Dodger of the Dials (17 page)

‘You just did,’ I said, before bidding them all farewell.

*

Much later, Tom and Mouse returned to the vicinity by way of the water. They was dressed as mudlarks – river scavengers who survive by drifting along the banks and living off whatever washes up – and in this disguise they was able to investigate the house from the waterside. Many houses along Embankment seemed like they was going to sink into the muddy water at any time. Tom discovered that the one in which Rylance lived could be approached by boat in the dark and it would be possible to climb the tall back walls of the yard and get to the house from that way.

‘It looks to me,’ Mouse told us when we met at Georgie’s hours later and I noticed that he had brought a big brown sack along with him, ‘that we could not come at the house from the street entrance as it was too busy even at night. So the best solution is to approach from the river.’ I was impressed with how well Mouse was taking to the burglary game. He was already sounding like a seasoned cracker.

‘So we’re taking our chances with these dogs,’ I agreed. ‘A pity. They’re a nasty pack if their barks is anything to go by.’

‘Don’t you worry about the bullies,’ Mouse told us. ‘I’ve already dealt with them earlier this afternoon.’ He lifted up the sack and placed it on the oak table. I thought how heavy it looked and then I noticed the stain print it made on the wood. It was a deep damp red.

Chapter 11
Inky Fingers

Details of what really happened on the night of the big crack

Our little boat banked against the sodden houses well after ten at night. Georgie had been pulling the oars while Mouse held the rudder lines and I reached out with the boathook to draw us in. The river was choppy and fought against us so our landing onto this muddy patch of earth was not what you would call majestic. But it did not look as though anybody was around to pay us much mind, so Mouse and myself took our small sacks out of the boat and Georgie rowed it away. This boat was a perfect vessel to approach but it would be hopeless as a means of getting away so he was under instruction to return to his cart and wait up Villiers Lane for us.

Tom Skinner, meanwhile, had positioned herself on top of the roof of the houses what faced the front of Rylance’s lodgings so she could play crow from there. About an hour earlier she had informed us that his crib was in darkness and that the candlelight what flickered from the study window whenever the young scribe was at home was snuffed out. We had waited for as long as we could for darkness to descend even further but there was a chance that the timid Rylance could return from his evening well before midnight so we could not delay further.

We scuttled along towards the tall brick wall what we needed to climb to get into the backyard I had seen from his neighbours’ bedroom. We hooked our sacks to our belts and helped each other
to the top of the tall yard wall. As this was Mouse’s first burglary I had been practising with him how to overcome an obstruction such as this one all day, using the many walls of the rookeries. That had proven to be time well spent as any fool can get over your average garden fence but it took real skill to do what we was doing and scale a wall built high enough not to be scaled. I had shown him several tricks as to how two friends can help each other over an even taller and less accommodating barrier than this one by acting as one. As was typical of him, he had proven a quick learner and we soon reached the top of the wall. Over the way we saw the back of the house we was heading towards. Between us and the windows to the Rylance apartment all we had to do was lower ourselves down to this long brick wall which would lead us to the room we needed. But as Tom’s etchings had predicted, the drop to the courtyard between was a considerable one and in the darkness down there I could just about see the kennels.

Without a word Mouse pulled open the cord of his sack. We would have to move with feline grace as we crossed the wall but should these brutish animals below wake up then the six juicy steaks what he had got from Smithfield market should keep them both quiet and occupied. My own bag was full of safe-cracking tools and so I was the first to lower myself down and scurry over the courtyard wall to the other side. This wall was not wide but I was soon across and I climbed downwards onto the ledge below. Mouse followed after me and we could both hear the snores and sleep-growls of the dogs in the yard below as we crossed over them to the house we needed.

I edged along towards the first window and peered inside. The curtains was half-drawn, revealing this to be the bedroom. I had brought along a jemmy to force this open but I was pleased to find that it was already unlocked. All it took was one small shove and
the window surrendered itself. It was a piece of very good and unexpected luck.

The bedroom was dark as I stepped in and onto the creaking bed underneath before helping Mouse to enter after me. He emptied his sack of steaks and laid them on the windowsill should we still need them for the dogs. We planned to leave by the front door but these slabs of meat could still prove useful. I, meanwhile, reached into my coat pocket and produced the box of matches and I lit a candle what was stood on the bedside chest. This illuminated a room of such meanness and austerity that it would have not looked out of place in a monastery. There was few items of furniture, a poster of a cross on the wall with a Bible inscription below declaring
I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
. A small sloping desk at the foot of the bed was covered in sheets of paper and there was some books about but it was hard to see anything of value. I walked over to this desk, hoping we would be lucky enough to find the metal box underneath, but instead all I saw was a copy of the
Morning Chronicle
spread out on top. Mouse opened the chest of drawers to hunt for anything worth taking but all he found was some folded clothes, underwear and some lurid drawings. Not only was the box not present but it was hard to see what else we was supposed to steal. Slade had wanted us to strip the place clean so it would not appear as though the safety deposit box was targeted, but if this bedroom was anything to go by there was little else to strip. So we crept over to the door and opened it into the main room. This room was dark too and I set straight about looking for a safe or some such thing. Mouse carried on trying to fill his sack with worthwhile objects but – again – the pickings was lean. Mouse grabbed at whatever portable items he could but these was of a very mundane variety – crockery, cutlery, a kettle and some odd pieces of porcelain. There was plenty of bookcases and some rum
curiosities dotted about but nothing what would wet the lips of any self-respecting pawnbroker. It was not a tidy place either and we was going to have a hard job making it appear as though we had cracked this crib at all. When Anthony Rylance returns, I thought as I left Mouse to it and sneaked over to the other door, he might not notice we had even been here until daybreak.

