POE MUST DIE Read online

  Tonight, Pierce James Figg sat in a black frock coat borrowed for his son’s hanging and burial, a coat which ill-fitted his squat body. An awesome sight, dear Mr. Figg. Decent, but no man to cross or do the dirty to. Makes his living teaching the use of fist, cudgel, knife and short sword and no one does it better.

  Pierce James Figg, descended from a long line of bare knuckle prizefighters, was shrewd and plain speaking, lacking formal education but possessed of an education of a different sort, the kind that came from surviving the brutal prize ring and life on the edge of the underworld. Dickens knew Figg to be an honest man, something which could not be said for others in prizefighting.

  “Your wife, Mrs. Dickens. She’s well, I trust?”

  “Kate’s just fine, Mr. Figg.” Lord in heaven, thought Dickens, where does he find the strength to be that gracious now?

  He smiled at Figg. “She’s reading to the children. Helps them to sleep. She says it’s better for their health than going on a picnic with me. On occasion, I take my ten-year-old Charley and some of his school chums on picnics down by the river. Jolly, jolly times. We drink champagne. Kate says champagne isn’t proper for children, but I tell her it’s better than the horrid water spilling from our English taps.”

  Dickens stopped. Trivial, trivial occurrences in my life and all less than nothing to this man submerged in more agony than any one human being should be forced to endure. Poor Figg loses his wife and son and I talk of champagne. God in heaven forgive me.

  Figg tried to smile and failed. Dickens was relieved. At least Figg hadn’t taken offense.

  Figg flopped his round shaven head back against the leather chair and spoke to the ceiling. “Made me boy a promise, I did. He says to me, ‘Don’t let them body snatchers dig me up and sell me to the anatomists, them bloody doctors who will carve me into little bits. Promise me, dad. Promise me the sack ’em ups won’t get me’.”

  Miserable ghouls, thought Dickens, terrifying us all because the desecration of a grave was the most hideous of crimes. In a moment of bitter whimsy, someone had also named these criminals resurrectionists.

  Figg dabbed at his eyes with a large white handkerchief. “Filled me boy’s coffin with quicklime. Done it meself. What’s in there now ain’t fit for nobody to touch. Won’t be nobody dragging Will off for rum money.”

  Dickens flinched. He had seven children of his own. The idea of having to fill their coffins with quicklime …

  He remembered seeing a few resurrectionists near the hanging this morning, in the crowded Magpie and Stump tavern, where Figg and Dickens had gone for warm drinks against the wet January cold. Filthy, unshaven men with eyes like dirty coins, and smelling of roast herring and damp clothing, crudely dancing the waltz and polka with slovenly whores to the music of a cornet and fiddle.

  To the crowd, the hanging was entertainment and many had waited throughout the night to make certain they were close enough to see it. The resurrectionists saw the hanging as a chance for profit, to perhaps get the boy’s body before Figg reached it. But Figg had warned that anyone who touched young Will’s body would die for it and no one had tried. The resurrectionists had watched like vultures, none of them with the courage to challenge the boxer.

  Dickens finished his gin and lemon, placing the empty glass on a small table beside him. “Did you talk with Lecky’s children once more?”

  “Yes sir. That’s also why I’m late. The little ones say police are done with them and don’t see no more reason to pursue this matter. The court’s judgement is all that’s left now.” Figg swallowed and then barely breathed the words. “Record’s goin’ to say that my boy Will crushed Mr. Lecky’s temple with a belt buckle, then put a ball through the head of the little girl what seen him do it.”

  Charles Dickens snorted. “Then sat on the floor dazed until the police came and arrested him. Will did not kill anyone.”

  “Yes sir, I know.”

  “Jonathan killed the kidsman and he killed the child with Will’s pistol. He also hypnotized your lad. That was Will’s story and it was the truth.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Remember that, Mr. Figg.”

  The boxer’s scarred cheeks were bright with his tears. “Never goin’ to forget it, sir.”

