Dodger of the Dials (16 page)

‘We’re talking about a gentleman,’ I guessed. ‘Like my Percival?’

‘Not unlike your Mr Percival I suppose, only this man – who it would be wildly indiscreet of me to name – sends a good many jobs my way and pays me handsomely for them. He’s very keen to distance himself from the lower elements and he engages me to arrange things to his satisfaction. He’s made me very rich over the years and I do hate letting him down. That’s why I only let my best people attend to his business.’

‘And now he wants a burglar,’ I nodded in understanding. ‘To crack a crib and steal something special for him. Well, you’ve come to the right man.’

‘I was hoping so,’ Slade smiled. ‘And you’re right, of course, he wants a particular item taken which I know is the sort of task you specialise in. It’s a safety deposit box. Metal. Black and battered but with silver lining around the edges. About the size of a large jewellery case.’

‘I know the type,’ I nodded. ‘One of them portable ones.’

‘Indeed. And this one is unremarkable in most ways, so I’m given to understand. But it’ll be the only one in the place so you’ll know it when you see it.’

‘What’s inside?’

‘That is information that my client wishes to keep secret. Even from you.’

‘But you know?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He leaned back in his chair and he tapped the tabletop with his gloved hand in an idle way. I could hear the quiet knock of wood on wood. ‘I’ve spent a good deal of time forging a trust between him and me. It was a trust that was hard earned so I wouldn’t betray it now. But don’t take it personally, Dodger,’ he winked. ‘I haven’t told him your name either. I keep all the secrets.’

Now this irked me somewhat. I did not like not knowing key things about delicate jobs but I could, in truth, understand the need for discretion. This client of his must have been influential enough to be worth blackmailing, someone from a higher class – perhaps even aristocracy. I was itching to know the name and I was sure I would discover it in time.

‘Be like that then,’ I said instead. ‘So tell me more about this crib? Who am I stealing from?’

*

‘Mr Anthony Rylance,’ I announced to my three closest associates some hours later. ‘A sophisticated man of letters!’

It was night-time now and I had gathered Tom, Mouse and Georgie together in a house in the Dials where I could explain to them the nature of the job we was to undertake. The house belonged to Georgie, or at least he had somehow taken possession of it, and we would not be disturbed.

‘Is he a greengrocer?’ asked Georgie after a long blink. The
rest of us looked at him as he sat on his armchair and it was some seconds before I landed on his confusion.

‘Letters, Georgie,’ I explained. ‘Not lettuce.’

‘So he’s a scribbler,’ Georgie nodded his understanding. ‘Has he written anything I might have read?’

‘I very much doubt it,’ I answered knowing that he could barely spell his own name. ‘Rylance is a young man and new to the inking game. He lives in a small apartment by Hungerford Stairs and is employed as a court reporter by day. He takes this metal safety box that we’re after to and from his work. He never lets it out of his sight.’

‘What’s the big performance then?’ Mouse interrupted. ‘Can’t we just pinch it from him while he’s out?’

‘It’s too cumbersome. He’d know we was taking it.’

‘So what if he does?’ asked Georgie. ‘We can just jump out on him on his way to work – masks on – and grab the thing by force.’ He rubbed his hands together as if nobody before had ever thought of anything so ingenious. ‘Easy money!’

I recalled then why I only ever used Georgie to drive the carts.

‘If it was that simple,’ I replied and struggled to disguise my impatience, ‘then Slade could pay any old ruffian a pittance for the trouble. But instead he came to us. So, as must be obvious, there is a bit more to it.’

‘Slade don’t want it to look like a robbery,’ guessed Tom. I pointed at her and nodded. ‘That’s why it can’t be done in daylight.’

‘Right and wrong,’ I answered. ‘He does want it to look like a robbery but he don’t want it to look like it’s the metal box we’re there to rob. He wants us to break in and strip the whole place clean. So it will just appear as though the box was just one of many things we stole. So that when this Rylance reports its loss to the peelers they won’t place any importance on it. They’ll just think that we
chanced upon a metal case – not knowing what it contained – and added it to the booty. So that’s the dodge we’re there to perform. Steal the case but don’t make it look like we came to steal the case.’

‘It must have something very special in it for all this fuss,’ Mouse put in. ‘Ain’t anyone else curious about it?’

