Alfie could imagine. His father had owned a thimble to fit over his finger when he was stitching the heavy leather of shoes and the boys’ grandfather used to tell Sammy stories about it being a cup for the fairies. It would only have held a half-teaspoon of the powder.
‘Take Jack with you,’ said Sarah. ‘Opium Sal’s place could be dangerous.’
CHAPTER 16
OPIUM SAL
When Alfie set off that evening, once the supper of steak and kidney pie had been eaten and reports had been made, it was Sammy, not Jack, that he took with him.
Alfie was fond of Jack, but Sammy was his brother and Alfie had a good opinion of Sammy’s brains. And, of course, Sammy could hear things that were left unsaid, could reproduce any voice that he heard, remember the exact words said, and analyse things afterwards. So far they had made little progress in this puzzling matter. Alfie hoped that tonight would give them some new leads.
Alfie would have liked to have taken Mutsy, as well – he always felt safer when the big dog was with him – but that was impossible. Opium Sal would be terrified of him and some of her customers might be out of their minds and see the dog as a demon or some creature of their nightmares.
The church bells were ringing nine o’clock when the two of them set out, walking down St Martin’s Lane, across Trafalgar Square, and then turning into Hungerford Lane.
Apart from the prosperous fish market opposite Trafalgar Square, Hungerford was a terrible place. There was a network of narrow, badly-lit lanes, and between them were dozens of small courts, each lined with tumbledown houses.
Alfie knew the place well and led Sammy without hesitation through the rabbit warren of lanes until they came to a narrow gateway leading to a courtyard that looked even worse than the surrounding ones.
‘Terrible place,’ he said to Sammy in a whisper. ‘Worse than any of the others. Covered in filth and rusty old pots and pans. And Opium Sal’s house is the worst of the lot. Don’t know why old Jemmy dossed down here.’
‘Never could keep a civil tongue in his head,’ said Sammy. ‘No one else would have him. I wonder why Opium Sal let him stay. Jack said he heard her cursing him one day as she passed and Jemmy cursed her back, even worse.’
‘She was so out of her mind most of the time that probably she didn’t know if he were cussing her or blessing her, or even the other way around,’ agreed Alfie with a chuckle. ‘But then you’d have to ask yourself why Sal wanted him in the first place. Jemmy wouldn’t have been able to pay anything much in the way of rent – he didn’t get much, just sitting there under that horse in Trafalgar Square from morning to night. Most of the time he didn’t speak to the people passing, or even hold out his hand. That’s not the way you get money from the pockets of the toffs. They like value for their pennies.’
‘I’d say that Sal asked him to stay for protection,’ said Sammy. ‘He was a good fighter, was Jemmy. Some of Sal’s customers could turn nasty when she was trying to get them out, when they had no more money to spend but they were still crying for the drug. Jemmy could come in handy in a case like that.’
‘Perhaps we should have brought Mutsy after all,’ said Alfie thoughtfully.
There was a Chinese man standing at the door of one of the houses in the court. Alfie knew him as Chinaman Jim – probably not his real name, but that’s what he was called in the lanes of Hungerford. He was a rival to Sal and he watched them with narrowed eyes as they went towards Sal’s door.
Alfie tried a knock, but there was no answer, so he pushed the door open and stepped inside. There was a tiny room to one side of the small hallway – more like a dog kennel than a room. That was where Jemmy had slept – Alfie had once walked back with him there. Its door was wide open and the few belongings Jemmy had were all pulled out of the chest and strewn around the floor.
‘Seems like someone’s been after something that Jemmy kept hid. Whoever came looking even took a knife to his mattress – there’s bits of flock lying all over the place,’ said Alfie in a whisper to Sammy.
‘Police?’ queried Sammy.
‘Could be . . .’ Alfie doubted it, though. The police would have been a bit tidier, he thought. ‘More likely one of the opium smokers,’ he added.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Sammy in a low voice.
Alfie kept a firm grip on his brother’s arm as he led him up the worn stairs which tilted crazily to one side. All of these houses here at Hungerford seemed to be sliding into the oozy, black mud that lay alongside and beneath the River Thames.
