‘And then, and then . . .’ he went on, dragging out the words while he tried to think. Now came the difficult bit. How could he account for his presence in the little yard?
‘And then I saw a man lying on the paving stones. I thought he might have had a fit, sir, so I climbed down to him and then . . .’ Alfie gave another gulp and hung his head, trying to look innocent and truthful, and not like the sort of boy that would commit murder.
‘You can’t believe this nonsense, Headmaster,’ said the choirmaster with a sneer.
‘I fired my gun at him,’ said old Bart with pride.
‘He sounds like an honest boy,’ said the headmaster hesitantly.
Sounds hoarse, anyway, thought Alfie, working a little saliva into his mouth and allowing it to slide down his sore throat. That choirmaster had nearly strangled him, he thought indignantly.
‘Why don’t you send Bart down to Scotland Yard for the police,’ said Mr Ffoulkes impatiently.
‘Perhaps that would be best.’ The headmaster didn’t sound too happy and Alfie tried to give him an appealing look.
‘I’m not goin’ out in them streets at this hour of the night,’ said Bart. ‘All the scum will be out, robbing and murdering.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the choirmaster.
‘I’ve worked for this school, man and boy, for nigh on sixty-five years and now you send me out in the middle of the night to a certain death,’ said Bart pathetically.
The choirmaster made a contemptuous noise between his lips, but he did not offer to go himself, noticed Alfie. Bart was right, of course; the streets around Westminster were dangerous at this time of night.
‘He’s correct, you know.’ The headmaster sounded more cheerful. ‘Let’s keep the boy until the morning. I’ll talk to him then by daylight. I pride myself on knowing whether a boy is telling the truth or not. I can read it in his face.’
‘Leave him here, then, in my room, and give me your gun, Bart,’ said Mr Ffoulkes grimly.
Alfie shivered. He would be dead by morning, he thought. Shot while trying to escape. That would be the story that Mr Ffoulkes would tell, he reckoned. He shivered again and looked appealingly at the headmaster.
Suddenly Mr Ffoulkes whirled around and stared across at Richard. ‘You boy, you, Green, have I seen you with this boy?’
‘No, sir,’ said Richard in an assured fashion. ‘No way, sir! Catch me associating with a fellow like that. Think of the fleas! Never saw him in my life before, sir.’
The choirmaster grunted but he said no more, just gave Alfie another shake and held out a hand towards the gun.
‘What about shutting him in the cellar under the Dark Cloister, Headmaster?’ suggested Bart. ‘He won’t get out of that in a hurry. It’s got a lock on it the size of a footstool.’
‘Yes, let’s do that.’ The headmaster looked happier. ‘And, Bart, Mr Ivanov . . .’
‘Don’t you worry about that, sir,’ said Bart. ‘I’ll drag ’im into one of the sheds so that it don’t upset the young gentlemen in the morning. And that cudgel wot killed him! That’s evidence, that is. All over with blood, it is.’
‘I’ll put the boy in the cellar while you’re dealing with the body, Bart. Come on, you!’
Mr Ffoulkes clutched Alfie around the throat – it seemed to be his favourite method – and began to drag him out of the door.
‘I’ll take the key, Headmaster,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I’ll make sure that this young man is safely locked up.’
CHAPTER 17
TRAPPED IN THE CELLAR
Alfie’s nerves were on edge as the choirmaster dragged him by the throat down the stairs and along the Dark Cloister. No wonder Richard was so scared of this fellow. All the boys were; he sensed that.
Alfie could feel the waves of hate coming from the man and began to wonder about Mr Ffoulkes. Was he perhaps more than a casual friend to the organist? Was there a possibility that he, too, was in the pay of the Russian Embassy? Would he revenge himself on Alfie for the death of his fellow spy?
Or was he the person who had broken off the flagpole and cracked the skull of Boris Ivanov?
If that was true, then he must be pleased to have a scapegoat in the form of a ragged boy from the slums – a boy that no one would miss, that no one would make a fuss about.