‘I’m mad with curiosity,’ I admitted. ‘And I’ll try and crack the case to see what is inside before we hand it back to Slade. But even if it’s the crown jewels in there we’re still delivering it as planned.’

‘Answer me this, though,’ Tom said. ‘How we going to steal it if this Rylance person is as good as sitting on top of it all night?’

‘I’m glad you asked,’ I replied. ‘Because that’s the easy bit. Anthony Rylance has been invited to some high-class Christmas event on the nineteenth of December and it’s evening wear. So that night we know the metal box will be left unattended. He can’t take it with him to some fancy occasion so he’ll leave it in the apartment. It might be inside a safe but we’ve cracked safes before.’

‘The nineteenth? Ain’t that this Friday?’ Mouse said, and looked to Georgie for confirmation. But there was no calendars or newspapers in Georgie’s crib so he had to rely on me telling him that he was right. ‘How do you know what he’s doing then?’

‘Billy told me,’ I said. ‘And I would guess that he was told by the man what hired him. For all I know this person is the one what invited Rylance out for the night to make our task possible.’

We had three nights until the nineteenth and a good deal to do before then. We spent the rest of the evening in plot and discussed who would be playing what roles this time.

‘And as ever, boys,’ I said as a matter of habit once I had gone over everything else twice, ‘no barkers.’

*

When planning to burgle a property it is within the interest of the professional thief to familiarise him or herself with the address as
much as possible beforehand. Often, whenever we was working in one of the capital’s more fashionable districts, we would spend weeks monitoring the comings and goings of the residents and their servants, watching to see how often a policeman might pass by on his beat, trying to ingratiate ourselves with the domestics and even penetrating the house in advance in the guise of a calling tradesman. Hungerford Stairs, however, was not a fashionable district and it was clear that this Anthony Rylance was not earning much as a court reporter if this was where he dwelt. The Stairs led to the bottom of the river and there was ramshackle tenements about, although many of these was occupied by ambitious young reporters what wished to be walking distance from Fleet Street. It was a poor vicinity but populated more by flats than criminals so it would be difficult to loiter about without arousing suspicion in the neighbours.

Georgie and I travelled down to the Embankment on the following day with a cart full of seasonal fruit. This was a decent ruse because people are used to having unfamiliar vendors appearing in the days before Christmas, their country carts overflowing with holly, ivy and rich plums for puddings. We arrived at sunrise and positioned ourselves across the way from the building where Rylance lodged and we sold our wares while waiting for him to leave for work. At half eight a man with red curly hair appeared from out of the front door of the large house clutching in his hand a black metal case with solid-looking silver clasps on it. He also had a satchel hanging from his other shoulder and he looked to be running late. This I knew from Slade’s description was our Mr Rylance and he rushed past our cart, refusing to buy an offered punnet of berries, before turning up Villiers Street and heading towards the Strand. Once he was well clear I gathered up a big bunch of different winter plants and set off towards the row of houses where he lived, careful not
to be so obvious that I was interested in just one address. Rylance rented a small above-floor apartment in the centre of a row of houses and, as I knocked on every door leading up to it, I could tell that the neighbourhood was too well populated for us to occupy a nearby room and break in that way. Instead I worked my way along, earning myself a few shillings from the holly as I went, until I knocked upon the door where Rylance had darted out of. I could hear some dogs barking from within and the door was opened by a young woman with a baby in her arms.

‘Morning, Madam,’ I said and raised the brown flat cap I was wearing to greet her, ‘care for some mistletoe for kissing under?’

‘You’re a forward one,’ she replied, ‘I’ve an husband you know.’

‘I seen him,’ I said with a wink. ‘Was he the radish roof what just pushed past me in his hurry? Looks like he won’t be back for a good spell! Leaving us at our leisure.’ The woman pretended to be scandalised.

‘My husband works nights in the blacking factory, you saucy chancer,’ she declared with delight, ‘and he could be home at any moment!’

‘I see,’ I gave a wolfish grin, ‘which explains why that fellow was in a hurry.’

‘Get out of it!’ she hooted. ‘That was just nice Mr Rylance what rooms upstairs. He ain’t the sort and my Bob knows it.’

