Drood by Dan Simmons Page B

“I was asked to take a year off because of irregularities in my treatment of a blackguard felonious sort in the pursuance of my duties, sir. The press made a row. My captain thought it might be better for the Bureau and myself if I went into private practice, a leave of absence as you might say, for a few months.”
    “Irregularities,” I said.
    Dickens patted me on the back. “Detective Hatchery, in arresting the aforementioned blackguard—a presumptuous daytime burglar who specialised in preying upon elderly ladies right here in Whitechapel— accidentally snapped the worthless thief’s neck. Strangely, the thief lived, but now has to be carried around in a basket by his family. No loss to the community and all a proper part of the job, as Inspector Field and others in the profession have assured me, but some of the oversensitive
Punch
group, not to mention the lesser newspapers, decided to make a fuss. So it is our great fortune that Detective Hatchery is free to escort us into the Great Oven tonight!”
    Hatchery removed a bullseye lantern from beneath his coat. The lantern seemed like a pocket watch in his huge hand. “I shall follow you, gentlemen, but will endeavour to remain silent and invisible unless called upon or needed.”
    I T HAD RAINED while Dickens and I were dining, but it only served to make the hot night air around us thicker. The Inimitable led the way, setting his usual absurd walking pace—never less than four miles per hour, which he could maintain hour after hour, I knew from painful experience—and once again I struggled to keep up. Detective Hatchery flowed along ten paces behind us like a silent wall of solidified fog.
    We left the wider highways and streets, and with Dickens leading, we entered into a maze of increasingly dark and narrow byways and alleyways. Charles Dickens never hesitated; he knew these terrible streets by heart from his many midnight rambles. I knew only that we were somewhere east of Falcon Square. I retained vague memories of this area from my previous expeditions into the underbelly of London with Dickens—Whitechapel, Shadwell, Wapping, all parts of the city a gentleman would avoid unless looking for the lowest sort of woman—and we seemed to be headed towards the docks. The stench of the Thames grew worse for every gloomy, narrow block we advanced into this rats’ maze. The buildings here looked as if they went back to the medieval period, when London lay fat and dark and diseased within its high walls, and, indeed, the ancient structures on either side of the sidewalk-free streets here overhung us so as almost to shut out the night sky.
    “Do we have a destination?” I whispered to Dickens. This particular street was empty of people, but I could feel the eyes watching us from the shuttered windows and filthy alleys on either side. I did not want to be overheard, although I knew that even my whisper would carry like a shout through this thick, silent air.
    “Bluegate Fields,” said Dickens. The brass-shod tip of his heavy walking cane—one he carried only on such nocturnal descents into his Babylon, I had noticed—clacked on the broken pavement stones at every third step of his.
    “We sometimes calls it Tiger Bay, sir,” came a voice from the darkness behind us.
    I admit that I was startled. I had all but forgotten that Detective Hatchery was with us.
    We crossed a wider thoroughfare—Brunswick Street, I believe—but it was no cleaner or more illuminated than the rotting slums on either side. Then we were back in the narrow, overhanging labyrinth again. The tenements here crowded high and close except for the few that were total ruins, merely collapsed heaps of masonry and wood. Even there, in those tumbled or charred absences, I could sense dark shadows moving and stirring and watching us. Dickens led us over a narrow, rotted footbridge that crossed a reeking tributary to the Thames. (This was the year, I should point out to you, Dear Reader, that