Dodger of the Revolution

by James Benmore

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The Artful Dodger faces his most dangerous adventure yet as he leaves Dickensian London and finds himself manning the barricades in defence of liberty, fraternity and larceny in the 1848 Paris uprising. For Dodger, life as a criminal kingpin is losing its allure. Leading a gang of petty thieves from the Seven Dials is not as easy as Fagin made it look and after a year in charge Jack Dawkins has been reduced to a shadow of the man who used to be the envy of every pickpocket in London. Opium-addicted and heavy-fingered, Dodger is fast becoming a laughing stock on his own patch until a chance encounter leads him to Paris and a job like nothing he's had before. In a city alive with rebellion, Dodger must avoid assassins, jilted lovers and revolutionaries, and rediscover his touch if he is to lift his most precious treasure yet. The third in the James Benmore's acclaimed series continuing the story of the Artful Dodger, this book confirms Jack Dawkins as one of fiction's greatest ever characters.

Release date: September 22, 2016

Publisher: Heron Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter 1

Confessions of a London Opium Smoker

A short time on from the thrilling events of the last volume, the reader now finds me at my leisure in what some might call ‘The Best of Times’

Picture me there if you can, laid out good and comfortable on one of Li Wu’s thickest and furriest blankets, shoes off, shirt buttons undone and sharing a recreational pipe with three other working magpies. I was just about readying to shut my tired eyes and drift off into a sweet poppy-fuelled reverie, when who should appear in that underground den to disturb my bliss but the pale and pinched personage of Oliver Twist or Oliver Brownlow or whatever else he was now choosing to call himself.

And, just as on that famous occasion when we had first met, I had spotted him before he had me. The smoke inside that puff-palace was thick, so I had to blink hard and lift myself up from my prone position before I could be sure that it was indeed my youthful acquaintance who had just walked through the far door and was taking off his shoes at the proprietor’s request. I leaned forward and pulled back the purple silk hanging what screened my room from the other smoking chambers just an inch to see if I was mistaken, as Oliver’s presence in such an establishment made no sense to me. He was, after all, a notorious flat so what he might be doing by himself in a low place such as Wu’s of Limehouse was a mystery and one I was still lucid enough to be intrigued by.

Our last encounter had been months ago, when he had paid a surprise visit to the crib I shared with my fancy woman, Lily Lennox, and I had not expected to ever see him again. But there he was, talking business with the youngest Wu boy and it looked as though his appearance had altered much in that short time. He was wearing an expensive-looking suit and a matching hat what he had removed upon entering. My covetous eye admired the suit’s style, tailoring and colours very much. It was too bold for Oliver though, what with his stiff deportment and provincial ways, and would have hung far better on some flash metropolitan, like myself. Also, a fair and tidy growth had now appeared just between his nose and upper lip what I would guess he had cultivated so as to cut a more mature figure. If so, the moustache was a failure. He looked as boyish and as unworldly as ever. No matter how hard he tried to fight it, the former workhouse boy still retained his talent for venturing through the slums of my city like he was a Royal prince on an expedition into deepest Africa.

On the occasion of our first meeting we had both been young kinchins and I had marked him sitting on a stone step of a suburban street in Barnet. He was shivering, homeless and as vulnerable to the world as a baby sparrow from a dropped nest might be. But, even in that desperate hour, he still managed to affect the air of one what considered his rough environment to be all a bit beneath him. As I watched him survey those lantern-lit rooms, through which the Wu’s led all their most prosperous visitors, I noted that his manner had grown no less condescending with time. I could even tell when the first true breath of poppy vapours entered Oliver’s lungs, as he seemed jolted by its heady effect. He removed a snow-white fogle from out of his outer breast pocket and into that he allowed himself a discreet cough. This proved – as if proof was ever needed – that until now Oliver had been a stranger to The Black Drop, and so further forced the question of what business he might have down here.

