A Dodge, a Twist and a Tobacconist

by Sophronia Belle Lyon

  Chapter Nineteen

  Phoebe Moore-Campbell’s Report on the Reunion with her Husband and the Arrival of the Stealth-Glider

  Archie and I had enjoyed our private reunion. The members of the company currently in London had showered us with gifts in celebration. Fun See and Annabelle had piled huge silk pillows in front of the fireplace in the garden room. Mowgli and Abdalla prepared Indian cuisine for dinner. Sue produced a miniature clockwork player piano that softly provided background music, explaining that she could only lend it, as it had been a wedding gift from her father. Zambo and Sahara gave us intricately-carved wooden goblets and an urn filled with an exotic juice, herb, and spice concoction they insisted would “make the night sweeter and spicier.”

  “What about you, Ollie?” Sue demanded. “I hear you jest got yerself a sweetheart, so you must be feelin’ a little bit romantic. No presents for our fearless leader?”

  Oliver considered the matter gravely for a few moments. “Hmmm. I’m fresh out of ideas. I suppose the one I already gave them will have to do.”

  “The one you already gave them?” Mowgli prompted. “What was that?”

  “The use of my hotel penthouse and facilities indefinitely,” Oliver shrugged. “I did design and build this place, after all, and I own it.”

  “Whew,” Sue muttered. “Guess that’s a pretty good one.”

  After the gift-giving the company left quickly. Mowgli, Abdalla and Oliver had all taken up rooms on the floor below the penthouse, joining the others. Archie and I made use of the beautiful central garden room to enjoy dinner and each other for the first time in almost two weeks. Much later we watched the sun set over London cuddled up before the fireplace. The wind had risen and rattled the windows. The building swayed in the gale but we only felt more secure in each other’s arms.

  “What was that?’ Both of us had fallen asleep on the great pile of pillows but I started up with only feeble embers to see by.

  “What was what?” Archie mumbled, trying to pull me back down beside him.

  “I heard some sort of a thump. It sounded like something hit the roof.”

  “You heard but the thumping of my loving heart.”

  “No, really, Archie, listen. There’s still a sound -- Could someone be walking on the roof?”

  “Hotel security, maybe?” We both got up, put on our dressing gowns, and walked around the room. The sound of footsteps was unmistakable now. “Y’know, it sounds more like somebody stumbling or staggering. Hope he doesn’t fall off.”

  “Archie!” I shrieked, grabbing my husband’s arm and pointing. A long, winglike object brushed against the window, shimmered, and vanished.

  “What in the world -- ?” Archie picked up his shotgun from over the mantle. “Phoebe, get away from the window. That thing could crash right--”

  They both dodged back as the glass shattered and a strange, iridescent object rolled into the room, vanished, reappeared in bits and pieces, and suddenly became me, stripping off my flight suit. I turned around to see Mr. Campbell’s shotgun inches from my head and held up my hands.

  “It was absolutely not my intention to do that,” I stammered, out of breath and shaking. “I do most humbly beg your pardon. It was my first flight, and the wind was not my friend.”

  “Florizel, how did you -- What did you -- ?” Madame Phoebe stopped trying to make words come out. She did make Archie lower his weapon, however.

  “We had a visitor at the country estate,” I explained, collapsing into a chair. “A spy. He came in what used to be a sort of powered glider, a really amazing flying machine until I caught my wing in that statue of a mountain sheep on the roof and almost went over and down. It was break your window or every bone in my body. My most profound apologies.”

  “You flew here from the estate in a glider?” Campbell scoffed. The chimes from below began to ring frantically.

  “Ah, the company must have noticed your arrival,” Madame Phoebe smiled. “I’ll let them up. Our cozy reunion evening was mostly over, anyway.”

  “I am so--” I began.

  “Don’t apologize anymore,” Campbell laughed. “We’re glad it was the window and not all your bones. Mac might not arrive in time to patch you up again. Are you all right, though? And how did it feel? What must it be like to have wings?”

  “It felt terrifying,” I murmured as the Legacy Company erupted from the lift demanding to know what had happened. They were speechless for a moment at the sight of me, disheveled and shaking uncontrollably. Then Twist pounced on the flight suit and the piece of wing that had come through the window. Zambo and Sue began to rig a covering for the broken window. The wind and fog were seeping unpleasantly into the room. Mowgli stirred up the fire and Edward and Fun See lit lamps.

  “This is fantastic!” Twist crooned. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  Hanging in pieces between here and the roof,” I replied. Twist scampered over to the window and peeked under the makeshift curtain. Zambo grabbed him by the middle and pulled him back as he started to climb the window frame like a monkey.

