Right now, the air in the tunnel was more or less sweet – well, in comparison to the things that weren’t sweet at all, with the possible exception of Onan who had, of course, brought his own particular odours with him. Dodger gave the two-tone whistle that every tosher knew, and listened for a reply; there was none, and so, at least for now, he had this area all to himself, as he so often did.
Almost without thinking he picked up a tie pin and a farthing within a couple of yards; luck was with him, and he wondered if it was because he had just done a good deed. As he thought this, Onan began to snuffle and whine and worry at something in a broken-down pile of old bricks. Dodger suddenly heard a clink as Onan’s nose knocked something loose. Now the dog had something golden in his jaws – a gold ring with a big stone in it! Worth at least a sovereign!
Good old Onan! And thanks to the Lady. But things happened, or didn’t happen, and that’s all there was to it, Dodger knew. You could drive yourself mad thinking otherwise.
In the gloom, listening to the sounds of the world above, hunting through the tunnels, Dodger was in his element and Dodger was happy.
Elsewhere, others were not . . .
There were many candles in this room, but none of them illuminated the face of the man seated by the tapestry. This considerably disconcerted the man known to his special clients as Sharp Bob – most certainly not the name he used when dealing with more ordinary legal affairs. He always liked to see whoever it was who was employing him; on the other hand, he also liked gold sovereigns, and they didn’t worry him at all – he was always pleased to see them. He could see two of them now; a lamp in the darkness before him showed them shining on a low table. He hadn’t picked them up yet, because he thought, If I pick them up before that incredibly toffish voice tells me to, for a certainty I might just have my knuckles rapped, or worse.
He didn’t like this place. He hadn’t liked having to spend some time in that rattling coach with a blindfold over his eyes and a man with a foreign accent sitting opposite him who had threatened to do him a mischief if he tried to take it off. He didn’t like working for men with foreign accents, when it came down to it. Not to be trusted. Not like doing business with a good, honest, God-fearing Englishman – Sharp Bob knew how to deal with them. He didn’t like the way the journey here had been all around the houses either, doubling back and constantly changing direction like a thief on the run. Nor did he like the fact that after this interview he would have to go through the whole business again.
This place was plush – that was certain; it even smelled plush. Occasionally people walked past behind him and that made him angry too, because he dared not turn his head. Creepy stuff. He had been here for ten minutes, waiting for whoever it was who had just walked silently over to a chair on the other side of the flames – a fact he knew only because the padded leather chair had complained with that little farting noise that only the very best padded leather chairs gave off when sat upon. Sharp Bob knew a good chair when he heard it, for he had been in the houses of the mighty before, though not on business such as this.
Now there was a stirring, and the someone behind the flames who was anxious not to be seen was about to talk. At this point Sharp Bob realized that the really anxious one was himself, and he had a terrible premonition that he would sooner or later have to pass water.
He nearly did when the hidden voice said: ‘Also, Mister Sharp Robert, I believe you told us that your men would have no difficulty in dealing with one simple girl. And yet, my friend, it would appear that she has twice escaped you and you were only able to catch her once. This does not, I am sure you will not blame me for pointing out, appear to be a very good record, wouldn’t you say?’
There was something in the voice which disturbed Sharp Bob. It was English, but not quite English; as if a foreigner had learned English absolutely perfectly, but hadn’t been able to include all the little usages that a native-born speaker would have picked up. In fact, as English, it was too good. Too perfect. Lacking the slurs and imperfections that the native users sprinkled on their conversations. He sat in his puddle of darkness – and fortunately nothing else at the moment – and said, ‘Well, sir, we expected a girl, but that lady had a punch on her that knocked out one of my boys. And one of them’s been in the ring, sir! She was fast and clever, sir, fighting like anything, and you did say that you wanted her back and on the boat in one piece. Unfortunately my boys, quite frankly, sir, also wanted to get home in one piece. They say there never was a girl like that who kicked and spat and punched like a good ’un, and I’ve got one lad now who walks funny and is sporting a black eye, and another who had two of his fingers torn off. I mean, the first time she took us by surprise, but that time she just ran and they got her back in and tied down in your coach. Of course, after that we were too late for the boat, which is why we were bringing her back to you.’
Sharp Bob was feeling on very shaky ground at the moment because, after all, it had hardly been his fault.
‘Just as I told your colleague earlier, sir,’ he went on, ‘everything would have been all right on the second try, but she kicked the door out and jumped off in the middle of that terrible thunderstorm. Your coachman couldn’t stop the horses, sir, not in that rain. Very unusual circumstances. Difficult to predict.’
In the silence there was the sound of a page turning and a voice said, ‘And apparently, Mister Sharp Robert, a person called’ – the pages rustled – ‘Dodger actually wounded your two men, very nearly drowning one in a gutter. It seems to me that we should perhaps have employed him instead.’
The man who liked to think of himself as Sharp Bob but wasn’t feeling all that sharp right now said, ‘I can still be of some help, sir, bearing in mind that you already owe me quite a lot for having tracked her down in the first place. I believe you have had my bill for that for some time . . .?’
The speaker ignored the latter part of this statement, saying instead, ‘I would like to assume that you have some news pertaining to this little difficulty. I understand there was something further about this troublemaker? Do be so kind as to enlighten me, will you?’
Sharp Bob said, ‘He has been asking around, sir, and being very what you might call methodical about it, sir.’
Sharp Bob was satisfied with ‘methodical’ as a description, but not pleased when the voice said, unnecessarily sharply in his opinion, ‘Good heavens, man, surely you can use your own initiative, can you not?’
Sharp Bob knew what an initiative was, but right now he was certain he hadn’t got one. Hopefully he said, ‘The body asking the questions ain’t just any nobody, if you get my drift; he’s got contacts on the street, which makes things a little more difficult.’
The voice sounded angry, and that did not sit well with Sharp Bob’s bladder. Things got no better when, out of the dark, the voice came back with, ‘Is he working for a policeman . . . what you call, I believe, a peeler?’
A peeler! What a word to use to a troubled gentleman of fortune. The bloody, bloody peelers. You couldn’t bribe them, you couldn’t make friends with them – not like the old Bow Street runners – and mostly the new boys were war veterans. If you had been in some of the wars lately and come back with all your bits still attached to your body, then that meant you were either a hard man or very, very lucky. Bloody Mister Peel had sent them scurrying about like busybodies and no mistake, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer, and mostly they wouldn’t take any answer at all from anyone unless it was: ‘It’s a fair cop, I’ll come quietly, sir.’ You cried uncle, you cried aunt, you cried your eyes out the moment you fell foul of the peelers, and the bleeders wouldn’t even help you put them back, and they drank like fish and roared like the Devil, and weren’t friends with anybody – and that, amazingly, included the nobs. It certainly included those on the fringes of the legal business, like himself, who had relied on the old Bow Street boys who were, well . . . understanding, especially when money jingled.