“Inspector Field, I do not believe that any of this is…”

“Not to interrupt, sir, but you should know—for future reference as you talk to your friend in the immediate days to come—that it was while in Paris that Mr Dickens suffered a brain haemorrhage of some apparent severity.”

“Dear God,” I said. “A brain haemorrhage. I’ve heard nothing about this. You are sure?”

“One cannot be certain of such things, as you know, sir. But Mr Dickens was struck down in Paris, was carried to his hotel room, and for some hours was quite insensible—incapable of either responding to his interlocutors or of speaking any words that made sense. The French doctors wished to have him in hospital, but Mr Dickens put it down to ‘sunstroke’—his phrase, sir—and merely rested one day in his Paris hotel and another two in Boulogne before returning home.”

I went back around the desk and collapsed into my chair. “What do you want, Inspector Field?”

He looked at me and his eyes widened with innocence. “I told you what I not only want, but require, Mr Collins. Any and all information that you and Charles Dickens have on this personage called Drood.”

I shook my head wearily. “You’ve come to the wrong man, Inspector. You shall have to return to Dickens to learn anything new about this phantom Drood. I know nothing at all that can help you.”

Field was nodding slowly. “I will indeed return to talk to Mr Dickens again, Mr Collins. But I have not come to the wrong man. I look forward to great cooperation from you in my Droodian enquiries. I fully expect you to get the information I need from Charles Dickens.”

I laughed a trifle bitterly. “And why would I betray a friend and his trust to funnel information to you, Inspector—by honourific only—Charles Frederick Field?”

He smiled at the thinly veiled insult. “The maid-servant who answered the door and showed me in, Mr Collins. She is very attractive, despite her age. Also a former actress, perhaps?”

Still smiling myself, I shook my head. “As far as I know, Inspector, Mrs G— has no history whatsoever upon the stage. If she had, it would be none of my business, sir. Just as it is none of yours now.”

Field nodded and resumed his pacing, smoke trailing above and behind him, his finger back alongside his beak of a nose. “Absolutely true, sir. Absolutely true. But we can assume, nonetheless, that this is the same Mrs Caroline G— whom you first started recording in your bank account as of 23 August, 1864—just a little more than a year ago, sir—as having received twenty pounds from you. Payments that you have made every month since then through your bank?”

I was weary of this. If this despicable little man was truly attempting to blackmail me, he had chosen the wrong writer. “What of it, Inspector? Employers pay their servants.”

“Indeed, sir. So I am told. And besides Mrs Caroline G—, her daughter, Harriet, I believe her name is—same name as your mother’s, sir, which is a pleasant coincidence—also receives payments from you through your bank, although in young Harriet’s case, and I believe you sometimes call her Carrie, and I believe she only recently turned fourteen years of age, sir, in young Harriet’s case the expenditures go towards her private education and music lessons.”

“Is there a point to this, Inspector?”

“Only that Mrs Caroline G— and her daughter, Harriet G—, have been listed in city census and household tax records as having been both lodgers in your home and maid-servants in your employ for some years now.”

I said nothing.

Inspector Field quit pacing and looked at me. “All I am pointing out here, Mr Collins, is that few employers are so generous as to, first, employ former lodgers when times go hard for them and then to put one’s young maid-servant through a fine school, much less hire rather high-priced musicians to give them music lessons.”

I shook my head wearily. “You may abandon this sad attempt at ungentlemanly leverage, Mr Field. My domestic arrangements are known to all of my friends, as is my resistance to marriage and towards the more unimaginative versions of middle-class life and morals. Mrs G— and her daughter have been my guests here for some years, as you well know, and my friends accept it. Caroline has been at my table helping me entertain for years now. There is no hypocrisy here, nor anything to hide.”

Field nodded, frowned, stubbed out what was left of his cigar, and said, “Your male friends, some of them, certainly do accept it, Mr Collins. Although you would agree that they do not bring their wives along when they dine at your table. And although there may not be any hypocrisy other than in your public records—in which you told city census officials that Mrs G— was your servant and a certain ‘Harriet Montague’ was your maid-servant, age sixteen (even though Mrs G—’s daughter, Harriet G—, here in your home, was only ten at the time)—and other sworn statements relating to these two worthy ladies, it does explain why Mr Dickens has referred to the child Harriet as ‘the Butler’ and to her mother as ‘the Landlord’ for several years now.”

This startled me. How could this man have known of Dickens’s small drolleries unless the retired inspector had men going through my most private correspondence?

“Harriet is not my daughter, Inspector,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, no, of course not, Mr Collins,” said the old man, waving his finger and smiling. “I never meant to suggest such. Even the poorest detective would know that a certain Caroline Compton, daughter of the carpenter John Compton and his wife, Sarah, met and married a certain George Robert G—, an accountant’s clerk from Clerkenwell, and married him on… I do believe it was 30 March, 1850, sir. The young Caroline was just twenty years of age that year, George Robert G— only a year older. Their daughter, Elizabeth Harriet, whom you prefer to call Harriet, sir, perhaps to honour your own mother, or Carrie, for reasons known only to yourself, was born in Somerset, on the outskirts of Bath, on 3 February, 1851. It’s sad that her father, George G—, came down with consumption the following year and died of it at the Moravian Cottages in Weston, near Bath, on 30 January, 1852, leaving his widow, Caroline, and twelve-month-old baby daughter, Elizabeth Harriet. Poor Mrs G— came to the attention of authorities a few years later, when she was running a junk shop in Charlton Street—near Fitzroy Square, I’m sure you know, sir—and ran into difficulties paying her debts. It could have been a tragic tale, possibly including a debtors prison, Mr Collins, had it not been for the intervention of a gentleman. Probably in May of 1856.”

“Inspector Field,” I said, rising again, “our conversation here is over.” I moved towards the door again.

“Not quite over, sir,” he said softly.

I rounded on him, the fury obvious in my shaking voice and clenched fists. “I say to you, sir, do your worst. I challenge you. Your petty and dishonourable attempts to blackmail me into betraying the confidence and trust of one of my dearest friends will earn you nothing but the ridicule and disapprobation you so obviously deserve. I am a free man, sir. I have nothing to hide.”

Field nodded. His forefinger, which I had already learned to despise, was tapping at his lower lip. “I am sure that is true, Mr Collins. Honest men have nothing to hide from others.”

I opened the door. My hand was shaking on the brass of the handle.

“Tell me before I go, sir,” said Field, picking up his top hat and moving closer, “just for my own edification… have you ever heard of a girl by the name of Martha R—?”

“What?” I managed to say through a constricted throat.

“Miss Martha R—,” he repeated.

I closed the door so quickly that it slammed audibly. I had not seen Caroline lurking in the hallway, but she often stayed within earshot. I opened my mouth again but found no words.