The more terrible the streets and neighbourhoods became, the more crowded they became. Groups of men—clusters of shadows, actually—were now visible on street corners, in doorways, in empty lots. Dickens strode on, keeping to the centre of the broken streets so that he could better see and avoid the holes and reeking pools of filthy water, his gentleman’s cane clicking on cobblestones. He seemed indifferent to the murmurings and angry imprecations from the men we were passing.

Finally a group of such ragged shadows detached itself from the darkness of an unlighted building and moved to block our way. Dickens did not hesitate but continued striding towards them as if they were children come to ask for his autograph. But I could see him change his grip upon his walking stick so that the heavy brass head of it—a bird’s beak, I believe—was aimed outwards.

My heart was pounding and I almost faltered as Dickens led me towards that black wall of angry ruffians. Then another wall—a grey one with a bowler hat atop it—moved briskly past me, catching up to Dickens, and Hatchery’s voice said softly, “Move along now, boyos. Go back to your ’oles. Let these gentlemen pass without so much as another glance from you. Now.”

There was just enough light from the private detective’s shaded bullseye lantern for me to be able to see that his right hand had disappeared within his loose coat. What did he carry there? A pistol? I thought not. Almost certainly a leaded club though. Perhaps handcuffs. The ruffians ahead of us and behind us and to the sides of us would know.

The circle of men shuffled away as quickly as it had coalesced. I expected heavy stones or at least gobs of refuse to be thrown at us as we passed, but when we moved on, nothing stronger than a muffled curse was flung in our direction. Detective Hatchery faded into the darkness behind us and Dickens continued his rapid cane-tapping march to what I believed to be the south.

Then we entered the area ruled by prostitutes and their owners.

I seemed to remember having come here in my student days. The street was actually more respectable in appearance than most of those we had traversed in the past half hour or so. Dim lights shone through closed blinds on the upper windows. If one did not know better, it would be easy to think that these dwellings belonged to hard-working factory hands or mechanics. But the stillness was too oppressive. On the steps and balconies and on the cracked slabs of what passed for sidewalks gathered groups of young women—we could see them by the lamplight escaping from the unshuttered lower windows—most of them appearing no older than eighteen. Some looked to be fourteen or younger.

Rather than scatter at the sight of Detective Hatchery, they called out to him in soft, mocking girl-voices—“Hey, ’Ibbert, bringing us some business, eh?” or “Come in and relax a bit, Hib old cock.” Or “No, no, the door’s not shut, Inspector H, no neither are our room doors neither.”

Hatchery laughed easily. “Your doors are never shut, Mary, although well they should be. Watch your manners now, girls. These gentlemen don’t want none of your wares this ’ot evening.”

That was not necessarily true. Dickens and I paused near one young woman, perhaps seventeen years of age, as she leaned over a railing and studied us in the dim light. I could see that her figure was full, her dark skirt high, and her bodice low.

She noticed Dickens’s interest and gave him a wide smile that showed too many missing teeth. “Are you searching for bacca, dear-ie?” she asked the writer.

“Bacca?” said Dickens and gave me a sideways glance filled with mirth. “Why no, my dear. What makes you think I have come in search of tobacco?”

“’Cause if you want it, I’ve got it,” said the girl. “Screws and arf ounces of it, an’ cigars and all other sorts what you may want and you may well have it of me if you wish. You only ’ave to come inside.”

Dickens’s smile faded slightly. He set both his gloved hands on his cane. “Miss,” he said softly, “have you given thought to the very real possibility of changing your life? Of giving up…” His white glove was visible in the dark as he gestured to the silent buildings, silent gatherings of girls, shattered street, and even the distant line of rough men waiting like a pack of forest wolves beyond the circle of pale light. “Of giving up this life?”

The girl laughed through her broken or rotted teeth, but it was not a girl’s laugh. It was a bitter presage of a diseased crone’s dry rattle. “Give up my life, sweetie? Why not give up yours then, eh? All you ’ave to do is walk back up there where Ronnie and the boys is waitin’.”

“Yours has no future, no hope,” said Dickens. “There are homes for fallen women. Why, I myself have helped commission and administrate one in Broadstairs where…”

“I ain’t about to fall,” she said. “Unless it’s on my back for the right bit o’ payment.” The girl turned to stare at me. “What about you, little man? You look like you ’ave some life left in you. You want to come inside for a screw of bacca before ol’ ’Atchery ’ere turns sour on us?”

I cleared my throat. To be honest with you, Dear Reader, I found some allure hovering about the wench, despite the heat and stench of the night, my male companions’ gazes, and even her ruined smile and ignorant language.

“Come,” said Dickens, turning and striding off into the night. “We are wasting our time here, Wilkie.”

DICKENS,” I said as we crossed yet another creaking, narrow bridge over yet another reeking, foetid stream, the lanes ahead of us mere alleys, the dark buildings there more medieval than any we’d yet seen, “I have to ask, does this… excursion… really have anything to do with your mysterious Mr Drood?”

He stopped and leaned on his stick. “Absolutely, my dear Wilkie. I should have told you at dinner. Mr Hatchery has done more for us in this regard than merely escort us through this… unseemly… neighbourhood. He has been in my employ for some time now and has put his detective abilities to good use.” He turned to the large shape that had come up behind us. “Detective Hatchery, would you be so kind as to inform Mr Collins of your discoveries to date?”

“Certainly, sir,” said the huge detective. He took off his bowler, rubbed his scalp under the explosion of tight curls, and squeezed the hat into place again. “Sir,” he said, addressing me now, “in the past ten days I ’ave made enquiries of the various railway ticket takers at Folkestone and other possible stops along the way—although the tidal express did not make no stops along the way—as well as discreet enquiries of other passengers, the guards on the train that afternoon, the conductors, and others. And the fact is, Mr Collins, that nobody named Drood or resembling the very odd description Mr Dickens gave me of this Mr Drood had a ticket to ride or was in one of the passenger carriages at the time of the accident.”

I looked at Dickens in the dim light. “So either your Drood was a local there at Staplehurst,” I said, “or he didn’t exist.”

Dickens only shook his head and gestured for Hatchery to continue.

“But in the second mail carriage,” said the detective, “there was three coffins being transported to London. Two of them had been loaded at Folkestone and the third had come over on the same ferry what brought Mr Dickens and… his party. The railway papers showed that this third coffin, the one what had come from France that day—no record of from where in France—was to be released to a Mr Drood, no Christian name listed, upon arrival in London.”

I had to think about this for a minute. There came muted shouts from the direction of the “dress lodgers’ ” houses far behind us. Finally, I said, “You think Drood was in one of those coffins?” I looked at Dickens as I posed the question.

The author laughed, almost delightedly, I thought. “Of course, my dear Wilkie. As it turns out, that second mail carriage derailed, displacing all of the parcels and bags and… yes… coffins, but it was not thrown into the ravine below. That explains why Drood was descending the hillside with me a few minutes later.”