  Dickens fingered a small white china monkey which he used as a paperweight and without which he felt he could not write. “Such swift justice under our gracious Queen Alexandrina Victoria and her beloved Albert. A murder is committed and one short week later, a boy hangs for it. Wasn’t long ago that this country hung a ten-year-old lad and his eight-year-old sister for stealing a lace handkerchief. Why is it that we English are so intent on slaughtering our children? The scaffold or sixteen-hour working days. I wonder which is worse.”

  “You’ve tried to help, sir. Your books, I mean.”

  The author looked at his writing desk. Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge. And don’t forget the Daily News, the newspaper he’d started two years ago. All attempts at some sort of reform, to make the English despise child abuse as much as he did, to make the nation see that it could not continue to brutalize its children without brutalizing itself. The children. “Young lives which … had been one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect.”

  But his books, all highly successful, had changed little. England was a paradise for the privileged and a hell for the poor. For too many this nation, under God and Queen, was but a place to die an early death, more than likely with an empty belly.

  On the other side of the closed study door, the shaggy white terrier Timber Doodle ran in circles as it whined for its master. Dickens turned and smiled in the dog’s direction. “Given to me when I was in America six years ago. A presentation from Mr. Mitchell, a popular American comedian.” He turned back to Figg. “I’ve spoken to you in the past of my trip to America and now you are about to embark for that land yourself.”

  “To find Jonathan and kill him.”

  Dickens crossed his legs and continued to stroke the china monkey. “You pursue a dangerous quest, my friend. Jonathan’s a most deadly adversary, with powers beyond those of mortal men. I’m something of an amateur hypnotist myself, as you know, and have some familiarity with related spiritual matters. I see in Jonathan only the blackest of deeds. And you don’t even know what he looks like.”

  “I shall kill him, sir.”

  “As you must, as you should. Justice has failed you in the matter of your wife and son, so I deeply sympathize with your wish for satisfaction. I intend to assist you in my own fashion.”

  “Mr. Dickens, you have helped me quite a bit, let me say. I had no money for a solicitor for young Will and you paid for one out of your own pocket. Your own health’s none too good these days, yet you went to the prison with me more than once. I’m deeply grateful.”

  Dickens chuckled. “My health. Ah my dear Figg, let us speak of that. I pen novels, plays, letters, stories, travel books, books for children and I stand on stage and read from my works to audiences which pay me a pretty penny, by God. I am quite an actor, they tell me, and the amateur theatricals I wallow in have also been well received. If I am tired, sir, it is by choice. If I have chosen exhaustion over boredom, then so be it. I find myself agreeing with Goethe, who when told he too worked excessively, replied that he had all eternity to rest. Eternity is unavoidable, but until it embraces me, I shall keep myself fully consumed with living.”

  Dickens stood up and stretched. “Such days as these should never be as long as they are. I want to help you Mr. Figg and I shall. Is it not true that I am very much in your debt?”

  Figg squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, thick fingers going to the long, black scarf like tie he wore around what little amount of neck he possessed. “You don’t owe me, Mr. Dickens, sir. “You don’t—”

  Dickens placed a hand on the prizefighter’s shoulder and spoke in a firm, low voice. “Four years ago, remember? An agonizingly cold December it was, and my two little ones Charley and Katey were return
ing from school. A joyous time for them. Snow on the ground, Christmas to come and to be young and dreaming of childish pleasures. That’s when ‘the skinners’ attacked them.”

  “You prevented my children from being terrorized and degraded, stripped of their clothes in the cold, Mr. Figg. Providence sent you to strike down those men who would have left my Charley and Katey shivering naked in the snow.”

  Figg said, “That’s when I met my son.”

  Will had been with the skinners as a ten-year-old lookout, a hardened London street orphan who had never known his parents and who survived in the criminal underworld as best he could. Figg’s fists had sent the two adult males to the ground, face down and bleeding in the snow and before young Will could flee, Figg had caught him and slapped his face for being part of the crime.

  “I was and still am most grateful,” Dickens said, “and I shall always be.”

  Figg didn’t want to talk about what he’d done long ago. “You’ve helped me, sir. You’ve sent people to me academy and I’ve made a few bob teachin’ them. The famous have come to me door because you’ve told them to. You owe no more.”

