Chapter Twenty-five
“Who is Jack Dawkins?” Madame Phoebe asked.
“The Artful Dodger,” Oliver Twist’s voice came out like a thin, ghostly wail. He huddled into himself. “Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger.”
“J-D, A-D,” I exclaimed. “The message that Bates tried to write. Jack Dawkins, Artful Dodger.”
“Jack Dawkins was my first friend at Fagin’s,” Oliver said, staring at the rabbit’s foot. “He must have given that to Charley. He always gave us little welcoming gifts, when we were new, a street boy who had all this stuff while we wretches had worn out our shoes and had no place to spend the night.
“He always had pockets full of stuff. He gave me a silver whistle, like that one Doctor Mac carries round his neck to call cabs, only it was just a cheap tin thing. I only found out later that everything he had was stolen. He seemed rich as a king, a swaggering little welcoming committee to Fagin’s world. I never understood he was just the king of thieves.”
“Dodger -- Dodge! This, then is the identity of the elusive Dodge?” Madame Phoebe asked him.
“He -- It must be--” Twist muttered.
“We hafta git back t’ the hotel,” Sue snapped. “Somebody’ll be comin’ fer that, locked door notwithstandin’, hopin’ we ain’t got it yet. They’ll come mad as hornets. That drove thet jest left didn’t do the work for ‘em so somebody’s gotta come. We don’t know our ground here. Call fer yer airship, Twist, an’ let’s get goin’ back t’ th’ fort.”
Oliver sat riveted, staring at the red rabbit’s foot in Doctor Mac’s hand. “He was my first friend. He asked me if I had any money, any lodgings -- When I said no, he said he knew a ‘ ‘spectable old gentleman what would give me money and lodgings for nuffink, and nivver ask fer th’ change’.”
“Twist! We must go!” I shook him gently by the shoulder but he still cried out, half in pain, half in pure anguish at this betrayal.
Zambo bolted to the door and activated the unlocking mechanism. It began to twirl, ticking and hissing. Everyone had firearms of one sort or another, all of which appeared in a moment. Most of us had pistols, single or in pairs. Madame Phoebe manipulated her parasol and it became a crossbow which she loaded in the briefest of instants.
“Oliver, please, we must get back to the hotel,” our leader said to the desolate young man. “Call Tod. We are all depending on you to be strong.”
Twist looked up into her eyes and his tablet found his way into his palsied hands at last. The two black-clad attendants appeared as the door opened and we tumbled forward to assist Zambo. It was absurd, however, because he simply lifted them off the ground and banged them together like clashing cymbals, then tossed them aside. The airship dropped to earth and we ran for it.
Edward went out with Zambo and a heavy guard the next day to apologize once again to Jessica Fagin and to see Bates laid to rest. We realized that just knowing the name of Jack Dawkins, and putting a ten-years-past face on the spectre we had been chasing, did not make him materialize in our grasp. We were at least able to prod poor Twist into searching his records for pieces in the puzzle that was Jack Dawkins. I found Twist up in his rooftop gardens among his clockwork menagerie when I went to see if we could track the man we sought.
Twist was projecting images of various legal documents on a smooth white cloth laid on the base of one of the statues. The amazingly lifelike American Bison sat and nodded its head above us. I sat beside the little inventor as page after page flashed. I realized he could read far faster than I dreamt of doing. We learned that Jack Dawkins had been arrested for stealing a silver snuffbox, around the same time that Oliver had finally been delivered to safety from the grasp of Fagin. His was sentence was given as transportation for life.
“Transportation for life!” I cried. “A young boy banished forever from his homeland for stealing what can be had for a few pennies?”
“It wasn’t only for that. That was what they finally caught him for. At the trial a police officer said Jack was well-known to him. In the short time I was there I heard Charley and Fagin brag about there being nobody like him, nobody as good a thief. I can’t imagine how much he might have stolen.”
“But he was only a boy,” I protested. I remembered Twist’s insistence that he had thought of these children as victims.
