“Mr Candy,” I supplied.

“Mr Candy then would have secretly administered the laudanum to poor Franklin Blake as part of a larger plot, not out of sheer random malice that should have seen him put in jail.”

“You’re saying that dear old Mr Candy was also under the mesmeric influence of the Hindoos?” I said. Suddenly I could see all these connections bringing together disparate and separate strands that I had left disparate and separate in my novel.

“That would have been elegant,” said Dickens, still smiling. “Or perhaps the vile drug addict, Ezra Jennings, was in on the plot to steal the Koh-i-noor.”

“The Moonstone,” I corrected absently. “But my Ezra Jennings is a sort of hero. He is the one who explains the mystery and then re-creates it for Franklin Blake in Blake’s aunt’s house in Yorkshire.…”

“A re-creation of events that is very handy to resolving your tale,” Dickens said quietly, “but which may strain the reader’s credulity more than any other element.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the conditions of the original night, the night the diamond was stolen, could not be re-created, my dear Wilkie. One essential element has been changed, and that would preclude all chance of the sleepwalking and theft occurring again.”

“What element is that?” I asked.

“In the so-called experiment, Mr Franklin Blake knows that he was drugged; he knows that Jennings believes he stole the diamond; he knows the sequence of events that took place and should take place again. That in itself would absolutely eliminate any chance that the same amount of opium…”

“I had Jennings use more in the wine than Mr Candy originally used,” I interrupted.

“Irrelevant,” said Dickens with another infuriatingly dismissive wave of his fingers. “The point is that the re-creation of events itself is impossible. And your Mr Ezra Jennings—probable sodomite, addicted opium eater… his adoration of De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater comes close to being nauseating—is a poor hero-substitute for Franklin Blake. As it stands, Blake comes across as a sort of idiot. But if you had used the Hindoos properly to introduce mesmerism as part of the theft, included the administration of opium as a means to that conspiracy rather than as pure accident…”

Dickens broke off. I had nothing to say. A heavy waggon lumbered by out of sight on the highway below, pulled by four large horses by the sounds of it.

“But it is your use of the detective—Sergeant Cuff—that I find close to brilliant,” Dickens said suddenly. “That is what makes me consider writing my own novel of mystery, preferably with such a keen mind at the centre of it. Cuff is wonderful… his lean build, his cold, penetrating gaze, and his almost mechanically perfect mind. A wonderful invention!”

“Thank you, Charles,” I said softly.

“If only you had used him properly!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You draw him brilliantly, introduce him brilliantly, and he behaves brilliantly… right up to the place where he wanders off the track, disappears from the narrative for an aeon’s length, makes all the wrong assumptions despite so much evidence to the contrary, and then becomes unavailable, going off to Brighton to raise bees.…”

“To Dorking to breed roses,” I corrected with a strange surge of déjà vu.

“Of course. But the character of Sergeant Cuff—this idea, as I said, to have a private rather than public detective the centre of a novel of mystery—is wonderful. I believe that readers would resonate wonderfully to such a master of deduction, perhaps as lean and commanding as Cuff, eccentric, almost totally unemotional, if his background and character were fleshed out a bit more. I shall enjoy seeing whether I can create such a character for my Mystery of Edmond Dickenson, should I ever get around to writing such a thing.”

“You can bring back your Inspector Bucket from Bleak House,” I said morosely. “He was most popular. I believe we discussed the fact that there were images of Bucket on tobacco cards.”

“We did. There were,” chuckled Dickens. “He was perhaps the most popular character in the book, and I admit to enjoying his scenes very much. But Inspector Bucket was a man of the world and a man in the world… he lacked the mystery and appeal of your lean, cool, detached Sergeant Cuff. Besides, since the original for Bucket, Inspector Charles Frederick Field, is no longer among the living, I should, by all propriety, consign his copy to the grave as well.”

For what seemed like a long time I could not speak. I had to concentrate on breathing and not showing through my expression the riot of thoughts and emotions that was surging through me. At long last I said, as calmly as I could, “Inspector Field is dead?”

“Oh, yes! Died last winter while I was on tour in America. Georgina noticed it in the Times and clipped the obituary for me, knowing that I should like it in my files.”

“I’ve heard nothing of this,” I said. “Do you happen to remember the date of his death?”

“I do,” said Dickens. “It was nineteen January. Two of my sons—Frank and Henry—were born on fifteen January, you may recall, so I remembered the date for Field’s death.”

“Extraordinary,” I said, although I have no idea whether I was commenting on Dickens’s memory or Inspector Field’s death. “Did the obituary in the Times say how he died?”

“In bed, at home, of ill health, I believe,” said Dickens. The subject of the inspector obviously bored him.

January 19 would have been the day after—or perhaps the night of—our expedition into Undertown. I had been unconscious until 22 January and in no shape to read the newspapers carefully for some time after that. No wonder I had missed the notice. And no wonder I had never come into contact with Field’s men in the months since. Undoubtedly the inspector’s private investigations office had been closed, the agents disbanded and scattered to other work.

Unless Dickens was lying to me.

I remembered my insight the previous year that Dickens, Drood, and Inspector Field were all playing some complicated three-way game, with me caught as pawn in the middle. Could this be a lie as part of some ploy on Dickens’s part?

I doubted it. It would be too easy for me to check with someone I knew at the Times to see if the obituary was real. And if there had been a death in January, there was a grave for poor old Charles Frederick Field somewhere. I could check on that as well. For a mad moment I wondered if this were another ploy by Inspector Field himself—faking his own death so as to be safe from Drood’s minions—but that was too far-fetched even for the events of the past three years. I shook that idea out of my head.

“Are you well, my dear Wilkie? You suddenly look terribly pale.”

“Just this vicious gout,” I said. We both stood.

“You will stay for supper? Your brother has not been well enough to attend regular meals, but perhaps tonight, if you are here…”

I looked at my watch. “Another time, Charles. I need to get back to the city. Caroline is preparing something special for us tonight and we are going to the theatre.…”

“Caroline?” cried Dickens in surprise. “She has come back?”

I shook my head, smiled, and tapped my forehead with three fingers. “I meant Carrie,” I said. I was lying there as well. Carrie was spending the entire week with the family for which she governessed.

“Ah, well, another time soon,” said Dickens. He walked me outside and down the stairs and through the tunnel.

“I’ll have one of the servants drive you to the railway station.”

“Thank you, Charles.”

“I am glad you came to Gad’s Hill Place today, my dear Wilkie.”

“As am I, Charles. It has been most edifying.”