Dodger of the Dials (32 page)

My leg fetters had been removed by now but my wrists was still chained. I had pleaded with the turnkey to take these off also but he told me that he was under orders to keep me manacled on account of my previous escape attempt. So I soon found myself pacing the cell, kicking at the walls and screaming out for someone to help me. After about an hour of this, I collapsed onto the stone floor and stared up at the cobwebs what covered the ceiling. Sunday evening was on the turn and, for me, the last of the sand was about to pass through the hourglass. I could think of no solution to how I would achieve my liberty save for making a run for it on the gallows itself. Perhaps, my brain buzzed, I could make use of the clergyman what would come tomorrow morning to administer consolation as he had to Old Edwards. I could steal something from him, an item from his pockets, and pick my locks with it while I was walked to the scaffold and then make a desperate dash. Or, what would be more effective, I could find something what could be fashioned into a weapon – a piece of glass for instance – and hold it to the clergyman’s throat. Then the gaolers would be forced to show me to the exit or else.

None of these ideas – or any of the others what I was toying with as the cell grew darker – struck me as much use beyond fantasy. So, even after this renewed burst of hope and mental vigour I had been experiencing, my spirits still soon sank again as night fell. My thoughts then was all of a turmoil as to what was going to happen tomorrow and I now just wished that someone could be here to
comfort me. I wished that Lily was there to put her arms around me, as she had whenever I returned from a hard crack, and then kiss me. But she was in the clutches of Billy Slade and had been taken back to that house of torture at the bottom of his garden. Would he kill her? Torture her? And what had he done to poor Scratcher? I was stricken with remorse that there was nothing I could do to save either.

The church bells struck midnight and so this was now the last morning I would ever see. I counted each chime as it struck and when the twelfth was sounded, I rolled over onto my knees. I knew, as I began to pray again, that my only hope for vengeance lay in Twist. Just because he was unable to save my life did not mean that he could not triumph over Slade and Mills after I was dead. But it would not be long before Slade learnt who Oliver Brownlow was – his crony Morris Bolter knew and would tell him if asked. So Twist would need to be very nimble if he were to triumph over those villains. At that point my faith in that poorhouse boy I had found lying in the street was the only thing keeping me from despair.

I was never a religious man and neither earlier in the chapel or now had it been God who I had prayed to. Everything I had ever been told about Him suggested that He would have had very little sympathy for my situation and so, instead, I had found myself praying to the many ghosts of Newgate. I reasoned that ghosts was something what Newgate would be full of and so I prayed to all the luckless thieves what had occupied the condemned cells before me. They would listen to me if no one else would.

And then, from the darkest part of the room, I heard a voice, kind, rich and familiar.

You didn’t listen, my dear
, it said in gentle chastisement.
You didn’t heed my warning
.

Oliver had said that this cell was the very one where Fagin had spent his final nights alive. And it seemed that my heated imagination had summoned him now. I blinked and saw his twinkling self, sitting on the edge of my bed and shaking his head in sorrow. He raised his finger in the air, like a disapproving schoolmaster, and he counted the three words.

Don’t. Get. Caught
.

More of that plaster fell from inside the chimney. I wondered if Twist was right about how Newgate was starting to crumble. It had been sat here, in the middle of London, since the Middle Ages and could not last another hundred years. In my dark mood I wished that the whole place would fall about me now crushing all occupants, including myself. If I were going to die, it might as well be dramatic.

Even more plaster fell, this time causing a burst of heavy dust to blow into the tiny cell. Then some brickwork followed. I looked towards the fireplace and wondered if my prayers had been answered. The old prison was giving in at last.

A horrendous noise now as I heard something formidable thunder down the length of the chimney. I found myself retreating to the far side of the cell to avoid its impact and when the rubble landed it filled the cell with such a cloud I thought I would choke to death then and there. I coughed, shielded my eyes and waved at the dust and I almost began shouting for the turnkey to get me out of here. It was then that I heard voices. Women’s voices.