  Dickens threw back his head and laughed briefly. It hurt his throat to laugh, but he did. “Send the famous to you? Mr. Figg you are acquainted with more notables than I and I know quite a long list of such fellows. Whom, among the glittering names of our day, have I sent to you? Ah yes. Fellow quill pushers. Wilkie Collins. Thackeray, Browning, Tennyson. And pray tell, what did they do on arriving at your emporium? Not put on the mufflers, I assure you. Not one glove ever slipped around one ink stained fist. They stood stock still and stared with awe. That is what they did and none of it enriched your coffers by much, I’m afraid.”

  “Their very presence, sir.”

  “Does not pay the butcher, Mr. Figg. You’ve taught my young Charley a thing or two. He’s had an occasional punch-up with his mates and acquitted himself quite well, thanks to you.”

  Figg stared down at his lap. “Taught young Will. Learnin’ fast, he was. On the way to bein’ a right sized man. Had no last name when I met him. After a time, he come to me and he tells me he’s takin’ mine. My middle name and my last name.”

  “The lad loved you. Respected you as well and that is as it should have been. You took him from the streets, gave him a home and more. With you, there was Christian charity and the discipline a child cannot do without.”

  Figg looked at Dickens. “I think maybe it was me who really killed him.”

  “Nonsense. If he spent more time in the Holy Land than he should, well we know the reason don’t we. He had become a changed young man, thanks to you and that is what he told the unfortunate urchins trapped in that heartbreaking way of life. He wanted them to climb out of that savage squalor to become decent and God fearing. He tried to give them what you had given him: hope, dignity, a reason for living.”

  Figg dropped his chin to his wide chest. “Shouldna let him keep talkin’ to Lecky’s children. Now he’s got topped. Got hisself hanged.”

  “That is hindsight, dear friend. Your son, and he was very much your son, wanted to pull the little ones from a disgusting existence. You have every reason to be proud of Will.”

  “Died in my place, he did. I was the one what should have gone for the magician, not him.”

  Dickens swallowed to lubricate his sore throat. Figg’s guilt seemed to have aged the man. He looked a dozen years older than he had just days ago. “Like you, Will knew about your wife and Jonathan, which means he also knew the kind of man Jonathan was. When Lecky’s children told Will of the particular books they were to steal, books dealing with the spirit world, your son mistakenly thought those books were meant for Jonathan. So Will took it on himself to keep watch over Arthur Lecky.”

  “And the magician appears there and me boy dies in me place.” Figg clenched his fingers into a pair of huge, menacing fists. “Told me he wanted to do for Jonathan because of what the magician done to me and my missus. Smart lad, he was. Brave. Right brave.”

  “He wanted to pay you back for taking him off the streets.”

  “More than paid me back, he did. Stopped stealin’, stopped carryin’ a chiv. When I first got him, he used to brag about bein’ the best beak hunter in London. Best chicken thief, he used to say he was.” Figg’s eyes pleaded with Dickens. “Sometimes I was thinkin’ I was too hard on him, too strict.”

  “No such thing, Mr. Figg. Children need a most firm hand always. That is how I raise mine, sir. Most firm hand.” Too firm, Kate says. You’re not warm enough, Charles, she says. Dickens ignored her; he was a father, not a simpering country vicar playing up to children to get their attention and boost his own ego. Children needed an iron hand and that was that.

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Figg.

  “It’s been proven so. At least you know Jonathan’s whereabouts.”

  Figg folded his large white handkerchief, placing it neatly on one of his meaty thighs. “Yes sir. He was involved with them play actors and now they have all sailed for New York to work for one Phineas Taylor Barnum. I figure as how Jonathan will be there with ’em.”

  Play actors. The same theatrical troupe Figg’s actress wife had performed with.

  Dickens said, “Is there any chance that Jonathan is still in England?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir. Lecky’s tots helped me some more today. Lecky was a sly one, always wantin’ the edge. So after he agrees to do a deal with this American, he has one of his kids follow him just to see what is really and truly occurring in this matter. The little one follows the American to a Harley Street surgeon, he tells me. So when I fínish with Will’s body today, I pop ‘round to see this medical fellow.”

