Dodger Page 0,60
who you are working for. Do you understand?’
The words came out so fast that they tumbled among themselves. But Dodger made out: ‘It was Harry the Slap from Hackney Marshes, but the word is there’s important coves wanting to know where you are, and if you’ve got some girl with you. That’s all I know, honest to God. There’s some kind of reward out.’
Dodger said, ‘Who set up the reward?’
‘Don’t know. Harry the Slap never told me nuffin’, just to tell ’im. Promised me a cut of the profit, so he did.’
Dodger stared at the face. No, he wasn’t lying. Benjamin was easy meat, and so he said, ‘Well, Benjamin, as a friend, I rely on you not to tell Harry the Slap that you have seen me.’ There was a frantic nodding of the head from the wretched little man on the ground. ‘And, of course, there is just one other thing I must do. I did say that I would not harm you but this’ – and he swung his boot – ‘is from Mrs Sharples. Sorry, but she asked me to.’
He was rewarded with a deep groan from Benjamin and, amazingly, a huge and horrible grin from Mrs Sharples, who said, ‘Well done, young man, do it again!’
Dodger thought, This is the time to be the man who saved the world from Mister Sweeney Todd. So he said quietly, ‘Simplicity, and you too, Mrs Sharples, listen. I have reason to fear that there are people who are searching for Simplicity to do her harm, and therefore I am going to remove her from the kind embrace of the Mayhew household. Although I don’t doubt that they are kind to her, it makes me shiver, it does, to think of you opening the door to them very nasty coves.’
‘But she is in their care, Mister Dodger,’ Mrs Sharples insisted.
Dodger opened his mouth, but the noise he heard was Simplicity speaking. Not loudly, but not a whisper either, and she said, ‘I am a married woman whose husband turns out to be a weak and stupid boy, Mrs Sharples, and I believe that Dodger is right in this instance. So I suggest we make our way back to the house as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Dodger. ‘I am sure you would be in agreement, Mrs Sharples?’
Mrs Sharples looked down at Dirty Benjamin and said, ‘What are you going to do about him?’
Dodger said to Benjamin lying on the ground, ‘Listen, my friend, I know who you are, and I know where you live, don’t I just! Still collecting corsets, are you? Trust me that what you are going to do as soon as you are fit to stand is start walking up the road there, and you will go on walking as fast as you can in that direction as long as possible and you will not, repeat not, turn round to look behind you until it’s absolutely dark, understand? Because you know me and I am Dodger. The new Dodger. I’m the Dodger what done up Mr Sweeney Todd. The Dodger what has his razor now! And if you do the wrong thing by me, I’ll come up through the floor one night with it and make certain you never wake up.’
There was a groan from Benjamin, who said, ‘I ain’t never clapped eyes on you, mister, and by God I wish I ha’n’t. You’ll have no trouble from me.’
They began to walk back to the house by a roundabout route, and it wasn’t until he saw the kid selling newspapers and screaming, ‘’Orrible murder! Read all about it! Valiant hero to the rescue!’ that Dodger fully realized how life would be getting even more complicated.
At last the little gate to the Mayhew household was back in front of them, and he quickly cased the area for spies and found none. Then he opened the gate for Simplicity, who said, ‘Thank you very, very much, my dear Dodger,’ and she blew him a kiss, which made no sound at all, except that in his head the belfries of London all clanged at once in one great peal.
The interview with the Mayhews, husband and wife, went rather more smoothly than Dodger had dared hope, especially since he carefully told them how someone was clearly looking for Simplicity – the kind of person, he said, that he would not like to come knocking at their door.
‘And so,’ he concluded, ‘if you would be so kind, help Miss Simplicity with