our presence,” Ellsworth told her. “You have done nothing wrong. We are here seeking information with regard to the death of your husband. It is possible that you may be able to cast light upon things that are presently dark for us.”

“It is all dark,” Lenora Pearce responded. “Do you know what it is to lose a husband?”

“Never having had a husband, or a wife for that matter, I do not know what it is to lose one. But a great deal depends on your willingness to answer the questions that I ask of you.”

She had sad eyes. There was no pretence in her face.

“I would like to know of your husband's relationship with a man named Geoffrey Wingate.”

Lenora Pearce's body stiffened, and the sad eyes turned angry.

“He acted the gentleman when my husband first knew him, with his proper clothes and fancy airs. I know him now for what he is—a villain who hid behind a mask of friendship. In Wingate's mind, the whole great sky at night glitters with sterling coin. Money is all that matters to him. He should be compelled to swallow every coin in England until he chokes to death.”

Ellsworth took a pencil and small notebook from an inside coat pocket.

“Tell me more. A very little key can some times open a heavy door.”

A sad recitation followed.

Owen Pearce was born in London in 1790. He was a man of distinguished appearance with the integrity of an honest cleric and the manner of a good school teacher. His chosen profession was the raising of capital for public companies.

Lenora was six years younger than her husband. They married in her twentieth year and had two children, a boy and a girl. Both children died young.

In 1820, a young man named Geoffrey Wingate came to London from the southwest corner of England. He met and was employed by Owen Pearce.

Pearce taught Wingate all that he knew about business. His pupil discarded the teachings that had to do with ethics and used the rest to his advantage. The realisation of this did not come to Pearce until it was too late. In 1827, he extended an offer of partnership to Wingate that was quickly accepted.

Over time, the older man came to doubt the wisdom
of his decision. Wingate did things differently in his position of partnership from the way in which he had done them before. He considered himself to be free of restraints. Bluntly put, his integrity was in question. Pearce told his wife that he planned to terminate the partnership. One week later, Owen Pearce was found near the Thames River with a bullet in his head.

The murder occurred in January 1831. Wingate handled all of the funeral arrangements. Then he produced a partnership agreement between Pearce and himself that gave the entire business to the surviving partner in the event that one of them died. Equally devastating, Pearce had purchased an assurance policy on his life that named his estate as the recipient of all payments. Wingate revealed the existence of a later-signed document that purported to make him the beneficiary.

It was then that Lenora Pearce became acquainted with the majesty of the law. There are many pleasant fictions in English jurisprudence. None is so pleasant or fictitious as the supposition that every person is of equal value in its impartial eye and that its protection is available to all. Almost always, matters of law are reduced to matters of business. There is a great deal of form but, often, little truth.

The treatment of Owen Pearce's estate and related matters was a monstrous wrong from beginning to end. There were bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, affidavits, masters' reports, technicalities, trickery, evasion, slippery precedents, and false pretences.

The law might have been on Lenora's side, but the judges were not. Wingate was awarded the assets of the partnership and most of the assurance money. Lenora
received what remained of her husband's estate. Unable to pay her bills in London, she returned to the town of her birth. She never heard from Wingate again.