Still, it did sound a little like a horse, walking slowly, just as Sammy had described it. The clop-clop sound was getting nearer, and then it seemed to falter a little, just as if whoever followed him had become confused, had slowed to see whether their prey had escaped down an alleyway. Alfie peeped out cautiously and then gave a sigh of relief, mixed with exasperation.
‘Sarah!’ he called and then, as she straightened up and came nearer, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Now Alfie could see Sarah’s face, and it was blotched and streaked with tears. She wasn’t wearing her trim scullery maid’s uniform either. She was dressed in some ragged clothes that looked as if they were far too small for her – a torn dress that barely reached to her knees and a ragged shawl, meant for a small child, tied around her shoulders, looking not much bigger than a handkerchief on a girl of her age. On her feet, instead of shoes, she wore a pair of pattens, her bare feet thrust into them and just about managing to hold them on as she staggered along on their raised platform.
‘What . . .?’ began Alfie.
‘They’ve turned me off, sacked me,’ said Sarah, trying to keep back her tears.
‘Sacked you!’
‘The butler had me up to his room just after you left. He accused me of being responsible for his master’s death. Becky, the chambermaid, told him that Mallesh had seen me home. She was peeping out of the window when we came to the railings.’
‘They saw Mallesh!’
Sarah nodded. ‘That’s right. The butler was going on about me being some sort of murderer myself. He and the housekeeper told me that I had to leave the house immediately. Cook wanted to keep me – she said that she had arranged that I would be getting everything ready for the meal tomorrow while the rest of the family and the servants and that Mr Scott were at the funeral. There would be no one left to keep the pots boiling because the missus said that she wanted every single one of the servants to attend the funeral – that didn’t count me, of course. I don’t count. Scullery maids never count.’ Her eyes flashed angrily.
‘The butler gave the orders – is he allowed to do that?’
‘He’s in charge of all the lower servants,’ said Sarah. ‘He and the housekeeper, together. The missus would have nothing to do with a small thing like a scullery maid being turned off without wages or even a character reference. I’ll never get another job now.’
Alfie was thinking hard; ideas were beginning to form in his mind. But then he turned his attention back to Sarah.
‘So they just threw you out on the street, just like that?’ he said.
Sarah nodded and tried to smile. ‘They kept all the clothes that I had been given and I had to wear these old things that I arrived in two years ago. And when I said that my old shoes didn’t fit me any longer, the housekeeper said that I could take this pair of pattens.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Alfie.
‘I don’t know.’ Sarah looked around. ‘Perhaps some inn would have me to scrub floors, but it’s the end of all my hopes for myself. I’d been thinking that if I worked hard as a scullery maid I might rise to being a parlour maid or even a cook. That’s why I’ve been going to night classes in the Ragged School.’
‘Well,’ said Alfie, ‘if we could just solve this case then you’d get taken back, wouldn’t you?’
‘That’s right, I suppose.’ Sarah tried to smile.
‘Well, let’s get working on it. Come back with me to the cellar and we’ll talk to Sammy. He’s a lad with brains. First we’ll find you somewhere for tonight. I was thinking that Betts could probably find you a bed in her grandmother’s place – just round the corner here.’
Sarah made a bit of a face, but she said nothing. The grandmother was an unpleasant old woman, but a night or two wouldn’t hurt, thought Alfie, and guessed that Sarah was thinking the same thing. As they turned the corner, he was pleased to see Betty herself, walking towards them. She looked better than when he had last seen her.
‘I got out,’ she announced when she reached them.
‘I know,’ said Alfie. ‘I was the one that got you out. I told the inspector that it couldn’t be you because our Sammy was attacked and nearly strangled while you were sitting quietly in your cell.’
‘Sammy!’ Betty stared at him and then shivered. Her face turned pale. ‘Oh, poor little fellow! Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine, now,’ said Alfie dismissively. ‘Could you give Sarah a place to sleep in tonight, Betty? She’s been dismissed because she was seen talking to an Indian. He’s in prison now, but he didn’t do that murder either.’
