I closed the valise and stalked out, almost forgetting my hat and stick in my rush. I could hear Henry bustling into the alcove at the rear to enquire of “Mr Dickens” as to whether there was anything wanting with the food or service.

Three blocks from Vérey’s I stopped, still breathing hard, still clutching my walking stick as if it were a hammer, not noticing the traffic or the busy streets on this lovely June evening or even the ladies of the night who were watching me from the shadows of an alley across the way.

“God d—— n it!” I cried loudly, startling two ladies walking with an older, stooped gentleman. “God d— n it!”

I turned and ran back to the restaurant.

This time all conversation did stop as I ran through the main room and threw back the curtains to the alcove.

Dickens was gone, of course. And my last chance on the third anniversary of Staplehurst to follow him to Drood’s lair was gone with him.

In July, my brother was staying at Gad’s Hill Place for an extended period because of his health. Charley had been very ill with terrible stomach cramps and had been vomiting for days on end. His wife, Katey, continued to find it easier to care for him at her father’s house than at their home in London. (I also believe she found it more comfortable for herself to be waited on there.)

On this particular day, Charley was feeling somewhat better and was in the library at Gad’s Hill, talking to the other Charley—Dickens’s son—who was doing some work in the library there. (I don’t believe I mentioned, Dear Reader, that in May, my editor and Charles Dickens’s indefatigable sub-editor at All the Year Round, William Henry Wills, had somehow contrived to fall off his horse during a hunt and put a serious crease in his skull. Wills recovered somewhat but announced that he continued to hear doors slamming all the time. This reduced his effectiveness as an editor, also as Dickens’s administrator, accountant, manager, marketing chief, and ever-faithful factotum, so Dickens—after asking me to come back to the magazine in May and receiving no positive reply—had put his rather ineffectual and disappointing son Charles in the position of filling at least some of Wills’s many duties while he, the Inimitable, took care of the rest. What this amounted to was that his son was answering letters at the office and at home, but even this required at least 110 percent of Charles Dickens Junior’s feeble capabilities.)

So on this July day at Gad’s Hill, my brother, Charley, was in the library there with Charley Dickens when suddenly both young men heard two people, a man and a woman, shouting and arguing, the rising racket coming from somewhere on the lawn out of sight below and behind the house. It was the unmistakable sound of a quarrel escalating into violence. The woman’s screams, my brother later told me, were terrifying.

Both Charleys rushed down and outside and around the house, Dickens’s son arriving a full half-minute before my convalescing brother.

There, in the meadow behind the long yard and barn where Dickens and I had seen young Edmond Dickenson sleepwalking several Christmases earlier, Charles Dickens was now striding up and down, speaking and shouting in two different voices, one male, one female, all the while gesticulating wildly and finally rushing an unseen victim and attacking… attacking her… with a great, invisible club.

Dickens had become the bully-thug Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist and was lost in the bloody act of murdering Nancy.

She tried to escape, crying out for mercy. No mercy, bellowed Bill Sikes. She cried out for God to help her. God did not answer, but Bill Sikes did, shouting and cursing and striking her down with his heavy club.

She tried to rise, holding her arm and hand up to ward off the blow. Dickens/Sikes struck again, and again, breaking her delicate fingers, smashing the bones of her upraised forearm, then bringing the full weight of the club down on her bloodied head. And again. And again.

Charley Dickens and Charley Collins could see the blood and brain tissue flying. They could see the pool of blood growing beneath the now prone dying woman as Bill Sikes continued clubbing her. They could see the blood spattering Sikes’s screaming, distorted face. The very paws and legs of Sikes’s dog were bloody!

And still he kept clubbing her, even after she was dead.

Still crouched over the imaginary woman’s corpse, the invisible club still held in two hands and poised above the battered and bloody form in the grass, Charles Dickens looked up at his son and my brother. His face was twisted and contorted in triumph. His eyes were wide, wild, and in no way sane. My brother, Charley, later said that he was sure he could see pure, murderous evil in the eyes of that twisted, gloating countenance.

The Inimitable had, at long last, found his Murder for his next round of public readings.

IT WAS AT ABOUT THIS TIME that I became certain that I had to kill Charles Dickens.

He would pretend to murder his imaginary Nancy on stage, in front of thousands. I would murder him in real life. We would see which ritual murder was more effective in driving the Drood-scarab out of a man’s brain.

To prepare the way, I wrote him a letter of apology, even though I had nothing to apologise for and Dickens had everything for which to beg forgiveness. It made no difference.

90 Gloucester Place Saturday, 18 July, 1868

My Dear Charles:

I write to offer my sincere and total apologies for the contretemps I provoked last month at our favourite place of dining, Vérey’s. My failure to consider that you were overtired from your many travels and exertions undoubtedly provoked the illusion of disagreement between us, and my not-unusual clumsiness in expression led to unfortunate consequences for which I again apologise and humbly ask your forgiveness. (Any accidental attempt on my part to compare my poor current literary efforts to your incomparable Bleak House were presumptuous and in error. No one shall ever confuse this humble protégé with Cher Maître.)

It is somewhat more difficult for me to entertain at home since Mrs Caroline G— left my home and service, but I still hope that you will be my guest at No. 90 Gloucester Place before too much more of the year passes. Also, as I am sure you have noticed despite your business with All the Year Round in our poor friend Wills’s absence, our wonderful success, No Thoroughfare, has finally closed at the Adelphi Theatre. I confess to have begun making rough notes about another play—I believe I shall call it Black and White, since it may be about a French nobleman who, for one reason or another, finds himself on the auction in Jamaica, being sold as a slave. Our dear mutual friend Fechter suggested the general idea some months ago—I plan to speak to him about it in detail in October or November—and Fechter would love to play the lead. In preparing this work I would be most grateful if I could avail myself of your advice and criticism so that I might avoid the more egregious errors so plentiful in my contributions to No Thoroughfare. In any case, I would consider it an honour if you and your entire family would be my guests at premiere night at the Adelphi should this modest effort ever succeed in being staged.

With final and abject apologies and most sincere wishes for a mending of this unforeseen and unwanted breach in the constant history of our cordial relationships, I remain…

Affectionately and Loyally Yours,

W. C. Collins

I looked this note over for some time, making small changes here and there, always in the direction of the contrite and servile. I had no fear whatsoever that this missive would someday come to light after Dickens’s sudden and mysterious death and cause curiosity in the biographer who read it. Dickens was still in the habit of annually burning every letter he received. (He would have burned every letter he sent as well, if he could have, but most of us who corresponded with the famous man did not share his pyromaniacal tendencies when it came to communications.)