Murder on Stage (10 page)

‘Everyone is interested in that murder,’ said Sarah, trying to smile, but Rosa continued to look at her suspiciously.

‘Don’t you lie to me, young Sarah,’ she said with authority. ‘Come on now, tell the truth. You’re holding something back, ain’t you?’

Sarah twisted her fingers together, trying to make up her mind. Her own mother had abandoned her when she was a tiny baby – left her outside the Foundling Hospital – and Rosa was the
nearest thing to a mother that she had ever had.

And she sounded just like a mother now, thought Sarah. She tried to give a casual smile but then the tears welled up again.

‘Oh, Rosa,’ she said, taking a large gulp of the hot chocolate in order to prevent a sob escaping, ‘the police have arrested a friend of mine, Alfie – the boy that ran on
stage when Harry Booth died. Alfie didn’t do it, but now they’ve taken him off to prison. I have to find out who really did kill Harry Booth. Oh, Rosa, you know all of these people.
Will you help me? Please, Rosa, for old times’ sake.’

Rosa took a long drink of the hot chocolate, keeping both eyes fixed on Sarah’s face as she drank. Eventually she drained the last drops, put down the mug, looked carefully all around and
then said quietly, ‘I’ll ask around to see who was near to the curtains at the time, but I’ll be keeping one thing in my mind, and you remember it too, young Sarah. Whoever killed
Harry Booth will be having both ears open to see if anyone is asking questions.’

Sarah nodded but Rosa hadn’t finished. Her voice sank even lower as she added slowly, ‘They say in St Giles that no one kills only once. The more you kill, the easier it gets –
that’s what they say.’

The fog was still thick when Sarah came out of Covent Garden market. She hurried along Bow Street, feeling her way along the wall, keeping to the inside of the pavement. The
few horses and cabs that were out were blundering around, unable to see the road and occasionally running up against pedestrians. The gas lamps cast no light on the pavements, but were just misty
globes of glimmering yellow in the darkness above their heads.

Sarah stopped at a shop and bought a loaf of bread and some milk. She felt a great sense of responsibility for the gang now that Alfie was gone. He was always careful to stop them from drinking
water. His mother had died of cholera – a disease which had ripped through the neighbourhood from drinking water poisoned with the sewage that had seeped into it.

The fire was glowing through the dirty window of the boys’ cellar. Suddenly she found her face wet with tears. Would Alfie ever come home again? She dashed the wetness from her cheeks,
swallowed hard and then rapped on the door. Sammy was back, anyway; Mutsy’s deep bark had sounded as she came down the steps and now he was sniffing so loudly that it almost seemed as though
he wanted to draw her in through the door on one deep intake of breath.

Jack was absent, but Tom was there, a very subdued Tom who seemed almost disappointed to see her. Perhaps he was still sulking after her rough words earlier. She decided to ignore him and talk
to Sammy.

‘So Tom found you, then, Sammy, is that right?’ Sarah sat down beside him. How would the blind boy manage without his brother? The thought would not go from her mind and she bit her
lip to prevent a sob.

‘Nah,’ said Sammy in his peaceful way, ‘Mutsy and I got home by ourselves.’

‘I looked every place,’ said Tom defensively. There was something strange about his tone. Sarah glanced at him, but the fire was low and the room almost in darkness.

‘Where were you, then, Sammy?’ asked Sarah.

‘Me and Mutsy went to Smithfield. I had to leave the Strand. There was a bloke, some sort of toff, I reckon – the same fellow as gave Alfie the tickets, I’d say, because he
spoke the way that Alfie said, sort of disguising his voice – funny sort of voice. Well, he kept asking me where Alfie was and if I could lead him to my brother. I reckoned he was up to no
good so I whispered to Mutsy to bring me to Smithfield – to throw him off the scent, like.’

‘Did he follow you, pester you any more?’

‘He followed me all right,’ agreed Sammy. ‘He had me by the arm, but then the chestnut seller came up and asked me to sing. He let go me then. He didn’t ask any more
questions, but I could smell him there for a long time – watching me . . .’

‘What did he smell like?’ Sarah found nothing strange in this; she knew Sammy’s special powers.

‘Like I said, a toff – cigars, leather gloves, good cloak, good wool in it.’ Sammy was quite casual.

There was a faint sound from Tom. Sarah turned to him. ‘Are you all right, Tom?’ He had crept over and was now sitting on the stone edge of the fireplace. She noticed that he was
shivering. ‘Are you feeling sick?’ she asked with concern. By the light of the fire she could see that he looked white and hollowed-eyed.

‘Have you had anything to eat?’ she asked.

Tom nodded, suddenly seeming younger than his usual self. ‘A pie,’ he said, shuddering. ‘I sicked it all up.’

‘A pie!’ she echoed with astonishment. ‘Where did you get a pie?’

He hesitated, shrugged and looked back into the flames before answering. ‘Someone gave it to me, same as someone gave Sammy a plate of chestnuts.’ His tone was bitter.

‘How did you know that I had chestnuts?’ Sammy sounded mildly surprised.

‘Saw you, didn’t I?’ Tom tried to sound aggressive, but the teeth were rattling in his mouth.

‘Was you in Smithfield, then?’ Sammy sounded mildly curious, but Sarah immediately became suspicious.

‘Who gave you the pie?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice even and indifferent.

He shrugged again. Always trying to act the tough man, Sarah thought. Alfie was a bit hard on him, perhaps. In Alfie’s eyes, Tom should be like Sammy: sensible and hard-working. They were
much of an age, but Tom seemed younger than Sammy in all sorts of ways. Alfie resented Tom, had always resented him. Alfie’s mother had taken her nephews Jack and Tom in when their mother had
died, and it seemed she had always favoured Tom over Jack, and even over her own two sons sometimes. According to Alfie, Tom had never given up thinking that he was something special.