‘So an Indian has been locked up – I suppose they have to find someone for the murder. Poor fellow, though!’ Betty had a soft heart.
‘I’m going to have to see Inspector Denham and sort out his ideas for him,’ Alfie said grandly, ‘but in the meantime is it all right for Sarah to doss down with you tonight?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Betty. ‘I’ll make it all right with the old lady – tell her that you and Sarah got me out of the cells.’
‘I’ll be along later on then,’ said Sarah. She sounded subdued. Alfie had never seen Sarah look so miserable. She was always quietly cheerful, always making the best of things.
‘Why don’t you take those pattens off your feet? You’d walk better. I don’t know how anyone walks on things like that,’ said Alfie, once Betty had gone down the steps and into her grandmother’s cellar.
‘I haven’t gone in bare feet for two years,’ said Sarah with a sigh. She bent down and slipped off the pattens. ‘Do you think that we should have questioned Betty a bit more? After all, she was probably the last person to see Mr Montgomery alive.’
‘No, I talked with her yesterday. She’s got a brain full of air – nothing else in it. She had nothing useful to say.’
Suddenly Alfie stopped and stood there for a minute.
He was wrong, of course. Betty did have something to say. And she had already said it . . . And Sammy, his blind brother, had said the same thing and like a fool, he, Alfie, clever Alfie, had not noticed.
‘Come on, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back quick. I want to ask Sammy something.’
CHAPTER 26
STRANGE SMELL
‘Where’s Mutsy?’ Alfie’s voice was tense. He had warned Jack and Tom that they were not to leave Sammy alone, and they were there, the three of them in front of the fire, Sammy dozing in what was left of their grandfather’s chair, but Mutsy was not in his usual position with his big head on Sammy’s feet, guarding him until Alfie came home.
‘He’s dead.’ There was something strange about Tom’s voice as he glanced towards a dark corner, but Alfie did not pause. He rushed over.
And there was Mutsy lying there, not moving . . .
Alfie said nothing. There was an enormous lump in his throat and to his horror he heard the sound of a great sob escape him. Tears were pouring down his face.
‘Come alive, Mutsy!’ At Tom’s voice, the big dog instantly jumped to his feet and tucked his head under Alfie’s arm. His tail was wagging so hard it raised a cloud of dust from the old trunk that held their few poor belongings, and his hot tongue licked the tears from Alfie’s face as the boy bent over him.
‘You was taken in!’ Tom’s voice held a jeering note.
‘No, I wasn’t, I knew you were just fooling,’ Alfie retorted immediately, but his heart was still thumping in his chest.
‘You’re so stupid!’ Sarah rounded on Tom, boxing his ears fiercely. ‘And you, Jack! Why didn’t you stop him? Why don’t you do something useful with your time, the two of you? Come on, then, get this place cleaned up a bit. Alfie has important business with the police inspector and it may be that he will bring him back. Go on, get a wet rag; clean up that trunk. It’s filthy. Jack, you get that bucket and wipe down that window. Be quick about it, the two of you.’
‘It was just a joke,’ said Tom sulkily, but Sarah was in no mood to listen to him.
‘Go on �
� rub that properly. This place is a disgrace. Have you got a broom?’
Alfie joined Sammy by the fire. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked casually, seeing that the shouting had woken up his brother. He kept his hand on Mutsy’s warm fur.
‘I’m all right.’ Sammy’s voice shook and Alfie looked at him closely. The red line, the mark of the murderer’s garrotting wire, had faded to a dark colour, but Sammy was very pale. It would take a while for him to get over this. Alfie wished that Mallesh were there to give another of his massages, or even try his herbs.
‘Most of the dirt is on the outside of the window, Sarah,’ said Tom plaintively.
‘Well, get outside and clean it then,’ said Sarah smartly.
‘Oh, leave the cleaning for the moment,’ Alfie said impatiently. ‘What does it matter? This place is no Buckingham Palace; everyone knows that.’