‘Might have to scarper quickly if things get a bit rough,’ he said into his brother’s ear.
The room they entered was long and low, with a few rags of curtains dangling over the dirt-encrusted windows. It seemed a small room at first because it was crammed with beds, most of them broken and dipping to floor level at one corner or another. Beside each bed burned a small oil lamp and the room was full of heavily-perfumed brown smoke that rose to ceiling height.
Only three of the beds were occupied at the moment. One held a sailor, one Opium Sal herself and on the third was stretched a well-dressed gentleman with dark brown whiskers and thick, bristly eyebrows, his shining boots sticking out from the bottom of the filthy mattress. He held a long metal pipe in one hand and a stream of thick, brown smoke rose up from it. From time to time, he stretched out a gloved hand and rested the bowl of the pipe on the flame of the oil lamp and then brought the pipe back to his mouth, inhaling the smoke deeply into his chest. He looked vacantly at the two boys and began muttering to himself – just a stream of words which made no sense.
Opium Sal was wide awake, though. She put down her pipe and tried to get to her feet, but failed, pulling back her lips and displaying a few brown, rotting teeth in what seemed to be an attempt at a smile. Alfie reached out a hand and pulled her to her feet. Her skin was boiling hot and oozed moisture. As soon as she was upright, he took his hand away and rubbed it on the seat of his trousers.
‘Come outside, Sal,’ he said coaxingly. She was at the drowsy, contented stage, he saw, and that was good. Once she started to shake you couldn’t do much with her.
She followed him quietly. The well-dressed gentleman began to mutter again. Alfie stopped for a second, but it was only a string of words about times and it made no sense, so he moved on, carefully shutting the door once all three of them were on the landing.
‘Were you looking for me, Sal?’ he asked. ‘You were peeping in the window of our place on Bow Street.’
She looked puzzled for a moment, her eyes rolling vacantly, and Alfie hoped that she was not going to go into a fit. That happened to her sometimes. Once he’d pulled her from the middle of the road when she’d fallen down, foaming at the mouth and kicking her legs. She had been thankful to him for that and he wondered whether she still remembered.
‘You knew Jemmy, didn’t you?’ she said suddenly. ‘He was a friend to you boys, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s right, Sal,’ said Alfie soothingly. ‘But tell us about that toff in there. He come here often?’
‘Don’t say that! Don’t say that. No one must know. He don’t like watchers. Don’t watch him, that’s a good boy. Don’t tell the post office, whatever you do! Let me go now. I must have a pipe. I must have a pipe before my gentleman wakes up. Seven shillings he owes me. I must stay awake.’
By now she was shaking so badly that Alfie opened the door quickly and waited until she had reached her bed. He stood there for a minute looking at her as her trembling hands seized the metal pipe and shoved it over the flame of the oil lamp.
‘Miracle she doesn’t burn the place down,’ whispered Alfie into Sammy’s ear, but Sammy’s attention was on the toff.
The man with the thick, dark eyebrows was muttering again. ‘There’s the bell. It’s midnight. Must go.’ And then, quite suddenly, he sat up, allowing the glowing pipe to fall to the ground. Sammy jumped as the man’s shriek seemed enough to split the rotting ceiling overhead.
‘No!
I’ll beat your head in, Jemmy, you villain, if you play tricks on me! Don’t change the hands of the clock. I’ll kill anyone who changes the time.’
CHAPTER 17
BY THE RIVER
Alfie was glad to get out of the opium den. The smell from the smoke was beginning to make him feel light-headed. He hurried Sammy along as fast as he could, pushing his way through the foggy lanes until they reached the broad, open space of Trafalgar Square. There were more gas lamps here and they seemed to thin the fog into a misty golden haze.
Alfie paused and drew in a deep breath. He was beginning to feel better. He stopped under one of the gas lamps and looked at Sammy. His brother seemed lost in thought so Alfie said nothing; just waited.
‘That’s three mad people raving about Jemmy,’ said Sammy eventually.
‘Three?’ queried Alfie.
