Dodger of the Dials (25 page)

‘You always say things’ll be rosy!’ he returned then with some force. ‘And they never are!’ He wiped his eyes. ‘I don’t know why I’ve ever paid you any heed.’

‘Now you listen here, you young—’

‘No, you listen!’ he shouted. ‘You treat crime like it’s a game, Dodger. You always have, it’s how you get the rest of us to go on along with you. But this ain’t a game, is it? Death is coming for us this time next week and you’re still fool enough to think you can escape it! You’re still acting like it’s a bit of fun for us all. But this is the end, this is! You told me – you
promised
me – that if I stuck with you as my top sawyer then my son would grow up into a gentleman. You said he’d have a better life than the one we had, that he would be spared all of our hardships. But what chance does Robin have of that now, eh? He’ll just grow into a street rat like we was. And the rats are doomed from the start.’

‘We ain’t doomed, Mouse,’ I said. ‘Stop saying that. And your little Robin has got every chance of growing up as fine a gentle—’

‘How? With his criminal father hanged for murder? His future’s already writ!’ Then he dropped his head down again and moaned into his palms. I could think of no response to this and I have to confess that his assault had struck me hard. He was right, this was not a game and the noose would claim us if we continued to do nothing. I could feel that my own skin had become gooseflesh from even contemplating the idea that our attempts at escape would not be triumphant and I knew that I had been avoiding such dark thoughts for this very reason. But one of us had to stay strong, I reminded myself. One of us had to see the way out.

‘Prisons do rum things to a person,’ I said at last, and walked over to my stone bench again. ‘And it seems as though you, Mouse, are becoming a pessimist under Newgate’s influence.’ I lifted the straw mattress and showed him the metal file what Tom had given me and the map of the prison what was hidden inside the doll. ‘And pessimism is a very unappealing quality in a person if you don’t mind my saying.’

‘You’re not going to start on about getting out again, are you?’ His whole frame slumped and he stared up at me like I was the one what was going mad. ‘There is no escape from Newgate. It’s an impossibility.’

I sat on my mattress again and the two of us stared at each other. Then – just before the creep of doubt and despair what had taken grip of him found its way over to my side of the cell – I rolled out the little map of Newgate’s three quadrangles and the best suggested routes of escape. ‘Mouse Flynn,’ I said in a much quieter tone as I made a study of it, ‘let’s hope you’re wrong for both our sakes, eh?’

*

Prison routine was just the same on Execution Monday as it was on every other day for those of us who remained. When we was taken to the courtyard with the other condemned men – the place where we had played skittles the day before – nobody mentioned that three of our number had been hanged on that very morning. We all pretended to be oblivious to it as the turnkeys handed us a pack of cards. But conversation between us was much slower than it had been on Boxing Day and the mood was sombre.

We was being watched over by five turnkeys – two more than had been present on the previous day – as well as those strange stone cats on the walls. The other convicts had between them enough currency to try and win back their possessions from yesterday and so play commenced. I had something on my mind though and was keen to raise it.

‘Anyone of you lot ever heard of a cove called Weeping Billy Slade?’ I asked once a game of Slow Sevens was in progress. ‘He’s from Hammersmith way.’ Meehan said that he recognised the name but could not place from where and most of the others shook their heads. Only Tanner had something interesting to tell me.

‘Is he a tall fella from the north with a deformed hand?’ he asked as he lay the first seven of the game. ‘Runs a bawdy house for rich people?’ I nodded and asked how he had met Slade. ‘I haven’t,’ Tanner answered ‘but my brother used to work for him.’

‘Is that the same brother who killed the peeler?’ I asked, trying not to look too interested. I had a terrible hand but Mouse had just given me a secret signal that he was holding the cherished diamond seven. Tanner nodded and I asked what his brother’s job for Slade was.

‘Well, he did all sorts for him but a lot of the time he just strutted around in a red bowler hat, trying to looking hard. Slade was obsessed with his people wearing those hats, or so Will told me.’
The side of Meehan’s mouth twitched as I lay a meaningless six of spades. This meant that he had the matching seven. ‘Will thought that Slade was a prince though, for all his curious ways.’