The little desk we had passed in the bedroom was too small for a busy writer to work on so I was hoping this final room would be his study. I inched it open, taking care not to make any noises what might wake the children what I knew slept underneath. This small room was even blacker than the bedroom as the curtains was drawn tight but I still held my candlestick. I could just make out a big dark shape underneath the window and I could already see that this was a larger desk so I began to move towards it. Then I heard something crumple underfoot. I bent down with the candle so I could investigate what I was treading on and I saw that the floor was covered in pieces of ink-splattered paper. I wondered why such sheets would be strewn around the place and wondered if Rylance really was that messy. This was the first moment when the thought entered my head that this place may have been burgled already that night.

Then I saw the black metal box with silver linings and the question was put beyond all doubt. It was the very one I had spotted Rylance scurrying away with on the previous morning and now it was there beside those papers, lying on its side as if it had been tossed there. It was already smashed open and, as I crouched down to inspect it, I saw that it was empty.

I reached down to feel if anything had rolled out but all I could touch was those inky sheets, and around then my candle was snuffed out. The room was now in almost complete darkness and so I crossed over to the window so I could let in some moonlight.
But, as I reached the corner of the desk and was about to lean over the chair to pull at the curtains, I realised there was something in my way. I staggered and my hands fell onto some obstruction what was in the chair. To my sudden horror I saw that there was a man sitting there, his head slumped onto the desk and more black liquid – like that what I had just touched on the paper – was spreading out across it. I do not remember crying out in fright but I must have done, as Mouse called through from the other room.

‘Dodger!’ I heard him hiss. ‘What’s up?’

I just stood and looked at the figure for a moment and half-expected him to turn his head towards me and ask what I thought I was doing in his study. But the man was a dead weight and I saw that his crown had been bashed in from behind. A weapon lay beside him on the desk. It was a pistol and it too was covered in what I now realised was not ink at all. At last I gathered enough wits to pull back the curtains and let in enough light to reveal the redness of the liquid and of the curls on the man’s head.

‘Jack!’ Mouse said again from behind the door. ‘Trouble coming. Let’s dash!’

But I continued to stare at this bloody mess what had been made of Anthony Rylance. I picked up the barker what must have been used as a bludgeon and – in my shock – I tried to work out how it had got in there. The sound of a crow was heard from outside the front of the house.

‘Can’t you hear her?’ Mouse demanded as he opened the door to the study as he came in to get me. ‘Tom is frantic and downstairs—’

Then he stopped still and looked at me standing over the body of this murdered man with a bloody pistol in my hand.

‘Jack?’ he gasped as he looked from the corpse to me. ‘You didn’t do that, did you?’

But there was no time to correct this astounding error as the
sounds of heavy footsteps charging up the stairs from the street entrance was heard. Mouse dropped his sack in alarm as the sounds of heavy banging came from the apartment door. From behind some hard men’s voices was calling out to be granted entrance.

‘Mr Rylance, sir! It’s the police. Open the door or we shall force it!’

But before we even had a chance to collect our thoughts and work out by which exit it would be best to escape, we could already hear that the door was being forced open. Mouse panicked and dashed out of the study again as if he wanted to make for the bedroom into which we had entered. But I could hear that the door was already being forced and it crashed open before he had even left the study. I then heard the sounds of a struggle as these new intruders scrambled towards Mouse and he cried out. Although I could not see what was happening, I recognised the sounds of police brutality when I heard them. I knew that my only chance of getting away was to leave through the window of this room, which meant stepping onto the desk and over the corpse of the dead man. I pulled the curtains away and cracked the window open and I was halfway through it as the first peeler entered the study.

‘Murder!’ the peeler shouted the instant he saw the body I was leaving behind me. ‘There’s been a killing and one of them is making off! Grab him!’

I had already crawled outwards though and was back onto the ledge, but by now the four bull-terriers below had all been woken by the racket.

They was barking up at me and scratching at the walls in their fury. I did not let this stop me from moving, though, and I kept a steady footing as I edged my way along to the courtyard wall. As I did so I passed the window through which we entered and saw Mouse getting beaten by several wooden truncheons through
the door. Another peeler appeared between him and myself and charged towards me.

I hurried my passage towards the wall knowing that if I could cross this yard quick enough then freedom would await me the other side. Hiding from the peelers would be possible on the riverbank as the darkness would confound them more than it ever would me. But then my foot trod on something what had not been on the ledge earlier. It was one of the slabs of steak what Mouse had brought along to feed the dogs with and it caused me to slip. The bull terriers below became hysterical with excitement as I almost dropped down towards where they was kept but I managed to grab hold of some guttering first, denying them even more meat. This though gave the peelers the chance to catch up with me and soon two of them was leaning out of the window and grabbing on to me. The barks of the dogs was rabid now as they had already destroyed the first steak but even those savage creatures could not have treated me with the viciousness I then received from those what was dragging me back through the window. As soon as I was forced down onto the floor of the apartment the four public servants all drew their truncheons and began setting about me with a fierceness what I had never before experienced by men in uniform. The brutes seemed to be enjoying themselves a good deal as they battered into Mouse and myself and there was even more howling from then than there was from the dogs outside. It was a long time before any of these peelers grew tired of arresting us.

Chapter 12
The Blue Lobsters

In which I am trapped within the enemy lair

The four peelers what had invaded the home of Anthony Rylance had themselves a police van already waiting outside for us in the street and some manacles to place over our hands. I struggled against these rusty bindings as I was forced down the staircase what led away from the scene but they was fastened so tight that they began to cut my wrists. As I was pushed down to the landing of the house I saw the woman to whom I sold the mistletoe stood in her doorway. She must have been waiting to get a glimpse of the robbers and she gasped in recognition as I passed. She began telling the arresting sergeant all about my visit on the previous day and that she had not trusted me one ounce even then.