Field was beyond middle age now—I realised he must be about sixty years old—and only a fringe of grey hair remained where I remembered a lion’s mane of darker curls over his ears, but the husky voice, knowing eye, and corpulent forefinger remained accurate and operative.

“Mr Collins, Mr Collins, it’s a pleasure to see you again, sir. And to see you prospering so obviously and delightfully, sir. What a lovely room this is, sir. So many books. And I believe that is a copy of your own The Woman in White there by the ivory tusk—yes, upon my soul, it is. A wonderful book, so I hear, although I’ve not yet found the time to read it, but my wife has. You may remember me, sir…”

“Yes, of course, you accompanied Charles Dickens and me…”

“On one of your expeditions into the darker parts of our fair city, indeed I did, Mr Collins. Indeed, I did. And perhaps you remember that I was present the first time you met Mr Dickens.”

“I am not sure that I…”

“No, no, sir, no reason for you to recall my presence there. It was 1851, sir. Mr Dickens had hired me, on a private basis you might say, to provide security for his performance of Lord Lytton’s play Not So Bad as We Seem at a benefit by the Duke of Devonshire. You were an aspiring actor then, I believe, sir, and Mr Dickens—on the advice of Mr Egg, I do seem to recall—invited you to play the part of Smart. ‘A small part,’ I remember Mr Dickens saying to you during that first rehearsal, ‘but what there is of it, decidedly good!’ As were you, Mr Collins. As were you. Decidedly good. And I saw several performances, sir.”

“Why, thank you, Inspector. I…”

“Yes—oh, may I be seated? Thank you very much. Beautiful stone egg here on your desk, Mr Collins. Is it onyx? Yes, I believe it is. Fascinating.”

“Thank you, Inspector. To what do I owe…”

“You remember, I am sure, Mr Collins, that the Duke of Devonshire provided Devonshire House for that first performance of Lord Lytton’s play. It was all for the good of the Guild of Literature and Art, as I recall. Sir Edward was president of the Guild at that time. Mr Dickens was vice-president. You may recall that I—and a few carefully chosen associates of mine—were hired to be present in what we call plain clothes because Lord Lytton’s estranged wife, Rosina was her name, I believe, had threatened to disrupt the play. I saw the first note she sent Lord Lytton. She promised to pose as an orange-seller and to pelt the stage with fruit, as I recall.” Inspector Field chuckled and I worked to return a smile.

“In another note,” he continued, “she promised to throw rotten eggs at the Queen, who did attend despite the threats, I am sure you recall, sir, you having the memory of a writer after all. Her Majesty the Queen was there with Prince Albert that evening of the first performance and witnessed your first public appearance anywhere with Mr Dickens. Sixteen May, 1851, that was—seems like just last week, does it not, sir? — and you had your own special guests that night, Mr Collins. Your brother Charles, I do believe, and your mother… Harriet, I believe her name is, and I hope her health is good, Mr Collins, I surely do, and I seem to remember that she lives with your brother Charles and his wife, Kate, Dickens’s eldest daughter, I do believe, when your mother is staying in town. At Clarence Terrace, I think the address is. A lovely neighbourhood. And a wonderful lady, she is. Oh, and you had other guests that night of the Command Performance fifteen years ago, I seem to recall. Edward and Henrietta Ward… a cigar? Why yes, sir. I don’t mind if I do.”

The offer of a fine cigar had served to stem the verbal flow, and the silence continued as we each trimmed our cigars, lit them, and savoured the first minute of smoking them. Before the detective could get his second wind, I said, “Your memory does your profession and yourself credit, Inspector Field. But I should ask—to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

He removed the cigar from his mouth with his left hand and allowed the corpulent forefinger on his right hand to touch first the side of his nose, as if he were sniffing something out, and then to tap his lips, as if the finger were helping to form his next words. “Mr Collins, you should know that the ‘Inspector’ before my name now is a pure honourific, as I am no longer employed by the Scotland Yard Bureau of Detectives. Haven’t been since the year after I protected the integrity of Not So Bad as We Seem, to be one-hundred-percent accurate.”

“Well, I am sure the honourific is well deserved and should be and will be maintained by all who know you,” I said, not bothering to point out that the “Inspector” title was plainly there on his card.

“Thank you, Mr Collins,” said the florid detective, exhaling a great cloud of smoke. With the doors to my study closed and the window open only a small bit, as was my habit due to the noise from the streets outside, the little room was quickly filling up with blue smoke.

“Tell me, Inspector,” I said, “how can I be of assistance today? Are you writing your memoirs? Is there some small gap in your otherwise voluminous and incredible memory which I could help fill in some way?”

“Memoirs?” chuckled Inspector Field. “Now that is an idea… but bless you, no, sir. Others, such as your friend Mr Dickens, have written about my… well, exploits would not be too bold a word for them, would it, sir?… about my exploits before, and I suspect that more will write about them in the future, but no memoirs on my docket for now, sir.”

“How can I help you, then, Inspector?”

Cigar firmly clamped between his teeth, Field leaned forward, planted his elbows on my desk, and freed his corpulent forefinger to point first up, then down, then to prod the desk, and finally to point it at me. “It came to my attention, Mr Collins—came to my attention too late, I regret—that you and Mr Dickens were in Tiger Bay and the Undertown searching for a certain personage named Drood.”

“Who told you that, Inspector?” My voice was cool. This former Scotland Yard detective had already exhibited too much curiosity and intrusion to suit me.

“Oh, Hib Hatchery, of course. He works for me. Hatchery is an operative of my Private Enquiry Bureau. Did not Mr Dickens tell you that?”

I remembered Dickens saying something about Inspector Field having moved on from police work and not being available for our outing, and of Field having recommended Hatchery, but I had not paid much attention to the comment.

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe he did.”

Field nodded and his finger seemed to move of its own volition to a place alongside his beak of a nose even as his other hand removed the cigar from his mouth. “He is, sir. Hatchery is a good man. Not imaginative, perhaps, as the great inspectors and detectives must be, but a good man. A dependable man. But when Dickens contacted me about finding someone to escort him into the… ah… difficult parts of the city again, I assumed that it was another little slum-jaunt of his, of the sort I escorted him and you on and him and the American visitors on, sir. I was out of London for a while, on Private Enquiry Bureau business, and did not hear until I returned recently that Drood was the object of Mr Dickens’s pursuit.”

“I would hardly call it pursuit,” I said.

“Search, then,” said Inspector Field, breathing blue smoke out. “Enquiry. Investigation.”

“Is there something about Charles Dickens’s interests that concerns you?” I asked. My tone was not sharp, but it was meant to put a former policeman in his place when it came to the interests and actions of gentlemen.

“Oh, yes, sir. Yes, Mr Collins. Indeed there is,” said the inspector, sitting back in the chair until it creaked. He was inspecting his still-burning cigar and frowning slightly. “Everything about this Drood person concerns and interests me, Mr Collins. Everything.”