‘That’s enough, Meg!’ I heard the first voice say. ‘Too much noise!’

‘It won’t squeeze through,’ said the second.

‘Force it!’ said a third voice. ‘Force it through!’

I made my way back to the chimney as the dust began to settle and I crouched by the mouth of it. There was now a large pile
of bricks what had extinguished any fire and was blocking me from peering inside. I did not care to stick my head in anyway as more brickwork was raining down although now the downpour seemed less accidental. I coughed again and threw my voice up the chimney.

‘Who’s up there?’ I demanded. ‘You trying to kill me?’

The first voice answered. ‘Jack Dawkins.’ It was not a question. ‘Start clearing the grate of all that brick. We’re sending something down.’

I pulled the two old candlesticks nearer so I could see better and did as she bid me. Before long the rubble was all removed and I called back up again to say I was ready to receive whatever. Then another load of brick fell just as I was leaning in and I had to move quick from risk of having my head smashed in.

‘You stupid horse!’ the first voice cursed. ‘If you kill him, you’ll pay dear!’

‘I had to, Sessina,’ Meg replied. ‘There’s room to push it through now.’

Once this new cloud of dust was waved away I called up to ask them what was occurring. There was a long pause. I grew so impatient to know that I decided to risk a peek inside. With the candle in one hand I leaned into the chimney piece and looked upwards. Through those three iron bars I saw some movement. Something was coming down at a slow pace but I could not fathom as to what. I withdrew my head again and waited to see. Finally my delivery appeared. A bundle wrapped in brown paper had lowered itself into view. It was attached to a piece of string.

‘Got it yet, Dawkins?’ asked the voice I now knew belonged to that red-haired convict, Sessina Ballard, what I had seen in the courtyard window. ‘Hurry and untie, we have other, things to lower.’

I took the bundle and released it from the string. The wrapping turned out to be one of those religious tracts what the Ordinary was forever handing out in chapel that had Bible passages printed on. John 11.25 –
I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
. I pulled the tract away in a hurry to reveal my gift. It was a long metal saw with the sharpest teeth I had seen on such a tool. Wrapped around this was a blue slip of Newgate paper with the Whittington cat insignia on it. Underneath that a rough hand had scrawled a message. I rolled out the paper as the string ascended back up the chimney and read the legend.

You have been granted an audience with the Rum Mort
!

Chapter 20
The Rum Mort Revealed

Wherein I am surprised

The metal saw was indeed excellent but it needed some hard work behind it if it was going to do much damage to those bars above. Considering the confined space and the awkwardness of the angle in which I was working, as well as how every so often more plaster and brick would fall down and miss my head by inches, it was almost an hour before I managed to make a decent groove into one of them. It had already done a fine job of freeing me from the chains – and my renewed freedom of movement as well as this exciting turn of events was spurring me on – but the task was an arduous one. At last the saw made purchase of the middle bar but the teeth was starting to rub themselves flat. Soon though a second bundle was lowered down on that piece of string. As I untied that one I was reminded of what I had been told on that first day in the courtyard.
Newgate is a web, and at its centre there sits a dirty great spider
. It seemed as though the Rum Mort meant to pull me to its centre.

Another large chunk of brick grazed past my head and I cursed up to them that the work was hard enough without having to dodge this rubble. Sessina apologised and I heard her tell the others that they was supposed to be pulling the bricks inward. It sounded like there was a whole gang of females up there and as time passed more light shone down from the widening shaft above, making things easier for me. The new bundle contained a thick file and,
because it was smaller than the saw, it was easier to work on the cut already made by the larger tool. It took an age before I started to feel real progress upon the bar but on I went. After all, I had no other real plans for the evening.

I knew that I only needed to remove two of the bars and then I could use the third as a step upwards. But the passage above me was small and sooty and I did not relish the idea of getting stuck up there where I could choke to death. At length, I cut through the end of the first bar and, after several strong tugs, I had it pulled down flat. As I worked on the next, I felt something soft lower itself down onto my head. They had now sent down a rope of knotted bed sheets what they intended to pull me up with.

