Death in the Devil's Den (5 page)

Richard would be in trouble from the school authorities if they found out about his night on the roof of Westminster Abbey; but if Alfie were found by the Russian spy, it would be a matter of
life or death.

It was a long night for Alfie, stuck in an airless cupboard and listening to every sound. There were noises of mice – or at least he hoped it was mice, not rats –
running up and down the wooden panelling behind his head. He tapped on it once and it felt hollow and a piece of board fell out across his knees.

Cautiously he lit a match. Inside the cupboard
there was little chance of the light being seen by anyone. There was an empty space behind the board, and beyond that a rough brick wall crossed by horizontal wooden beams. Carefully, Alfie worked
a second board loose and then held up another burning match, peering into the darkness above. Using the horizontal beams as a ladder, Alfie climbed up. There was some sort of storage space above.
Alfie came out into it and realised that he was in a large, bare attic. He could see cobweb-festooned trunks, suitcases, tuck-boxes and bags lined up there. And then came more scuttling sounds.
Hastily he climbed back down, returned the two boards to their rusty nails and tried to sleep.

‘Alfie!’ The voice was quiet, not much more than a whisper, but it woke Alfie instantly. He waited for a second, but when his name was repeated he was certain that
it was Richard. He pulled open the door and peered out.

‘Breakfast?’ He lifted his eyebrows enquiringly, his voice cool and undisturbed. The last thing he wanted to happen was for Richard to guess how lonely and scared he had been through
the night.

‘I’ve got to go to choir practice first.’ Richard quickly pulled a black gown over his suit and wondered aloud where he had left his ‘lid’, eventually finding a
flat hat, shaped like a square with a cap beneath it.

‘So that’s a lid,’ said Alfie with a grin. ‘Looks funny.’

‘It’s called a mortarboard, really.’ Richard sounded a little annoyed and Alfie suppressed the grin and said that perhaps he should leave while the boys were at choir
practice.

‘I say,’ said Richard. ‘I’ve thought of something. Smith Minor has left his second set of togs here. Why don’t you put them on while I’m at the Abbey?
It’ll make it much easier to smuggle you out when morning school is over. Luckily it’s Friday. We have a half-day on Friday and only one choir practice. You might as well stay until
then and I’ll go out with you – piece of cake, really. No risk.’

He pulled out a suit of clothes from the tall cupboard, found some underclothes and a stiffly starched white shirt in the drawers of a tall chest and a pair of boots from a chest beside the
fireplace.

‘Light the fire, like a good fellow; I’m late!’ And then he was gone. Alfie turned the key in the lock and stood by the door for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of
boys’ feet clattering down the staircase. Would he like a life like this? he wondered as he scrunched up bits of newspaper and put some sticks into the fire, adding small pieces of coal once
it began to burn freely.

These young gentlemen had everything provided for them, he thought and looked admiringly around at what Richard had called ‘his study’. There were two easy chairs by the fire, two
desks and chairs on either side of the window that opened onto the sloping slated roof. There was a hook above the fireplace where a kettle could hang, a shelf full of books, a carpet on the floor,
a clock, and even a mirror hanging over the fireplace.

Alfie filled the kettle from a tall jug on a side table, set it above the flames and then studied himself in the mirror. He looked very dirty, he thought, and resolved to wash before putting on
Smith Minor’s spotless shirt. There were some bars of strong-smelling soap and plenty of torn-up rags in the chest and he washed carefully, even his hair, before dressing himself in the
starched shirt and black suit of clothes. The well-polished boots were a little too big, but that was just as well because, like every winter, Alfie’s toes were swollen by chilblains.

‘He was there – there in the abbey as usual!’ Richard had scratched gently at the door when he arrived back and Alfie had been pleased to see him. ‘I
say, what a lark! You look quite like Smith Minor, too. He has black curly hair just like you. Wears it a bit shorter, though. Hang on, let me put the cheese and bread over on the table and then
I’ll snip it a bit for you.’

‘Who was there?’ asked Alfie as Richard made the tea in a round brown pot.

‘Boris! Mr Ivanov. The organist. He was in a foul mood, too. Kept quarrelling with Mr Ffoulkes, the choirmaster. They’re usually the best of friends; but today the pair of them were
so bad-tempered with each other that we all escaped. No one got beaten this morning. I even sang a false note and got away with it! Anyway, tell me what you were doing in Westminster last night.
Why was Boris chasing you?’

Why would a man who has a good job like an organist want to be a spy?
Alfie wondered about that. Normally he would have kept his information to himself, but Richard had, after all, saved
his life. As he began to tell the whole story, he pushed away the thought that he was trying to impress this young toff.

‘A spy!’ breathed Richard when Alfie had finished. ‘I say, what a lark! It’s like a book. I’m not surprised though. He’s crazy about Russia. We all keep
muttering,
Why don’t you go back there, then?
But now I know why he doesn’t. He’s spying for his precious Mother Russia.’

‘That’s it,’ said Alfie with satisfaction. It was good to understand. That was why the organist was taking all those risks. He took another big bite of the bread and cheese and
washed it down with some tea. He had never tasted tea before; it was too expensive for him and his gang. He decided that he didn’t like it that much. Beer was better, he thought, but drank
the tea politely.

‘Can I help you?’ asked Richard eagerly. ‘Between us we’ll catch him. We need evidence, though.’

‘He had papers on him,’ Alfie said, ‘the drawings of the new rifle and of the special bullet, I’d say. I don’t have any evidence – he gave them away. But he
did get something in return. He had it in his pocket last night.’ And then he told Richard how Boris had eaten the note and posted the papers within a newspaper into the letterbox of the
Russian Embassy and how a small package had been left for him to pick up.

‘If I could get into his room . . .’

‘I must be off!’ Richard suddenly looked at the clock on the mantelpiece with alarm. ‘Stay here until I get back,’ he hissed and then he was gone.

Alfie locked the door behind him and settled down to do some hard thinking. He could go to Inspector Denham with his suspicions, but how much better to have hard evidence! He had not actually
seen the piece of paper that Boris had put in his pocket. Could they have been drawings of the invention? But there was the package that he had got in return and put into his coat pocket. With
Richard as a witness, or better still, if he could manage to smuggle the package into Inspector Denham’s office that would definitely be proof. Then he could claim his five pounds’
reward for finding the spy who was betraying England and giving away its secrets.

‘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.