‘Richard was great, wasn’t he?’ Alfie burst in through the door of the cellar, giving Mutsy a quick pat on the head. They were all there. Sammy, though still looking unusually clean and tidy, had changed out of the smart clothes and was wearing his own ragged breeches and torn coat. He turned his head eagerly when Alfie came in, but turned back to the fire again when he heard his brother’s words.
‘Richard, Richard, Richard,’ sneered Tom. ‘What’s so great about Richard? Just a toffy-nosed, flash- talking swell. Who cares about him? We’re sick of him, aren’t we, Jack?’
Jack said nothing, just looked troubled.
‘I suppose you don’t need me tonight, then,’ said Tom. ‘Is your precious Richard going to hang around street corners getting freezing cold? I can just see him! You know what he’s going to do, don’t you, just as soon as he gets tired of you? He’ll play the informer, and then you’ll find yourself in hot water. If ever I saw a snitch, well, he’s one.’
‘You shut your mouth and get out of here,’ said Alfie hotly.
‘C’mon, Tom, I need a hand,’ said Jack, the peacemaker. He steered Tom quickly past Alfie and they could be heard arguing on the cellar steps.
‘He’s just jealous,’ said Sarah, as the voices disappeared. ‘He likes working with you.’
Alfie said nothing. He frowned at the fire while Sarah told him all about how well Sammy had done and how a lady beside her in the Abbey had whispered to her that she had never heard the choir sing so beautifully as they sang that night.
Then Alfie recounted how he and Richard had stolen the box of sweets from the organist’s room. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do now?’ he continued when neither Sarah nor Sammy responded. ‘I’ve just decided, I’m going to wrap up a parcel that looks just like that and tie it to a key in just the same way as they did before and I’m going to put it into the postbox and see what happens.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘What do you think? Will it work?’
‘What do you hope will happen?’ asked Sarah, narrowing her eyes.
Alfie clicked his tongue in an annoyed fashion. If he had said that to Richard there would have been an immediate response of ‘What a lark!’
‘One of them men, one of them MPs, will pull it out, of course, and then I’ll know the truth,’ he said impatiently.
‘And what will happen if none of them goes near to the postbox, if none of them touches it?’
‘Oh, pipe down, Sarah.’ Alfie could feel himself exploding with exasperation.
‘I think,’ said Sarah, ‘that you should go straight to Inspector Denham. Tell him everything and let him sort it out. This business is dangerous. Sammy took quite a risk today for you.’ Her voice rose and shook slightly. ‘If he had been discovered, they might have put him in the workhouse. I was worried sick! I say that you should stop now – stop all this nonsense, climbing around roofs at night and breaking into schools. Go to Inspector Denham.’
‘I didn’t mind,’ said Sammy firmly.
Somehow these few words from Sammy made Alfie feel worse than ever. However, he was determined to solve the problem and earn the promised reward of five pounds. He turned an annoyed gaze towards Sarah.
‘Well I’m not going to Inspector Denham yet,’ he said hotly. He went to the cupboard, took out an old rusty key, carefully re-wrapped the brown paper parcel with some twine belonging to his father, who had been a cobbler, and stuck some cobbler’s wax to fasten the twine and its dangling key securely to the paper. When that was done he gave a brief look around and said, ‘I’m off. Stay, Mutsy!’
Westminster Abbey was quiet and dark, with only a few pinpricks of light showing through the stained-glass windows when Alfie arrived outside it. He walked around for a while before approaching the red pillar box with Victoria Regina in gold letters just below its slot. He gave one more glance around before dropping the small parcel, attached to the key, into it.
Then he strolled for a while around the Abbey until he found a shadowy corner and began to climb up to the roof.
It was funny, he thought, how much work the men who built the Abbey, all those hundreds of years ago, had put it into it. Not content with just building walls and roofs, they had decorated almost every inch with little twists and curls, stone heads, carved patterns, statues of saints and angels. Must have had a lot of time on their hands to give themselves all that work, he said to himself as he grabbed a head and inserted his toes into a stone flower. Still he was grateful to them. It made the roof a joy to climb.
He looked up and down the long line of Westminster Abbey. He had walked around its pavements often enough, during all the hours that he had spent hanging around waiting for something to happen. The Abbey was about six hundred feet long, he reckoned. Where he stood now was about halfway between the little chapel at one end, and the Great West Door at the other.
The roof over the little chapel was the place to be, thought Alfie. From there, he could look down over the Houses of Parliament and watch its members come out after a late night sitting.
Tonight would be the night! He felt confident about that. Now he knew how everything worked, he would keep a sharp eye on that postbox and with luck he would soon find out which of the three men was the spy. He would be able to give his name and the name of Boris Ivanov to Inspector Denham.