“You already told me the truth about him and people like him. Don’t you see the speech he gave at his hearing?” Twist projected on the white cloth an image of a copy of another court proceeding. “‘Where are my privileges?’ He asked. He scorned and insulted the members of the court, the witnesses who identified the snuff box and put him at the scene working the crowd where a dozen thefts took place in a single hour.
“Jack Dawkins was a creature with no respect for right. Fagin and the others made heroes out of those who got put away. They said such fellows did them proud when they didn’t peach -- didn’t inform on anyone, and pretended he’d have such good and easy times in prison, that it’d be a lark. I guess he found out that was wrong.”
“What became of Fagin?” I asked.
“He was hanged,” Twist said in a flat voice. “He begged Mr. Brownlow to bring me to see him. Mr. Brownlow tried to get him to have some sense of what was going to happen to him, to get him to make some sort of repentance. The jailer assured him that Fagin was long past all such thoughts. Fagin tried -- He wanted me to help him get out, somehow. I didn’t even understand how I could have done it, but he made me feel that I would be forever responsible for his death if I didn’t try. To the last he was only sorry he got caught; scared to look up and see the gallows.”
“Was the man ever married? Did he have a child?”
“What? Fagin? How could he have? A child? A wife? The most selfish man in the entire world ? He was a man who said that ‘looking out for number one’ meant looking out for him, not for one’s own self, because without him there was no life or safety for any of us boys.”
Twist had been taking a lot of deep breaths lately, as if he had to remind himself to breathe, as if just living was getting beyond him. He began to speak in bursts again and I wished I could spare him what he seemed desperately to need to say. “Look here, Florizel -- I haven’t even thought of any of this stuff -- Just blocked it out for the last ten years, except the vague idea that I wanted to save victims of that criminal system -- But now -- what’s happened -- all of this we’ve been through -- not just what happened to me --
“Doctor Mac said that you told him that Dodge -- Jack Dawkins -- became what he is because he was brutalized in prison. But Fagin taught him the lesson of dependency, of making people bound and beholden to him, long before he went to prison. Maybe not by -- Not by physical force, but by pretending that he was all there was. Only with him could we live, be free, be safe. He was such a master manipulator. Edward’s message last night was exactly true.”
I touched Twist’s shoulder again. “I asked about his having a wife or children because of the woman, Jessica Fagin, the owner of the mortuary. Having found her employees to be doing what seems to be Dawkins’ bidding, does it not seem likely that there is some connection between her and your Fagin?”
Twist shrugged. “I pity her if there is. She seemed a lovely, decent sort of woman, didn’t she? He’d have to have abandoned his family long ago if he really had one. Maybe she is his daughter but doesn’t know anything about him. She’s better so. Far better so.”
“I just wonder if it is an avenue to pursue, to trace Dodge -- I mean Dawkins,” I ventured.
Twist applied himself to the tablet and I saw Jessica Fagin’s face appear in the blue stone in his top hat. “She was born here In London thirty years ago, this paper says. Mother’s name was Leah Fagin. Father was Tubal Fagin.” He scanned so rapidly words and images became a blur to me. “Here’s a notice saying someone named Tubal Fagin disappeared twenty years ago. Leah Fagin posted an advertisement, a reward for information.”
He pushed on. “Here’s a notice of a high
school graduation. It says Jessica Fagin was first in her class and that her mother, Leah Fagin, attended alone. The lost father never returned home, apparently. That was twelve years ago. I was at Fagin’s ten years ago and he had been doing what he did far longer than two years at that time.”
I studied the record he had stopped on. “What does the record say about her advanced schooling? She must have had mortician’s training.”
“Mighty unconventional training. Maybe in Egypt or something.” Twist slid through more records. “Algeria. Close. This says Jessica Fagin went to Algeria for five years, and has been back here in London about five. No mention of any parents.”