Wu’s was an underworld den in more ways than one. We was close to the docks and below the line of water, so all ventilation went upwards. The opium fumes therefore advertised themselves upon the nostrils of those walking on the streets above. But only those with connections would know upon which door they should be knocking or indeed what the latest password might be, so it was not the sort of place a cove just happens to stumble into when passing. But, for all his flatness, Oliver was a newspaperman and I knew from our recent encounter that he was a bloody good one, so perhaps he was here on some sort of investigation. I continued peering at him around a brick column, as he moved from one silk-screened smoking chamber to another, inspecting each and every drugged inhabitant he found within them. The place had several of these coloured and silky partitions with oriental lettering upon them what separated the different groups of puffers from each other, and I saw that it would not be long until he and his new moustache worked their way around to mine.

I felt a surprising panic at the thought that I was about to be discovered here, accompanied by a rare and unusual sense of shame. I scurried back to the mattress upon which my pipe still lay and contemplated hiding myself under the blanket until he passed me by. My three fellow puffers what I had been sharing the oil lamp with was all well adrift already so it would have been a simple deception to pass myself off as another anonymous dreamer. But I pulled up short before doing this and gave myself a swift talking to. Why should I hide from Oliver Twist in such a cowardly manner? I asked to myself as I saw his unmistakable silhouette moving closer on the wall. No doubt he would have more reason to be ashamed at being found in an opium den then I ever would. So, instead of hiding from him, I sat down upon the mattress bench in a brazen manner, leaned closer to the lamp and continued smoking like the carefree sophisticate that I was.

‘Bust me,’ I pretended to splutter when he at last reached my smoking chamber and pulled back the purple hanging. ‘Is that young Oliver I see before me, grown all tall and dressed up smart?’ I squinted at him and his face registered some surprise upon seeing me. ‘Why, I do believe it is! And they told me that this was an exclusive gentleman’s club. It seems like they’ll let in any dubious character.’ I held out my pipe to him as he waved some smoke away from his face, dipped his head under the low hanging and stepped in. ‘Care to partake?’

The silk behind him parted like a curtain and the youngest Wu entered the chamber as Oliver blinked at me through the smoke. I addressed the Chinese boy beside him, who could not have been much older than twelve.

‘Now then Youngest Wu, I wish to raise a matter most delicate,’ I said to him after breathing out more smoke. ‘It is about Mr Brownlow here. He ain’t all that he says he is.’ The boy looked unimpressed with this intelligence and I supposed that, like his older relatives, he could not speak much English. ‘Yeah, you heard. It is my reluctant duty to inform you that he is was born under a different name and is –’ I pretended to whisper this next bit – ‘of rather low birth.’ Then I nodded at the Chinese boy and winked. ‘So get the money off him up front, there’s a good lad.’

I placed the pipe back into my mouth and grinned at the unsmiling Oliver, who had never been much on taking a joke. Youngest Wu tapped Oliver’s coat sleeve and pointed at me.

‘That there’s him, innit?’ he asked, surprising me with a cockney accent thicker than my own. ‘Now where’s that shiner you spoke of?’

Oliver reached into his coat pocket and produced a bright guinea. It was only then that I realised that he had come here looking for me and I felt my whole mood drop at the revelation.

‘Thanking you kindly,’ the Youngest Wu bowed to us both once the coin was in his fist. ‘Have a happy smoke, gents.’ Then the boy disappeared from the smoking room in a literal puff of it. Oliver’s eyes had still not left me and he cleared his throat before coming closer.

‘No thank you, Jack,’ he said at last when I again offered him the pipe. He was brushing some small insects from off of the cushion of the rickety chair what stood across from my bench with his gloved hands. It was as if he was waiting for me to offer him the seat before taking it. He also seemed to be a bit perturbed by some of the rats what was scurrying around the outskirts of the far walls, but if he planned to remain down here with me he would have to overcome such genteel sensibilities.

‘Suit yourself, Oliver,’ I said and placed the pipe down by my feet, ‘but you might like it if you only gave it a chance.’

‘No doubt I would,’ Oliver said as he at last decided to stop faffing and just sit himself down. ‘Which is why I shan’t be having any.’

As he positioned himself across from me with his hat in his lap and his thin vicar’s smile, I was overcome with a dreadful sagging sensation. I could feel the sweet bliss of the poppy, what I had paid a pretty penny for, just dissipate in his saintly presence.

