‘Quick, all the seniors are coming down the stairs now! They won’t notice you. They never look at us juniors.’ Richard burst into the room as soon as Alfie had unlocked the door, gave him a quick look, brushed down the coat, straightened the necktie and then pushed him out onto the landing while he relocked the study door.
Alfie took a deep breath. He would have found it easier to climb back out of the window and along the roof ridge towards the Abbey, than to brave the crowd of boys pouring down the stairs from their studies.
They looked more like men than boys and it seemed strange to think that they were still at school. However, they were inky around the fingers and they wore the same necktie as Richard and he wore. Their deep, or half-broken, voices filled the stairwell with a sound like thunder. They took no notice of the two twelve-year-olds, but pushed past them as if they did not exist.
Richard said nothing and Alfie was thankful for that. As soon as he, with his London accent, opened his mouth they would know him for a stranger, but while he kept silent he was safe.
‘Quietly, boys, please!’ A tall man, wearing a flowing gown and a mortarboard, came out of a room on the ground floor and looked up. He was followed by a familiar figure: Boris, the organist, an ordinary-looking man with a square, heavy-featured face, now that he was no longer wearing the mask that he had put on last night. Alfie gulped hard and looked down at his boots.
‘Sorry, Mr Ffoulkes,’ said one of the oldest boys, while another, treading heavily on Alfie’s chilblains, muttered to his friends, ‘Who does he think he is, blasted choirmaster – he’s got no authority over us.’
Richard nudged Alfie and together they slid behind the backs of two heavily built boys. Richard turned the handle of the door and, in a moment, they were alone.
‘This is the Dark Cloister. It leads straight into the Abbey,’ said Richard. ‘The choir always goes down this way and I’m one of the choir so nobody can question me – I’ll say that I’ve left my hymn book in the choir stalls.’
Richard led the way. Alfie could see why it was called the Dark Cloister; it was black as pitch and without Richard’s grip on his arm he would have stumbled. He was glad when they came into the dim light of the Abbey and made their way to the choir stalls. No one else was there.
‘Let’s sit here for a few minutes and we can talk,’ said Richard as he sank down on a bench at the very back row of the stalls.
Alfie looked around. It was a good place to talk because each of the benches had a carved kneeler in front of it and these rose so high that they almost completely hid the boys from sight. In any case, the Abbey was very dark, with just a pinprick of light coming from a red lamp on the altar.
‘I’ve got an idea and it’s a jolly decent one,’ announced Richard. ‘I thought I could search old Boris’s room and get the evidence. The only thing is, the only safe time to do that is when he’s playing the organ here in the church. He’ll be playing tonight for Evensong service.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Alfie resolutely. He was the one who should get that fur coat with the evidence. He was determined about that.
‘Well, I don’t think that is possible,’ said Richard. ‘You see I’ll need you to take my place in choir. Old Ffoulkes is as blind as a bat, but he does count heads. If there aren’t sixteen heads sticking up from the stalls, he’ll go raving mad and not rest until he discovers who is missing. He’s got a very nasty temper and it will mean a first-class beating for me if he catches me missing evensong.’
‘Well, I can’t sing a note and my hair is black and yours is blond,’ pointed out Alfie.
‘Yeah, it mightn’t work. He’s probably more likely to miss a voice than to notice about hair colour,’ said Richard thoughtfully. ‘Especially as I’m the best treble in the choir; he’d probably miss me.’
‘I’ve an idea.’ Alfie’s voice rose with excitement and quickly he hushed it. ‘My brother Sammy is a great singer – he has a really high voice – and he has hair just like yours. We could dress him up in these clothes. He’s nearly as big as I am, so they’d fit him well.’
‘That’s the solution, then,’ said Richard triumphantly. ‘Let’s go and get him. We’ve plenty of time. As long as we are in our places before evensong starts, we’ve nothing to do this afternoon.’
‘There’s only one problem, though,’ said Alfie slowly. ‘My brother is blind.’
Sammy had not been born blind, but when he was about two years old he had been very ill with the spotted fever. When he recovered, it was obvious that he had no sight left. The boys’ grandfather was a gifted musician and fiddle player and he had worked with Sammy and taught him to sing hundreds of songs.
He has a golden voice, their grandfather used to say to his daughter when she worried about her son’s blindness. It will see him through life, don’t you fret. Now Alfie and Sammy’s mother was long dead, and Sammy sang on the streets for money. The blind boy with the fine voice was the biggest earner in Alfie’s gang.
How Sammy would envy Richard and how he would love to have a chance to sing in the most famous church in London, Westminster Abbey itself! Alfie thought hard, shushing Richard when he tried to speak.
‘We’ll manage,’ he said eventually. And then after a minute, ‘So you just come into the Abbey and go to your places before the service?’
‘That’s right,’ said Richard, ‘and it’s not fair; the rest of the school are still out enjoying themselves.’
That was good news to hear. That meant that he and Richard would be able to go through the school up to the organist’s room without the danger of meeting hordes of boys.
‘And the church would be as dark as this?’
‘Even darker. Evensong starts at four o’clock and at this time of year the place is as black as pitch, except for the candles, of course.’
‘And people, ordinary people, are allowed into the service.’
‘That’s right.’
Alfie sat back with a grin. He loved this sort of thing. He was a great planner. He worked out the details in his mind.
Sarah, he thought. She was always neatly and tidily dressed in good clothes these days. She could accompany Sammy to the church. Somehow they would get him into the seat ahead of time.
‘My friend, East, sits next to me. We could tell him the secret.’ Richard was peering at Alfie’s face in the dim light.
He was a funny fellow, Alfie decided. Why on earth would he climb the roof of the Abbey at night when all the other boys were tucked up in their beds? He never took another boy with him; he had told Alfie that. He lived on excitement. Alfie had known a few people like that – mostly they went to the bad, and made a living robbing coaches or breaking into houses . . .
Still, it’s none of my business, he thought, rising to his feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
First Richard had to listen to Sammy’s voice. If that was good enough – and Alfie had no idea of the difference between an alto and a treble – then, in the hours that remained to them before four o’clock, Richard could teach Sammy whatever song was going to be sung that night.
And, while the service of evensong was being sung and while the organ was being played by Mr Ivanov, then Richard and Alfie could find the evidence to prove that Boris, as Richard called him, was the Russian spy wanted by Scotland Yard.