Inch by inch, Alfie made his way across the roof. There was a low parapet, high enough to hide a six-year-old child, but for a twelve-year-old like Alfie the only possibility was to crawl or to crouch. The razor-sharp edges of the slates cut into his bare knees, but it was better than the agony of walking bent double.
The climb down was long and difficult and, when he was halfway down, the bells sounded and almost deafened him. And then Big Ben started chiming. The new belltower, Big Ben, was a great service to Londoners without watches, thought Alfie. Everyone could keep track of time now as its sound echoed all over the town. He looked across at the great clock face: eight o’clock. He hoped desperately that the MPs would finish whatever they were doing soon. He was cold and stiff, and yawns kept almost dislocating his jaw.
At last he reached the roof of the chapel. This little chapel was no higher than an ordinary London house, and he was now only about twenty feet above ground level. In some ways he was glad to come down as the immense height of the Abbey had begun to make him feel dizzy.
To his dismay the whole roof of the chapel had been covered with sheets of lead – soaking wet from the fog – and it was as slippery as ice. Once again Alfie had to go along on the inside of the parapet, but this was even more difficult as this parapet was lower still and the danger of being seen was much greater.
However, it looked as though his wait would not be a long one. The MPs were streaming out, and there was a queue of cabs lined up, ready to take them to their town houses or to the coaching inns. In ones, or twos or threes they went off, chattering happily.
Some of the last to come out were the three men on the rifle development committee. And there they were, just like before, the three MPs, standing under the gas lamp outside the Houses of Parliament. Alfie could see them quite clearly: two big men and one thin one. Although the air was still foggy, there were no clouds in the sky and, like the night before, a brilliant full moon lit up the whole scene.
But there was a difference. No Russian lurked in the shadows of St Stephen’s Tavern; Alfie was sure of that. Boris was probably on his way, even now, to the Russian Embassy. Alfie bit his lip at the thought of the Russians coming to hunt for him, but stayed very still. He might be in danger, but he was determined to see this matter through.
Yes! One of the men, Ron Shufflebottom from Yorkshire, was standing very close to the red pillar box. Unfortunately Roland Valentine was quite near to him, telling jokes as usual. Tom Craddock was at the edge of the pavement whistling for a cab.
And then Ron Shufflebottom lifted a hand and pointed towards the gate into the Houses of Parliament. Roland Valentine turned his head in that direction. Immediately his companion turned back to the postbox and Alfie saw him seize the key and draw up the parcel from its depths. By the time Roland Valentine looked back, the parcel, its thread and its key were safely tucked into Ron Shufflebottom’s pocket and they had all piled into a cab together.
The man from Yorkshire was the guilty one.
Now Alfie knew almost the whole story.
Now he could go to Inspector Denham and tell him what happened.
But not yet, he said to himself . . .
Only when the place was empty did Alfie slide down from the roof of the chapel and, after a quick glance to make sure that no one was around, he crossed the road and carefully examined the pillar box.
But there was nothing there: no string tied to a key, no sign of anything left. And there was no sign of Boris Ivanov, the organist and spy.
Alfie thought: even if the organist had gone to the Russian Embassy, Ron Shufflebottom would not know that yet. It would be sensible to go home now, but Alfie had lots of courage.
And lots of curiosity.
Where was Boris? Alfie was determined that when he went to Inspector Denham in the morning he would have the whole story for him.
He made up his mind to go back into the school and to see Richard. With one last look around, he slipped across the road and made his way around the Abbey. He kept well into the shadow of that huge building until he reached the spot where he had climbed up last night when he had been rescued by Richard.
It was funny how much easier it all seemed to him now. His feet instinctively found the foot of the stone saint; his hands easily grasped the short length of rope hung there by Richard. The moon was not quite as full as last night’s, but there was still enough light for him to make his way in between carved towers and ugly gargoyles and along parapets. When he reached the gap he jumped it almost without thinking. His mind was deeply engaged with the puzzle of why Boris Ivanov had not turned up to send or receive a message from the pillar box from his contact at the Houses of Parliament.
Alfie slid silently along the roof ridge of the school, stopped in the shelter of a warm chimney to catch his breath, and then continued on. Most of the windows were dark, but there was a candle burning in one – that must be the room belonging to the organist.
Cautiously Alfie peered down.
The small square yard at the centre of Westminster School was paved in white stone and the moonlight filled it, illuminating the dark figure lying, face down, arms outstretched, in the middle of it. On the back of the head was a mass of clotted blood and beside the body lay a blood-soaked pole.
Alfie did not hesitate. Grasping a pipe leading down from the gutter, he slid to the ground and approached the still figure.
It was Boris Ivanov.
And he was dead.