‘Have you ever, I wonder, read Thomas De Quincey’s book on the subject of opium?’ he asked.

‘I’ve read all manner of books,’ I replied. ‘More than you have, I’d wager.’

‘De Quincey describes the substance as highly addictive,’ he said. ‘I’m also told that it brings on drowsiness.’

‘Yeah well, so does most of the stuff you write in The Morning Chronicle,’ I replied. He pretended to laugh but it was clear he had not come here to banter and my innards grew tight just looking at him. I will admit that of late I had grown fonder of Oliver, as he had provided me with invaluable assistance at the start of the year during my unjust incarceration in Newgate Prison. I may well have been hung, were it not for his aid and so I did not wish to appear ungrateful. But that Oliver – the loyal, heroic Oliver, who had acted with no thought of reward – was not the Oliver what was visiting me now. This here was disapproving, judgemental Oliver and I knew that his fingers was itching to wag already. Here was the Oliver I have hated ever since he told the authorities what my dear old Fagin was all about and destroyed my happy childhood. The opium was working on me hard, altering my disposition and turning me against him.

‘Hark this, Workhouse,’ I let more smoke blow out of my nose and dropped the smile. ‘Whatever business you think you have with me, you don’t. I don’t take kind to people paying others for information about my whereabouts and I don’t wish to be disturbed when in the company of these . . .’ I waved my hands over the trio of slumbering magpies dotted about the room in their druggy stupors, who was now exhibiting all the charm of rotting cadavers and thought about how to describe their relationship to me. I had only met two of them a week ago. ‘. . . Close friends,’ I settled on.

Oliver did not even glance in their direction.

‘If you have one friend in this entire place, Jack Dawkins,’ he said, ‘then it’s me, whether you like it or not. And while I may not consider you to be the best friend that I’ve ever had – far from it in fact – you are still undoubtedly my oldest. So I am here to help you. Again.’

‘Why, that’s very obliging of you,’ I said after coughing in indignation. ‘But help me with what, eh? I ain’t in a condemned cell no more, thanking you kindly. As you can see, I’m free as a bird and doing the genteel at long last.’

‘There is more than one way to be imprisoned,’ was his flat and aggravating reply.

‘You’re very fond of your own goodness, ain’t you, Oliver?’ I said and shook my head in wonder at his nerve. ‘Very proud of that halo what balances above your head. You want to take care that nobody knocks it off you.’ Oliver ignored my aggression. Instead he reached down and picked up my opium pipe by its stem to inspect it. I guessed that he had never seen one outside of an illustration before and I suspected that he was curious to see how it worked, in spite of his disapproval.

‘Jack,’ he sighed as he peered in close at the pipe’s stained bamboo and at its ceramic pipe bowl, ‘I’ve read many important texts about this,’ he continued before placing it back where it was, ‘and you’ll soon be dependent upon this drug, if you aren’t already.’ I could not help but chuckle at him and his misplaced melodrama.

‘Prison libraries have a lot of books about puffing,’ I told him, ‘including the one you mentioned earlier and I’ve read the lot of them. But there are some things about which you cannot learn in no book. I’ve been smoking pipes with all sorts of exotic ingredients in them since I was ten, or thereabouts. And this stuff has no more effect over me than a strong cup of tea.’

‘Your eyes are like pinpricks,’ he returned. ‘And see how sweaty your rug and pillow are.’

‘They was like that when I got here,’ I assured him. ‘And the pin eyes would be on account of the lack of light, I shouldn’t wonder. Now, if it’s a proper opium fiend you’re after,’ I reached down to pick up the pipe again preparing to smoke some more, ‘then have a word with old Eddie there. I doubt he’s left this den in years.’

Eddie Inderwick was, once upon a time, Fagin’s sharpest student and favourite magpie. But that was before I came along – nowadays he was just a faint shadow of a thief. When I had first returned from my five-year incarceration in Australia, I made it my business to seek Eddie out and discovered him here in this very smoking chamber, muttering to himself, wasting away in old clothes and entertaining mad fantasies. It had been a sad sight and he was still at it now, rolling about in restless slumber on the opposite bench, gibbering about some murders he had witnessed and wrongs what had been done to him. I poked him with the end-piece of my pipe so he would quiet himself.

