Alfie shivered. He had been waiting outside the Houses of Parliament in the cold for hours.
Most of the MPs had already come out, taken cabs or walked away. But not the men Alfie was waiting for.
But then, at last, there they were: the three men he had seen in George’s Shooting Gallery. They came to a halt under the gas lamp, their backs to a scarlet postbox: Ron Shufflebottom, Tom Craddock and Roland Valentine, who was so handy with a gun and had nearly put an end to Alfie’s life. Had he really thought he had seen a rat, or had he seen the face peering down at him and thought he was being spied on? Whichever it was, this man was dangerous.
Alfie could see them quite clearly. Although the air was still foggy, there were no clouds in the sky and a brilliant full moon lit up the whole scene. The three men stood together looking for a cab. So far, Alfie had watched them for three nights, and each night they had shared a cab back to their apartment. Each night Alfie had followed them, running all the way behind the horses, down Whitehall, through Trafalgar Square, and then around to the place where they were staying by the river. But nothing strange had happened.
And it looked as though nothing was going to happen tonight, either. By now, Mr Shufflebottom had succeeded in getting a cab and they were all piling into it, laughing and teasing each other and in a moment the horse was off, its hoofs clattering against the cobbled surface of Whitehall. Alfie gazed after them, too discouraged to follow them for a fourth night.
Inspector Denham had set him up with a newspaper stand so he could watch the suspects and catch the spy. Who would notice Alfie, a ragged, bare-footed, twelve-year-old boy, selling newspapers?
And so, every day, Alfie collected the first editions of the evening papers even before the ink was dry and took his place outside Parliament, and called out ‘Paper! Paper! Paper!’ in a voice made hoarse by the London fog.
All for nothing, he thought bitterly and turned to go back and join his cousin Tom, who was waiting patiently a few steps away by the newspaper stand.
And then something happened.
A man who had been standing smoking a pipe at the door of St Stephen’s Tavern, opposite the Houses of Parliament, emerged from the shadows. He did not even look at Alfie and his bundle of newspapers, but began to cross the road.
This man was a spy. Alfie was suddenly quite sure of that. A tall man, with a bushy black beard and a restless head that twisted and turned as his eyes darted here and there. He carried a silver-topped cane and he was wearing a long overcoat made of glossy black fur. His shining silk top hat was placed sideways upon his head and obscured half of his face. The man had been there for a long time, had watched all of the government ministers and backbenchers coming out of Westminster; but unlike them he had not called for a cab. He had stood in the shadows, a tense, alert figure, smoking a cigar and waiting.
Then, when all the others had gone, he had emerged from the doorway, looked from left to right and behind him. He had carefully scanned the road before crossing over and stopping in front of the red postbox. Once again he looked all around him, but Alfie was now facing the railings and was busy tidying his pack of newspapers, carefully matching up their edges.
But from the corner of his eye he could see what the man was doing.
Alfie’s eyes were sharp and so were his wits. To a passer-by it would have looked as though the man in the fur coat was just posting a letter; but Alfie was near enough to hear a slight clink of metal and he saw what was happening.
The man was not posting a letter. He was fishing a letter out of the red postbox.
A dark thread had been tied to a heavy key. The man pulled on the key and on the other end of the thread was tied an envelope. The gas lamp shone on it for a few seconds, long enough for Alfie to see the creamy-white of the paper and the red of the sealing wax that kept it tightly closed.
Alfie swallowed hard. By now this strange behaviour, this affair of the hidden letter, had convinced him. This was what he had been waiting for. He had to follow this man, stay with him, but stay unsuspected and unseen if possible.
Alfie had been starting to get very tired of this job. Nothing was happening as far as he could tell. But tonight was different; tonight things were happening at last.
But this man was not one of the MPs. He was not one of the suspects. Alfie glanced over towards the newspaper stand and hoped that his cousin Tom was observing too. He picked one newspaper off the pile and raised it above his head. That was the signal to Tom who stood shivering beside the newspaper stand.
Tom’s job was to follow the man first and then, after a while, Alfie would catch up with him and Tom would hang back. In this way they would take turns so that the hunted person would not notice the same boy behind him all of the time. Tom was good at this sort of thing and would be ready as soon as the man in the fur coat began to move. Alfie himself fiddled with his newspapers and tried to think what to do next. Who was this man? And where was he from?
He had come out from the tavern, but he was not the owner, nor was he staying there. Alfie knew everything about St Stephen’s Tavern. He had haunted the place for the last four days and knew everyone who worked there and most of the customers who came and went. This man was not from the tavern and yet his shoes were bright and shiny, so he could not have come from far. He had not come by cab either: Alfie had checked every cab that had arrived in the last few hours. Where did he live? He was not the sort of man who would live nearby in Devil’s Acre. Devil’s Acre was a terrible place, with narrow, stinking streets and tumbledown houses. It was the home of thieves, criminals and people who did not own a penny. There were no respectable houses around. Where had this man come from?
Alfie pondered over the puzzle while he watched the spy from a safe distance.
‘Don’t let him suspect you,’ Inspector Denham had said. ‘A dead hero is no good to me. Keep yourself safe. You have your brother and your cousins depending on you. I’ll give you sixpence a day for watching and there is a five-pound reward if you lead me to the spy.’
Five pounds, thought Alfie. Five pounds would put to rest all his worries about finding the rent for the cellar. Five pounds would keep the roof over their heads safe for the time being. So he continued to watch.
The next second, the man in the fur coat stripped the thread from the blob of sealing wax, broke the seal, tore open the envelope and put it, the key and the thread into his pocket. He looked quickly at the large folded sheets of paper and they also went into his pocket. Then he looked around once more and held a long, narrow strip of paper up to the gas lamp. He seemed to be reading its words over and over, almost as though he were trying to understand them. Alfie moved a little nearer and saw why the man was puzzled. There on the piece of paper was written in large black capital letters:
THE QUICK BROWN FOX
JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.