‘Who was that?’ I asked Marx.
‘Oh, a student, or, rather, he had just left university with prodigious talents and is unsure of how, exactly, to apply them. Very much like myself when I was his age,’ Marx mused. ‘He has lodgings in Montague Street and is using the Reading Room to develop methods of analysis. He feels sure that a scientific approach to criminology is to be his vocation. I told him of the Beckworth case and he was most interested. I believe he wants to pursue a career as a detective.’
‘As a police officer?’
‘No, as a civilian.’
‘What a peculiar notion,’ I commented.
‘Yes, it’s a pity that such a gifted mind cannot be persuaded to apply itself to our cause but I’m afraid he’s utterly unpoliticised.’
‘The youth of today,’ I sighed.
‘Yes. Though he is a committed materialist. It’s just that he is content to analyse human behaviour and interactions without a desire to change them. Though I must confess that I can now see the fascination in uncovering evidence, interpreting disclosures and clues. One could get lost in the deduction of class and society. He is working on a puzzle presented to him by a high-born friend of his from college, a superstitious observance of an ancient family known as the “Musgrave Ritual”. It is a litany of questions and answers that have no apparent meaning but -’
‘Marx!’ I barked at him.
He stared at me in shock for a second then his face broke into a broad grin.
‘No more of this amateur sleuthing,’ I reproached him. ‘There’s work to be done.’
‘You’re quite right, my dear Engels,’ he assured me, patting the thick sheaf of notes he had been making for the next part of Capital. ‘We’ve the greater crime to solve.’
The House of the Red Candle by Martin Edwards
To the end of his days, Charles Dickens forbade all talk about the slaying of Thaddeus Whiteacre. The macabre features of the tragedy – murder by an invisible hand; the stabbing of a bound man in a room both locked and barred; the vanishing without trace of a beautiful young woman – were meat and drink to any imaginative mind. Wilkie Collins reflected more than once that he might have woven a triple-decker novel of sensation from the events of that dreadful night, but he knew that publication was impossible. Dickens would treat any attempt to fabricate fiction from the crime as a betrayal, an act of treachery he could never forgive.
Dickens said it himself: The case must never be solved.
His logic was impeccable; so was his generosity of heart. Even after Dickens’s death, Collins honoured his friend’s wishes and kept the secret safe. But he also kept notes, and enough time has passed to permit the truth to be revealed. Upon the jottings in Collins’s private records is based this account of the murder at the House of the Red Candle.
A crowded tavern on the corner of a Greenwich alleyway, a stone’s throw from the river. At the bar, voices were raised in argument about a wager on a prizefight and a group of potbellied draymen carolled a bawdy song about a mermaid and a bosun. The air was thick with smoke and the stale stench of beer. Separate from the throng, two men sat at a table in the corner, quenching their thirsts.
The elder, a middle-sized man in his late thirties, rocked back and forth on his stool, his whole being seemingly taut with tension, barely suppressed. His companion, bespectacled and with a bulging forehead, fiddled with his extravagant turquoise shirt pin while stealing glances at his companion. Once or twice he was about to speak, but something in the other’s demeanour caused him to hold his tongue. At length he could contain his curiosity no longer.
‘Tell me one thing, my dear fellow. Why here?’
Charles Dickens swung to face his friend, yet when he spoke, he sounded as cautious as a poker player with a troublesome hand of cards. ‘Is the Rope and Anchor not to your taste, then, Wilkie?’
‘Well, it’s hardly as comfortable as the Cock Tavern. Besides, it’s uncommon enough for our nightly roamings to take us south of the river, and you gave the impression of coming here with a purpose.’ He winced as a couple of drunken slatterns shrieked with mocking laughter. The object of their scorn was a woman with a scarred cheek who crouched anxiously by the door, as if yearning for the arrival of a friendly face. ‘And the company is hardly select! All this way on an evening thick with fog! Frankly, I expected you to have rather more pleasurable company in mind.’
‘My dear Wilkie,’ Dickens said, baring his teeth in a wicked smile. ‘Who is to say that I have not?’
‘Then why be such an oyster? I cannot fathom what has got into you tonight You have been behaving very oddly, you know. When I talked about Boulogne, you didn’t seem to be paying the slightest attention.’
‘Then I apologize,’ Dickens said swiftly. ‘May I thank you for your patience.’
Collins was not easily mollified. ‘Even when you mentioned your jaunt with Inspector Field the other night,’ he complained, ‘it was as if your mind was elsewhere. May I finally be allowed to know what lies in store for us during the remainder of the evening?’
Dickens pushed his glass to one side with a sweep of the hand as though, after wrestling with an intractable dilemma, he had at last made up his mind. ‘Very well. I shall enlighten you. Our destination lies at the end of this very street.’
Collins frowned. ‘By the river?’
‘Yes.’ Dickens took a deep breath. ‘You cannot miss it. There is a fiery glow in the window of the last house in the row. In these parts, people call it the House of the Red Candle?’
‘Ah!’ Collins’s eyes widened in understanding. ‘I take it that the name speaks for itself?’
‘Indeed. Unsubtle, but you and I have agreed in the past that even the most refined taste can have too much of subtlety.’
‘Quite.’ Collins chuckled. ‘So you favored a change from the houses of Haymarket and Regent Street?’
‘Even from those of Soho and the East End,’ Dickens said quietly.
‘A writer must indulge in a little necessary research!’ Collins laughed, his cheeks reddening with excitement. ‘Whatever strange resorts it takes him to. Do you recall telling me about your experiences at Margate, years ago? Margate, of all places!’
Dickens shrugged. ‘At the seaside there are conveniences of all kinds.’
‘And you knew where they lived! Very well, tell me about this House of the Red Candle. Come on, spare me no shocking detail!’
‘Later,’ Dickens said. ‘I have no wish to spoil your anticipation.’
Collins belched. ‘Really, I must complain. You should have mentioned this an hour ago. I would have been more abstemious if only I had realised the nature of the entertainment you had up your sleeve. You old rascal! I wondered why you were wearing such a mysterious expression and only taking ladylike sips from your glass!’
Suddenly Dickens leaned across the table and stabbed a forefinger toward his companion’s heart. ‘Tonight, Wilkie, tonight of all nights, whatever happens, I beg you to repose your trust completely in me. Do you understand?’
His massive forehead wrinkling in bewilderment, Collins exclaimed, ‘Why, my dear fellow!’
‘I must have your word on this, Wilkie. Can I rely upon you?’
A light dawned in the younger man’s eyes. ‘Oh, I think I understand! Go on, then, you rascal! What is her name?’
Contriving a sly grin, Dickens said, ‘Ah, Wilkie, you are always too sharp for me.’
‘Go on, then! Her name?’
‘Very well. Her name is Bella.’
‘Splendid! And is she as pretty as her name?’
‘She is beautiful,’ Dickens said softly.
‘Ah! I do believe you are smitten. Now, don’t forget you are a married man, Charles, old fellow. How long have you known this – Bella?’