‘He’s often much better company than this,’ I told Oliver as I moved the pipe back to the oil lamp. ‘You’ve caught him on a bad day.’

But before I could suck in some more of those lovely fumes, the pipe was smacked out of my hands by Oliver, so fast that at first I thought that I had dropped it. I was stunned, not just at the action but by the realisation that his hands had been quicker than my own for once. I cried out at the injustice of the dirty snatch but Oliver leaned closer to me and spoke firm.

‘I have been sent here to talk some sense into you, Dodger. To convince you that you are letting this poisonous habit destroy you. Do you want to know who sent me?’

‘It ain’t the Lord Our Saviour, is it?’ I winced, rubbing my itchy eye with one finger. ‘Cos I’m never in the mood for none of that.’

‘It was Lily,’ he replied. I felt myself sober up a little by the very mention of her name.

‘My Lily?’ I asked. ‘She’s the one what told you that this was where I might be found?’

‘She’s the one that told me this was where you can always be found.’

I was unsure of how to feel about this information. On the one hand, I recalled the shine that my fancy woman had taken to Oliver on their previous meetings and so was unsettled to hear that they had been having further communication without me around to keep a close eye upon developments. But, on the other, I had thought that Lily was lost to me anyway and so to learn that she had been expressing concern about my well being to other parties was an encouragement that I could still win her back.

‘Lily paid a visit to the Chronicle office yesterday and asked for my help in the matter. She said that you were so shaken by your experiences in the condemned cell that it has caused you to turn to opium and, now that I have seen you, I cannot help but agree with her. You have altered in an alarming way.’

‘I ain’t altered one ounce,’ I snapped back, ‘and I take offence at the suggestion. All the danger of the past year wasn’t nothing, I don’t care what she’s been saying. I’ve just had a bad run of things, that’s all. I’ll be right again.’

‘Are you aware that your hands are shaking as we speak?’ he asked in a flat voice.

I crossed my arms quick as he said this, to tuck them away from his sight. But it mattered little, as what he had observed was true. Ever since we had been speaking of Lily the shakes had overcome me again. This was why I needed another drag on my pipe so as to steady them.

For some moments we both sat in silence and I stared at the lights what shone from the opium lamp. I tried to resist picking up the bamboo pipe at my feet while Oliver was watching me, but I wanted to do nothing more. At length, and once I had regained mastery of my hands again, I breathed out and decided to speak a little of what had been preoccupying me of late.

‘Did I ever tell you,’ I began in a more conversational tone, ‘of how I came to be called The Artful Dodger?’ Oliver shook his head and looked interested, which was just as well as I was going to tell him regardless. ‘It’s a moniker what has always suited me, true, but did you know that it was Fagin who first coined the name? One of the proudest moments of my life that was.’

I had pulled one of Li Wu’s round tasselled cushions up behind me so I could sit more comfortable against the damp brickwork. I always found talk of my time with Fagin to be cheering, although I appreciated that Oliver did not look back on him with as much affection as I did.

‘This was in the days after I had first come to live in his crib after running away from my mother,’ I recalled. ‘I was still just a kinchin mind, just one of the new bunch of boys what had moved in to his warm Saffron Hill home during the cold winter months of ’36. We was all of us jostling for attention from the old devil, who was known to be more generous with the mouthy swaggerers than he ever was with shy boys, but it had been hard even for me to shine at first. There was bigger lads, such as Georgie Bluchers and Jem White, what could beat me at fighting if they wished to, so nobody had me pencilled down as much back then. But that all changed after the old man took us out on our first big finding lesson.’

‘You may recall,’ I continued, ‘during the short time in which you too enjoyed his hospitality, that it was not common for Fagin to risk the grab himself. He preferred to instruct us in his craft from the safety of his kitchen and judge us by our winnings whenever we returned home. But in those early days, and on the rarest of occasions, he would lead us fledgling blackbirds onto the streets himself in order to teach us some tricks. He would wash and cut his greasy hair just for the occasion and put on his one smart suit. And, while I cannot pretend that the man would ever be mistaken for Beau Brummell, you might be surprised at how respectable he could appear when he made the effort. Now, this particular outing was a proper treat as it fell on Christmas Eve and we was all headed to the Lowther Arcade. You know the place? On the Strand?’