Once they were in the Dark Cloister, Mr Ffoulkes paused by a small lantern on a ledge and thrust his face up close to Alfie’s.
‘Who are you?’ he hissed. When Alfie did not answer, he continued, ‘What’s your name? Where do you live?’ And then, ‘What do you know about Mr Ivanov?’
One by one the questions came thudding at him, backed up by blows and kicks, but Alfie said nothing. Sooner or later the man would get tired of this and leave him.
Alfie’s mind was working hard as he was finally thrust through a heavy wooden door and the lock clicked outside. The place was freezing cold and stank – almost as though a dead body had been left to rot in a corner. Alfie edged away from the smell and turned his head from side to side. He could see nothing. The cellar seemed to be almost pitch black, but he heard the scampering of feet and knew that the place was infested with rats. He shuddered. Of all things he hated rats. He hoped that they would feast on whatever was rotting and would leave him alone.
He passed his hand over the door, but knew that there was no hope of breaking out. The door was immensely solid. Alfie felt close to despair; but he was tough and would not give into these feelings. With a great effort, he switched off his mind from his present danger and began to think about the body in the courtyard.
Who did kill Boris?
There were a few possibilities.
It could have been someone from the Russian Embassy. Boris may have got greedy and demanded more money. Perhaps he threatened to betray Ron Shufflebottom and a man was sent to dispose of him.
Or was it Ron Shufflebottom who had killed Boris? It was only a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament to Westminster School. Ron Shufflebottom could have accompanied Boris back through the gate leading into the yard, perhaps promising to give him some more money or to sign a document . . . and, what then?
Or did the bad-tempered choirmaster, Mr Ffoulkes, have anything to do with the death of the organist?
The only thing that Alfie felt sure of was that this murder was not planned. Someone planning murder would have brought a weapon. A knife was quick, quiet and very sure. Breaking off a cudgel from a flagpole and then hitting a man over the head was an awkward, risky business. It must have been a sudden impulse, a sudden quarrel, perhaps by a man driven by fear and desperation or by overwhelming anger.
Alfie sat back on his heels and inhaled the damp, sulphur-laden air. The cellar was full of London fog – you could almost taste the coal smoke from it.
It was not completely dark, though. Alfie began to look around and then he understood why the cellar was full of fog.
There was a faint gleam coming from the far side of the cellar. Alfie got to his feet and walked over. There was no need to feel his way. The light got stronger all the time: the white light of a gas lamp.
A gas lamp was shining into the cellar.
By the time Alfie reached the end wall, he realised where the light was coming from.
The cellar was very low. Its ceiling was only inches above Alfie’s head, so he was easily able to reach up and feel.
A square metal grid was set into the wall. Light and air poured through it. Was there any possibility that he could escape?
The metal plate was made up of squares about two inches across – only a rat could get through them – but if the plate itself could be removed, an opening of about sixteen inches would be left.
Alfie set to work.
Big Ben had struck the hour three times before Alfie gave up in despair. His nails and finger tops were bleeding and he was trembling in every limb. The lime plaster had crumbled away easily enough, but the metal plate had been well designed with bars inserted int
o the stone itself. There was no way that he could loosen it. He sank down on the ground and buried his head in his knees in despair.
It was at that moment that he heard a whisper.
For a moment he thought that he must have imagined it.
He had been half hoping that Richard might have followed him down to the cellar, might perhaps have got hold of the key. All the time that he had been working on the metal plate, Alfie had kept an ear open for sounds from the other side of the cellar.
But this whisper came from outside; from the place where the light and air flowed in.
In a moment Alfie was on his feet and stretching up to look out.
‘Jack!’ he said with disbelief.
And then, ‘Mutsy!’
The big dog had his large, hairy face at the metal grid. Alfie passed a finger through to him and felt the gentle touch of a hot, rough tongue on his damaged fingertips. Then another face appeared beside the dog’s. Jack was kneeling on the pavement and peering into the cellar. Alfie was weak with relief.
‘Mutsy found you,’ whispered Jack. ‘We’ve been prowling around looking for you. Tom’s here too. We were over by the Houses of Parliament when Mutsy started sniffing. You know the way he does . . . he dragged us across the road.’
