Oliver Twist Investigates (12 page)

He held out his hand and I am not ashamed to say my eyes filled with tears both at his words and at this sign of their continuing friendship. I shook his hand most warmly.
Rose got up from her chair and threw her arms around us both. When our emotions were more under control, Harry was the first to speak and his words astounded me.

‘Oliver, I have a vested interest in trying to discover who almost killed Rose. The memory of those dark days of her illness still sometimes haunts me in my dreams. I know of one person who just may be able to help us. A few weeks ago I was hearing a court case in my capacity as a magistrate. One of the witnesses was a man whom I recognized. At first I could not place where I had seen him before, but then it came to me. He was one of the men who gave evidence at the trial against Fagin. I imagine his knowledge of what happened in those last few weeks is probably unmatched. A few enquiries with my friends in the police and I am sure they will tell me where he can be found. I gather this man is often used by them as an informer.'

I was excited by his news. It seemed to me to offer fresh hope of further information. Although I stayed to share a meal with them, it is pointless describing to you the speculations in which we indulged for the rest of that day until their children returned and happier matters took over our conversation. Suffice it to say that none of us came remotely near guessing the truth that I ultimately discovered. Far more successful were Harry's subsequent enquiries through his acquaintance with Charles Field, the newly appointed chief of the Detective Department at Scotland Yard. This sagacious inspector, respected and feared throughout the city, agreed to see me and put me in touch with the man Harry had remembered.

My visit to Scotland Yard was a brief one. Field was a middle-aged man of portly presence, with a husky voice
and a large, moist, knowing eye. He had a habit of emphasizing his conversation by the aid of a corpulent forefinger, which was constantly in juxtaposition with his eyes or nose. He introduced me to three of his sergeants, all of whom looked very respectable men. There was nothing lounging or slinking in their manners and they all greeted me warmly. Straw was a little wiry man of meek demeanour but strong sense. Whicher, who was thicker-set and marked with the smallpox, had a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in some complicated mental arithmetic. Thornton, who had a ruddy face and a high, sunburnt forehead, had an air of keen observation though he looked the oldest. Together these policemen listened to some of my story, though I was careful to tell them as little as possible that might lower me in their estimation.

Though they sensed that I was holding back much of the truth behind my search, they were happy to provide me with the information I sought because of my connection to the Maylies. I was told the man whom Harry had recognized was Morris Bolter, alias Noah Claypole. It was a name that, as you will by now recognize, only served to bring back very unhappy memories. Apparently this taunter of orphans, deceiver of women, and coward among men had turned police informer and was therefore well known to all of them. I tried to hide my disquiet while Field provided the necessary details of his whereabouts. All the policeman asked in return was that I did not reveal the extent of Noah's work for them. Harry told me he would make the necessary arrangements for me to meet Claypole through his police contacts and I agreed to pay whatever price Noah wanted for any information he could provide.

As I left them I knew I did not relish a meeting with Noah, but I also felt there was now no going back. Tormented as I was, I had to discover the truth even if it was through the voice of another former enemy. Could Claypole help me find the person behind the attempted poisonings of such an unlikely trio as Rose Maylie, Mary Hogarth and Bill Sikes? And would the same person be the true murderer of Nancy?

To those unfamiliar with London, it may come as a surprise to hear that not only can you earn your living in the sewers of our great metropolis but that many do. It is not so long ago that London's main sewers had their outlets on the riverside entirely open and anyone could enter and wander through them at will in any direction they chose. And they could explore them for many miles, providing they could cope with the stench that assaulted their senses at every step. Searching the sewers for lost items of property was deemed a good way of making a living but, at the time about which I am writing, a particularly dangerous one because it was not uncommon, especially at spring tides, for the river water to pour through the sewers in a raging torrent, drowning all in its path and then bursting up through the gratings in the streets. I have heard some say that when this happens certain sections of the city look like a Dutch town so intersected is London by flowing water. But I have not
been to Holland to know if that's a true comparison.

In recent years the Metropolitan Commissioners have taken measures to control the water flow and restrict access to the sewers. They have bricked in most of the sewer entrances, leaving only strong iron doors as the means of entrance and exit. These doors are so hinged that they will swing open to let the sewer disgorge its contents but yet will stay closed against the pressure of rising river water. Sadly this has not stopped the poor visiting the sewers. It has only made it more dangerous for them as they search for the off-scourings of the city. This is a profitable activity because there is always a great quantity of things being washed down from the cesspools and drains of the city's houses. When in luck, those searching the sewers may find items of expensive cutlery, articles of jewellery, valuable cups and plates, and, of course, coins, ranging from tiny coppers to silver sovereigns.

