“Ahhh,” I said. “I see. Well, Inspector, think nothing of that. I was ready to terminate that aspect of my research at any rate. You see, what with the play I am putting on and the novel I am more than half done with, I simply do not have time or further need for that research.”
“Really, sir? Well… I admit that I am relieved to hear it. I was worried that Detective Hatchery’s reassignment would be an inconvenience for you.”
“Not at all,” I said. In truth, my weekly public house meetings with Hatchery before my descent to King Lazaree had long since turned into weekly dinings out. At one of these in November, Hatchery—my spy now—had warned me that Inspector Field soon would be relieving him of his duty of being my bodyguard during my weekly outings.
I had been prepared for this and had asked him—quite diplomatically—if he, Hatchery, were free to do detective duties outside Inspector Field’s investigative agency.
He was, he said. Indeed he was. And, in fact, he had made sure that his renewed duties with Inspector Field would not include Thursday nights. “For my daughters, I told him,” said Hatchery to me over our cigars and coffee.
I had offered him a generous sum for continuing his protective duties without telling his superiors. Hatchery had accepted at once and our handshake had sealed the deal, his gigantic hand enveloping mine.
So it was on this mid-December day in 1867 that Inspector Field and I also shook hands and walked in opposite directions on Waterloo Bridge, assuming—at least on my part—that we should never see each other again.
THAT SAME WEEK that I swept Inspector Field out of my life, I honoured another appointment, this time one that I had set, by going to the Cock and Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street to dine. Deliberately arriving late, I found Joseph Clow already seated and, though dressed in an ill-fitting serge suit, looking decidedly ill at ease in the surroundings that must have been far more refined—and expensive—than those he was used to as a plumber and distiller’s son.
I called the wine steward over and ordered, but before I could say anything to Clow, the thin, furtive little man said, “Sir… Mr Collins… if this is about my staying for dinner that evening in October, I apologise, sir, and can only say that your housekeeper, Mrs G—, had invited me as a reward for my finishing the upstairs plumbing ahead of schedule, sir. If it wasn’t proper for me to do so, and I see now it mightn’t have been, I just want to say that I am very sorry and…”
“No apologies, no apologies,” I interrupted. Setting my hand on his rough-weave sleeve, I set the tone immediately. “I invited you here, Mr Clow… may I call you Joseph?… to apologise to you. I am sure that my look of surprise that night two months ago could have been… must have been… mistaken as one of disapproval, and I hope that my entertaining you to a fine meal here at the Cock and Cheshire Cheese will go some small distance towards making amends for that.”
“No need, sir, no need…” Clow began again, but again I interrupted.
“You see, Mr Clow… Joseph… it is as Mrs G—’s employer of long standing that I speak to you now. Perhaps she told you that she has been in my employ for many years now.”
“Yes,” said Clow.
We were interrupted by the arrival of the waiter, who recognised me and greeted me effusively. Realising that Clow was at a loss to choose from the menu items, I ordered for both of us.
“Yes,” I continued, “even though Mrs G— is still quite young, she and her daughter have been in my employ for many years. In truth, ever since Harriet—that is her daughter—was a small child. How old are you, Mr Clow?”
“Twenty-six, sir.”
“Please do me the honour of calling me Wilkie,” I said expansively. “And you shall be Joseph.”
The thin-faced young man blinked rapidly at this. He was obviously not accustomed to crossing class barriers.
“You realise, Joseph, that I have nothing but the highest regard for Mrs G—, and nothing but absolute respect for my obligation to look out for her and her delightful daughter.”
“Yes, sir.”
The wine arrived, was approved, and I made sure that Clow’s glass was filled to the brim.
“When she told me of her affection for you, Joseph, I was surprised.… I admit to being surprised, since Caroline… Mrs G—… has not spoken so highly of any gentleman during all the years she has been in my employ. But her feelings and amibitions are of the highest priority to me, Joseph. Of this you can be sure.”
“Yes, sir,” Clow said again. He looked like a man who had been struck on the head by one of his heavier plumber’s instruments.
“Mrs G— is a young woman, Joseph,” I went on. “She was little more than a girl when she came into my service. Despite her many duties and responsibilities in my household, she is a young woman still, of an age very similar to your own.”
In truth, Caroline would be thirty-eight on her next birthday on 3 February, less than two months away.
“Of course her father’s dowry is considerable, and I would be more than pleased to add to it,” I said. “This is in addition to her modest inheritance, of course.” Her father had died in Bath in January of 1852 and there was no dowry, no inheritance, and I had no intention of adding a ha’penny to those cumulative zed sums.
“Well, sir… Wilkie, sir… it was only a late dinner because Mrs G— said I’d worked so hard to get the plumbing done, sir,” said Clow. Then the food began arriving, his eyes widened at the quality and quantity of it, and our conversation grew even more one-sided as I continued filling his glass and pressing my strange, subtle, seemingly selfless, and totally insincere point.
MY MOTHER WAS ALSO COMPLAINING and making demands on my time at this point. She had begun suffering, she said, from various indeterminate but excruciating pains. One resisted the urge to tell her that at age seventy-seven, indeterminate (and perhaps even occasionally excruciating) pains were part of the price of longevity.
My mother had always complained and my mother had always been healthy: healthier than her husband, who had died young; healthier than her son Charles, who was racked for years with stomach pains that would turn out to be cancer; healthier, certainly, than her poor son Wilkie, who suffered from a rheumatical gout that periodically blinded him with pain.
But Mother was complaining and asking—almost demanding— that I spend several days around Christmas with her down in Tunbridge Wells. This was impossible, of course, and not for the least reason that Caroline was also demanding that I spend Christmas or several days around Christmas at home with her and Carrie. This was also impossible.
The premiere of No Thoroughfare had been set for Boxing Day—the day after Christmas.
On 20 December I wrote to my mother:
My dear Mother,
I scratch one line—in the midst of the turmoil of the play—to say that you may rely on my coming to you on Christmas Day—if not before.
The delays and difficulties of this dramatic work have been dreadful. I have had to write a new 5th Act—which has been completed to-day—and the play must be performed on Thursday next, with a Sunday and Christmas Day between!
If I can write again, I will. If not, let us leave it that I certainly will come on Christmas Day. And, if I am not wanted on the next Monday’s or Tuesday’s Rehearsal that I come before. Your much-bothered son has hardly got a minute he can call his own. But the writing of the play is at last complete—so my principal worry is at an end. How I shall enjoy a little quiet with you!
Send me a line between this and Christmas Day. I have got your heart-burn lozenges—and some chocolate for you which Charley brought from Paris. Can I bring anything else which will go into my hand-bag?