“Sally's is better than Yahee's brand-you'll pay accordingly, won't ye, dearie?” the manager of the establishment repeated. “Have a whiff. After payment, of course.”
As she recited her slogans, a petite young woman on the other side of Sally's grisly bed slid to the floor with a moan.
“Is she unwell?” asked Osgood. Sally explained that the young woman was in a peaceful dream state and would be better than if she were in the terrible, unclean grog-house where the girl's mother used to take her.
Then Osgood realized. He could suddenly name the feeling he had experienced upon entering the building. It was a word he would have never guessed. Familiarity.
Witnessing this squalor was like seeing photographs of scenes from The Mystery of Edwin Drood! It recalled the very first scene of the book, where the devious John Jasper takes refuge in his opium dreams as he prepares to begin his villainous plans against his nephew Drood; and Princess Puffer, the old woman stirring the opium, questions her visitor. It was just as they performed the novel's scenes at the Surrey, too, but here given the actual stench of the drug and its hopelessness.
Here's another ready for ye, deary. Ye'll remember like a good soul, won't ye, that the market price is dreffle high just now?
Osgood's hope had been proven right! Datchery, consciously or not, must have absorbed something about the writing of the novel if he knew of this place. Then, a less settling feeling touched his nerves as he looked back at Datchery, standing behind him. Datchery and Sally were eyeing each other with the familiarity of a suitor and his former love.
A sudden and unexpected movement pulled away Osgood's attention: four white mice had scurried across a dirty shelf and over the occupants of the bed. Sally assured them they were very tame pets and, after a few clumsy attempts, managed to light another candle as if to demonstrate the highly civilized nature of a two-candle colony. The light revealed a ladder running up into a hole in the ceiling. In the time they had been standing there, a Malaysian sailor had left the room and a Chinese beggar had entered, left, and entered again. Sally spoke to the beggar-apparently her usual plea for advance purchase of her opium but now in Chinese. She also berated a ship's cook from
Bengal, whom she called Booboo, who was apparently not only a drug purchaser, but her lodger and servant.
THERE WAS REPETITION in the operation. After being given a shilling from a customer, the dealer would toast a thick black lump, which she had been mixing slowly with a pin, over the flame of a bro-ken lamp. When it was hot enough, the black mixture was inserted into the cup of the bamboo pipe, which was just an old glass ink bottle with a hole pierced in its side. The customer would then suck the end of the whistling pipe until the opium had been used up-usually after only a minute at the longest.
As Sally prepared the concoction, she gave a hard stare at Os-good-impatient with the lack of payment. Even one of the half-sleeping opium eaters now seemed to take a curious interest in the well-dressed publisher. Osgood, meanwhile, under the wet rags at his feet, noticed a small booklet or pamphlet among other soiled papers. Though the lighting was too dark to make out the details, the booklet's battered cover looked like he had seen it before.
“Well, dearies,” Sally the opium manager said, scowling a little, “is there something more ye want here, if it isn't any whiffs?” The Lascar meanwhile had now managed to stand and was also gazing at them.
Osgood felt a second wave of nausea from the newly thickened fumes. As he kneeled down to take a breath in the clearer air near the floor, he also slipped the booklet into his pocket. Datchery asked if he was all right.
“Some air,” Osgood responded, woozy from bending over. He found the door and climbed down one flight of stairs to an open window at the landing. Leaning his head out, he closed his eyes, still burning from the smoke. He realized when he opened them again that his vision was blurry from painful tears, and he tried to dry his eyes with a handkerchief. The air felt soothing on his face-though it was hot, it seemed like an ocean breeze compared with that cauldron upstairs.
He now removed the booklet from his pocket, and his suspicion was confirmed. He was holding the latest installment of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the same installment he had seen shipped out of Chapman & Hall on Magazine Day.
“Drood!” he said to himself. How in the land had it come to be here, too? Charles Dickens truly was read in every corner of the earth.
Returning up the stairs, gripping the handrail very firmly, Osgood felt his vision blur again as he neared the dark opium room. The entrance now seemed to be one solid block of smoke. He felt blind as he took two steps inside and then stumbled over something. Looking down as he plunged forward, he realized he had just tripped over Datchery, sprawled out on the floor. Osgood was caught and pushed against the wall, where he was held erect by the Lascar sailor, who threw a fist into Osgood's stomach.
“Stop! Ripley!” This cry came from Datchery, who pulled himself up from the floor and stumbled toward Osgood's attacker. Datchery wrestled with the Lascar, but Booboo, the Bengalee, shook him away and threw him back to the floor, where Datchery landed on his head and was knocked out cold.
Osgood, blinded by tears and blood, tried to feel his way out of the room, but the Lascar grabbed him and pitched into him with his fists, again and again, left then right, crushing him against the wall. Then the Lascar ripped open Osgood's waistcoat and frisked his pockets. Osgood could hear Booboo squatting on the floor similarly ransacking the unconscious Datchery.
As his body slumped down, Osgood felt himself slam against the wall and his head hitting it hard. Then, suddenly, it all came to a halt. Screams. The Lascar collapsed, his head rolling limply on the side of his neck. Booboo seemed to fly across the room splattering blood as he did. Sally had scrambled to the ladder and scurried like one of her mice up its rungs out of sight. Then Osgood was grabbed by both of his arms by someone new.
Through the blur, Osgood thought he could see the figure who'd seized him.
“Impossible!”
He knew this assailant. How could he be here! The giant figure loomed over him, grasped the top of his arm roughly. Seconds later, Osgood hit the floor and everything around him went black.
The next thing Osgood could remember, he awoke covered by darkness. His clothes were dripping wet and tattered. Strangely, he felt a state of dreamy peacefulness, the call of sleep, the crash of oceans, still starry skies-these pulled at him. The air had turned thickly blue, and he reached out to touch it.
Then a vague thought pierced the peace. Danger: he had to reach for the word-although it should have been self-evident. He was in danger. A snake, black and yellow and then all yellow, slithered by, nearly touching him; it spoke, or someone else spoke, now ten, fifteen, fifty voices could be heard at once trying to drown him in an incoherent chorus.
He thought about Rebecca, who had warned him… Rebecca who had been loyal and believed he could succeed in their mission… Rebecca whom he knew now that he had loved from the first time he saw her. He felt like crying-he felt as though this would relieve some of his bleak frustration-to produce tears but he could not manage. Without rising-for that seemed beyond his means-he looked for any sign of Datchery.
His eyes wanted to close but he felt if he allowed them, he would not be able to open them again. Struggling, his eyes won and Osgood tumbled backward into the dark.
THE SEWER HUNTER STEPPED carefully into the lowest section of the tunnel. Unlike most sewer hunters, Steve Williams had been able to secure the expensive leather boots that went up to the knee. This gave him a giant help as he waded through the bubbling offal and mud that filled the two thousand miles of brick sewers under London.