‘Well, what a nice treat for your Bob when he comes home then,’ I raised my bunch of mistletoe, ‘to see a sprig of this hanging from his ceiling and his beautiful wife waiting under it for him. Here, let me in and I’ll do the hanging myself.’

This woman and her numerous offspring lived in the cramped and damp downstairs apartment of the house. It was very helpful for me to be granted admittance inside as it gave me the chance to understand the layout of the abode above and, as I stood on a chair
and tacked the sprig of holly into the wooden rafters of the main room, I tried to imagine what the upper rooms would be like from the walls and partitions of this dwelling.

‘Your Bob works nights then, does he?’ I said, as if in casual conversation. I was very keen to discover whether this woman would be likely to hear my burglar’s footsteps above while she slept down here alone. ‘I do hope your man with the red head doesn’t keep him awake when he returns from work. There is nothing worse than a noisy neighbour when you’re trying to bed down.’

‘Mr Rylance is as quiet as a pot plant,’ said the woman. ‘He’s a bachelor and a timid one at that.’

‘Bachelor, eh?’ I said and cast my eyes about for a bunch of keys. ‘Trouble with bachelors is, they get good women like you doing their laundry for them and suchlike. I bet he treats you worse than his own mother.’

One of the reasons why I had wanted to get inside this woman’s home was that I hoped that she would have been given a spare key for Rylance should he ever lose his own. This was one of the tricks of the trade and I had stolen many such spare keys on other cracks and nobody had ever noticed until it was too late. It was interesting how unguarded people was with their neighbours’ possessions.

‘Oh dear me, no,’ replied the woman, much to my disappointment. ‘Mr Rylance don’t get involved with me and I don’t get involved with him. I never know what’s going on up there and I don’t much wish to.’

I tugged at the sprigs to ensure they would not drop. She was going to be no use to me as far as gaining admittance was concerned but I still had some questions for her before I left.

‘I’m still surprised your Bob gets any sleep,’ I remarked before stepping down from her wooden chair. ‘What with them noisy canines I can hear out there.’

The unsettling sound of an unseen pack of dogs had been on my mind ever since she had opened the door and I could not leave the place without asking after them.

‘The bullies?’ the woman scoffed as I climbed down from the chair. ‘There’s no harm in them. They may sound a bit fearsome but they’re as gentle as lambs.’

‘Bull terriers?’ I exclaimed as if nothing could have pleased me more. ‘Out in your backyard?’

‘Four of them,’ she nodded with pride.

‘Mind if I take a look?’ I asked as I went through to the back room of her home before she could stop me. ‘An old friend of mine used to keep a bull terrier, you know,’ I said ignoring her protestations. ‘Bullseye his name was. That was the name of the dog, not the friend. Let me see them, I’ve a great affection for the breed.’

‘But that’s the bedroom,’ the woman complained as I continued invading her home and crossed through to the window. ‘Get out of there.’ This room was even damper than the rest as the whole back of the building was built close to the riverbed. I peered through the window to the backyard and there they all were – and a set of animals less like lambs I had never seen. I recalled how much I have hated the vicious creatures with their stupid egg-heads and triangular eyes. All of Fagin’s boys had been terrified of Bill’s dog and here was four of the brutish things about to make life difficult for me. I did manage to get a good look out at this backyard though and saw how it was separated from the Thames by a tall brick wall.

‘My Bob’ll be home any second,’ the woman warned me as the child in her arms woke up and began to cry, ‘and he won’t take kind to finding you in there. He’ll get the wrong idea.’

‘Or the right one,’ I said as I flashed her another dirty smile before coming out of that bedroom again. ‘I should be getting off
then,’ I smiled as if there was no harm in it. ‘Good day to you, Madam.’ I walked towards the door of her crib to see myself out as I wanted to linger in the hallway for a spell to poke about the staircase what led up to Rylance’s lodgings. But before I had my hand on the doorknob she asked me if I had forgotten something.

‘Shouldn’t I be paying you?’ she said, and I turned to see her standing in the centre of the room with the babe in one arm and a little girl tugging at her dress. ‘For this?’ Her eyes raised upwards to the mistletoe above. I crossed over to where she stood, took her face in my hand and, in front of all of her kinchins, gave her a sweet kiss upon the lips.