Those who make their living by what they discover within the sewers are known as ‘toshers'. These men can still be seen along the banks of the Thames if you want to see them for yourself. They are easy to spot because most dress in long greasy velveteen coats, furnished with pockets of vast capacity, and they encase their nether limbs in dirty canvas trousers and wear any old slops of shoes for wading through the filth. Each carries a bag on his back, and in his hand a pole seven or eight feet long, on one end of which there is a large iron hoe. With this they can not only rake about the mud searching for iron, copper, rope, and anything else of value, but also test underfoot to make sure that they will not sink into some quagmire. I am told their way of life is still a dangerous one because the slightest tap may bring down an avalanche of old bricks and earth in
those sections of the sewers which have been rendered rotten by the continual flow of putrefying matter. A tosher carries a lantern strapped to his chest so that he can illuminate his way, but this does not always give sufficient warning of broken channels or of the large gatherings of fierce rats that inhabit this underworld and which may, in their desperation, attack him.

Noah Claypole had disguised his role as a police informer by becoming a tosher. He had been sufficiently successful in his career to be able to purchase a number of riverside properties and add the title of landlord to his curriculum vitae. The police had informed me that because of this Claypole was now known among certain sections of the lower orders by the nickname ‘the Sewer King'. Noah's wealth may have stemmed in part from searching the sewers because the toshers are among the richest workers of our city, but I suspected his real wealth had stemmed from the greater rewards that had come from his actions as an informer – a role in which I knew, from my own experience, he excelled. Either way ‘Sewer King' seemed an apt name for a man whose mind was as filthy and corrupted as any of the channels through which the city's rubbish flowed. Given our earlier history, I remained loath to reacquaint myself with my former tormentor, but my search for the truth gave me no option.

Claypole's home proved to be in a court off Rosemary Lane, an area renowned for its squalor and poverty. I entered his domain not with any pleasure but with understandable trepidation, and the weather matched my dismal mood. It was a dripping, comfortless day of almost incessant rain mingled with flakes of soot as big as snowflakes. The gloom of the dark clouds was equalled
only by London's smoke, obliterating not only the sun but even the sky itself. Access to the court off Rosemary Lane was through a dark, narrow entrance, scarcely wider than a doorway, running beneath the first floor of one of the houses of the adjoining street. The court itself was about fifty yards long and not more than three yards wide, surrounded by lofty wooden houses, with jutting abutments from many of the upper storeys which almost excluded the light, and gave them the appearance of being about to tumble down upon the heads of any intruders. From many of the windows hung wooden rods on which tattered clothes hung, waiting for the rain to stop in the hope that they would then start to dry even if this meant they then revealed more fully their patched, faded, and ragged condition.

The court was densely inhabited and I suspected that every room in the thirty or so houses that bordered the courtyard, had at least one or two families living in it. The police had informed me that Claypole had over a thousand people packed into his properties. Judging from what I saw and smelt I could well believe it. The heavy rain meant the court was awash in liquid filth oozing from an overfull cesspit and I dreaded to think what conditions the residents of its cellars endured. The people who lived there were uniformly miserable. Dirty-shirted and baggy-breeched, their faces showed all the signs of that premature ageing which is brought about by a combination of too little food and too much gin. Indeed, though it was early in the day, I had to step over the bodies of a few who were already so drunk that they lay incapacitated in the mire. I looked for directions to one who appeared more friendly, though he was cadaverous and withered, with a head sunk
beneath his shoulders and a face pinched by the signs of starvation.

I entered the house to which he directed me and went up three flights of narrow stairs. They creaked and trembled at every footstep, and the surrounding walls were stained with damp and dirt. If Noah had become a king, his castle was no Camelot. I knocked at the door at the top of the stairs and a jaunty and familiar-sounding voice within bid me enter. I entered a room, which I suspected was larger and much better furnished than most in the surrounding buildings, though it was still a spartan environment. Its floor was bare boards apart from one large rug, its walls were largely undecorated except by the stains of time, and its ceiling was unplastered, revealing the flooring of the room above. However, a large fire gave the room not only a welcome warmth but a glowing colour and the flue of the chimney, which was decorated with some heraldic carvings, stood out like a blackened buttress. Such furniture as there was in the room was heavy and well made.

