The Artful Dodger

Oh, Nurse Baggett, what did you clean the morgue with?

Carbolic acid, like you asked. Or is there a problem, ma'am?

No. Quite the opposite.

No. Where is it?

I haven't slept a fox's wink, Dodge.

- It's not unusual for a man at your age. - I'm not that bloody old.

Yeah. Any older and you'll be eroding.

I've been racking me noggin as to who nobbled the soldiers' pay.

It couldn't've been the guards. They was purging their livers.

Couldn't have been Darius or Gaines' missus, they was scrumping.

It's been driving me nuts. There was no one there but us.

- No, there was one other. - Who?

Wearing the red boots.

One other wearing the red boots? Who're you gabbling about?

Behind the curtain.

Why didn't I see that?

Because you are decrepit, Fagin.

See? This is the way it used to be. The way it should always be.

Your eyes, my brain. Together, we're unstoppable.

No. You need to find your own room, Fagin.

It was here.

Five-hundred gold sovereigns going missing on your watch

is a bloody good reason to be shouting! Why the hell weren't you there, Gaines?

You sent me on assignment, sir.

The guards, they've all been...

Searched and interrogated. Yes, sir. No culprit yet, but we will...

Find them! Flog everyone that was there. Stop the rot.

Can't have 500 belly sovereigns go missing.

There'll be a riot if I can't pay the soldiers.

Yes, I understand, sir. I assure you, it's all in hand.

- With your leave. - Go on.

Oh.

Uncle Dickie got a dukedom.

Cheer up. Maybe he'll get malaria for you.

We live in hope.

Where's my Lancet?

- Your what? - Medical journal. Where?

Fanny borrowed some books.

- What about my library? - It's not like you read any of them!

- Guards! - Shh. It's just me.

- I know. Guards! - Have you been here all night?

You're not the only one with interests, Belle.

Those are for you!

I waited three months for this and you just ruined it!

Oh! Lucien, make them stop!

Stop? They're my orders.

The governor needs a culprit to hang by tomorrow.

- Dodge. - What?

This crumpet's a bit burned. Just sayin'.

Don't. Because I'm not interested in your bloody crumpet.

You just be thankful you've got one.

Just I'd be more grateful

if it wasn't burned.

Need you downstairs, Jack. Charlie's getting a rattle. He's not good.

Aye, I'm comin'.

I look forward to me crumpet in the morning.

- It's one of the happy spots in me day. - Mmm.

Is it?

So, when it's burned, it puts a sort of a pall over things.

He shouldn't be dying.

Here comes Princess Witch Face.

Doctor, can I see you in the morgue?

The cloth was on his wound and the infection's gone. Look.

There.

- The what? - The cloth.

Had carbolic acid on it. Look, no rot.

Right, so...

So, I've done some reading, all night, actually,

and there was a chap called "Pasteur".

- Pasta? - Pasteur.

Like, French pasta?

Discovered something called "germs". Microbes. Causes fermentation in wine.

- Right. Except, we're not making wine. - But then, Lister...

- Who? - Lister at Edinburgh Royal

connected microbes to infection.

So, if fermentation and infection are caused by an organic property

rather than spontaneous generation or miasma...

Is there a translation of all of this?

We can cure infection with carbolic acid.

This might save Charlie.

The acid we use to treat sewage?

Exactly. Look at the cloth line.

Hmm.

We need to cut him open

and see whether your cloth's stopped the rot beneath the skin.

Clearly.

- I've never cut a man before. - You can't hurt him any further.

This is how it all works.

Somewhere in there is how we think,

and feel and love.

And die?

It's so much more than plumbing.

Probably around here somewhere.

Lucien!

Your men are ruining my precious home. It hurts me!

Sometimes pain can be curative.

God asks us to pierce our souls and to expose our sins to him

in a full and penitent confession.

My men are doing their godly work in our house,

searching for any whisper of criminality.

And so, I turn to you.

Who was here the night I was absent?

"Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord."

Who was here, Peggy?

Darius came...

...to protect me.

He knew you were so very worried about me being left alone.

Oh, thank God.

- That was good of him. - Mmm.

He is a true and faithful friend.

You!

The sheets.

Name?

Frances Scrubbs.

Is that your real name?

Given to me.

Dawkins!

I've just remembered that the young guard said

that Dr. Dawkins and his associate were here to tend the men.

Really? Bramwell!

Lock down the hospital. We're going to take the doctor's confession.

No rot.

Let's test it on Charlie.

No, wait. What these... What did you call them?

Microbes.

Right. How do we know they exist?

We postulate. Based on the symptomatic presentation...

Words. Use words.

We can't see them, but we know they're there.

So, you want to kill invisible bugs

with an acid usually used to treat raw sewage?

Yes.

And your only proof of this, so far, is from some books and this corpse,

- which can't feel any pain. - I've read all about this. Trust me.

No, except I don't!

But I might, given more time and with further proof.

But I just had to teach a procedure

that a half-drunken teenage apprentice could do blindfolded.

The boy is dying.

Yes. And the shock of an acid burn might kill him even quicker.

Do you care about him at all?

I care very deeply.

Find a way of making carbolic acid work without injuring him,

then you can use it on Charlie.

Until then, the answer is very much "sod off."

How dare you speak to me like that?

I do apologise. Sod off, Milady.

And I speak to everyone like this.

I want Dawkins red-handed, you hear?

Search every ward and cranny for the pay.

It's too strong. It's still too strong.

Where is the coconut ice?

I think it's under the pig. Could I borrow one of your arms?

Dodget! Dodger, something's afoot!

Gaines is coming.

- Shit! - Calm.

If we run, we'll look as guilty as a cat licking pork bags

and for once, we're innocent. We don't got the money.

But I'm beginning to form a view as to who does.

We have to get our stories straight.

Fagin.

Fagin!

Mr. Dawkins.

Dr. Dawkins.

A quiet word?

Trouble with the prostate?

Do sit down, Doctor.

When I served with the Governor in Africa,

an infantryman mocked me for being a clerk.

"Only a pen, never a sword."

But when I caught him stealing the supplies,

I used this pen to sign his death warrant.

A heartwarming anecdote.

I'm told you were in my home when the pay was stolen.

Healing your men. For which you owe me two quid.

Your servant, Mr. Fagin, was with you, a convict, I seem to recall.

Most servants are convicts.

So, on the night the pay went missing, you brought in a criminal...

As my medical assistant.

- Oh, where did he train? - I'm training him myself.

Ah. Keeping it in the family.

Oi! I want a word with you.

Down the hall, I see...

I did hear a rumour, and please, I don't know if it's correct or not.

Mr. Fagin is your uncle.

By marriage. Very distant.

And are you from a large family? Many siblings?

Only child.

He was entrusted to me by my late father.

And all of a sudden, he shows up here, and so, I suppose I feel a certain...

I feel obliged to keep an eye out for him.

But he is quite mad. There's no point in talking to him.

Oh, I'll be the judge of that.

Help me.

Hey!

Come on.

Now, you were busy that night, attending to my men.

Yeah, I know, worked off my feet. It was vomit wall-to-wall.

So, how did you keep an eye on Fagin?

Talent.