  “You are mad. I always knew it!” Zambo spluttered.

  Doctor Twist looked a little dazed to be back on the carpet but Zambo blocked the window so he went back to gathering up the pieces of the suit and glider that had made it inside. He cast one last longing look at the window and then headed for the lift.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll reset the security alarms now that the breach is contained, and study this wonderful material. Oh, Florizel, how’s my Tatiana? Happy and floury and safe in papa’s embrace?”

  “Indeed,” I smiled. “And her papa welcomes her ‘little angel’ in to the family.”

  Oliver grinned broadly. “Good night, all.”

  “There’s gonna be an explanation fer why old Florizel’s here an’ what in tarnation’s goin’ on, Ah hope,” Sue exclaimed.

  “Tomorrow,” Phoebe promised. “We’ll meet first thing in the morning. I think the prince is going to need some time to recover before making his report.”

  I had just found the piece of paper Doctor Mac had given me before I had taken flight. Twist had ignored it as being non-mechanical and it lay on the floor near the hearth. “The man with the glider came spying to discover the country hiding place. He damaged the airship seriously before Providence crashed his glider and Doctor Campbell was able to save his life. He accepted Christ, I believe, and gave us some information I have not had a chance to look at.” I handed the paper to Madame Phoebe.

  She took the paper and opened it, reading rapidly, and sinking into a chair. “He was not able to communicate with Dodge?” she demanded.

  “I am certain he could not. The glider has a very short-range wireless. Why? What does it say?”

  “We must call Doctor Twist back, and all the others, and we must have that meeting right now. This hotel is about to become a fortress for his protection. Are you all right, Florizel? Can you bear up another hour or so? You must be exhausted, but I want everyone to hear this. Your Charley Bates may be a true Godsend. How soon will the airship be fixed?”

  “Tod had all the patching done. He said it only needed time to set. Why?”

  “Everyone must be brought here. We must send a messenger at first light. Oliver has built some impressive security into the building. It is another mercy of Providence that you somehow evaded it, but we must, as I said, fort up here with as much protection as possible. We must find a way to be sure no one else can breach our perimeter.”

  “I knew the threat to Doctor Twist had to be serious. Tatiana heard Dodge say he had ‘found Greenland’ in the midst of describing his appalling cruelty. I am sure he wants revenge against him -- blames him for many things.”

  “When you hear what Bates says, you will see that you cannot state the matter too strongly. With this information, Doctor Twist may discover that he does indeed know who Dodge is, and perhaps be able at last to tell us how to find him.”

  “Charley Bates! The glider pilo
t said his name was Charley Bates?” Oliver exploded when I had hardly begun to give my report. “Are you sure he was telling the truth?”

  “Mrs. Rose Campbell had discovered a most effective means of interrogation,” I replied, unable to suppress a smile. “Yes, especially in light of his apparent conversion, I believe we may trust that it is his true identity.”

  Oliver dug his fingers into his hair and pulled hard. “It’s impossible. I could believe it of anybody else. Not him. It’s just a bunch of coincidences. Look, let’s have the whole story, every bit Tatiana and Uncle Vanya told you, Florrie.”

  I resumed my report and everyone listened in silent and rapt attention. Oliver Twist, however, seemed to be having a wrestling match with his tablet. Little images would flicker out from time to time in the blue stone of the top hat resting on the table beside him, which he fiddled nervously with. He projected them on the table, on the walls, catching members of the company in the eye like a bright light. Oliver’s eyes went from one to the other of the projections as if no one else were in the room and as if he paid no heed whatsoever to my words. But when I finished he shot up out of his seat, clapped the hat on his head and said, “Is that the fellow who called himself Charley Bates?”

  I stared at a grainy image, very unlike most of Twist’s pictures. “He is not so young as in that image, but yes, I believe so,” I nodded finally.

  “Mowgli and Sue, what about these two?” More dark, out of focus faces sprang into being.

  “They were at the Opium Den, certainly,” Mowgli confirmed.

  “Yep,” Sue concurred. “Doc, yer wonder gadget seems t’ have let y’ down on them pictures. They don’t look near s’good as most of ‘em.”

