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.’
The white-haired man stood up, and the action broke the tension in the room; Dodger saw smiles all round him as the man, his face now looking a little sorrowful, added, ‘I’m sure we were all upset to hear of the death of the young lady known as Simplicity, Mister Dodger, and may I say you have my condolences.’
Dodger looked at the old man, who probably wasn’t all that old but instead had been made old by the white hair. He was totally certain the face in front of him knew everything or, at the very least, as much of anything that anybody could, and most certainly knew everything about the uses of a fog. 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 effusion
s.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said carefully. ‘It has not been a very pleasant time lately, and I was thinking of taking a little trip out of London so that I don’t see anything that reminds me of my girl.’
And he cried real tears, which was quite easy to do, and it shocked him inside, and he wondered if there was anything in the boy called Dodger that was totally himself, pure and simple, not just a whole packet of Dodgers. Indeed, he hoped in his soul that Simplicity would embrace the decent Dodger and put him on something approaching the straight and narrow, provided it was not all that straight and not all that narrow. Ultimately, it was all about the fog.
He blew his nose on the nice white handkerchief that he had absentmindedly removed from the pocket of one of the other gentlemen around the table and said, ‘I was thinking of going up to York, sir, for a week or two.’
This revelation caused a little excitement in the room, but after a few minutes’ discussion it was agreed that Dodger, who after all had committed no crime and, indeed, quite possibly the reverse, should of course be allowed to go to York if he wanted to.
The meeting broke up, and Charlie put a hand on Dodger’s arm as they were leaving and escorted him at some speed to a nearby coffee house, where he said, ‘It would appear that all sins are forgiven, my friend, but of course it’s such a shame that Miss Simplicity, despite all your best efforts, is now deceased; how is she, by the way?’
Dodger had been expecting something like this, and so, giving Charlie a vacant look, he said, ‘Simplicity is dead, Charlie, as well you know.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Charlie, grinning. ‘How foolish of me to have forgotten.’ His grinning face went as blank as a board, then he held out his hand, saying, ‘I am sure that we will meet again, my friend. It has, I must say, been a privilege of sorts to meet you. I am as unhappy as you are perhaps about the death of poor Simplicity, the girl that nobody really cared about, except for you. And, of course, dear Angela, who seems suspiciously unmoved? I expect, nay assume, that you will before very long find another girl quite like her. Indeed, I might even bet on it.’
Dodger tried to keep any expression away from his face and then gave up because no expression at all is an expression in itself. He looked into Charlie’s eyes and then said, slowly and deliberately, ‘Well, I don’t know nothing about that, sir.’ And he winked.
Charlie laughed, and the two of them shook hands, then went their separate ways.
The day after this conversation, a coach left London bound for Bristol, with the usual cross-section of passengers to endure the raggedy road. However, in this case the coachman reckoned that one of the passengers was the most unpleasant he had had that year, and it was all the worse because it was an old lady with a voice as crackly and demanding as a cauldron full of witches; nothing would please her – the seats, the ride, the weather and, as far as he knew, the phase of the moon. When the passengers were allowed off for a mercifully quick meal at one of the coaching inns along the way, she found fault with every dish put before her, including the salt, which she declared was not salty enough. The old baggage, besides smelling too much of lavender, also bullied incessantly a rather pleasant-looking young lady who was her granddaughter. She, at least, lit up the atmosphere in the coach a little, but mostly the coachman remembered Grandma, and he was very glad to see the back of the old besom as she almost fell off the coach when they got to Bristol. Of course, she had complained about that too.
A cheerful-looking young man then went to a pharmacist at Christmas Steps, near the centre 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. Shortly afterwards, quite a pretty young lady with beautiful red hair and a dark-haired young gentleman hired a coach and a driver to take them out of the city and all the way to the gaunt grey Mendip Hills, whereupon they told the driver that they wished to continue the journey along the turnpike past the pub at Star, where they had lunch consisting of excellent cheese and the type of cider that was so strong it might have been fortified by lion’s piss, and all the better for it apparently, because even the young lady had a second half pint of the scorching stuff.
After their lunch they dismissed the coachman, telling him to meet them at the same place in precisely one week’s time. The man happily agreed, because he had already been paid quite a considerable sum by the young man, who had handed him a beautiful amount of money, whispering that he would be grateful if nobody was told about this little excursion since they would both be in trouble if her father found out. The coachman was not unfamiliar with journeys of this sort, and therefore saluted and tapped the side of his nose with a greasy little grin that said, ‘Me? I know nothing, I am totally blinded by the shine of money, and God bless you, sir.’