Tom and Jack laughed a lot at that joke and dropped the rags back into the bucket with relief. Sarah made a face, but said nothing.
‘We need to put our heads together to solve this case of the Monmouth Street strangler,’ said Alfie. He waited until they were all sitting around him, gathering his thoughts and shifting ideas to the front and back of his mind. It didn’t hurt to keep them all waiting – he was the gang leader and everyone understood that.
‘Mallesh has been banged up as the murderer,’ he said, ‘and Sarah here has lost her job because they think she’s mixed up with him. So it’s more important than ever to find the real strangler.’ There was a shocked silence until he went on. ‘First of all, we’ll hear what Sammy has to report from the day that he spent at the Montgomery house. You’re feeling well enough now, Sam, are you? You’ve slept off most of that laudanum stuff, have you?’
‘Most,’ said Sammy in a low voice. ‘Gives you horrible dreams, though, that stuff.’
‘Perhaps we should leave him alone for a while,’ suggested Jack, but Alfie shook his head.
‘Do him good to talk about it. What was the most interesting bits of your day as a knife boy, Sam?’
It took Sammy a bit of an effort to bring that back. What had happened after he left Bedford Square was still at the front of his mind. After a minute, though, he had sorted out his thoughts.
‘I suppose there were a few things,’ he said slowly. ‘The trouble is that I don’t know which one was which.’
‘Just tell it the way it happened,’ advised Alfie.
‘Well, I was put in the butler’s parlour and then a man came in to have breakfast. And then another man came in and I heard him ask the first fellow if he had found Coutts bank and then I think the first one gave the second one money. I think this second fellow was probably the butler. And then he went out and another man came in – he started eating breakfast this time.’
‘A third man,’ said Jack thoughtfully.
‘So the second man didn’t eat anything?’ asked Tom.
Sammy shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
Alfie’s heart sank. Sammy still sounded very confused. Perhaps he would have to leave the questioning for another few hours.
‘It does sound as though the second man was the butler,’ said Sarah. ‘But why was he getting money from Mr Denis, or Mr Scott for that matter?’
‘Perhaps the butler was blackmailing the murderer,’ said Alfie. ‘About the time he came back home on the night of the murder, maybe, or the butler found the garrotting wire in his room, or something like that. That’s the way that I see it. Go on, Sammy. Did they talk about anything – Mr Denis and Mr Scott – while they were eating their breakfast? Take your time, just tell us whatever comes into your head.’
‘Nothing much,’ said Sammy, ‘but I’ll tell you something, neither of them sounded normal. They were both uneasy-like – afraid, I’d say.’
‘I see.’ Alfie thought about that. He relied absolutely on Sammy’s instincts. But why were both men afraid?
‘One more thing,’ said Sammy. ‘When I was going away I heard one man ask the other if I had been in the butler’s pantry all of the time – and I’ll tell you something else – he sounded furious.’
‘So it looks like either Mr Denis Montgomery or Mr Scott did it,’ said Sarah.
‘That’s right,’ said Alfie. ‘But which is which?’
‘Have we any more clues?’ asked Tom. ‘It’s a pity that old Sammy couldn’t see the man that took him up on the horse.’
‘He could do something almost as good,’ said Alfie – trust Tom to say something stupid like that! ‘He could smell him. Tell us about that smell again, Sammy.’
‘It was a funny sort of smell.’ Sammy’s voice shook, but he controlled it and went on trying to sound as if he didn’t care. ‘It wasn’t soap, but it was a bit like soap, sort of sharp – not sweet.’
‘Sour?’ asked Sarah, but Sammy shook his head.
‘Flowery?’ asked Tom, but Sammy shook his head again.
‘Perfume? Like you smell from the ladies coming out of the theatre?’ Jack was used to spending a lot of time around Covent Garden, holding horses’ heads, or helping carriage drivers who were assisting ladies out of the vehicles.
‘There’s something in this,’ said Alfie. He looked all around to make sure that everyone was listening.‘When I talked to Betty of Monmouth Street, she said that the man who was following herself and Mr Montgomery smelled funny. Not bad, not the soapy smell of your usual toff – Betty would know that – no, she just said that he smelled funny.’