  “You have accomplished much today, Mr. Figg.”

  “Indeed sir. This medical fellow he tells me the American is Justin Coltman of New York and Mr. Coltman is dying of cancer. There is not the slightest hope that he will live. At first, mind you, the medical man he don’t want to talk to me but he soon decides that I am intent of havin’ words with him.”

  Dickens smiled. An aroused Pierce James Figg could convince anyone to become suddenly verbal.

  “This medical fellow says Mr. Coltman wanted to leave for New York as quickly as possible. I have to be thinkin’, Mr. Dickens, that if Jonathan was involved with Lecky and Lecky was involved with Mr. Coltman and these peculiar books, well sir, they must all be somehow involved with each other. I ain’t puzzled all of it out yet, but it does seem that way to me.”

  “You are thinking wisely, Mr. Figg. Perhaps Mr. Coltman also seeks Solomon’s Throne. We know that Jonathan wants it at any cost.”

  “Me wife said so.” Figg’s wife. Twenty-two-year-old Althea, with waist-length auburn hair and sad eyes. An actress, whose infatuation with Jonathan had brought a horrible death down upon her. When she had learned the truth about him and the acting troupe surrounding him, it was too late.

  Figg bowed his round, shaved head. “My boy weren’t really my boy, you understand. I mean I found him, is all.” The tears started again. “Give me pleasure feelin’ he was mine. Sorta liked callin’ him that. Late in life for a fella like me, what ain’t never had much family to marry a young lady, sir, and have a lad he can call his own. I mean, a man like me cannot hope to rise above his station and a family was a good thing—”

  He broke down and sobbed.

  Dickens watched helplessly, both hands now squeezing the tiny white china monkey. Hadn’t life already done enough to this man who had survived more than his share of brutality in the prize ring? And now it had taken what little family he had and placed them to rot somewhere in the earth. The Greeks are correct: Let no man count himself happy until he is dead. Jonathan. Let Figg find him and kill him.

  At his desk, Dickens opened a drawer and pulled out two pale blue envelopes and a man’s black leather belt. In the hall, Timber Doodle stopped whining and now began to bark.

  Dickens said, “I promised to help you. Are you certain I
cannot offer you spirits or tea?”

  “No sir. No stomach for it at the moment, thankin’ you.”

  “Mr. Figg, you have buried three people you loved: a wife, a son, a father-in-law dead of grief. And yet you remain a most considerate gentleman. It is I who should thank you for allowing me to—”

  “I have me downy moments, Mr. Dickens. Me moments of cunning, sir.”

  “As do we all. But here, please take these.” He handed him the pair of envelopes and the belt.

  Figg held the belt in both hands. It seemed slightly heavy as though there was some sort of metal under the black leather.

  “There’s a fold inside,” said Dickens. “Open it.”

  It was a money belt, its inside lined with gold sovereign coins.

  Figg frowned, a sight most men would have found upsetting. He looked up at Dickens. “Sir, I cannot accept this. It is more money than I could every repay.”

  “You can accept it, you shall accept it and you shall not pay me back.”

  “This could do for your lad’s boxin’ lessons ‘til me dyin’ day.”

  “Call this a payment, a very small one, on the lives of my two children whom you rescued without knowing who they were.”

  “Sir, you don’t have to—”

  “Mr. Figg, fortunately I am in the position of being able to do exactly as I choose, thanks to what some say is my materialistic ruthlessness. Now listen to me, for my voice is fast fading and soon I shall be as silent as these walls around us. I have been to America and you sir, have not. Advantage, mine. That rather crude, uncultured land has no currency. Imagine such a happenstance. No currency.”

  Dickens began pacing the study, marching up and down in front of Figg, warming to the task of performing before an audience. “One barters or pays in gold. Oh, there is some paper currency, but it is neither respected nor highly prized. The national government, the governments of local cities, banks, railroads and private citizens, each, sir, issues its own paper funding. One need not be a seer to realize that such an overabundance of financial paper cannot retain excessive value.”