‘Can you get me out, Jack?’ Alfie fought not to let shivers make his voice tremble.
Jack gave an experimental shake of the metal grid. ‘Set fast, that is,’ he muttered.
‘Let me try.’ Tom’s face replaced his brother’s, but Alfie had no hope that the younger boy would succeed. Jack was a bit of a craftsman. He understood about buildings.
‘Hang on a minute, Alfie.’ Jack’s face was back. ‘I think you need an expert here. Lee the cracksman is the fella that you want. He owes me a favour. I’ll just pop up to Duck Lane and be back in a couple of minutes.’
And then he was gone, leaving Tom and Mutsy behind. Alfie was glad of the company but wondered whether Jack should have taken Mutsy with him. Duck Lane was one of the worst streets in Devil’s Acre. There were ten families to a room there, and every one of them destined for the hangman’s noose, people used to say. It was not a safe place even in the middle of the day and, at night, it was one of the most dangerous places in London.
Still, Jack was well known all along the side of the River Thames and he had lots of strange friends. Even cracksmen knew that Jack would never betray their burglar activities to the police.
Alfie looked up at Tom.
‘Sammy all right?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘Fine, a bit worried-like, but he said he knowed you’d turn up like a bad penny.’ Tom was slightly uneasy with him, but, to Alfie, it seemed as though it was years since they had quarrelled. He had more serious things to think of now.
Like the fact that he was wanted for murder.
Jack was back soon with a man no bigger than himself. The man was wearing a broken bowler hat squashed down over his eyebrows and a black coat buttoned up high, covering his mouth and part of his nose. He said nothing to either Tom or Alfie; he just whispered instructions to Jack to keep watch with Mutsy. And then he kneeled down and immediately got out a small, gleaming hacksaw from one of his pockets and started to saw.
Metal against metal made a strange screaming noise and, from time to time, the cracksman stopped and looked all around. Jack was walking up and down with Mutsy and Tom was nervously going between them and the small slit into Alfie’s cellar.
After a while the cracksman grunted with annoyance. He did not seem to be making much impression on the metal bar. He stopped working, turned slightly sideways until the light from the overhead gas lamp shone on him, then opened his coat and peered inside.
Where most people had silk linings to their coats, this cracksman had a hundred pockets, each one with a gleaming tool showing. Alfie watched with respect as the man ran his eyes along the rows and then selected a tiny file and carefully stowed away his little hacksaw.
Now the work progressed without pause. The small, razor-sharp file rubbed away at the bars until, first one, then two, then three and finally four were cut through and the metal panel was removed.
‘Out,’ the man said in a hoarse whisper to Alfie.
Alfie thrust his head through the gap, feeling a pair of horny hands grab him by the ears and unmercifully drag him up. For a moment he thought his head would come off, but then he angled his shoulders, let out his breath, and he was through.
‘Let’s get a bit of this stuff.’ Lee searched again in one of his pockets and produced a sort of paste, well wrapped in a piece of oilcloth. Carefully he smeared the sawn edges of the metal and then pressed it back into place, holding it steadily for a few minutes.
‘There you are then,’ he whispered as he took his hand away. ‘Good as new. No one will guess how the bird escaped from the cage.’
Alfie gave a quiet chuckle. ‘There’ll be stories about ghosts all over the school in the morning!’ he said to Jack. ‘Don’t suppose that I will hear them, though,’ he added. ‘I’m not never going near the place again.’
CHAPTER 18
THE MYSTERIOUS SWEET
‘I’m a bit puzzled and I need your help, Sammy, old son,’ said Alfie, taking a place beside his blind younger brother. He had had a few hours’ sleep and was beginning to feel much better. Soon it would be nine o’clock and Bow Street Police Station would be open. Alfie had decided to go straight to Inspector Denham, but there were a couple of things he wanted to clear up first.
‘Anything that I can do?’ asked Jack.
‘Not really – it’s a sort of brain thing.’
