Dodger

had that look about him you learned to recognize after you had had a few run-ins with authority. It said that authority wanted you to know that authority always had the upper hand, and that you had just better mind your manners for the moment, because you were the enemy of authority unless authority told you that you weren’t.
    Mister Peel was watching him with a slight smile on his face – you must never ignore the smile on the face of a peeler – and Dodger thought, This one is the king of the peelers, the big Peel himself, so even a dodger knows when not to dodge. He said, watching that smile, ‘You say that you don’t think I murdered anybody, but there are two people saying I done it, right? Who’s the body what was murdered? And why ain’t you taking their word against mine?’
    Very calmly, Sir Robert said, ‘Frankly, my men know them and say that they wouldn’t take the testimony of those two if the Archangel Gabriel was standing beside them and had given them a reference.’ He smiled the smile of a policeman, which was only slightly better than the smile of a tiger, and said, ‘And I’m not taking
your
word as anything, Mister Dodger, but I
am
inclined to take the word of Solomon Cohen, who is very well thought of in the Jewish community. While I engaged him in conversation earlier this evening – and quite clearly he knew nothing of this accusation, nor did I say anything of it to him – he was kind enough to mention that you have spent almost the whole day in his company, a fact which can be verified by a number of reputable merchants, including my own tailors, which I can see with my own eyes. But I ask myself, if this murder took place only a few hours ago, why did this allegation reach me instantly, do you think?’
    Before Dodger could say anything, Sir Robert continued. ‘I think that you have made enemies because, as Ben tells me, you appear to be compounding your heroic deeds by keeping a certain young woman safe while she is in our country. I salute you for that, but this situation cannot go on for ever. There are indications that . . . others involved in this affair are growing increasingly impatient.’
    He drew on his cigar and lazily blew out a cloud of blue smoke; it drifted and curled around Dodger’s head like an aromatic fog.
    ‘There has clearly been a murder,’ the head of the peelers stated, ‘and indeed I must make certain that somebody is brought to justice – despite the fact that the corpse concerned was a gentleman who was known as a man who got things done, for a fee, with no questions asked and certainly no questions answered. He was a lawyer until the other lawyers found him out, and then he became what we call an accommodator, and a particularly good one because he knew all the lawyers’ tricks. He was very good at introducing people who needed crimes committed to people who wanted to be paid for committing crimes and, of course, he would skim something off the top for his expenses without ever getting his hands dirty. Now he turns up quite professionally dead, meaning neat and clean and not involving any third party. A very neat job. And a very silent corpse. They might as well have done the washing up and fed the cat before they left. His name was Sharp Bob.’
    Sharp Bob was dead! So someone had got to him, Dodger thought. But now he had other questions. What had this Sharp Bob known? Had he been working on his own, just to make some specie . . .? Or under the orders of someone else? For that government Mister Disraeli had spoken of?
    ‘All the policemen know about you, Mister Dodger,’ Sir Robert was saying, ‘and the old Bow Street boys did as well: always suspected, never impeached, never had to stand in front of the beak. One old lad I knew said some people believed you were protected by the Lady of the Sewers, and I believe that you may now need all the protection you can get.
We
are not the Bow Street runners, Mister Dodger; we are clever men – your friend Charlie Dickens is in fact quite fascinated by our procedures.’ Sir Robert sighed, and went on, ‘Indeed, I sometimes suspect he would love to be a peeler if I let him; he’d make a good copper if he didn’t scribble, scribble, scribble all the time, I am sure. We know what goes on, Mister Dodger, but sometimes we don’t see the need to tell people everything that we know.’
    He paused to take another puff on his cigar, before continuing, ‘I do know, however, that one or two