‘I know it well,’ Oliver smiled at the mention. ‘That long arcade with all the fine toy shops and those wonderful glass ceilings. My adopted father took me there on our first Christmas together to buy me some toy soldiers.’

‘Well, that’s just what my adopted father was doing!’ I beamed upon learning of this shared experience of ours. ‘Only I doubt that your Mr Brownlow expected you to pinch the soldiers for yourself. Fagin, though, was keen to use the festive season as a spur to make ready shoplifters of us all. He knew that the skills we would learn collecting our own Christmas gifts would stand us in good stead for our future careers. We had been over the theory many times, now we was to put it into practice. In pairs of two we was each expected to enter at the south end of the bustling arcade and work our way northwards through the long passage of shops, to see which pair could impress him the most with our findings. The prize, as ever, would be gin.’

‘What an appalling way to motivate children,’ Oliver remarked.

‘Georgie and Jem went in first,’ I continued, ignoring him, ‘and they bungled it. Like most beginners, they made the mistake of trying to lift what they wanted for themselves rather than what would be good for the dash and they was almost grabbed trying to make off with some model trains what they had to drop in order to escape. Other boys had more success pilfering smaller toys, but these did not add up to much and that was all Fagin ever cared for. But I knew without being told that the real value of all the Christmas window displays was not in the toys themselves but in the distractions that they offered. I convinced Charley Bates – who you’ll remember from that day when the three of us all went out on a spree – that we should not waste time even entering the shops. Instead, we loitered around the window-shoppers who was gawping at the many Christmas trees and concentrated on emptying the coat pockets and gowns of the ladies and gentlemen there. We kept moving as we did, so by the time we emerged at the north end of the arcade, our clothes was stuffed with wallets, purses, watches and jewellery. Fagin, who had been watching us close as he sauntered by himself, saw my natural talent for the first time and was good and impressed.’

From the other side of the smoking chamber, Eddie Inderwick was groaning at us. It seemed as though he was trying to turn onto his side so he could tell us to keep our chatter down, but his words came out as one long wheeze.

‘Ignore him,’ I said to Oliver, who looked concerned. ‘He’ll drift off again soon. So anyway, that night in Saffron Hill, after we had all grown bored of those ill-gotten toys and discarded most of them, we lined up in Fagin’s kitchen to eat this Christmas pudding what he had been preparing all week. He lifted the lid from off his large steel pot to release the steam and we could smell the fruits and brandy within. But before he began filling our bowls he made an announcement:

“Hush my dears, hush,” he placed a finger to his lips. “Before I start dishing out this tasty and well-earned pud, I wish to say a few words. And that is to tell you how very glad I am that you’ve all come to brighten up my humble abode!” Cheers and stamping from the new boys in the line and some banging of pots from the older ones already sat at the long table. “You’ve made a lonely old man very happy,” he said with a flourish, although it was doubtful that he had ever spent a lonely day in his life. “It makes me feel thirty years younger, it does, to be enjoying such youthful company!” Charley shouted out that he must be feeling around ninety then to which Fagin feigned offence, grabbed a nearby wet flannel and threw it straight at his face. Merriment from all around as it slapped and covered its target but Fagin, once he had finished chuckling himself, held the still clean ladle in the air as if halting an orchestra. “My dears, each and every one of you,” he continued once we had quietened down, “has what it takes to be the prince of this city if you wish it! I cannot remember the last time this creaking old house had such a crop. Nevertheless,” his face turned more serious and he pointed the ladle at us again, “there is a question what needs answering before we feast. And this is the small matter of which one of you,” he moved the ladle along the line of newcomers as if expecting it to stop at one of us of its own accord, “will be declared top sawyer!”

This stilled us. We waited to be told who the finest thief in our company was and therefore who would be our leader. We knew that whatever name Fagin said now would go unchallenged, as we was then too young to pick one for ourselves.

