Dodger (39 page)

‘Miasmic effusions,’ Charlie repeated, louder this time. ‘Hear that, Ben? What can we say? I think that all of us know that Mister Dodger would never have hurt Simplicity, and we all understand that he was very caring of her. So I hope that you will join me in sympathy for this young man, who despite the loss of his lady love
has
managed to bring a dreadful killer to justice.’ Then he added, ‘What do you think, Constable?’

The policeman looked rather stern and said, ‘Well, sir, so it seems, sir, but the coroner will have to be informed. Has the corpse any next of kin that you know of?’

‘Alas, no,’ said Charlie. ‘In fact, officer, I am aware that nobody really knows who she is, or where she came from. She was somewhat unfortunate – an orphan of the storm, you might say. A girl whom Miss Coutts had taken under her wing out of the sheer goodness of her heart. What do you think, Ben?’

Mister Disraeli appeared horrified by the entire business and looked nervous, saying, ‘A dreadful matter indeed, Mister Dickens. All we can do is let the law take its course.’

Charlie nodded in a statesmanlike way and said, ‘Well, Mister Dodger, I think that all you need to do is give the constable here your particulars, and of course I can vouch for you as a pillar of the community. As you may know, Constable, Dodger here is the man who set about the infamous Sweeney Todd, and may I add my own dismay at how our innocent little excursion came to such an unhappy end.’

He sighed. ‘One can only speculate as to why this poor, unfortunate girl was the target of this madwoman. But I have taken note, Constable, that the dead girl is wearing a fine gold ring, very ornate and with a ducal seal on it too. This may or may not be of interest, but I must ask you to take it as evidence which may be very germane to the investigation. But then,’ he added, glancing again at Disraeli, who still looked appalled, ‘in the circumstances, Constable, I am sure you and your superiors, when of course they have satisfied themselves about the sad facts of this matter, will see to it that the whole business does not lead to unnecessary
speculation
because, of course, surely the facts speak for themselves.’

He looked around for agreement. ‘And now,’ he concluded, ‘I think we should leave, although I think that some of us’ – and now he glanced meaningfully at Dodger – ‘should wait here until the coroner’s officer comes along. May I say, Constable, you should approach him in all haste.’

To Dodger’s amazement the policeman saluted, actually saluted, and said, ‘Yes indeed, Mister Dickens.’

‘Very good,’ said Charlie. He then added, ‘But you do have here these killers, and if I was you I should right now make an immediate report and have the wagon here as soon as possible. I will wait with Mister Dodger and the pistol, if you don’t mind, until you and your colleagues return.’ He turned to Mister Bazalgette. ‘Joseph, how do you feel?’

The surveyor looked a bit unnerved but said, ‘Honestly, Charlie, I have seen worse things.’

‘Then would you be so kind as to see that Ben gets home safely? I think he is rather shaken by all this; I am sure that it wasn’t the happy little jaunt we were all expecting.’

Two more policemen arrived almost immediately, and then others soon followed suit, and by now a crowd was forming around the entrance to the sewer, and more policemen were called in to hold the crowd back. Every policeman at some time went down into the sewers just so they would have something to tell their grandchildren. And the newspapers were already churning . . . another ‘ ’
orrible murder!
’ would be front-page news tomorrow, oh yes.

It was indeed a very strange evening for Dodger; he was interrogated several times by different policemen, who were
themselves
watched like a hawk by Charlie. It was embarrassing when some of the policemen came up to Dodger to shake his hand, not because the Outlander had now been captured – after all, who could believe that a
girl
could be a dangerous assassin, after all? – but because of Mister Todd, and how Dodger now appeared to be a hero in more ways than one, even though a young girl had died. And all the time the fog spilled over everything, finding its way in everywhere, silently changing the realities of the world.

They took away the Outlander and her accomplice. Then the coroner’s officer came and the coroner as well, and there were coaches and carts, and everywhere there was Charlie, and eventually the last remains of the poor dead girl were put into a coffin for the eventual destination at Lavender Hill.

The coroner, said Charlie afterwards, had taken the view that since the girl had no friends or relatives to speak of, except a young man who clearly loved her very much and a lady who had kindly given her shelter and tried to stop her following other young girls down the wrong path, then surely this was an open and shut case if ever there was one. Even if there were a few little mysteries.

The killer was now under lock and key, despite the fact that the wretched woman now denied shooting anybody, an assertion belied by her confederate who, it must be said, was talking his heart out in the hope of salvation.

Dispatches were sent to Downing Street, along with the ring for examination, once the crest on it was noted, this being political. And indeed the word ‘political’ seemed to hover like the fog over the case as a warning to all men of good will, with the meaning that if your masters are satisfied, so you had better be as well.

Now it was nearly midnight, and there was only Charlie and Dodger. Dodger knew why he himself was there, but since Charlie had already filed his copy to the
Morning Chronicle
, he had no idea why the other man was still there.

Then, in the gloom of midnight, Charlie said, ‘Dodger, I think there is a game called Find the Lady, but I am not asking to play it. I simply wish to know that there is a lady to be found, in good health, as it might be, by a young man who can see through the fog. Incidentally, both as a journalist and as a man who writes things about things and indeed people that do not exist, I rather wonder, Mister Dodger, what you would have done if the Outlander had not turned up?’

‘You were watching me all the time,’ said Dodger. ‘I noticed. Did I give very much away?’

‘Amazingly little. Am I to assume that the young lady we all saw so emphatically dead did not die by your hand, if you will excuse me for being so blunt?’

