The spy was within a foot of the tree, and Alfie was prepared to run, when there was a creaking noise from above. A light was switched on in the upstairs window of the house opposite the tree and the window was flung open.
‘Look at that moon!’ said a woman’s voice from above and then it was joined by a man’s voice murmuring something. Alfie let his breath out in a gentle sigh of relief. The spy in the fur coat glanced upwards and began to walk briskly away. Alfie stayed very still and waited until the window had been closed again and the curtains drawn over it.
Then he darted out from behind the tree. Keeping well into the shadows, he went in pursuit.
The man was easy to follow now. Alfie was prepared for the route and, by the time they were going down Whitehall, he grew careless. He was dead tired and could not stop himself yawning. Only one more thing remained for him to do, and that was to find out where the spy in the fur coat lived – and if possible, to get his name. Then, in a few hours’ time, when Bow Street Police Station opened for the day, he could make his report to Inspector Denham. Alfie spotted an abandoned meat pie on a bench, picked it up and crunched into the hard pastry. It was deliciously full of gravy with little pieces of steak and kidney inside it and it put new energy into him. Soon the long night would be over. This man must live somewhere near.
But was that really the only thing he could do, he asked himself as they reached Westminster Abbey. The pie had given him courage. After all, he was a practised pickpocket. Surely he could take the brown paper package from the spy’s overcoat pocket? Inspector Denham would be delighted to get it and Alfie himself was very curious to know what was inside the small square parcel.
Alfie fumbled in his own pocket and picked out a penny. It was a bright new penny and, seen in the dim light of the candle-lit window of Westminster Abbey, it could pass for a half-crown. In a second he was beside the man, holding out the penny and saying in an angelic tone of voice:
‘Beg your pardon, sir, you dropped this, sir.’
At the same time, his other hand slid into the wide entrance of the fur-coat pocket.
It did not work, though. The man hardly glanced at the penny, but instantly felt the threat to his parcel. A hand like a bone crusher gripped Alfie’s wrist and twisted it mercilessly.
And the other hand produced something long and pointed from a concealed pocket inside the stout leather boots.
Within one inch of Alfie’s neck was the long, wickedly sharp blade of a knife.
Could he escape? Alfie looked around wildly, struggling silently against the grip on his wrist, digging his nails into the man’s soft palm and lowering his teeth towards the hand.
All around him were stately buildings, places for the rich: the Houses of Parliament, its newly-cut stone shining white through the fog; smoke-blackened Westminster Abbey and Westminster School; all huge, magnificent buildings, splendidly ornamented with carved towers and statues.
But only a few yards away from this splendour lay Devil’s Acre – that den of the devil, that terrible place of narrow streets filled with rotting houses, of blind alleys where the smell hit you as you approached, and of small square courts with houses crowded around a central space where the filth was heaped as high as the houses themselves. Devil’s Acre was a place where thieves, cracksmen and murderers lived side-by-side with the poor and the starving. It was not a place where a well-dressed gentleman in a fur coat, a silk top hat and a silver-topped cane would willingly go.
Alfie made a sudden lunge, broke free and sprinted in that direction. He knew Devil’s Acre well. There were no gas lamps there, just a few pitch torches burning outside the inn. He could lose himself easily there.
But he was too late. The silver-topped cane was thrust between his bare legs and he fell heavily to the ground. The fall winded him badly. There was no way that he could escape. He lay gasping for breath.
The wickedly sharp knife flashed as it descended towards him. Alfie abandoned all hope and shut his eyes. This was it.