“Every crew needs a captain, does it not?” Fagin continued, confident in our full attention. “And every pantomime needs a principal boy.” The ladle was still travelling along the line of boys waiting to anoint the chosen one. “And I know the name of your top sawyer before you do! His name is . . . The Artful Dodger!”

Disappointment rose up from all around. None of us had heard of him.

“Sounds like a lavender boy,” cried Jem White in his insolent way, “and he belongs in a molly house, not here.” There was much laughter at this, but this time Fagin did not join in with it. Jem knew he had no chance of being our top sawyer after his poor showing at the arcade, so he was already out of sorts with whoever this Artful Dodger person might turn out to be.

“I know what you mean, Jemima dear, I know what you mean,” grinned Fagin, coining another nickname what Jem was stuck with for some time. “He sounds like a bit of a sharp one, don’t he? A bit of a character.” He then began banging the steaming pot with his ladle. “Who is this mysterious Dodger then, eh, and what is so artful about him?” He spoke as if daring the boy to show himself.

But before any young chancer could try and claim the title as his own, Fagin plunged the ladle into the pot. “Why don’t we ask this Christmas pudding here, eh?” he said with a wink. “A pudding always knows the truth, I find!”

Fagin then snatched the first bowl from out of Georgie’s hands and began filling it with his pudding. There was knowing smiles from the older thieves, who would have doubtless seen this show before when their own top sawyer was announced.

“There’s a gold shiner hidden somewhere amid all these plums and prunes, which is worth more than all your day’s swipes put together.” The full bowl was handed back to Georgie and then Fagin took the next one from Mick Skittles. “And this here coin is of the magic sort and it knows what bowl it is meant to be found in.” Once Mick’s bowl was full, Fagin took Mouse Flynn’s and continued like this until all the boys ahead of me in the line had been served. “And in whichever bowl we find it,” he continued as he grabbed at my own and filled it with a bit more care than he had the others, “well, that would be the bowl what belongs to the Artful Dodger, I should think.”

He winked at me as he handed me back the bowl and I knew then that I would be tasting metal in my mouth, before I had even taken a bite. I felt like I was being christened.’

Oliver sat there on that rickety chair and I could see that he was not sure of what to make of this rum naming ceremony. I imagined that a serious scribbler such as him might find my fond childhood memories to be a bit on the sentimental side. When he next spoke it was with some hesitation.

‘Don’t take offence, Jack,’ he said after coughing into his fogle again, ‘but it sounds to me like any one of you could have been named the Artful Dodger.’ The smoke made me blink hard and I asked him what he meant by that. ‘I mean that it was all just a bit of Christmas tomfoolery,’ he explained. ‘That you were merely a random winner, perhaps even an accidental one. How could Fagin have guaranteed that the coin would end up in your bowl?’

I was most taken aback by this stupidity and gave a loud snort to let him feel my contempt. ‘You lived at Fagin’s house, Oliver,’ I said back. ‘Did you ever see him perform a conjuring trick what ended up in any other way than how he wanted it to? If he asked you to pick a card then you would always pick the one predicted. There wasn’t anything accidental about the Jew so it stands to reason that I was meant to be the Artful Dodger, eh? All the other boys took it to be so.’

‘But haven’t you ever wondered,’ Oliver pressed on in his vexatious manner, ‘whether Fagin didn’t really care who the Artful Dodger was? He just knew that there had to be a top sawyer among you, a leader, and that if the business wasn’t settled then there would be fighting. So he made a game of announcing the nickname. Perhaps that was the real illusion.’ As he spoke, I could feel myself grow hotter at the blasphemy of it. ‘And as for the wink?’ he persisted. ‘In my memory Fagin was forever winking at anyone over anything. It signifies nothing.’

I would have leapt up and given him a proper hiding for his treason had I not been rendered so lazy from the opium. Instead, I just jabbed my finger in his general direction.

‘I’m the Artful Dodger, Oliver, and you bloody well know it. You saw me in my prime, there was no faster thief. Fagin knew it, Charley Bates knew it, they all knew it. The ver. . .