  “Those aren’t from this image capture machine,” Oliver said impatiently. “They were from something I put together only a few months after I got back together with what was left of my family. I was testing out my first imager, and went back to Fagin’s old place. I also watched out for some of my old comrades, hoping I could convince them to leave off their criminal lives and accept Christ. I hadn’t understood anything while I was with them, how evil their lives were, and I thought perhaps they were just confused and lost like I was. Charley Bates and others of the pickpockets -- I really thought of them as my friends, and Fagin as a kind of grandfatherly type. I didn’t understand what Nancy really did at the time, though it was easy enough to see Bill Sykes was evil. Mr. Brownlow tried to offer Nancy sanctuary. He begged her not to go back. She thought she was too defiled for good company. As if any of us is fit for the presence of a holy God. Besides, I think in a sick way she loved Bill. She never took the chance to understand that God can save anybody. Anybody.”

  “So you knew Charley from Fagin’s pickpocket band?” Edward prompted when Oliver went off again into that world inside his head and was silent for a long time. “What about those other two, the faces from the Opium Den?”

  “They might have called themselves something else, but those are Noah Claypoole and Charlotte. Those two worked for the coffin-maker, Sowerberry. I guess they took my road to London later on for some reason. Everybody thinks London is some kind of paradise when they’re poor and abused somewhere else in England. Things were bad enough with Sowerberry, but those two tormented the living daylights out of me. I can’t help hoping they were a little bit miserable after all I went through with them.”

  “All of these connections to the fence and organizer Fagin,” Fun See mused. “Is there a chance he could still be alive, and organizing this crime spree?”

  “Fagin kept a half-dozen pieces of jewelry in a little box under the floorboards,” snorted Oliver. “He thought it was his secret stash and called it his ‘little property.’ He had no conception of an organization this big or complex. I wouldn’t have thought anybody in our outfit could have thought up such a thing, or made himself so impossible to find. They were all small time, so ignorant, so content just to be told what to do.”

  “No doubt someone took over after Fagin was put in prison,” Edward shrugged. “This fellow shows education and experience in business and society. I would not be surprised to learn he is high up in government, commerce, or even education.”

  “Education?” Sue echoed. “What make you think a’that?”

  “The indoctrination into evil is deeply entrenched in the education system,” Edward replied. “Here in England and in the United States, we founded schools to train ministers of the Gospel. Think about how many have utterly departed from that and have begun to exalt false science as if it were a religion.”

  “It is so,” Zambo rumbled. “Those professors who went to the plateau -- They had already made up their minds that the mad theories of godlessness were truth. They saw with their own eyes living dinosaurs. How is it easier to say, ‘These were preserved up there millions of years,’ than it is to say God made them as He did all creatures, some few thousands of years ago? What if a few hundred or even thousand did not die out as all the others did? They cannot allow God into the halls of learning that were created to spread His truth.”

  “It’s true, they have driven Him out,” Oliver nodded. “What if this fellow was a classmate of mine in university? There were some scorners, really cruel people, men and women. They had no regard for human life, no compassion, just selfishness and greed. They used us ‘inferior beings’. It was like being conned all over again. They stole my notes, plagiarized my papers, tried to discredit my research and my work to make themselves look better. And when I managed to expose some of them for what they were, they swore they’d get back at me.”

  “This is an avenue we can try to pursue,” Madame Phoebe said. She saw me nodding off in my chair. “I had so hoped we would come up with someone definite to search for, but once again, our mysterious enemy dodges us. Please, Doctor Twist, be certain your security system is working to its fullest capability. We intend to bring the country exiles back here and also protect everyone while we continue the hunt. No one is to go about alone. Zambo’s security team will take up posts here and go along with anyone who goes hunting. We must try to question these people from Oliver’s past and see if they can tell us who Dodge really is.”

  “Madame Campbell, forgive me, perhaps I was at fault, but I do not recall that you read to us the note form Bates.” I had flushed deeply upon realizing that I had fallen asleep in the meeting. Every joint in my body hurt from when I had fought Bates and crash-landed the glider, plus the subsequent battering by the wind and tumble on and from the hotel roof.

  “Oh, I forgot,” Phoebe exclaimed. “Here is what Charley Bates says. Mac said he had to write this for him. His English was hardly the clearest and he began to have severe headaches just after Florizel left the room. He hoped he really understood his meaning.”

  “God forgive me for throwing in my lot with that monster. I don’t care what happened to him. Maybe it was bad, but he’s known some high living, too, and he’s profited by a lot of taking advantage of people who pitied him and tried to help him. There was also somebody who was pure evil and made him most of what he is now.

  “He’s obsessed about this Greenland fellow. He listed all the horrible things he planned to do to him when he got his hands on him. Look after that little angel fellow, whoever he is, because a demon of Hell’s on his heels and means to drag him by the ankle into some brimstone pit and never let him see light or life anymore.”