‘I’ll be off then and get another bit of coal before Tom is back,’ said Jack cheerfully, showing no sign of taking offence at Alfie’s words. He took up a folded sack from beside the fireplace, draped it around his shoulders against the cold and damp and moved off, whistling cheerfully.
‘Spit it out,’ commanded Sammy with a smile. He always enjoyed using his sharp wits. Alfie told him the story of the box of sweets and the slip of paper with the row of numbers.
‘The thing I must do now,’ Alfie said, ‘is to find out what that message means. I’m sure it must be a message, but it’s just a whole lot of numbers.’
‘Numbers, eh, not words.’ Sammy spoke thoughtfully and then a half smile came over his face.
‘What was that sentence of yours? The sentence that you saw written down: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. See, I remember it. Sarah told you it was easy to remember, didn’t she?’
‘So?’
‘You’re the one that can read properly,’ said Sammy impatiently. ‘I only know my letters. Do you remember how Mr Elmore at the Ragged School taught me the alphabet with the letters made from clay? I remember him saying that x and z weren’t used much.’
‘But they’re in the words: fox and lazy,’ interrupted Alfie. ‘Well . . .oh . . .’
‘Ah, you’re beginning to twig, now, aint’ you?’ said Sammy with satisfaction. ‘Thought you couldn’t be all that stupid!’
Alfie ignored that. He was beginning to understand. ‘Twenty-six letters in the alphabet,’ he said slowly. He thought hard for a moment, trying to picture the words in his mind’s eye, counting on his fingers and muttering his ABC until he came to the end of the recitation. ‘As far as I can tell,’ he said excitedly, ‘it seems like every letter of the alphabet is in that sentence. If you give a number to each one of the letters in that sentence then you can send a private message anytime you want to.’
‘Safer than a message that has the number one for A, the number two for B and so on,’ agreed Sammy.
‘Let’s have a try,’ said Alfie. He took a pointed piece of coal from the rusty old bucket by the fireplace and began to mark out the letters on the stone flag of the hearth, putting a number in front of each letter.
‘Thirty-five letters, and there’s only twenty-six in the alphabet,’ he said in a disappointed tone. He looked down his list. ‘The word the comes in twice,
and some of the other letters are repeated as well.’
‘That don’t matter,’ said Sammy calmly. ‘Whoever made up the code had to make a sentence that would be easy to remember. It has a picture in it, that sentence. You see the fox and the lazy dog in your mind. Even I can imagine it.’
‘Well, here are the numbers from that message,’ said Alfie. He took the slip of paper that he had taken from the organist’s room and began to read aloud: ‘The first number is twenty – that’s a P; the second number is 5 – that’s a U; the third number is 1 and that is a T.’
‘Put’ said Sammy, his voice high with excitement.
‘The next word is dead easy: it’s just 123 so it must be the.’ Alfie gave a low whistle.
‘Read out the next numbers,’ ordered Sammy.
‘Six of them in this word: 9, 5, 29, 29, 3, 1. The first letter is a B . . .’
‘And the second is a U,’ put in Sammy. He had an extraordinary memory.
And the third and fourth are both L.’
‘And the last one is a T,’ guessed Sammy.
‘Bullet,’ said Alfie. He stared at Sammy, hardly able to believe his eyes. ‘Remember what Inspector Denham said about the new kind of rifle that’s been passed to the Russians,’ he said in almost a whisper.
‘That’s what I was thinking. Just work out the rest of it quickly.’ Sammy’s face was flushed with excitement.
‘PUT THE BULLET INTO THE FUDGE,’ yelled Alfie triumphantly. ‘And one of the sweets in the box is called fudge – Richard said so. Looks a squashy sort of one, too.’ He picked up the box and smelled the sweet in the very centre of the rows, the one that Richard had pointed out was called fudge. This sweet did not have the same mouth-watering scent as the others: it smelled bitter. It looked powdery, too. Perhaps, he thought, you could dip the bullet into it and it would keep its shape even when the bullet was removed, like a sort of mould. He prodded it with his finger and nodded with satisfaction. Yes, it would be perfect for that.
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