Dodger of the Dials (13 page)

‘It’s a filthy night,’ said Slade once I had stepped out onto a dirty puddled pavement and told him I would be fine from here. ‘Both for you and for this Paul Bradley.’

I pulled my hat down onto my head as low as it would go and lifted up the collar of my coat. I was protecting myself against the rain as well as trying to conceal my identity from any onlookers. But I had to raise my voice when I called up to where Slade sat to be heard over the downpour.

‘You said you’d have the necessary tools?’ I said and held out my hand.

Slade nodded under his own wide-brimmed hat and reached over to an open bag what was beside him. Then he leaned down
and offered it to me so I could take whatever I needed from within. There was a strong jemmy among a number of other house-cracking tools and I took that and placed it into a small brown bag of my own.

‘Is that all?’ asked Slade with the bag still open. ‘Could be cleaner to cut through glass. Speeds the job up.’ I looked up at his face what was hidden under the shadow of his hat and noticed how different his manner now was compared to the geniality of earlier. I paused as I considered what he was implying. ‘If you’re not up to it,’ he continued, noticing my hesitation, ‘then I’ll give the job to one of my men. Just say.’

‘No,’ I replied and snatched a glass-cutting knife from the bag. ‘Leave it to me. As you said earlier, it’s my leak and my problem to see to. You go.’

I put the two items into my bag and pulled on the rope tight as Slade said goodnight and drove the horses away. At once I darted into a nearby alley to lose myself in the warrens of this area and I began to approach the house I needed by quiet stealth.

On the day on which my gang and I had walked towards the Drop of Courage pub for our meeting with Percival we had been followed by a young Irish boy from Soho to Temple who, at the time, I had just thought was a scruffy admirer. I had tonight discovered however that he was a relative of Fergal’s and had signalled to the rest of the Turpins when we was coming and by which cut. This was the lad that had told them about the Lady of Stars in the first place. Slade had got the truth from his tortured Turpin that this lad had been told all about the burglary in Kent, the necklace and the meeting-place by someone connected to my own gang.

Ever heard of Paul Bradley, Dodger?
Slade had said after I had agreed to work under him.
Because that’s the name of your betrayer
.

I came to the tall thin house at the end of the street what I knew was where this Paul Bradley lived with three large families. It backed on to an alley and had sturdy guttering what I was sure I could climb up if I was quick. I only needed to get up the water-pipe to the first floor window ledge and a simple jemmy would grant me entrance. The rotten weather was my friend on this night; it was unlikely I would be seen or heard as I scrambled up the pipe and so I hooked the bag onto my belt and crossed over to the house, letting the dark night and the rushing rain conceal my movements.

Treachery such as his cannot go unpunished
, I heard Slade’s words as I climbed up the side of the house,
it sets a bad example. You’ve responsibilities now to your community
.

The window opened with a hard shove of the jemmy and I lowered myself into the landing of this mean little place. Almost everyone who lived here was either a thief, a prostitute or the child of such and they would know me at a glance. But once the window was shut behind me, I was sure that I could get to where my quarry slept before any confrontation. I knew this house, I had been here before except on that previous occasion I had exited through the window on the floor above. I recalled that this had been the room what I now wanted and so I crept upwards towards it. There was few burglars in the capital more adept at this sort of thing than I and so I was soon inside the bedroom and looking down the two lines of beds in which the children of this house was all sleeping.

I tiptoed past each bed looking at the faces of the slumbering children as I searched for the one what had betrayed me. And then, right at the far end of the room, I found little Paul Bradley lying asleep face down on his threadbare pillow and under two moth-eaten blankets. He was a restless sleeper and the skin around his neck was red raw from the violence of his own fingernails. I could
now see, what with the rough sleeping material and the many insects buzzing about his bed, how he had come by his nickname. I looked about the room to ensure that none of the other kinchins had woken to see me and, once certain that they had not, I crouched beside this boy and prodded him.

‘Scratcher,’ I whispered soft. ‘Wake up, Scratcher. It me, the Artful. I’ve got a secret.’

The boy did not stir.

‘Scratcher,’ I continued and poked him some more. ‘Wake yourself. It’s good news.’ At this his eyes opened and he turned to see me. Then his face lit up with delight.

