"Well," Mrs. Bucket said, shrugging in a way that indicated she would admit no such thing, "I find it rather hard to understand why anyone would want to use it on Scrooge."
"What? Ebenezer Scrooge was one of the most hated men in London!"
Mrs. Bucket nodded calmly. "Yes, he was. So if he had been murdered, I should think you would have a city full of suspects to sort through. But, William-Scrooge wasn't murdered, was he? He ran into the street and was trampled by a passing wagon. His death was an accident."
"How can you say that? The opium-!"
"Would have made a poor murder weapon. If Scrooge's death had been the objective, surely arsenic would have made a better choice. Or any of a hundred other poisons."
"But…!" Bucket began, his forefinger poised to give his arguments renewed life through vigorous pointing and waggling. The finger quickly went limp, however, and the rest of the detective followed suit, settling back into his chair with a defeated sigh.
"You're right," he said. "I'm a fool."
Mrs. Bucket reached over and gave her brooding husband a brisk (but not too forceful) swat on the arm.
"What a thing for Inspector William Bucket to say! The man who unmasked the killer of Theopholus Tulkinghorn and rescued Edwin Drood from the clutches of the devious Canon Crisparkle? The man who engineered the capture of Reginald Compeyson and Tom Gradgrind? The man who pulled the secret strings that sent the fiends Orlick and Fagin to the gallows? The man who married me? A fool? I think not! You've simply been asking yourself the wrong questions tonight. Set your mind to the right ones, and we'll soon see who's a fool!"
"Well… perhaps." Bucket pushed himself deeper into the cushions enveloping his broad undercarriage and tried to revive his fatigued and dejected forefinger by rubbing it across his chin(s). "So 'the right questions' would be…"
"Who would have preferred to see old Scrooge drugged rather than dead, and why?" his wife finished for him.
"Ahhhh…"
The detective bolted to his feet with his arm upraised and his forefinger pointed skyward, as if he were a puppet hoisted aloft by a string tied to his finger.
"A-ha!"
"A-ha?" Mrs. Bucket asked innocently.
The inspector dashed to the coat rack in the foyer and began pulling on his overcoat and boots. "I've no time to explain-and no need, I'll warrant! By Jove, if Scotland Yard knew about you, half the force would be in blue skirts and bonnets inside a week. You ladies might not be as swift with a truncheon as us brutes, but you can be just as swift with a deduction, if given half a chance." Bucket affixed his hat upon his head and threw open the door. "But enough of my babblings! If there ever was any time to lose, I've misplaced it already!"
"Be careful, William!" Mrs. Bucket called as her husband rushed outside in such a hurry he didn't even close the door behind him.
"If duty permits, my pet!" he shouted without looking back. "If duty permits!"
Bucket spent the next seven minutes hustling up and down the streets of Bloomsbury looking for a hansom, all the while mumbling self-recriminations so acidic they could have melted the snow beneath his flying feet. Even after he finally found a free cab, Bucket's anxious, murmured curses continued throughout his ride, only coming to an end when he hopped out, collared a shivering street waif and sent the lad running to the Bow Street station house with a shiny new three-penny in his pocket. (Scrooge's clerk Cratchit had confiscated all the detective's smaller coins.)
The urchin had already dashed off, disappearing into the fog and snow swirling around the gaslights, when Bucket realized exactly how much rested on his messenger's honesty and speed. Looking across the street at his destination-the offices of Scrooge & Marley-Bucket beheld a dim light flickering behind the thin curtains in the window.
The inspector had arrived just in time to confront the culprit. But he would have to do so alone.
The hustle and bustle of the neighborhood had long given way to the eerie stillness of a late winter's night. Nevertheless, Bucket paused to look both ways before hurrying across the street. He was, after all, at the very spot where Scrooge had been crushed like a pea in a nutcracker hours before.
When he reached the office door, Bucket opened it slowly, dreading the shrieking squeak of rusty hinges that would alert his quarry. But the squeak never came, and Bucket crept inside. He took ginger, hesitant steps, mindful of the floorboards and the not-insubstantial strain his bulk placed upon them. He turned, closed the door, then pushed on into the darkness.
A low, fluttering glow spilled out from a room at the back of the office. As Bucket inched toward the source of the light-candles atop Scrooge's own desk, he was certain-he passed Cratchit's cramped work nook. Resting on the clerk's precarious perch of a desk were an unused candle and a box of lucifer matches. The detective picked them up and brought them to the ready as he crept forward.
He paused just outside Scrooge's sanctum, listening to a low, scratchy noise from around the corner: a pen moving across paper. Then he struck the match, lit the candle and stepped into the room.
"Working late, are we?"
The detective's theatrical entrance had the desired effect. The man seated at Scrooge's desk jumped to his feet popeyed with fright.
"Oh… it's you, Inspector," Bob Cratchit said. He eased himself back down into Scrooge's seat with a smile that looked as out of place on his sallow face as jingle bells on a crocodile. "You gave me quite a scare! Yes… yes, I am working late. There were a few things that needed to be put in order before Scrooge's accounts are handed over to whoever-"
"What sort of things?" Bucket cut in. He nodded at the ledger spread out before Cratchit. It was the same wax-splattered account book the detective had seen there when he'd made his search of the office hours before. "From the lock on that ledger book, I'd guess Mr. Scrooge intended that only he should make changes to the balances inside."
"Well, yes… you're right." Cratchit's grin began to flicker like the candlelight that barely illuminated the room. "But Scrooge fell behind on the bookkeeping. There were changes he never got around to writing down."
"Payments, I assume?"
Cratchit's smile finally snuffed out completely.
"Yes… payments," the clerk said, his gaze dropping to the fresh ink that still glistened on the ledger book's pages. When he looked back up again, his eyes were wild with fear and remorse. "You must believe me, Inspector, I-!"
Bucket silenced him with a clucked tut-tut and a waggle of his upraised forefinger. "You don't have to explain. I know you didn't mean to harm Mr. Scrooge-at least not in the physical sense. You merely hoped to inflict a few small wounds upon his pocketbook through some surreptitious… editing, shall we say? Your duties have included copying Mr. Scrooge's letters, so you've had ample opportunity to master the forging of his handwriting. But getting access to his ledgers proved a thornier problem. Mr. Scrooge kept them under lock and key. So you planned to make the changes while he was in an opium-induced stupor. You could tell him afterwards that he suffered from some kind of episode-an excuse you could also use if he ever questioned your changes. 'Don't you remember, sir? Mr. Smith paid us in full the day you had your spell. Mr. Jones, as well.' And so on. I assume you were to be rewarded for your trouble. A percentage of the debts you erased, perhaps?"
As he unspooled his deductions, Bucket was overcome by a growing sense of triumph that flew past smugness all the way to ecstasy. Not only did his forefinger tingle with a barely contained elation, his entire body seemed to throb with pleasure. The feeling grew so powerful, in fact, that the detective found it difficult to continue speaking.