‘Boadicea,’ said Charlie, ‘and I think you have made a point. Miss Simplicity is a young woman who knows her own mind and she should be allowed to stand firm against those who oppose her.’
Then the coach slowed, and stopped outside what seemed to Dodger to be a very large and well-lit house. A butler opened the door when Charlie knocked. There was a whispered conversation, then Dodger and Simplicity were ushered into a small neat room by the door, while Charlie went away at some speed with the butler, whom he had addressed as Geoffrey.
Within less than a minute, Charlie was back, accompanied by a lady whom he introduced as Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts. She looked quite young, Dodger thought, but she dressed quite old, and what he could see was sharp. It was rather like Charlie. You saw at once with this lady that you would need to be either direct or silent: she had the look of somebody who inevitably won arguments.
The woman held out her hand. ‘My dear, you must be Simplicity, and I am very pleased to meet you.’ She turned to Dodger. ‘Ah yes, the Hero of Fleet Street. Charlie has told me about your exploits at the Chronicle, and everyone is talking of your bravery this morning, and you must believe me, I do have a notion as to what is going on – people can be so talkative. Clearly the thing to do right now is to get this young lady’ – she corrected herself – ‘young woman a meal and a chance to sleep in a warm and, above all, secure bedroom.’ She added, ‘Nobody comes into this house without my leave, and any intruder who came in with malice aforethought would wish they had never been born, or perhaps, if they were able to think more selectively, that I had never been born. Simplicity is entirely welcome or, I should say . . . I am welcoming the daughter of an old friend from the country, who is staying here in safety while she learns to navigate her way in this wicked city. I am sure that you, Mister Dodger, have all your work cut out as it is. Heroes are always such busy people, I have found, although I would be very grateful if you would attend me here at a dinner party tomorrow.’
Dodger listened to this, open-mouthed, until Charlie pushed past him and said, ‘Dear Angela, would it be in order to allow this young man, busy though he is, to come tomorrow with his friend and mentor, Solomon Cohen? An excellent and renowned maker of jewellery and watches.’
‘Capital. I would be most happy to meet him. I believe I have heard of him. As for you, Charlie, you know you are invited anyway, and I would like to have a quiet word with you after Mister Dodger has left.’
The word ‘left’ had an air of finality, but Dodger found that he had raised his hand, and since it was up there, he said, ‘Excuse me, miss, would you allow me to see where Miss Simplicity is going to sleep?’
‘Why, pray?’
‘Well, miss, I reckon I can get through most windows in this city, and if I can, then so can someone more nasty than me, if you see what I mean.’
He was expecting a reproof, but what he got was a broad smile from Angela. ‘You acknowledge no master, do you, Mister Dodger?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, miss, but I want to know that Simplicity is safe, you see.’
‘Well done, Mister Dodger. I will get Geoffrey to show you the room and the bars on the window. I too do not like intruders, and even now I’m wondering whether I shouldn’t employ you or some of your contemporaries to find a hitherto undiscovered way in. We might talk about this on the morrow. But now I must speak at length to Charlie.’
CHAPTER 10
Dodger uses his head
DODGER RAN TOWARDS home feeling in some way buoyed up by the meeting, especially since Charlie had whispered to him as he left that Angela had more money than anyone who wasn’t a king or queen. A nobby party sounded like a difficult crib to crack, though. He sped at a steady pace until he reached the first drain cover: an entrance to his world. A moment later, despite his smart attire, there was a distinct absence of Dodger and the sound of a drain cover falling back into place.
He got his bearings by feel, by echoes and, of course, by smell – every single sewer in the city had a smell that was all its own; he could taste them like a connoisseur of fine wines, and so he plotted the way home, changing direction only once when his two-note tosher whistle was answered by another already working that particular tunnel. It was still light, which helped when you passed the occasional grid or grating, and the walking was easy – not so much as a trickle today – and he almost absentmindedly explored as he passed a secret niche. He found sixpence, a sign that somebody or something was watching over him.
Overhead in the complicated world was the noise of hooves, the echo of footsteps and occasionally a carriage or a coach, and out of nowhere a sound that made him freeze: there was an eerie metallic squeal of metal in extreme distress, as if something was wrong, or maybe something had got stuck in a wheel, causing it to drag noisily over the stones with a sound that seared the soul and, once heard, could never be forgotten.
The coach! If he could see where it went, he might find the men who had battered Simplicity. He clenched his fists in anticipation – wait until they were on the receiving end of a set of brass knuckles . . .
The coach was running along the street above him, and he cursed the fact that the next drain cover in that direction was some way away, luckily in a usually moderately clean sewer which he told himself would save wear and tear on the shonky suit. He ran along the sewer, not stopping at all, not even for a shilling, and didn’t halt until he saw the gratings of the drain cover above him. He got out his crowbar, but just as he was about to fling the cover away there was a sound of heavy hoofbeats and the jingle of harness. Something huge covered that little circle of light that had been salvation with a great and glorious smell of dung, as a brewer’s cart pulled up on top of the drain and settled down like an old man finding a privy at last after a long wait. The likeness was assisted by the fact that the great steaming shire horses that had been pulling the cart decided, as one, very hygienically to empty their bladders. They were large animals and it had been a long afternoon, and so the shower was not over in the space of a moment, but rather an elegant duet to the goddess of relief. Regrettably, since the only way was down, there was simply no time for Dodger to dodge out of the way, not now.
In the distance, gradually merging with all the rattle and clamour of the streets, the screaming wheel could barely now be heard. In any case, the beefy men who worked for the brewers were unloading the heavy casks down wooden ramps, and the rumble of the great barrels drowned out every other sound that was left.
Dodger knew the routine of these men; once they had shifted all the empty barrels from the pub and replaced them with full ones, they would as sure as sunset drink a pint of beer. They would be joined in this cheerful enterprise by the landlord himself, the ostensible reason for this being that they would all agree on the quality of the nectar concerned, although in truth the likely reason was that, after heaving great loads around for any length of time, well, a man deserves a beer, doesn’t he? It was a ritual that was probably as old as beer itself. Occasionally, the brewery men and the landlords would have another beer, so great was their determination to make sure that the beer was in the best possible condition. In fact, Dodger could smell it, even above the scent of the horses, and even with a certain essence of horse to contend with, it still made him thirsty.
He had always loved the smell you got in the sewers by the breweries. A geezer called Blinky, who was a rat-catcher by profession, had once told him that the rats in the sewers underneath the breweries were always the biggest and fattest anywhere, adding that the rat-catching fancy would pay extra for brewery rats because they had a lot of fight in them.