Tom and Mutsy were doing tricks in Trafalgar Square when Richard and Alfie arrived. Tom held up a card with a picture of four rats and Mutsy gave four short barks and then whined.
‘Stay, Mutsy,’ whispered Alfie as he saw the dog’s head swivel towards him. He knew that, despite the noise of the horses’ hoofs, the cab drivers’ shouts or the street sellers’ cries of ‘Hot muffins for sale’, Mutsy, the genius dog, would hear his master’s voice and obey.
Tom, on the other hand, gave the two well-dressed young gentlemen just a quick glance and went on impressing the small crowd in front of him with Mutsy’s knowledge of arithmetic. Alfie giggled to himself as he watched. Obviously Tom had not recognised him.
The pair was doing well. Mutsy barked ten times at the picture of ten rats, and the pennies rained down when he did a little dance on his hind legs, picked up a tin plate from the ground and carried it carefully from person to person, his lips pulled back from his teeth in obedience to Tom’s command to smile. From time to time, his brown eyes rested on Alfie with such a look of longing that Alfie found it hard to resist spoiling the act by going and patting him.
‘My dog,’ he said proudly to Richard when Mutsy had deposited the plate, heavy with coins, at Tom’s feet. Alfie snapped his fingers and Mutsy came to him immediately, winding himself round and round Alfie’s legs in an ecstasy of love.
‘Mutsy!’ said Tom, scandalised at the dog’s behaviour towards a well-dressed young toff.
‘He’s not doing any harm,’ said Alfie, trying to speak in a toff’s voice; but Tom was not deceived. His eyes widened and he glanced quickly around.
‘You go ahead,’ said Alfie in a low voice. ‘We’ll be along in a while. Where’s Sammy? And Jack?’
‘Jack’s gone to get some coal out of the river for the fire and Sammy’s at home with Sarah. He was a bit worried when you didn’t come home. Said he didn’t have the heart to sing this morning.’ Tom mumbled the words as he started to put the cards back into their box. He did not look at the two well-dressed young gentlemen, but discreetly kept his attention on what he was doing. His sharp eyes had flickered across the square to a heavily built man standing by one of the two fountains and in a minute he and Mutsy were gone.
The man did not look after Tom; his attention was on Richard. Although he was not wearing the fur coat today, but a plain black wool cloak-like garment, Alfie immediately recognised him as the organist from Westminster. He nudged Richard, but it was too late. Boris came plunging across.
‘You there, young master! You’re one of the boys from the choir at Westminster School, aren’t you? Young Master Richard Green; that’s right, isn’t it?’
Rapidly Alfie slid behind the chestnut seller. There was little he could do for Richard now – just watch and listen.
‘I’ve been looking at the headmaster’s punishment book and I see that you were punished a few months ago because you were seen on the roof of the Abbey at night-time. Were you there last night?’
‘No, sir! Certainly not, sir!’ Richard sounded quite shocked at the idea.
‘Don’t you lie to me! I know there were a couple of boys on the roof last night. I saw one go up myself. That one wasn’t you; it was a rough boy from the slums, a bare-footed boy; but the policeman said he caught a glimpse of two boys and one of them was wearing a hat. Now you’re going to be in trouble, Green, unless you tell me where I can find that other boy, the bare-footed lad.’
Alfie froze, standing very still. What would Richard do? He knew nothing of the Westminster choirboy; he had just shared a few dangerous hours with him. Richard had no responsibility for him. What would he decide? Would he betray Alfie?
‘Boy, sir?’ Richard sounded puzzled. He was certainly a good actor. Alfie could see how his eyes glittered with excitement.
There was a note of uncertainty in the Russian’s voice when he said, ‘It was you on the roof last night, wasn’t it?’
He doesn’t know, thought Alfie with relief. He just checked through the punishment book until he found the name of someone who had once climbed the roof of the Abbey.
Richard gave a light laugh. ‘Not me, sir. Browne Minor had some goodies, a nice tuck-box of cake and pasties from home in Kent last night, sir. We had a bit of a feast, sir.’
Boris Ivanov stared at him intently while Alfie held his breath. Richard looked relaxed and slightly amused and waited quietly until the organist turned on his heel and strode off.
‘He’ll have it in for you now,’ said Alfie, rejoining him.
Richard shrugged. ‘Not worried,’ he said. ‘He’s not important; Mr Ffoulkes is in charge of the choir and he’s not going to have me expelled. I told you, I’m the best treble in the choir, and he needs me. Boris is not even a proper master, he’s only the organist. Let’s go and see your brother.’