The man sitting by the fire was dressed in far more respectable attire than any I had met outside. He wore a shirt with an unusually large collar, dark corduroy trousers, and a light grey coat of a modern cut and decorated with bright brass buttons. It was unmistakably Noah. Although he had aged, the red nose, the mean mouth, and the small eyes set below an unusually large forehead were as distinctive as they had always been. So too was the rather petulant and audacious manner with which he stared at me. Not for the first time since I had begun my investigations I seemed to step back a dozen years. The first time we had met was when I had opened the door to him at Sowerberry's and he had taken an instant pleasure in tormenting me. This had
become progressively worse when old Sowerberry began to use me as a mute in the funeral processions. With the benefit of years I understood Noah's motives in persecuting me. They were driven partly by jealousy and partly by the fact that, having been bullied as a charity boy himself, he delighted in bullying someone he perceived to be weaker than himself. Until, of course, the worm turned and I had thrashed him.

Noah interrupted my thoughts, saying, ‘I'm so pleased to see you again after all these years, Oliver. It's been such a long time since we last met I can hardly recognize you. You're grown in height more than I expected when Charlotte and I fed you dog scraps at Sowerberry's and I've heard you've now become quite the gent. Certainly your clothes are very different from the rags you used to have to wear. No one would know you were once jist a workhouse brat or that you served time in a gang of thieves, pickpockets, and whores. Yes, Oliver, I have to say you look quite the young handsome dandy now. I'm honoured that you should ivver want to renew me acquaintance.'

Trying to keep my temper at his impertinent manner, I coolly responded, ‘If it's all the same to you, Mr Claypole, I prefer we stick to more formal names. I know the police inspector has told you why I would like to see you, and I am grateful that you have agreed to a meeting. I am prepared to pay for what information you can provide, but there is no point in hypocritically pretending we were ever friends.'

The smile faded from his lips and Noah snarled in reply, ‘Friends, maybe not, Mr Twist, but we seemed to spend our youth serving the same masters, first old Sowerberry and then Fagin. Don't talk of pretence to me when I know as
well as you the company we kept and, in your case, some of the favours that were involved. Charlotte may have been a bit of a tart but at least my sexual tastes ran in normal channels. You were not the gentleman then, were you, Mr Twist?'

‘As you well know, I became a member of Fagin's gang by force,' I replied angrily, ‘But my memory is that you became one by choice. There is a difference. The abuse to which I was subjected was imposed upon me. You are well aware that I had no desire to become an object of Fagin's attentions.'

‘And do you think there was no driving compulsion behind my actions? When poverty drives, needs must in my opinion,' muttered Noah. ‘I expect you are surprised that I took up work in the sewers, but necessity drove me into it, just as it drove Fagin into theft and pimping. Only my choice was a wiser one, of course! Being a tosher has made me quite a success in this neighbourhood and it's been an interesting life. You can go a long way in the sewers if you like, although even I don't know how far. I nivver was at the end of them, for a cove can't stop in longer than six or seven hours, ‘cause of the tide. You must be out before that's up.

‘I can't say the work is exactly to my liking but there is always pleasure if, having put your arm to the shoulder in mud, you bring up something worth having. I often find spoons and knives and forks and bits of jewellery and I once even found a silver timepiece.

‘Working in the sewers makes a man fit too. They say the smell drives away infection. It's a harsh smell at first, but nothink as bad as people thinks, ‘cause, you see, there's sich lots of water always flowing through the sewer, and the air
gets in from the gratings, and that helps to sweeten it a bit. I've heard tell there's some places, especially in the old sewers, where foul air can cause instantaneous death, but I nivver met with anythink of that kind.

‘Mind you, if ever I come to a narrow place, I make sure I tek the candle out of the lantern and fasten it on the end of me pole and then I hold it ahead of me. If the light stays on, I know it's safe to proceed. The rats are a greater danger, but I go with three or four of me mates together, and the warmints are too clever to tackle us then, for they know they'd git off second best.'

‘I didn't come to talk to you about the stinking sewers, Mr Claypole,' I interrupted.

‘No, that's true. But perhaps you want some information about the sewage of society, Mr Twist.' Noah laughed at his own joke. ‘Toshers could all be among the wealthier sections of society if they put their finds to proper use. As it is, most of 'em when they get a good haul spend the resulting money on drink. Large quantities of drink. And drink is a wonderful loosener of the tongue. It's amazing what you can overhear if you keep alert, especially as toshers mostly mix with the dregs of this great city. The police know I'm a very valuable source of information, Mr Twist. They respect me, and you'd do well to do the same if you want the information you seek. And respect means a little more politeness than I've so far seen and heard. And, of course, a clearer indication of the price you're prepared to pay. After all, a King is entitled to expect due homage and appropriate gifts.'

I will not bore you with the details but a deal was struck. I resented having to pay money to a man for whom I had no respect, but I had no choice, and, in fairness to Noah
Claypole, he provided me with more information than I could possibly have expected. I will omit some of what he said but much I found so gripping I can almost repeat it verbatim.