Dodger of the Dials (26 page)

There was an answer but it was not from a gaoler. Meehan was in a cell two doors down from my own and his reply was fast and hissing.

‘Keep it down, Dodger,’ I heard him say. ‘Tell me and I’ll tell my wife. We can use it to pay for both our freedoms. Don’t tell no turnkeys, they’re all thieves!’ His voice was then joined by a chorus of others from behind locked doors, all offering their services upon the matter, but no gaoler came running to silence them or to ask for more information. From behind me, Mouse asked what I was on about.

‘I just wanted to see if we was guarded by more than just locks and bolts at this hour,’ I explained. I waited a few more minutes for the neighbouring prisoners to settle down. ‘We ain’t,’ I observed.

*

‘As soon as we’re beyond that door, Mouse,’ I said to him an hour later as we both lay on our beds in darkness, ‘it’s about speed and nerve. Because once those bolts are out of the way we need to move through the prison fast.’ I could hear the rain falling down through the small barred window and I longed to be outside in it, free and clean. ‘This old prison is all shadows,’ I continued, ‘and shadows’ll be our friends as we hide from the guards and dash through it. We’ll be heading towards the roof and, if this map Tom got us is any worth at all, I think I know how to get us there.’

‘And then you want us to jump down onto the neighbouring houses?’ Mouse asked again, although I had been over my plan with him a few times. I rolled onto my side so I could reassure him.

‘Mouse, plenty of people have done it before. We’ll need to use bed sheets like they did to lower ourselves down the side of the wall before jumping and it’ll be very dangerous. But when anyone has ever escaped from Newgate, this is how they did it, including Jack Sheppard. It’ll be easier than it sounds.’

Mouse was quiet then and the only sound what could be heard was the loud irregular ticking of that faulty fob watch. ‘Perhaps Old Edwards was right, Jack,’ he muttered at last.

‘About what?’

‘About there being less dignified deaths than a hanging. At least if I go by the rope I’ll get to confess to my sins before I’m taken.’

‘You ain’t got no sins!’ I snapped at him. ‘We’re innocent men, remember, so stop talking like we ain’t. Nobody ever
wants
to jump across a five-floor drop, Mouse, and if we was just lifers then I’d live here forever rather than risk it. But listen,’ I was sitting up now
and trying to catch his eye as he looked away, ‘if anyone can make that jump, it’s us. We’re condemned men which means we’re more inclined to try than other prisoners and we’re also gifted burglars. Look at how we broke into Anthony Rylance’s lodgings. I mean, all right, the whole thing was a disaster once we was inside but the crack itself was perfection. We walked across that high brick wall as steady as tight-rope walkers. We’ll win, Mouse. We’ve got the will and we’ve got the skills.’

I could see in his eyes now that I had roused him into action once more. He looked over to the doorway again and when he spoke it was as if he had never faltered for a second.

‘The trick is to remove those outside bolts somehow without anyone hearing,’ he said, articulating the problem. ‘Even if the turnkeys aren’t in the corridor that don’t mean that they won’t hear us from above. But once they’re slid across the rest should be easy.’

‘I know,’ I said, and crossed back over to the door. ‘If this was a house-crack we’d get someone on the other side to do that for us.’

Then Mouse looked up at me and I could tell a decent thought had struck him. ‘What was that thing what Fagin said about bolts?’ he asked me, and started clicking his fingers as he tried to remember. ‘When Bill visited that time. “
The secret to a bolt, my dears
,” he said …’ Mouse stopped as he tried to recall the next bit. But I knew what he meant and I finished the sentence for him.

‘…
is that they are always more than just the bolt!
’

Chapter 17
Goodbye to Newgate

Demonstrating just how easy it is to get over these medieval walls

When Turnkey Max unlocked our doors on the following morning I greeted him throwing a few choice swear words at him before he had even stepped into the cell. I had a strong suspicion that he was keeping me under close protection on command and I doubted it was given to him by the prison governor. ‘How much is Weeping Billy paying you, Max?’ I sneered as he made a quick search of our cell while another turnkey took Mouse to the shared hall for breakfast. I would again be expected to spend the day in my cell alone and I could think of no one who would benefit from this unfair situation more than Slade. ‘Because it’s the Devil’s money and you should be ashamed of yourself!’ Max looked straight at me as he handed our soil pans to another turnkey to remove.