‘And?’
Alfie ignored that. Jack was a good fellow, very reliable and much more sensible than Tom, but he didn’t have the brains of his cousins. Alfie turned his face towards Sammy.
‘You said the same just now, didn’t you, Sam? A funny sort of smell. What kind of smell? Try to think.’
‘Not soap – you’re right there, Alfie.’ Suddenly Sammy sounded better. ‘I don’t think it was soap – more like something you smell from an apothecary’s shop. I’d know the smell again. That’s right – someone in the drawing room smelled of it that time I was singing a hymn to your missus, Sarah.’ Sammy’s face was alert and interested. He looked more like himself again.
‘Would you know, Sarah?’ Jack was eager to join in the discussion, but Alfie wasn’t surprised when Sarah shook her head.
‘I’ve never noticed,’ she said apologetically. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with the family or the guests. I wasn’t allowed upstairs. I was always in the scullery. I’d sleep in a little room off the scullery and never go anywhere else in the house, except to the butler’s pantry, of course. He keeps the knives there.’
‘Mallesh smelled of that same smell – just a little bit – on the first day when he came here,’ said Sammy suddenly. ‘I remember thinking to myself: what’s that smell?’
‘Just that first day?’ Alfie’s mind was working fast. He hugged Mutsy, feeling some of the excitement that Mutsy felt when he tracked down those huge rats near Smithfield Market. Quickly he got to his feet.
‘I’m just popping around to have a little word with my friend the inspector,’ he said. ‘Jack, you take Mutsy for a little walk. Sarah, you go with him and see if the butcher will spare him a nice big bone. Tell the story about him rescuing Sammy from the river and getting a bash on the head. Make a good story out of it. Oh, and Tom,’ Alfie’s voice hardened, he hadn’t forgiven Tom for pretending that Mutsy was dead, ‘you get this place cleaned up, or no supper for you – and I can tell you I’m planning on something pretty good.’
‘You again!’
Alfie was definitely not the constable’s favourite visitor to the Bow Street Police Station.
‘Me again,’ agreed Alfie. ‘Might I have a word with the inspector?’
‘He’s out,’ replied the constable triumphantly. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what your business here is.’
Alfie thought for a moment. He doubted he would be successful, but there was no harm in asking.
‘I’d like to visit the Indian prisoner
– as an act of Christian charity,’ he added, remembering the preacher who once tried preaching the word of God to the busy crowd around Covent Garden. Sammy’s hymn had proved more popular than the preacher’s words, and they all had a good supper that night.
‘Well, you can’t visit the Indian prisoner.’ The constable had a sneering note in his voice, but Alfie ignored that.
‘Why not?’ he asked briskly.
‘Because he ain’t here. Was released two hours ago. No manners, these young ruffians,’ the constable added, talking to himself as if Alfie had already left the police station.
Why had Mallesh not come back to them, then? wondered Alfie as he crossed the road and made his way back to the cellar. Ahead of him he could see Jack and Sarah with Mutsy proudly carrying a huge bone with several pieces of meat still attached to it. That would keep him satisfied for another day – soon he would be back to hunting for himself again.
Alfie caught up with them but did not speak. His mind was too busy.
Mallesh was the problem, he thought as he went ahead of the others, slowly down the dark stairs. How on earth could he ever find Mallesh in the teeming streets of London?
And if he didn’t find him, and get him to identify that smell, how would Alfie ever be able to solve the murder?
CHAPTER 27
A MOUTH LIKE THE DEVIL’S
The cellar was very dark when they opened the door – the fire was low, just casting a subdued glow and for a moment Alfie could see no one. Mutsy, however, had no doubt. Dropping his bone with a loud thud, he gave a quick, sharp bark, dashed forward, tail waving like a flag, and rushed up to the figure beside Sammy. Another bark and a wet lick and then he was back to pick up his precious bone and retire to a dark corner with it.
The Montgomery Murder Page 11