Around them there grew then a sort of comfortable buzz as people finished their drinks and in some cases started them again anew, and at this point Dodger realized that he certainly needed the jakes, and he had no idea where they would be, except of course they would be downstairs. In a world of unmentionables – real, erratic and sometimes invisible – he was not going to ask a lady where he could go to take a piss.
Then he found himself looking into the eyes of Sir Robert Peel, who was grinning round Angela like a cat who has seen a mouse, and the boss of the peelers said, ‘Ah, Mister Dodger, I rather suspect from the way in which you are searching about that you are looking for a place of some easement; allow me to escort you, because I myself am noticing the same urgency.’
Dodger was in no position to refuse. Sir Robert exchanged a nod with Angela and piloted Dodger out of the room and down some steps, ushering him eventually into something like a paradise made of mahogany and gleaming brass and copper.
It sparkled; it was a palace. The jakes in the rookeries were crowded, dark and stank; you would be better off going outside, and many did – which meant that walking along an alleyway at night was a very big adventure. Solomon, always fastidious about this sort of thing, had his own portable bucket with a little well-scrubbed wooden lid for those moments when a man just wanted a nice sit-down. One of Dodger’s chores was to take the bucket to the nearest cesspit, but these were overflowing most of the time; anyway, every night the honey wagons came round, which did a little something to improve matters when the workers shovelled up the stuff and away it went, along with the horse muck too. But however often the honey wagons came along, and however hard the dunykin divers scoured the septic tanks, you were never very far from yesterday’s dinner. But this place, well, this was amazing, and although he knew what the hole in the shiny mahogany was for, it seemed like sacrilege to use it. And what was this? Sheets of paper, all cut out ready for use, just like Solomon did with the Jewish Chronicle, and there were mirrors too, and little soaps in a large bowl, soft and smelling nice on the hands. Dodger couldn’t help pocketing some – despite the company – because there were so many of them.
He took a few moments to be stupefied, despite the pressure on his bladder and a certain nervousness about being cooped up in the same room as the boss of the peelers who, he noticed, was now sitting quite happily in a very expensive chair and lighting a cigar.
Sir Robert Peel smiled at him and said, ‘Please don’t stand on ceremony, Mister Dodger; I am in no hurry and, of course, as you must have realized, I am also between you and the doorway.’
This information, just as he was addressing himself to the ornate and gleaming pan in front of him, dropped Dodger into a state where the business in hand was turning out to be impossible. He glanced over his shoulder. Sir Robert wasn’t even looking at him, but was simply enjoying his cigar, like a man with all the time in the world. But since nothing actually bad was happening now, Dodger got a grip on his . . . fears and had to admire the perfect workings of this wondrous new contraption. When he had finished, the voice of Sir Robert, still in his chair, said laconically, ‘Now you pull the porcelain knob on the chain to your left.’
Dodger had been wondering what that was for. It was surely waiting to be pulled, wasn’t it? But why? To let people know that you had finished? Did it ring a bell so that people didn’t come in and disturb you? Oh well, he gave the nice little ceramic knob on the end of the chain a casual but hopeful pull, then backed away from the bowl, just in case this really was the wrong thing to have done and despite everything he was going to get into trouble . . . except the water gurgled around the pan, leaving the place spotless. Now that was a thing worth having!
He swung round and said, ‘Yes, sir, I know what to do. And I know you are having a little game, sir. I am wondering what you want from me.’
Sir Robert looked at the tip of his cigar as if he had not seen it before, and said very casually, ‘I would very much like to know how you did that murder in the sewers this afternoon.’
Inside Dodger, the turbot and all his little friends rushed to escape the sinking Dodger, and for a moment he thought he would make a terrible mess on that shiny floor until he reminded himself, I never murdered anyone, didn’t want to, didn’t have time. So he said, ‘What murder would this be?’ quelling the turbot and telling it to mind its manners. ‘I never murdered nobody, never!’
The head of all the policemen in London said cheerfully, ‘Well now, it’s funny you should say that, because I believe you, but sad to say we have a dead body in the morgue and two men who say you put the poor fellow in there. And the funny thing is, and you might laugh at this, I do not believe them. There is a corpse, certainly, reported to us by a gentleman known around and about as Manky Smith – probably known to you as well?’
‘Manky Smith? He’s a boozer, walks around all the time with wet pants. He would peach anybody for a pint of porter. I bet the other one was Crouching Angus, an old sweat with one and a half legs.’
The man had said that he didn’t think that Dodger had murdered anybody and that was a good thing, wasn’t it? A very good thing, but nevertheless the chief peeler had that look about him you learned to recognize after you had had a few run-ins with authority. It said that authority wanted you to know that authority always had the upper hand, and that you had just better mind your manners for the moment, because you were the enemy of authority unless authority told you that you weren’t.
Mister Peel was watching him with a slight smile on his face – you must never ignore the smile on the face of a peeler – and Dodger thought, This one is the king of the peelers, the big Peel himself, so even a dodger knows when not to dodge. He said, watching that smile, ‘You say that you don’t think I murdered anybody, but there are two people saying I done it, right? Who’s the body what was murdered? And why ain’t you taking their word against mine?’
Very calmly, Sir Robert said, ‘Frankly, my men know them and say that they wouldn’t take the testimony of those two if the Archangel Gabriel was standing beside them and had given them a reference.’ He smiled the smile of a policeman, which was only slightly better than the smile of a tiger, and said, ‘And I’m not taking your word as anything, Mister Dodger, but I am inclined to take the word of Solomon Cohen, who is very well thought of in the Jewish community. While I engaged him in conversation earlier this evening – and quite clearly he knew nothing of this accusation, nor did I say anything of it to him – he was kind enough to mention that you have spent almost the whole day in his company, a fact which can be verified by a number of reputable merchants, including my own tailors, which I can see with my own eyes. But I ask myself, if this murder took place only a few hours ago, why did this allegation reach me instantly, do you think?’
Before Dodger could say anything, Sir Robert continued. ‘I think that you have made enemies because, as Ben tells me, you appear to be compounding your heroic deeds by keeping a certain young woman safe while she is in our country. I salute you for that, but this situation cannot go on for ever. There are indications that . . . others involved in this affair are growing increasingly impatient.’
He drew on his cigar and lazily blew out a cloud of blue smoke; it drifted and curled around Dodger’s head like an aromatic fog.
‘There has clearly been a murder,’ the head of the peelers stated, ‘and indeed I must make certain that somebody is brought to justice – despite the fact that the corpse concerned was a gentleman who was known as a man who got things done, for a fee, with no questions asked and certainly no questions answered. He was a lawyer until the other lawyers found him out, and then he became what we call an accommodator, and a particularly good one because he knew all the lawyers’ tricks. He was very good at introducing people who needed crimes committed to people who wanted to be paid for committing crimes and, of course, he would skim something off the top for his expenses without ever getting his hands dirty. Now he turns up quite professionally dead, meaning neat and clean and not involving any third party. A very neat job. And a very silent corpse. They might as well have done the washing up and fed the cat before they left. His name was Sharp Bob.’