‘I’ve met plenty of devils, Dawkins,’ he answered, and his hand reached for the cell door. ‘And, believe me, there are far bigger ones in here than out there.’ He slammed the cell door between us and I heard him whistle as went away.

I had not heard the bolts slide over on the other side of the door, however. The only time they was employed was at night because that’s when they was needed most. But they was uncalled for during the day because once you broke out into the corridor beyond then your only possible route would be up through the
winding staircase and this would lead you straight into the path of those keeping watch in the courtyard. Which meant that these bolts was vulnerable by day and that was the time to tamper with them.

The bolt is just one part of what makes a bolt
, Fagin had explained to Bill Sikes within our hearing many years before. Burglar Bill had come to Saffron Hill to ask the old Jew for some advice about a delicate jewellery shop he wanted to crack. The outer doors of this shop was bolted together with two strong padlocks what fastened onto a thick iron bar what ran the length of the wide door. It was all very well for Bill to destroy those with his strong bolt cutter but this would make him very conspicuous. Cut bolts would be visible from the busy road should anybody pass by while he was still within and so he could not risk destroying them. But Fagin had the solution. He vanished into one of his upstairs rooms where he hoarded things and returned with two padlocks. Fagin then turned them upside down and the bolts of the padlock slid out.
Bolts is only bolts when they’re screwed, my dear
, he explained.
Otherwise they’re just iron rods protecting nothing at all
. So Bill could cut the padlocks off and then get an accomplice to hook these two replicas to the door once he was inside. To a passing observer all would appear normal.

‘From what I can see, all the bolt sliders in this building have six small screws,’ Mouse said to me when he returned later. ‘And I met someone today what can get us all we need.’

‘The Rum Mort?’ I was sat cross-legged in the centre of the cell and had started to play shove-ha’penny against the wall while I listened.

‘No,’ Mouse said, ‘Nobody’s mentioned him to me all day. It was a lifer in the press yard. A cove called Hannigan.’

‘I thought the lifers and the condemned was not allowed to converse,’ I asked as another shiny coin bounced off the wall.

‘Security around us ain’t as tight as it was while you was out there, Dodge,’ Mouse observed. ‘It’s as though you was the one they was only ever really guarding.’ This troubled the both of us and Mouse leaned forward and spoke even quieter as if he thought even the lice in this prison could be informing against us. ‘I know you think that Slade has been paying these turnkeys to lock you up all day, Dodge,’ he whispered. ‘But that don’t make no sense to my mind.’

‘That’s because you think that Slade don’t have the reach to bribe so many guards,’ I said as I flicked the final coin so hard it bounced off the wall and back into my lap. ‘And perhaps he don’t. But remember that he has this mystery client, Mouse. The one he works for above all others and who must have wanted Rylance killed. Whoever that is, he must have the power to control what goes on in this prison. That’s the person trying to stop me from getting out.’ Mouse shook his head.

‘Then why ain’t I locked up in here with you?’ he asked then. ‘I’m convicted of the same crime, ain’t I? It’d be just as dangerous for Rylance’s real killers if I got out but the turnkeys don’t seem as fussed about keeping me on a short chain. No, it’s something else, Dodge,’ he pointed at me. ‘It’s something about you and you alone.’

I had been jingling all those coins together in my hands but stopped as he said that. ‘Something about me alone?’ I muttered as I looked over to the empty bed where Old Edwards had been. ‘What could I have ever done to deserve more confinement than you?’

Mouse shrugged and said that he was not certain but he had got the idea that I was being kept away from other prisoners for a particular reason. ‘Perhaps you’re too cocksure for them, Jack,’ he suggested, and there was a sharpness to his voice what I was
unused to hearing. ‘Too flash for someone facing the noose, that is. They might worry that you’re as clever as you seem to think you are.’ I looked over at him then to see if he was trying to mock me but he was quick to return the subject along to what this lifer had told him in the press yard. ‘So Hannigan reckons he can get us anything we want,’ he went on, ‘for a price. So I told him what we’re after and he says he’ll have it by Thursday. He’s a good fella, that Hannigan.’ Mouse was good at making new friends, it was one of his many talents.

