Dodger of the Dials by James Benmore Read Free Book Online Page B

collect me for our appointment with Percival.
    After I had washed myself, and used the buckets to throw the dirty water out of the rear window and onto the patch of dry grass below, I started to dress for the meeting. I considered wearing some of my flashest colours in order to impress our paying customer when I strolled into the arranged location but, just before I reached for my bright blue waistcoat, I remembered that Mouse Flynn was coming with us and that an all black outfit would be more appropriate. Mouse had suffered a recent bereavement and was sure to be dressed in full mourning so it was right for me to do likewise. Agnes Dunn, his beloved kept woman, had died in childbirth just two weeks before and Mouse was devastated. It was a very sorrowful event in our local community as Agnes had been popular and I had promised Mouse that, as his top sawyer, Iwould ensure that his baby would never want for nothing. I had already found a local midwife to take care of the child and had paid for a decent stone to be placed over his mother’s grave. I was the treasurer of the local burial club but the few coppers I had been paid from the Flynns was just enough to keep her out of the paupers’ end of the graveyard. The stone was my own expense and this outlay was among the many reasons why I was so behind with the rent. But, I told myself as I tied the laces of my black shoes after dressing myself, if you want to run a crew like mine then you have to be forever making them love you. And more important than that, I considered as I walked over to the small parlour mirror and inspected how handsome this black suit was making me look, was that they must want you to love them back. That was the best way to inspire loyalty in a criminal gang, I considered.
    Soon the sound of pebbles being thrown against pane was heard at the front of the house and I crossed the apartment to the bedroom. Lily, who was in the kitchen, complained that the queer girl must be here again and that one day she would break that bloody window. Lily did not care for the way Tom would alert me to her presence but then Lily had never liked anything about Tom Skinner. I lifted the bedroom window and stuck my head out to greet the three noble crims what stood in the courtyard below. Tom, who occupied the centre of the yard and was flanked by the other two, lifted her hat and grinned as she rested on her cane while, to her left, Georgie was chomping into an apple. On the right, as I had predicted, was Mouse Flynn, his suit of black contrasting with the loud attire of the other two. I told them I would be down in a second.
    ‘Mouse is out there?’ Lily asked in surprise after I had explained the black. ‘Not Scratcher?’
    ‘You can’t expect a kinchin to come to business meetings likethis one, Lily’ I told her as I went over to give her a goodbye kiss. ‘It’d be irresponsible.’ As I went to approach her she looked like she was still going to turn me away instead of kissing me goodbye. ‘There is no one I trust more than you, Lil,’ I said before giving her a quick embrace.
    ‘Which is not saying much,’ she returned but she let me kiss her and I darted out of the door. I was halfway down the staircase before she whistled for me to stop. ‘You know, for a pickpocket,’ she said as she stood at the top of the stairs with the necklace I had placed in my coat pocket moments before now in her hand, ‘you’re an easy touch.’ I rolled my eyes and stepped back up to take it from her. ‘Good thing you can trust me,’ she smiled after we kissed again.
    By the time I had made it down to the courtyard, having dodged another awkward encounter with Mrs Grogan, Lily had stuck her head out of the bedroom window to talk to the recent widower about his baby, Robin.
    ‘He’s better than gold and the image of his mother,’ Mouse said back to her as I shut the door after myself and nodded them all hello. Lily gave Mouse her love and said she would be visiting