‘Mick was raving about him rising up from hell and riding a black horse. Sal was raving about him being our friend. And then this other geezer, the toff with the bristly eyebrows and the pipe full of opium; he’s going on about Jemmy being a villain and about clocks. We won’t get any more sense out of him, especially if he stays there all night, and Sal hasn’t any sanity left in her head, so that just leaves Mick. Might be worth talking to Mick when he’s sober.’
‘I don’t care about Jemmy all that much,’ protested Alfie. ‘It’s the post office robbery that I’m interested in. I’m only investigating Jemmy’s death because Inspector Denham thinks that they are connected. Not sure that he’s right, myself.’
‘Interesting how that toff was going on about Jemmy altering the hands of the clock, wasn’t it? And Sal talking about the joke played on Jemmy,’ said Sammy, ignoring Alfie’s protestations.
‘What do you mean?’ Alfie sounded reluctantly interested.
‘Clocks would have been important in that robbery, wouldn’t they?’ pursued Sammy. ‘From what you say, the whole thing went by split-second timing. Everything had to be in place to start when the fire was lit in Morley’s Hotel.’
‘Makes sense,’ said Alfie. He thought about it for a moment. ‘But I don’t suppose that Jemmy actually changed the hands on a clock,’ he said slowly. ‘That opium muddles their brains. Maybe it wasn’t a real clock the toff was thinking of – maybe it was him that drew the clock on the piece of paper I found. He might have been worried that Jemmy had seen him draw it . . .’
Sammy was nodding vigorously. ‘So the toff had some inside knowledge about the jewels, and he was telling the robbers. Opium Sal mentioned the post office – could be he works there, knew about the jewels . . .’
At that moment a large hand was placed on Alfie’s shoulder. He spun around, startled, then grinned and said, ‘Bert! You gave me a fright, thought you was a copper!’
But there was no smile on Bert’s face. ‘Hear you get on well with coppers,’ he said heavily. ‘There’s a little bird what told me you was seen coming up from the sewer at Whitehall. Don’t you try to fasten Jemmy’s death on me. You know what they say about the sewers, don’t you? Great place to get rid of man or beast. So don’t you go mentioning my name in Bow Street police station – not if you know what’s good for you. Now get out of here, go on: scarper!’
Alfie did not argue. Bert the Tosher had the reputation of being a dangerous man and he wasn’t going to tempt him into any violent action.
‘I’d nearly decided to scrub him off my list,’ he said in a low voice to Sammy, once they were a couple of streets away. ‘Did you think he sounded guilty?’
‘More scared-like,’ said Sammy. ‘Probably everyone is talking about Jemmy’s murder and there would be quite a few people remembering the big fight that Bert had with him. Didn’t sound that guilty to me.’
‘Don’t think we’ll go home for a while, though. Bert mightn’t know that we live in Bow Street and he might think we were popping in to the police station to see our policeman friend about him.’ His brother might be right, but Alfie was cautious. In his experience, it wasn’t always the most likely person who committed the crime. Briskly, Alfie towed Sammy in the opposite direction.
‘You’re not going back to Opium Sal’s are you?’ asked Sammy. His voice sounded more resigned than worried.
Alfie grinned. ‘Blessed if you don’t beat it all,’ he said. ‘How did you know that I was going towards Hungerford?’
‘I can smell the river and the market,’ Sammy replied. ‘Anyway, why are you going?’
‘Just thought of a question and of a man who could answer it,’ returned Alfie. Sammy shrugged his shoulders and allowed himself to be led downhill towards the river.
When they reached the small court where Opium Sal had her den, Chinaman Jim was still standing there outside his own door with his hands stuck into his sleeves and his eyes alert for any new customer. It was said that Jim employed an old sailor, addicted to opium, to attend to the customers and Jim himself never touched the drug, keeping out of the smoke-filled atmosphere.
‘You have customer for me?’ he asked Alfie, his eyes sharp and penetrating.
‘No, but I can find you some,’ said Alfie. ‘How much you charge for a pipe?’
‘Eight shillings a pipe, very clean room, very luxury,’ said Chinaman Jim, eyeing Alfie keenly.
