Dodger

occasionally as he explained that he had taken it simply to get back at whoever it was that was making life so difficult for Simplicity and himself.
    He didn’t mention the jewellery, now carefully concealed in Solomon’s strongboxes – those pieces, that is, that weren’t already stealing their way into the welcome fingers of Solomon’s jeweller friends . He did not want to get into trouble, and it appeared, amazingly enough, that it was beginning to seem that he was not going to get into trouble for
anything
.
    At one point, a friendly-looking cove with silver hair and a grandfatherly kind of face beamed at him and said, ‘Mister Dodger, it is apparent that you got into the well-guarded embassy of a foreign power, and roamed at will among its floors and the inner sanctums without ever being challenged. How on earth were you able to do this? Could you please elucidate if you would be so good? And may I ask if you would be amenable to repeating this singular feat another time, at some other place, should we ask you to do so?’
    It took a little while, and a certain amount of translation with the help of Charlie, to give an explanation about the working practices of the snakesman. It culminated in Dodger’s handing back Charlie his watch, which he had taken from him just for fun, and then he said, ‘Do you want me to be a spy, is that it?’
    This comment caused a certain frisson around the men in the room, and they all looked at the silver-haired man, who said, smiling, ‘Young man, Her Majesty’s government does not spy, it merely
takes an interest
, and since both Sir Robert and Mister Disraeli have told us that while you are a scallywag you are the right kind of scallywag, of which we may wish we had a few more, Her Majesty’s government might have an interest in occasionally employing you, although having employed you they would emphatically deny ever having done so.’
    ‘Oh, I understand that, sir,’ said Dodger cheerfully. ‘It’s a kind of fog, isn’t it? I know about fogs. You can trust me on that, sir.’
    The white-haired gentleman looked affronted at first, and then smiled . ‘It seems to me, Mister Dodger, that no one can teach you anything about fog.’
    Dodger gave him a cheeky salute and said, ‘I’ve lived in the fog all my life, sir.’
    ‘Well, you do not need to give me an answer now, and I suggest you talk it over with your friend Mister Dickens, who I’m bound to say is something of a scallywag himself, being a newspaper gentleman, but who I suspect has your best interests at heart. May I say, Mister Dodger, that there are some slightly worrying details about what happened in the sewer the other day which might in other circumstances have led to more investigation, were it not for the fact that you most certainly did bring to justice the notorious Outlander, a circumstance that will cause great relief among our European friends, while at the same time showing them what happens to assassins who dare to come to England. I believe some rewards might be coming your way.’
    The white-haired man stood up, and the action broke the tension in the room; Dodger saw smiles all round him as the man, his face now looking a little sorrowful, added, ‘I’m sure we were all upset to hear of the death of the young lady known as Simplicity, Mister Dodger, and may I say you have my condolences.’
    Dodger looked at the old man, who probably wasn’t all that old but instead had been made old by the white hair. He was totally certain the face in front of him knew everything or, at the very least, as much of anything that anybody could, and most certainly knew everything about the uses of a fog. Dodger thought he’d be the kind of cove, for example, who might pick up the detail that a body, having apparently just been shot, seemed very like somebody who had been dead for almost a week, and never mind about noxious effusions.
    ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said carefully. ‘It has not been a very pleasant time lately, and I was thinking of taking a little trip out of London so that I don’t see anything that reminds me of my girl.’
    And he cried real tears, which was quite easy to do, and it shocked him inside, and he wondered if there was anything in the boy called Dodger that was totally himself, pure and simple, not just a whole packet of Dodgers. Indeed, he hoped in his soul that Simplicity would embrace the decent Dodger and put him on something approaching the straight and narrow,