Dodger: Chapters 13–16

A man who tried to waylay him as he ran down a useful alleyway was punched and then trodden on, and Dodger kept going, not looking behind him because, well, by now everything was behind him as he channeled rage into his legs and simply followed them...and then, suddenly, there it was again.

All Dodger could find to say at that moment was “You...don’t mind?” And, “You could read them all?”
The old man gave him his most supercilious look.

Mmm, and incidentally, in another one of these packages is a scurrilous piece of information about a member of our own royal family. I suppose I should throw it into the fire.

I enjoy my chosen trade and receive good remuneration. That is to say, for your benefit, money for doing something that gives me great pleasure.

You had to develop the hide of a rhinoceros to deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis and, alas, he found himself not very good at it, but he listened to the old woman’s description of her niece with a glum countenance.

It would be invidious of me to use the word ‘luck’ in this context, madam, but fortuitously it may just be the case that your niece is even now lying in our mortuary and has been there for a few days.

I ain’t rich, sir, really I ain’t. Seeing my Arthur neatly away on Lavender Hill left me fairly skint, sir, so I reckon it will take me some time to get the wherewithal for seeing her decent, sir.

He carefully packed up the trappings of the old lady into a bundle, endeavoring to memorize the placement of every single wart.

Her concern was palpable; Dodger could feel it pouring off her, and this was a woman who would have no great compunction about sending a drunken sailor to, quite probably, a watery grave.

But later, in his little private world behind the curtain, as Solomon went through his own ablutions with a considerable amount of splashing and grunting, Dodger carefully took Sweeney Todd’s razor from its hiding place and stared at it.

Another flunky opened the door even before Solomon’s hand had touched it, and Solomon and Dodger were shown into a sitting room that contained Angela, but alas, not Simplicity.

It was what Solomon called “a repast.” Which was apparently something much more exciting than a meal. There were glorious potted meats and cold cuts and pickles and chutneys to make your eyes water and Solomon’s eyes gleam.

Mmm, Dodger has told me of the Outlander, and it is unlikely that he would find Dodger before Dodger’s plan comes to fruition.

In the morning, he counted what he took to be three plainclothes policemen, trying to be surreptitious and as ever not doing it properly.

If there was indeed a watcher on the moon, looking down on London, they would have noticed her zigzagging her way to the Embankment, whereupon she hazarded a penny on a boat that took her and her little cart across the Thames, although on this occasion she paid no more than a farthing—not the official sum for the trip, the watcher would have noticed, but the lighterman himself had never seen an old girl in such a sad old dither.

Having an old mother himself, he felt a little generous today and even agreed to wait to take her back across the river, only to find that when she came back from her errand, on her cart was strapped a corpse in a winding sheet. This, to tell the truth, was a problem, but then one of his mates stopped on the landing to disembark a fare and, waving vaguely toward the old girl who was still in such a terrible state, the lighterman got his mate to help him with the cadaver.

Dodger—because the old lady was indeed Dodger—felt rather happy about all of this. And also slightly ashamed since, after all, the coroner of Four Farthings himself and his officer had come out to help the old lady with the cart and had assured her that the remains of her niece had been treated with veneration at all times.

Death was always around in the darker places of London, and it was an unusual day when you didn’t see a funeral procession, so this engendered a kind of pragmatism: people lived, people died, and other people had to deal with it.

Finding a pump, he washed his hands in London water, which he knew was always slightly suspicious unless you boiled it, but good old lye soap was a reliable if caustic companion.

Distasteful as that would seem to many of us who are cognizant of the circumstances of this whole sordid matter.

It couldn’t be the Outlander, could it? That would be too glib.

You are a fervent believer to turn to the darkness in supplication, but I am afraid it will take more than rats to save you, however hard you stare into the darkness.

I’ve seen girls working on the coal barges, and strapping big girls they were too. Nobody told them they shouldn’t, ’cos I remember seeing one that had a fist on her that many a man could wish for.

If you would be so good as to keep your lanterns bright, you will see trussed up a lady who I think you will find is the Outlander.

Dodger blinked and said, “Yes, sir, I think it’s the miasmic effusions, sir. After all, the sewers are full of death and decay, and that finds its way in, sir, believe me it does, most egregiously, so it does.”

This may or may not be of interest, but I must ask you to take it as evidence that may be very germane to the investigation.

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

Those bricks over there look so beguilingly higgledy-piggledy. I wondered why they were there.

The fog. Intangible though it is, it is a very powerful thing, is it not, Mister Dodger?

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..."

Dodger thought he’d be the kind of cove, for example, who might pick up the detail that a body, having apparently just been shot, seemed very like somebody who had been dead for almost a week, and never mind about noxious effusions.

A cheerful-looking young man then went to a pharmacist’s at Christmas Steps, near the center of Bristol, where he discussed certain things to do with pigments and similar, in a very useful discourse that included words like henna and indigo.

She seemed very keen to speak like they did in the Somerset accent, which might have been called bucolic because it was slow. It was indeed slow, because it dealt with things that were slow—like cheese and milk and the seasons...

At that point, just after they had finished watching the stone, in case it was inclined to attempt a little jig for the tourists, Dodger said to his girl in the pure, rustic tones of Somersetshire, “Oi reckon we oughtta be moving along now, moi goyirl.”

At that moment a coach pulled up, to the consternation of the drivers of some vehicles behind it.

People were already gathering, much to the chagrin of the two men with the plumed helmets, because the rumor had run around that Dodger was being taken to the gallows at last and one or two people were talking about fighting back; and naturally, when you have one rumor, it buds little extra rumors.

Charlie wasn’t there, but when Dodger asked to meet the editor and said who he was, he was instantly ushered upstairs, where he was told that another seven guineas was accrued to his account.

Dodger said that he would like the remaining money in that wretched subscription to please be diverted to make life comfortable for Mister Todd who, he understood, was now incarcerated in Bedlam hospital, a place not suitable for those of a delicate disposition.