And Dodger knew that the game was up but not necessarily over, and said, ‘Charlie, she was one of those girls that drowns herself in the river and no one cares very much. She will get a decent burial in a decent graveyard, which is more than she would have got in other circumstances. And that’s the truth of it. My plan was simplicity itself, sir. Simplicity would have excused herself, being a very “shy lad”. Alas, she would have wandered into the sewers where I would rush to find her. In the dark there would be a great noise of a scuffle and a scream as I fought valiantly, I’ll have you know, as I came to blows with an unknown man who must have heard of our little excursion and may even now be still at large. Whereupon I would rush to meet yourself and the others and implore you all to help the dying Simplicity, and not least
chase
the dreadful assassin through the sewers. It would be a terrifying but fruitless pursuit.’

‘And where would the living Simplicity be, pray?’ said Charlie.

‘Hidden, sir. Hidden in a place where no one but another tosher would ever find her – a place we call the Cauldron on account of the way the waters wash it clean – with a waterproof packet of cheese sandwiches and a bottle of boiled water with a dash of brandy to keep the cold out.’

‘Then, Mister Dodger, you would have made fools of us all.’

‘No, sir! You would have been quite heroic! Because I would never tell and nor would Simplicity, and then one day everyone would know the name of Charlie Dickens.’

It seemed to Dodger that Charlie was trying to look stern, but in fact Charlie was rather impressed, saying, ‘Where did you get a pistol?’

‘Solomon has a Nock pepper-box pistol. Dangerous brute. I think I thought about everything, sir, except for you, that is.’

‘Oh,’ said Charlie. ‘Those bricks over there look so beguilingly higgledy-piggledy. I wondered why they were there. Also, I am wondering now why you are hanging around here? Would it help if I say that I won’t pass on my suspicions to any third party because, frankly, I don’t think I would be believed!’ He smiled at Dodger’s discomfiture and said, ‘Dodger, you have excelled yourself, by which I mean to say you have done exceptionally well, and I salute you. Of course, I am not a member of the government, thank goodness. Now I suggest that you go and find Miss Simplicity, who I imagine must by now be feeling a little chilly.’

Caught unusually unawares, Dodger burst out, ‘Actually, it can be quite warm down here at night time – tends to hold the heat, you see.’

Charlie laughed out loud and said, ‘I must be off and, I suspect, so should you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Dodger, ‘and thank you very much for teaching me about the fog.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Charlie. ‘The fog. Intangible though it is, it is a very powerful thing, is it not, Mister Dodger? I shall follow your career with great interest and, if not, with trepidation.’

When he was absolutely certain that there was no one else around, Dodger made his way through the sewers until he came to the little hidey hole where Simplicity was waiting, and he whistled softly. No one noticed them leave, no one saw where they went, and the veil of night spread over London on the living and the dead alike.

CHAPTER 16

A letter comes from York, and the skills of the dodgerman win approval in the highest quarters

FOG, OH YES
, fog, the fog of London town, and it seemed to Dodger, once Charlie and Sir Robert Peel got to talking, that the fog was shaped to a purpose, or so it seemed. There were a number of meetings in offices around Whitehall, where Dodger was asked questions about his little excursion into the embassy and the paperwork he had brought back, and they listened carefully, nodding occasionally as he explained that he had taken it simply to get back at whoever it was that was making life so difficult for Simplicity and himself.

He didn’t mention the jewellery, now carefully concealed in Solomon’s strongboxes – those pieces, that is, that weren’t already stealing their way into the welcome fingers of Solomon’s jeweller
friends
. He did not want to get into trouble, and it appeared, amazingly enough, that it was beginning to seem that he was not going to get into trouble for
anything
.

At one point, a friendly-looking cove with silver hair and a grandfatherly kind of face beamed at him and said, ‘Mister Dodger, it is apparent that you got into the well-guarded embassy of a foreign power, and roamed at will among its floors and the inner sanctums without ever being challenged. How on earth were you able to do this? Could you please elucidate if you would be so good? And may I ask if you would be amenable to repeating this singular feat another time, at some other place, should we ask you to do so?’

It took a little while, and a certain amount of translation with the help of Charlie, to give an explanation about the working practices of the snakesman. It culminated in Dodger’s handing back Charlie his watch, which he had taken from him just for fun, and then he said, ‘Do you want me to be a spy, is that it?’

This comment caused a certain frisson around the men in the room, and they all looked at the silver-haired man, who said, smiling, ‘Young man, Her Majesty’s government does not spy, it merely
takes an interest
, and since both Sir Robert and Mister Disraeli have told us that while you are a scallywag you are the right kind of scallywag, of which we may wish we had a few more, Her Majesty’s government might have an interest in occasionally employing you, although having employed you they would emphatically deny ever having done so.’

‘Oh, I understand that, sir,’ said Dodger cheerfully. ‘It’s a kind of fog, isn’t it? I know about fogs. You can trust me on that, sir.’

The white-haired gentleman looked affronted at first, and then
smiled
. ‘It seems to me, Mister Dodger, that no one can teach you anything about fog.’

Dodger gave him a cheeky salute and said, ‘I’ve lived in the fog all my life, sir.’

‘Well, you do not need to give me an answer now, and I suggest you talk it over with your friend Mister Dickens, who I’m bound to say is something of a scallywag himself, being a newspaper gentleman, but who I suspect has your best interests at heart. May I say, Mister Dodger, that there are some slightly worrying details about what happened in the sewer the other day which might in other circumstances have led to more investigation, were it not for the fact that you most certainly did bring to justice the notorious Outlander, a circumstance that will cause great relief among our European friends, while at the same time showing them what happens to assassins who dare to come to England. I believe some rewards might be coming your way.’