‘How did your brother come to murder that peeler then?’ I asked after I picked up a diamond five so that the rest would think I was chasing the suit, leaving Mouse free to play as he pleased. We had already won this game which was a shame because the stakes was still low. ‘Was he drunk?’

‘Nothing like that,’ Tanner replied as Mouse laid his winning card early so that nobody would suspect him of being clever. There was plenty of money among these convicts from yesterday’s visits to be placed down yet. ‘Will was cracking a warehouse when this peeler caught him in the act,’ said Tanner as the other cards was revealed and Mouse was given his meagre winnings. ‘A fight must have broken out and Will clubbed his head in with a pistol. Perhaps he
was
drunk, now that you say it. It was unlike Will to be so stupid.’

‘But he claimed he was innocent, you said?’ I said as I took the deck and began shuffling. ‘What was his defence?’

Tanner laughed. ‘He said that he had found the peeler like that. That someone must have killed him just minutes before and scarpered. A terrible story, Judge Aylesbury didn’t believe him for a second.’

I looked over to Mouse as the cards was dealt out for the new game. I had told him about Slade’s crooked relations with Aylesbury earlier but we both managed not to betray the hot emotions what hearing such a story had caused. Yes, it looked as though Slade had ensnared other unsuspecting criminals – such as this Will Tanner and perhaps many more – with similar traps to the one we ourselves had been caught in. But we had gambling to do and so our faces remained blank.

There are, I must confess, few card games over which I am not a master – be it by either fair means or foul. As we sat there on the cold cobbles of the courtyard we played through many rounds of French Whist, Old Spades, Young Maid, The Silent Knave, Dead Canary, Irish Dead Canary, Egyptian Snap, Fast Whist, Kiss the Queen and Natterjack. Some of these amusements I had even invented myself and Mouse and I only lost the ones what we chose to. As we played, I continued to question Tanner about Weeping Billy Slade but he did not seem to think that the man from Hammersmith was in anyway responsible for his Will’s downfall and was quicker to believe that his brother really was a murderer. That was the trouble with being a criminal, not even your own kin believe you when you are innocent.

Mouse and myself had not spoken much since our argument earlier that morning but the storm had passed and we was again working together as one. I would never apologise to him for being a bad influence what was forever leading him into trouble and he would never apologise to me for saying that I was a bad influence who was forever leading him into trouble. We did not need to say such things – we was like brothers and our mutual forgiveness was assumed.

After some hours of relentless play, Mouse and I soon won all there was to win from our luckless adversaries and so the gaming reached its conclusion. The other convicts did not take their losses in a spirit of good sportsmanship however, and when we collected the coins, trinkets or articles of clothing what they had gambled, there was a strong sense of hostility towards us. But I had not wanted to strip doomed men of their final earthly possessions just for the fun of it. I had wanted to accumulate this comparative wealth for the purpose of paying my way out of this prison if I could. I was hoping that I might be able to make Turnkey Max
– who had seemed so corruptible on the previous day – into my well-paid and attentive butler. I was hoping I might have enough money now to arrange for him to leave certain doors unlocked or to just turn a blind eye to any escape dash what might take place while he was on duty. Or perhaps – I hoped as I strolled over to where he was standing in his grey guard’s uniform – he could introduce me to this mysterious Rum Mort who was said to wield so much power and he could be convinced to help me over the wall. But, as soon as I reached the courtyard door what Max was guarding, I discovered that his attitude towards me had shifted since yesterday.

‘I cannot help you with that, Mr Dawkins,’ Max sniffed after I had said the name Rum Mort again. He was not looking me in the eyes but fixing them ahead like a royal guard. ‘None of the gaolers here can.’

‘I’m prepared to pay, Turnkey,’ I persisted and showed him the purse of coins in my hand what was among the prizes what I had just won from Meehan. ‘You name your price and I shall try to meet it.’

‘If you was to offer me all the treasures of Croesus, I would not help you, sir. Run along and play with your friends, there’s a good prisoner.’

I was most taken aback by this sudden obstruction in a man what had been selling whisky bottles on the day before and offering to play the bawd. I demanded to know the meaning of his change in character.

‘I had you down as a capitalist, Max. Ain’t my money as good as the next man’s?’