As I had hoped, the third bar proved a valuable aid once the first two was away and I forced myself up into the chimney. It was possible to imagine that a child or a dwarf could ascend this passage with ease but, for a full grown man such as myself, the climb was agonising. I had never been pressed so tight and, as I clung onto the rope, the convicts above helped to pull me upwards. To die trapped in this airless tomb would be a far more horrible death than the quick drop what I had been promised in the morning but the voices of the women above, what I now counted as at least five, was a great encouragement. I could tell that there was a mighty effort being performed by the friendly whores, thieves and murderesses on the other end of the sheets, but I wondered how high I needed to go.

It looked to me as though the chimney flue bended away before I would reach the next fireplace but, as my hand reached up to the part of the wall where the women had been chiselling away, I discovered that I had no need to climb up that far anyway. I just needed to get up high enough to be level with the floor above, where the women had made their hole in the wall. Many hands
grabbed mine as I felt where the shaft was and I was helped upwards as my body scraped against the insides of the chimney.

‘Come on, love,’ I heard this Meg say as the sounds of the women’s straining grew louder. ‘You can do it, almost there.’ I got the queer sense, as my head at last made it up to the break in their wall and I saw the dirty and wild faces of the women pulling me through into their tiny space, that I was being born again and that this grubby quintet was my dubious midwives. Sessina Ballard was dripping with sweat as she chiselled away at the space around me – it was still far too tight to pull me through but my arms was into their room and I could at least breathe free again.

Finally, there was a large enough break for me to force myself into that cell by kicking at the wall of the chimney behind and the women all grabbed at me and urged me to keep pushing. My shirt was now well torn and there was grazes along my body from the scrape but, after more effort was applied from all concerned, I at last made it through into that well-lit room. I flopped onto the ground in exhaustion and the women all let go of the sheets and stood around me congratulating themselves upon a very difficult delivery. I, meanwhile, was seized by a series of hacking coughs and Black Meg, who had been stood by Sessina at the window on that day when I had first seen them, brought me over a pot of water what they had ready. Once I had drank it down I was able to contain myself and get a good look around at the odd environment where I now found myself. It was a large cell with four beds and there was far more bedding and furniture than in the one I had just left. These five women all looked down on me as I handed Meg back the pot and exhaled.

‘Good evening, ladies,’ I said after I had at last wiped my mouth and was breathing normal again. ‘And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’

Sessina looked down on me with her hands on her hips and with curiosity in her eye. She pointed at a stone bench and told me to sit there while I recovered. ‘That’s just the start of tonight’s exertions,’ she said once I had done so. ‘It’s almost one now and we’re already running late. Eliza,’ she turned one of them, ‘fetch the Mort. Alice was out of her hold an hour ago and it’s only this young dandy what’s been keeping us all waiting.’

This Eliza did something even more astonishing then. She opened the unlocked door and walked out into the corridor without even checking to see whether there might be any guards on patrol on the other side.

‘We’ve got the run of the whole quarters tonight,’ Sessina whispered. ‘It ain’t so much a prison as a nice ladies’ dormitory up here.’ I was about to ask how this was possible when a puffed-out and perspiring woman sat on the opposite bed pointed at me with disapproval.

‘He ain’t supposed to be up here though,’ she scowled, her face all perspiration. ‘
The special boy!
Rum has gone too far and now there’s a bloody great hole in the wall. They’ll be a whore of a time for those what remain.’

Sessina paced the cell and bit on her fingernails. ‘Rum’ll fix it,’ she muttered. ‘The Rum fixes everything.’

‘Special?’ I asked then. ‘Why am I special?’ They all turned to me in surprise. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, girls. I’m happy you’re taking me on … well, whatever all this turns out to be. But what is it?’

All four of the remaining convicts stopped what they was doing and looked at me stunned. Black Meg was the first to speak.