‘Dodge,’ he said and I raised my finger up to my lips. ‘What you after?’

I had not seen Scratcher much since he had made such a bad crow of himself out in Kent and I knew that he was disappointed that I had since been ignoring him. But now, as he saw me appear at the foot of his bed like an out-of-season St Nick, he reacted like I was a dream answered.

‘We’re going on an adventure, Scratch,’ I said as I picked up a small pair of shoes what rested under the bed and threw them down next to him. ‘Right this minute. Best get dressed and come with me before anyone wakes.’

‘Another crack?’

‘A big one,’ I nodded. ‘Lots of money to be made. To make up for your terrible performance last time I’m giving you another chance. You game?’

Scratcher was up in an instant and getting himself changed.

‘You won’t regret it, Dodger,’ he whispered as he did so. ‘I’ll do better this time. You’ll see.’

‘I’ve no doubt you will, Scratch,’ I said as I opened the window
out of which I knew from previous experience formed an escape route onto the neighbouring rooftops. But there was a long drop down if you did not make the jump. ‘You’ll be fine.’

He took my hand and stared up into my face. I felt his small cold fingers within my own and I was overcome with shame about what I was set to do.

‘Don’t look so fretful, Dodge,’ he said as I lifted him onto the ledge of the window. ‘I won’t let you down this time, I promise.’

Then he jumped onto the far roof and bounded off ahead of me.

I crawled out of the house, onto the wooden ledge and I shut the window after. And, as I looked back through the dirty glass and into the family home what I had just snatched him from, just one thought occurred. That I had never, in all my days as a thief, taken anything as unforgivable as this.

Chapter 9
A Slade Man

Showing the many advantages and disadvantages of being an active member of a wider community

‘It’s a new dawn, boys,’ I declared with great ceremony to an assortment of my finest criminal associates from around the Seven Dials vicinity. ‘From here on in – if you make the sensible decision to stick by me as your top sawyer – you shall never know poverty again!!’

A big cheer went up around the Three Cripples taproom as Georgie Bluchers lifted his frothing jug of ale and chinked it against Herbie Sharp’s glass and Mick Skittles whooped in delight. Barney had just done the rounds with another tray of drinks in this secure and private location where a dozen thieves had been summoned to sit around three wooden tables while I spelt out the new arrangements for them. I was drinking from my own pewter pot what had the image of a bird scratched on it, the one what Barney hung above the bar and served to me alone, while the others smoked on their clay pipes and listened. The mood – save for one or two stony faces what refused to join in with the party atmosphere – was high and the excitement palpable. Georgie in particular was in a merry humour on account of the large payment I had just presented him with for driving the cart on the night of the Whetstone Manor crack. He was counting through the notes with his still-bandaged leg propped up on another chair and was as
happy as I had seen him in weeks. The sum was only half of what he had been promised for the job but I had said that I would explain why this was in due course. But, considering that until now he had only been paid with a gunshot wound to the leg for his troubles, he did not complain much. Georgie was always a half-jug-full sort of cove.

Tom Skinner, however, was one of the few scowlers in the room and the money that she had been given for her part in that robbery did not seem to improve her disposition one ounce. She, of course, already knew that the reason the payment from Percival was much lighter than agreed upon was because the rest had been given to the man from Hammersmith and this was something she seemed to consider an unwelcome turn of events. She sat with her arms crossed and fixed me with a hard stare as I told the rest of them to settle down so I could explain.

‘So, as you can all see, some of the people in this room have benefitted from a cash boon this morning. Myself, Tom and Georgie have all at last been paid out for a job we done over a month ago and one what gave us a good deal of trouble. Mouse has also been paid a fee by way of thank you for taking the knocks with us when we was pounced upon by those bandits.’ I gave Herbie Sharp a reproving glance as I spoke. ‘Had others been there to help us do battle with the enemy then they would have a share in the bounty also. But you get nothing for nothing in my gang. Understand?’

Herbie Sharp, who had been very much enjoying the revelry until now, looked a little put out by this as he had never been asked to come with us on the job and so probably felt it was an unfair rebuke. But he still raised his glass in salute to those of us what was now holding paper money.

‘You worked hard for that reward, lads,’ he toasted us. ‘Good health to you.’