Madame Phoebe, Mr. Campbell, and I met with Trevor later that morning to plan the benefit concert. “Really, really grateful to you for doing this, ma’am,” Trevor said, wringing her hand and Mr. Campbell’s alternately. “This will be the last push I need, both for money and for recognition. I can’t believe you are actually going to sing for me. My mother is the biggest fan you ever imagined. She’s been so strung-out about all this campaign stuff I hope it’ll calm her down to just sit there and listen to you for an evening.”
“Let me know some of her favorite songs, Mr. Newsome, and I’ll be sure to sing one or two,” Phoebe smiled.
“Would you? That’d be grand.” They talked about arrangements, the venue being the large theatre in the underground “grotto” level of Bronze Cascade itself, the date being a mere two weeks for now.
“Has anyone from the Dodge Foundation tried to contact you, Trevor?” I asked when the business talk was concluded and the Campbells had taken their leave.
“Y’know, I saw that -- that Spring-heeled Jack fellow at my factory speech this morning,” Trevor mused. “At least I think it was him. He looked different. He didn’t approach me or anything. If it didn’t sound so crazy, I’d say he was watching out for me. Protecting me. There were some odd types who came around at the edges of the crowd but he had a word with them and they made themselves scarce. Even without that jumping, batwing outfit he’s a big, intimidating sort of fellow. Think somebody put the fear of God into him?”
“Perhaps someone did. Trevor…” I hesitated and then plunged in. “We have been friends for more than ten years, but I have been recently reminded of how short and uncertain life can be. Can I ask you, what is your relationship with God?”
“God?” Trevor had already turned to talk to his publicist but his eyes flew back to me. “Well, y’know, Florrie, I never gave it much thought. Pater was big on church but he’s been abroad so long. I wondered why Mater didn’t go with him to that posting after Bohemia. Me, I was in college after we got home again. Not many places would take my Bohemian credits except here in England. Mater said she wanted to be where I was, and Pater said he understood. After college, it was straight into Uncle Henry’s Counting House, courtesy of Mater. He kept me nose to the grindstone and Sunday was the only day I had off for years. Pater’s only got home a time or two, and when he did we went to church together, but something’s been going on last couple of visits.
“Mater’s gotten mighty cold, don’tcha know, especially this past year, and lately ain’t got no interest in anything but the campaign. Sundays roll around and she’s got social activities planned that she insists will help me get elected.
“Sorry, Florrie, I’m just jabbering on about nothing. I’ve noticed lately that you’ve got a different air about you, somethin’ right spiritual, if I had to put a name on it. I want to know more about it but -- but after the election, all right?”
“Is everything to be after the election, Trevor?” I asked, but the publicist pulled him away and he just shrugged helplessly at me and disappeared.
I now had my own more or less permanent quarters in the Bronze Cascade, a suite of two bedrooms and a sitting room. In the second bedroom I had created a salon where I could work on my weaponry skills. Opportunities to shoot and to fence had become rare with my circumstances so straitened by the need to simply make a living.
But Oliver Twist confided in me that the walls of this hotel were virtually indestructible and soundproof and I spent hours when not engaged at my shop or in the business of the Legacy company honing my somewhat rusty skills at arms. The memory of the automaton resistant to bullets encouraged me to make a sabre that could cut through metal like Kera’s Khanda sword. I admired her serrated edge and incorporated it into my design. The Khanda would always be superior for sheer power but I hoped I could at least stop one of these metal things if it chose to attack instead of retreat.
The benefit concert was a week away when I received a message from the front desk that someone wanted to see me in the lobby. Kera insisted on accompanying me, even though I wasn’t leaving the hotel, and we were both startled to meet Spring-heeled Jack lounging among the clockwork creatures and waterfalls.
“Polidori,” he said, turned on his heel, and started walking away.
“What?” I pursued him. “What do you mean?”
“Here, in London,” Jack responded.
“Where can we find him? And is he really a lead worth pursuing?”
“Don’t know exactly where he is, but you’ll never understand the dodge if you don’t understand about Polidori,” Jack responded.