‘All right if we go up – just for a minute? I’ll need to tell the customers that I’ve seen the place.’
Alfie could feel himself being scrutinised intently for a moment and then the man nodded to him to follow and led them upstairs.
The stairs themselves were almost as bad as those at Opium Sal’s, but the room was very much better, with even an attempt at comfort. Old, half-threadbare pieces of velvet were thrown over the bunks that lined the walls and the window was curtained in the same fabric. The bunks were hung with short velvet drapes and it was hard to see the customers. But plumes of brownish smoke floated around the ceiling and the room was filled with the same crazy mutterings.
Alfie did not linger. He gave a quick nod and headed downstairs again, hearing Jim’s soft slippers pattering behind.
‘Not a bad place,’ he said briskly when he arrived back into the foggy atmosphere of the courtyard. ‘Eight shillings is dear, though; Sal only charges seven, but I’ll do my best for you.’
‘That woman!’ Chinaman Jim gave a scornful laugh.
‘She gets plenty of customers, though,’ said Alfie, seizing the opportunity. ‘Toffs, too. Saw one in there tonight. You must see him go in and out – small fella with dark brown whiskers and thick eyebrows.’
‘Him! Poor man! He is ashamed of himself. Hides his face with a newspaper when he comes.’ Chinaman Jim had an odd, high-pitched laugh, but his eyes were sharp and clever.
Alfie hoped that he had sounded sufficiently casual and had not aroused any suspicions. ‘I reckon he’s a great customer for Sal,’ he remarked carelessly. ‘Stays there all night, I suppose.’
‘Never stays long,’ hissed Chinaman Jim. ‘You watch. He’ll come out any minute now. One pipe only. You see.’
Alfie nodded. That fitted with what he was thinking: that Bristly Eyebrows probably didn’t take too much opium, if he managed to hold down a job at the post office. It would be interesting to follow him and find out where he went when he left Opium Sal’s place.
‘Not much of a customer, then. Now what’s my share in all this? If I bring a customer, it won’t be just to put a smile on your face, old fellow. What’s in it for me?’
Sammy bit back a chuckle. Old Alfie was a great actor, he thought. Anyone would swear he had lost interest in the toff with the bristly eyebrows by the way he immediately began to bargain for a fee of thruppence for every customer he brought. He could just imagine the look of disgust on Alfie’s face as he contemptuously turned away at the offer of a penny.
‘You bring, I see,’ shouted Chinaman Jim as Alfie took his brother by the arm and walked away. Alfie did not reply and Sammy knew that not only had his brother no intention of supplying customers for opium dens, but now that
he had got the information that he was looking for, the man was of no further interest to him.
‘We’ll wait on the far side of the gate of the court,’ said Alfie in his ear. ‘Don’t suppose Bristly Eyebrows even noticed us when we were in Opium Sal’s place, but there’s no sense in running risks.’
Sammy was just beginning to feel chilled in the damp, foggy air when Alfie breathed in his ear. ‘Here he comes.’
The man turned up towards the Strand and stood for a moment under the light of the gas lamp with the air of someone who was not sure which way to go. He was a small, thin man of about fifty, very well dressed in a black tail coat and a shirt with a stiff white collar.
Alfie inspected him carefully. Something glinted from the man’s collar. Alfie dropped Sammy’s arm and cautiously moved nearer, being sure to keep within the shadow of the gate. Yes, he was right – there was something there!
There on the man’s collar was a small badge made from three entwined gold letters. After a minute of staring, Alfie made them out. GPO was what they were: General Post Office! So Sammy had been right!
All of the post office workers wore badges, but the ordinary workers’ badges were made from cheap tin and painted red. This fellow must be something high up, probably an inspector or something. But that was not all. Alfie remembered the note that he had picked up in Trafalgar Square – it had those same tangled-up letters woven into the expensive paper in gold. With a satisfied nod, Alfie moved back to Sammy and took his arm again.
‘Hang on a minute,’ he whispered to Sammy. ‘I’ll just let him get ahead and then we’ll follow.’
The Body in the Fog Page 7