I then gathered up the coins and flipped two over to him ‘Those are for him then,’ I said as he caught them, ‘
after
he has delivered the goods. Tell him not to spend it all in one place.’ I then made a tiny tower from the rest of the coins and put them next to Mouse’s bed. ‘The rest you can give to that woman what’s been looking after your Robin when she next visits.’

‘Cheers, Dodge,’ he said as he scooped them into his hands. ‘She’ll appreciate that.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ I said, ‘we innocent men need to stick together.’

Thursday came and, as he had promised, Hannigan managed to slip a little bag to Mouse as they walked around in that press yard without the turnkeys spotting the pass. Mouse smuggled it back to our cell and we emptied it out on a mattress to inspect. There was a small tub of glue, a little brush, some screws and a screwdriver. We already had three bed sheets in this cell – including those what Old Edwards had been sleeping under, what had not been removed for laundry – and I just had to hope that these would carry our weight.

‘What if they snap, Dodge?’ Mouse asked me again and not for the first time as I got up to extinguish the candlelight on what I hoped would be our final full night here.

‘Then we drop to our deaths,’ I said as I snuffed it out and the room was cloaked in darkness. ‘So let’s just hope that they don’t.’

*

Part of the reason why Jack Sheppard had been so famous for his escapism was because he had bid goodbye to Newgate twice. On his third incarceration however, he had failed to break free and they hanged him at last. His problem was that he was never smart enough to know when he had won. After getting out from prison, he would continue to loiter around London getting into more trouble until he was recaptured and there is only so many times that you can push your luck. This was the thought what crossed my mind as the bells of St Sepulchre’s announced it was morning again, and Mouse and I readied ourselves for the day. Once gone from this vinegary-smelling cell, I told myself, I was gone for good. I would never risk recapture and the hangman would never have the pleasure of my neck.

I had my ear pressed to the cell door and heard the turnkeys chattering as they came down the winding staircase. I checked that the Sheriff’s notice was still hanging from the wall and would not drop off once they was in here and reveal the missing brickwork where Hannigan’s bag was stuffed. All looked as it should and so I returned to my bed as they unlocked the cell and tried to look as belligerent as possible so they would expect nothing was out of the ordinary.

‘Why don’t you spend your money on drink like the rest do, Dawkins?’ Max asked after he had performed a rough search of the cell and found some of my winnings under the mattress. ‘No point hoarding things where you’re going.’ I warned him to keep his pilfering hands from off of my property. I wanted him to think that he had found the only things worth looking for in this cell and it seemed as though I had been successful. They led Mouse away
then but before they locked me in I asked Turnkey Max if he had forgotten something.

‘They want washing, I think you’ll find,’ I said, and pointed to the soil pans. ‘And see that they’re clean this time.’ The other turnkey rolled his eyes but collected the smelly items for removal. ‘You should be able to eat off them,’ I added.

‘Anything else,
your Majesty
?’ Max said once he was outside again and his hand was on the door.

‘That’ll be all, my good man,’ I replied but he had already slammed it shut.

The second I was alone I crossed over to the door and listened for the inevitable turns of the locks. As ever, I did not hear any bolts sliding. Then, once I was sure that the guards had left the corridor I gathered the bag from its hiding place in the wall and took out the file what Tom had given me and set about working on the iron panels what covered the locks. These was screwed in but the turnkey what had taken the soil pan would be gone for twenty or thirty minutes.

I was able to pull the panels off even faster than I had hoped and, once they was laid aside, I inspected the locks. These was stiff but they could not resist the pick and I was pleased at the ease with which I was out and into the empty corridor.

According to the noisy fob watch, the turnkey returned with my breakfast and a clean soil pan in less than half an hour. But by that time I was sat back upon my bench in the same position as I had been when he last saw me. As far as he must have been aware, I had not moved an inch.

*

That evening, at around ten o’clock, the turnkeys came around again for their final check on the condemned cells before dawn. Mouse and myself glanced at one another in suspense as we listened for
the night bolts to slide over. Each made a faint noise as the turnkey slid one after the other but there was nothing else to suggest that anything irregular had occurred. The bolt had not clattered to the ground, the glue had held and the severed screw heads was still in place. Mouse smiled at me as we heard the turnkey walk away.