Sarah thought hard. Perhaps she could get the truth out of him by acting a motherly part.

‘Who gave it to you, Tom?’ she said in a low, sympathetic tone. She reached out her hand and stroked his hair.

He moved away, but she sensed that he had been pleased by her gesture. He probably missed a bit of mothering.

‘Swear you won’t tell Alfie,’ he said and she nodded.

‘I got it from the cove who wanted to know where Alfie was,’ he admitted. He took a quick look at her face and then said in a swaggering fashion. ‘I didn’t tell him
nothing, of course. I took the pie and bolted.’

‘Of course,’ said Sarah in a soothing manner. There was no point in saying anything else. She needed to get as much information as possible. If Alfie was ever to get out of Newgate,
they would need to find out everything about the possible killer of Harry Booth.

‘So he gave you the pie and it didn’t agree with you, was that it?’ she asked softly. Sammy was listening, she thought. He had not turned his face towards them, but his whole
body was alert. Mutsy also had not slumped down by the fire, but was sitting bolt upright, with his large intelligent head facing them.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Tom, sounding a bit more cheerful. ‘It was a great pie. If you smelt it, Sarah!’

‘But you couldn’t keep it down,’ said Sarah. ‘Perhaps it was bad, was it?’

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Tom. But then his face darkened and he looked away from her.

Sarah took a deep breath. She had to know the truth. ‘I suppose you felt upset that you told him about Alfie’s disguise,’ she said, keeping her voice calm.

Tom stared at her. Sammy did not move, but Mutsy shifted his position, fixed his eyes on the blind boy’s face and put his paw on his lap. The dog sensed the blind boy’s distress.
Sammy was prepared for the worst; Sarah knew that. She could go ahead and get the rest of the truth out of this stupid boy, Tom.

‘And he gave you a pie just for telling him about Alfie dressing up as a clown?’ she said, trying to make sure that her voice had a note of disbelief in it.

‘That’s right,’ said Tom. ‘I didn’t think there was any harm in it.’ He spoke with a self-righteous air which made her long to box his ears.

‘What did this toff look like?’ she said, and then, when he just shrugged, she said sharply, ‘Come on, Tom, Alfie is in trouble, we must do our best to help him.’

‘That’s Jack,’ said Tom and immediately bounded to his feet and rushed over to the door, anxious to get away from Sarah.

‘All right, Tom?’ Jack seemed to sense that something was wrong. He stayed a moment peering into his younger brother’s face and then hauled the quarter-filled sack of coal over
to the fireplace. He was stone-cold and shivering. His bare feet were swollen with chilblains – his hands too, with monstrous fingers, where the knuckles were lost within the puffy red flesh.
Sarah looked at him with pity. He was only a little more than a year older than Tom, but, like Alfie, Jack had been born with this sense of responsibility which made him take care of his younger
brother.

‘Take my seat,’ she said to Jack. ‘Don’t put those feet of yours too near the fire. That will make them worse. I wish I had some ointment to put on them. They look really
bad.’

‘They’re all right. I had to hang around the shoreline for ages. In this weather, every bit of coal seemed to have been picked up – even though I went into the river right up
to the top of me legs. In the end, I had to wait for the evening boats.’ Jack’s voice was hoarse. He started to rub his itching toes, but then stopped himself.

‘Where’s Alfie?’ Jack looked all around. He looked worried.

Sarah took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid there is bad news about Alfie,’ she said. ‘There were posters out saying that he was wanted for questioning about the murder.
Scotland Yard were after him. Alfie dressed up as a clown – he thought he could pass as a small man acting the part of a clown and he went into the theatre.’ She paused and then said,
picking her words carefully, ‘He might have got away with it, but someone laid information at Bow Street Police Station. They told the whole story – don’t know who did it –
but whoever they were, they knew that Alfie had dressed up as a clown.’ She hesitated, but Jack had to know the truth. ‘The police took Alfie away.’

Jack slumped down in front of the fire and put his head into his hands. Sammy was silent and Tom’s face drained of colour.

‘Where did they take him?’ Jack asked hoarsely.

‘To Newgate,’ said Sarah unsteadily. I won’t tell him about Tom yet, she thought. One piece of bad news at a time.

‘Newgate!’ Jack was on his feet. His croaky voice broke on the word. He coughed, gulped and looked at her imploringly. ‘What are we going to do, Sarah? There’s only two
ways out of Newgate: transportation or the gallows.’

Sarah swallowed a lump in her throat. He was right. Those were the sentences handed down to the prisoners at Newgate.

A life of hard labour in a distant country, maybe Australia – a year’s voyage from London.

Or death at the end of a rope.

Alfie’s brain was numb. He could neither hear nor speak. He felt himself pushed and dragged by the Scotland Yard inspector. Shoved into a cab.

Then pulled out of the cab.

Awkward, stumbling.

Cuffs on his wrists and irons on his legs.

The cabman’s voice – ‘I go no further, governor. Not through Temple Bar. The fog’s too bad. You’ll just have to walk the rest of the way.’

Curses.

A few blows. The Scotland Yard man venting his anger at having to walk.

Nothing much. Alfie had had worse.

He just went on.

Doggedly putting one leg in front of the other, dragging the heavy irons, holding his manacled hands out in front of him. He had a curious sense of being unable to balance, of needing his hands
free to feel the way through this fog. But the Scotland Yard man, Inspector Cutting, had a tight grip on his collar. He was being pushed forward, down Fleet Street, going step by step to
Newgate.