He shifted his head an inch toward me then and his voice became a threat. ‘No, your money ain’t,
sir
. I’m sorry if I gave you a false impression upon our first meeting but there will be no trade
between you and me of any description. That is my last word upon the matter.’

I then asked the two other turnkeys what was standing either side of him what they thought was up with their pal. But before either of them could answer we was interrupted by a voice from above.

‘Handsome!’ It was the red-headed Sessina Ballard again calling down from the open window of the female quarters. ‘You with all the money. The rich one!’ She was alone this time and was speaking only to me. ‘What might your name be, I wonder?’ she asked. I crossed over to the centre of the courtyard to reply to her but as I did so Turnkey Max darted past me and pointed his stick up at her.

‘It ain’t your concern what his name is, Sessina!’ he shouted back. ‘He ain’t coming to see you. Just shut that window or I’ll come up there and make you sorry for it.’

Sessina carried on as if he was not even down there. ‘Jack Dawkins, yes?’ she said to me. ‘The famous Artful Dodger what we’ve heard so much about. That you, is it?’

I pushed past Max and replied loud enough for anyone to hear what might be listening in also. I was hoping that she was making these enquiries on behalf of someone else. ‘That’s me, all right,’ I called back. ‘Jack Dawkins of the Seven Dials! And if you’re as cosy with this Rum Mort fellow as I hear you are then tell him that I’m interested in meet—’

But I was interrupted in the flow of my offer by the sudden swing of a truncheon. Turnkey Max struck me in the belly good and hard and the shock of it was crippling. I folded onto the floor while all the other convicts stood up from their games and cried outrage at the violence meted out to one of their own. But the other turnkeys all turned on the convicts and threatened them with the same, and in this way revolution was averted.

‘Get Dawkins here back to his cell,’ Max ordered his men. Then he leaned down to address me on the cobbles. ‘I was told you was trouble, Dawkins, and it seems that you are. You need special watching, you do. From now on you’ll take your meals in your cell, no more gambling and a ban on all visitors.’

‘No visitors?’ I complained as I was pulled up by the two other turnkeys. ‘Even my wife?’

‘She’ll be turned away,’ said Max with a dead expression as one of his men began dragging me out of the courtyard. ‘You need to learn good behaviour.’

Before I vanished through the iron door and away from Mouse and the others, I glanced up at the window where Sessina had been. The glass was shut now and she was gone.

Back in my cell, I was at a loss to understand what had just happened. Confining me there was a heavy-handed punishment considering I had not done much and I wondered if I had misread Turnkey Max, who just the day before had seemed a much more agreeable cove. The only explanation I could imagine for this sudden over-reaction from the guards was that they had been warned against me – Max had just confirmed as much himself. I wondered who could have said that I was trouble though. Perhaps the prison authorities had identified me as one what was more likely to break free from these walls than most and so was now tightening their locks. Or perhaps Max had been told to guard me close from someone else, someone outside of the prison. Well, one thing was for certain, if these guards thought these extra measures would hold me down then they was much mistaken. Because, as the lady out there had said, I was the famous Artful Dodger. And I had, by this time, already decided how I was going to get out of here.

*

The plan what I had devised for breaking out of Newgate was very much modelled on what I knew of Jack Sheppard’s own simple but successful break for liberty. But there was a number of obstructions and unknown elements what I needed to deal with before Mouse and I could make our lucky. For one thing, the locks on our cell door was covered with iron plates which would need removing before we could pick them. But a bigger problem was the two iron bolts what the turnkeys slid over the outside of the doors before they locked us in for the night. Furthermore, I did not know if a night watchman was positioned on the other side of our cell door, guarding the dark and subterranean corridors after lights out. And so that night, the night after I had been dragged from the courtyard, I decided to find out. I waited until after the church bells had chimed midnight and then I tiptoed over to the door of the cell and began calling out in a desperate voice.

‘Treasure!’ I shouted just loud enough to be heard by any turnkey what might be on the other side. Nobody answered back and so I raised my voice some more. ‘I know where there’s a fortune hidden. Jewels and plenty of ’em. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, a real hoard. Let me tell you where it is, turnkey, and you can have half and give the rest to my widow. How about it?’