‘Cheers, Herb!’ beamed Georgie at him after he had put his notes into his wallet and tucked it away. ‘And don’t forget little Scratcher. He was part of the job an’ all.’ Georgie then turned to me and asked whether Scratcher had been given his share yet. ‘Because I’d a loved to see his face when he hears that it all came off after all. I know he was a bad crow, Dodge, but you got him his due anyway. It’s only fair.’

‘Don’t you worry about Scratcher,’ I said in a steady voice what I sometimes used when playing cards. ‘He’s been paid out already.’

‘That right, is it?’ asked the thief we called Chickenstalker from the back of the room. ‘P’raps that explains where he’s gone to then?’

‘Gone to?’ asked Mouse Flynn. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘I spoke to Ma Bradley. She reckons he ain’t been seen in days. Thinks he’s been taken away by fairies or suchlike.’ There was a ripple of laughter around the small room at Scratcher’s mother, who was known as a drunken liability what seemed to be modelling her maternal skills upon that woman from the Gin Lane etching. The gathered company was in general agreement that Scratcher had in most likelihood run off from his large family of layabout sots as soon as he could afford to and few of them could blame him.

‘He’s on a spree, I should think,’ concluded Georgie after wiping his mouth from the ale. ‘Scratcher’ll turn up when the money runs dry. It never lasts as long as you might hope.’

‘It will now, Georgie,’ I said keen to move the subject on from the missing boy. ‘Because from here on the sort of money you’ve been paid today will be coming in regular. That’s because of a deal I’ve struck that is in the greater interest of everyone here. Or at least those of you what are happy to play the game.’

I had every eye upon me now, even Barney’s, and they all
twitched to hear more. I had made a grand show of paying Tom, Georgie and Mouse in front of the others so they could all see how prosperous they could become under my continued leadership and all I had to do now was to deliver the caveat.

‘Who here,’ I asked as I stood against a table and addressed them like they was members of an exclusive gentlemen’s club, ‘has heard of a man called William Slade? Or Weeping Billy as he sometimes goes by?’

This question, of course, was of the rhetorical sort. They all had heard the stories about going on the thieve in the patches of London what was considered to be his hunting ground. Violent reprisals had been meted out to criminals what ignored such boundaries and nobody wanted to cross Slade if they did not have to.

‘Well, what have you heard?’ I asked again.

‘I hear his gang numbers three times the amount of ours, Jack,’ cautioned Mouse, who seemed to have misunderstood my intention. ‘He makes ’em all wear matching red hats so you know who you’re dealing with. They’re more like an army than a regular street mob. We’d be mad to challenge them.’

‘We ain’t going to war against Billy Slade, are we?’ asked Herbie Sharp in horror. ‘Say that ain’t so, Dodger. We’d be fools to try.’

‘He’s to be avoided,’ agreed Mick Skittles with a sniff. ‘On account of the severe way he treats his enemies. He’s a terror by all accounts.’

‘A terror he may be,’ interjected the Chickenstalker. ‘But he lives like a king over in Hammersmith, so I hear. He’s got bawdy house what caters to the richer set and makes him a fortune. And every girl in it is his to handle however he pleases.’

‘I’ve heard all about that place,’ nodded Georgie who was getting most excited at the mention of Molly Gay’s. He was looking back at the Stalker and becoming all the more animated as he spoke.
‘They’re the best whores money can buy so I’m told. Lily Lennox used to work there and she’s one what I’d …’ Then he pulled up sharp and looked back to me as the room fell silent. ‘She’s one what’s better off out of the awful place, eh, Dodger?’

‘It’s true, my fine coveys,’ I carried on choosing to ignore Georgie and sticking to my point. ‘Tom and myself went to visit that very brothel the other night at Billy Slade’s invitation. We was treated as esteemed guests and had a most pleasant evening.’ The others all turned to Tom as I spoke for confirmation but she just sat there with her miserable face on and saying nothing. ‘And Slade did indeed strike me as prosperous, I will admit,’ I continued before she could finish the story for me. ‘Although I would not say that his gang appeared to be more fearsome than ours. If it came down to it, I’d be happy to place a wager on any man here over those tall feathers what work for Slade.’