‘Did you get a chance to see what was written on the paper that he pulled out of the postbox?’ Back at the cellar, Sarah was her usual clear-headed, thoughtful self. She had welcomed Richard, glad that she had bullied Jack and Tom into tidying up the cellar to pass the long hours this morning while they had been waiting for news of Alfie. Sammy had been given the task of cleaning the frying pan and kettle, and she herself had washed the one small window that looked onto the pavement. There was a cosy fire because Jack had brought in a new lot of coal which he had picked out from the River Thames at the place where the coal barges moored by Hungerford Bridge.
The cellar looked bright and cheerful, she thought with satisfaction as she looked around. It was lit by firelight and filled with the smell of sausages, bought with one of Inspector Denham’s sixpences and now frying gently on the pan placed on top of the glowing coals.
Sarah saw Richard give an admiring glance around, commenting on how cosy it was and seating himself beside the fire. Alfie seemed pleased with his praise, though Sarah reckoned that to a Westminster schoolboy like Richard it was probably a very poor place. He wanted to please, she thought, but quickly turned her attention back to the solving of the spy mystery. The five pounds that Inspector Denham promised would keep the boys safe in the cellar for the rest of the winter. The puzzle had to be solved.
‘Just drawings,’ Alfie was saying. ‘I couldn’t see very well.’
‘And the paper that he ate?’ asked Tom. ‘Imagine eating a piece of paper! What was written on that?’
‘Sort of nonsense,’ said Alfie with a frown. He was proud of his quick brain and hated not to understand things straight away. ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,’ he said reluctantly and Tom sniggered. ‘I think it had some numbers on it too, but I didn’t see them properly. They was written too small,’ added Alfie.
‘Easy to remember,’ said Sarah thoughtfully. ‘Look how you remember it, although you only saw it for a second. Must mean something. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’
‘Don’t see how,’ argued Tom. ‘What could foxes and dogs have to do with Russian spies?’
‘Perhaps it’s just the first part of the message,’ said Sammy quietly. It was the first sentence that he had spoken since he heard about the plan for him to sing at Westminster Abbey with the other choirboys. That had brought a flush of excitement to his pale cheeks.
Richard looked across at him. He had been a little embarrassed about how to deal with a blind boy, but now he had got used to it.
‘Let’s have a go at the Magnificat, Sammy,’ he said, stuffing the last sausage into his mouth and tipping some more beer into his mug. ‘By Jove, I like your tipple! Good for the throat, this sort of stuff. The boys at Westminster School used to always have beer, but now they just have tea. Beer’s much better,’ he said approvingly.
‘I’ve listened to your choir practising it,’ said Sammy confidently. ‘I only know the first verse, though. You’ll have to teach me the rest.’ He stood up unselfconsciously and began to sing. Even Tom was frozen into stillness as Sammy’s high, pure voice filled the little cellar and echoed from the rafters overhead.
‘My God! You’re better than me! You reached that high C more easily than I do. You’d better sing softly or else old Ffoulkes, blind as a bat though he is, will scent out a stranger.’ Richard sounded very taken aback and Alfie smiled to himself at the Westminster boy’s astonishment. He supposed it did seem amazing that a poor boy like Sammy could sing as well as the best choirboys of Westminster. He felt pleased that his brother had won the approval of a toff like Richard.
‘Do all the boys go to evensong, or is it just the choir?’ Sarah was working out how they would get a blind boy into the choir stalls of Westminster Abbey without anyone noticing. Pity that Tom was not the musical one, she thought, but then, when she saw Sammy’s face, flushed with excitement, she changed her mind. Poor Sammy, he did not have a great life. Singing with the most famous boy choristers in the whole of London would be a wonderful thing for him – something that he would look back on for years.
Life’s not fair, thought Sarah, not for the first time. She was not especially musical herself, but it was easy to hear that Sammy had a purer, higher voice than Richard and yet Richard had been in the Westminster choir for four years, with singing lessons twice a day.
Why was it that Sammy had no chance of a life like that?
Why was it that Alfie seemed so keen to impress a boy like Richard? Jack, who was shy and modest, had not said a word and Tom was showing off a bit too much. Why, she asked herself, was she so pleased that she had tidied up the cellar before Richard’s visit? He was just a boy of their own age. Did having money and going to a swell’s school make you more important?
And why was it that Alfie, with all his brains, had to risk his life to earn a few pounds to keep the four boys housed and fed?