The following day a man in the local pub, a carrier by trade, was induced by means of a jingling purse to take the young couple on a short cut to the small town of Axbridge, on the other side of the Mendips. The couple came down the southern slopes and took lodgings near the water mill. It was an unusual arrangement, however, since the young man made it clear that the young lady was to sleep in the best bedroom, such as it was, and he himself would sleep on a straw palliasse outside the door, covered with a horse blanket. This caused a little bit of talk locally with the ladies of the village, who took the view that the runaways (which everyone agreed was what the nice young couple were) were being very careful about things as decent Christians should be.
Christian or otherwise, that was in fact the case. The communication had passed between Simplicity and Dodger almost by telepathy; this had to be a time to relax, heal and, well, enjoy the world. And the world itself seemed to enjoy them, because they were quite free with their money, and although the girl was rather modest, as a maiden ought to be, she took every opportunity to chat to people. 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, and smuggling and the brewing of fiery liquors in places where the excise men dared not go – and in those places, while the speech was slow, thought and action could be very fast indeed.
And Dodger learned fast, because on the streets a quick uptake was the only one to have and you never got a second chance. At first his head ached with a language that seemed made up of corn and cows. But the learning was helped along by the drink the locals called scrumpy, and after a while he was talking like them as well. His head filled up with words like ‘Mendip’, ‘priddy’ and ‘bist’, and conglomerations of a language whose rhythms were not the stacatto of the town but practically had something that you could call a melody. There are more types of disguise, he thought, than just putting on a different kind of shirt or changing your hair.
One morning, as they walked by the river, he said to Simplicity, ‘I never asked you before. But why did you have the game of Happy Families?’
The Somerset accent wobbled a little as she said, ‘My mother gave it to me and, you see, I always wanted to have one thing – something that was mine, when nothing else was. I used to look at it and think how one day things would be better, and now I think they are, after the wretched time I had.’
She beamed at him, and the little speech, combined with the smile, warmed the cockles of Dodger’s heart, and carried on going further down.
It was about this time that in London – a place where people spoke so fast that you never saw where your money had gone – a lady called Angela stepped out of a coach in Seven Dials, the coach then being immediately guarded by two strapping footmen, and climbed up a set of stairs and knocked gently on the door to an attic.
It was opened by Solomon, who said, ‘Mmm, ah, Miss Angela, thank you so much for coming. May I tempt you to some green tea? I am afraid you have to take us as we are, but I have cleaned up as best I can, and don’t mind Onan; the smell does disappear after a while, I can assure you.’<
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Angela laughed at that and said, ‘Do you have any news?’
‘Indeed, mmm,’ said Solomon. ‘I have had a letter – surprisingly well written – from Dodger, from York, where he went to grieve, because there he won’t see anything that reminds him of poor dear Simplicity.’
Angela picked up the spotlessly cleaned tea cup and said, ‘York, well, yes indeed, how very fitting. Has anyone else enquired of you of Dodger’s whereabouts, pray?’
Solomon filled her cup meticulously, saying, ‘I got these in Japan, you know? I am amazed that they have survived as long as I have.’ He glanced up, and with a face as straight as a plumb line, said, ‘Sir Robert was kind enough to send two of his constables to visit me two days ago, and they did ask about Mister Dodger’s whereabouts, and so of course mmm, I had to tell them all that I knew, which is of course my duty as a good citizen.’ His smile broadened and he said, ‘I always think one should lie to policemen; it is so very good for the soul and, indeed, good for the policemen.’
Angela grinned and said, ‘You may or may not be surprised, Mister Cohen, that I too have had a communication from a nameless person, giving me details of a place in London and – isn’t this quite exciting? – a time as well. This is rather fun, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Solomon, ‘although I must say my life has been altogether too full of this kind of fun, so I now prefer working here in my old carpet slippers, where fun does not usually interrupt my concentration. Oh dear, where are my manners? I do have some wonderful rice cakes here, my dear. Bought them from Mister Chang, and very excellent they are too. Do please help yourself.’
Angela accepted the proffered cake and said, ‘Should you meet the young Mister Dodger again, please do tell him that I have reason to believe that the authorities would indeed like to speak to him, not because he has done anything wrong, but because he has the capacity, they think, to do some things very right, and for the good of the country. The offer is open.’ She hesitated for a moment and added, ‘When I mention the word authorities, I mean the highest authority.’
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