“What are we to understand about him?”
“I know you don’t like riddles, but I ain’t got the whole answer to this one, either,” Jack muttered. “Check Newsome’s contributions list. Check for Mechanicals School for the Gifted. In fact, check that school out, alumni, every which way. A brood of vipers as ever was.”
He acted as if he were going to depart again but stopped. “How’s the little ‘un? Let him know some of us -- some of us never was in favor of -- of some methods as is used.”
“Do you mean Doctor Twist? How do you think he is?”
Spring-Heeled Jack hung his head. “That was one of the reasons some of us broke with the organization. That, and your minister fellah’s sermonizin’.”
“Can we pray with you?” Kera asked abruptly, holding out a hand to the towering man. “You must feel so alone.”
“Prayin’s good, little lady,” grinned the fellow. “But as for alone, them everlasting arms, they feel pretty warm and cozy underneath. Not alone, but a little hungry for some more sermonizin’.”
We sat under a bronze elephant’s child spraying a fountain over a crocodile snapping its jaw, held hands, and prayed. It was the first time I had heard my little vessel pray aloud with anyone but myself. I am certain it did me as much good as it did our hulking friend.
“After this is over, you can come hear Reverend Ferrars’ sermons anytime you wish,” Kera said shyly. “They are always just as good.”
“Lookin’ forward to it,” Jack grinned wider. “Make sure you check on that stuff, Princey, and do it before the concert. Especially descriptions of as many people as you can get hold of. Faces in the crowd.”
“Is Trevor in danger? Is Madame Phoebe?” I suddenly realized how exposed she would be onstage.
“Clear head and think, Princey. Newsome ain’t in no danger till he wins. That pretty, pretty bird, she’s been in danger since she decided to try to chase a dodge across the Empire. Just make sure you know that it really has been a dodge since day one, almost.”
“What does he mean?” Kera asked as we climbed in the amber lift upward toward the penthouse. “The way he says ‘a dodge’, it’s almost as if he is telling us we are wrong about Dodge being the mastermind.”
“We or others have seen the man doing these awful deeds,” I argued. “Doctor Mac and Archibald Campbell saw him as the constable. The old washerwoman recognized in that advocate someone familiar and was made to disappear. You and the Chinese merchant carrying slaves both described the bow-legged man in muffler and goggles. Tatiana and Twist were both attacked by a man of the same description. They are all Dodge.”
“What about the automaton? I would have sworn it was Dodge until its head went ringing against
the wall. Is that what Spring-heeled Jack meant by a dodge? Does the man have copies, metal men who impersonate him to prevent his capture? Will he always escape us because we will never know when he is real?”
“God must give us insight and discernment,” I sighed.
Tatiana bustled about in the sitting room of the penthouse when we stepped off the lift, arranging trays of her papa’s bread balls and fragrant Turkish coffee for the meeting that was to be held in a few minutes. Though it was a bit crowded, we had opted to meet here rather than the conference room. We had become intimates and favored this intimate setting.
“You look so happy together,” Tatiana beamed at us. We dropped hands and blushed, but saw that her expression changed from sunny to clouded.
“I know my Oliver was hurt, terribly hurt,” she said softly to us, “but I thought God made him well. He was better that morning than he is today, though. Has something else happened? Why is he so terribly sad and angry?”
“He learned that the man who attacked him was one he thought of as a friend, Tati,” Kera said, putting an arm around the girl. “It will take time for Ollie to get over this thing. You must be strong and have patience. He only just learned to make friends and to love, and now he must learn how to trust again, to trust himself, and other people as well.”
“Papa says make more bread balls,” Tatiana sighed. “It takes so long to make them. They have to rise three times, you know. I try to sneak and make things go faster but they go flat and heavy and papa always knows I have hurried.”
“Uncle Vanya is teaching you patience with bread balls,” Kera laughed. “Don’t rush the dough, and don’t rush Ollie.”
A Dodge, a Twist and a Tobacconist Page 28
