Death in the Devil's Den (11 page)

‘I’m a bit puzzled and I need your help, Sammy, old son,’ said Alfie, taking a place beside his blind younger brother. He had had a few hours’ sleep and
was beginning to feel much better. Soon it would be nine o’clock and Bow Street Police Station would be open. Alfie had decided to go straight to Inspector Denham, but there were a couple of
things he wanted to clear up first.

‘Anything that I can do?’ asked Jack.

‘Not really – it’s a sort of brain thing.’

‘I’ll be off then and get another bit of coal before Tom is back,’ said Jack cheerfully, showing no sign of taking offence at Alfie’s words. He took up a folded sack from
beside the fireplace, draped it around his shoulders against the cold and damp and moved off, whistling cheerfully.

‘Spit it out,’ commanded Sammy with a smile. He always enjoyed using his sharp wits. Alfie told him the story of the box of sweets and the slip of paper with the row of numbers.

‘The thing I must do now,’ Alfie said, ‘is to find out what that message means. I’m sure it must be a message, but it’s just a whole lot of numbers.’

‘Numbers, eh, not words.’ Sammy spoke thoughtfully and then a half smile came over his face.

‘What was that sentence of yours? The sentence that you saw written down:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
See, I remember it. Sarah told you it was easy to remember,
didn’t she?’

‘So?’

‘You’re the one that can read properly,’ said Sammy impatiently. ‘I only know my letters. Do you remember how Mr Elmore at the Ragged School taught me the alphabet with
the letters made from clay? I remember him saying that
x
and
z
weren’t used much.’

‘But they’re in the words:
fox
and
lazy
,’ interrupted Alfie. ‘Well . . .oh . . .’

‘Ah, you’re beginning to twig, now, aint’ you?’ said Sammy with satisfaction. ‘Thought you couldn’t be all that stupid!’

Alfie ignored that. He was beginning to understand. ‘Twenty-six letters in the alphabet,’ he said slowly. He thought hard for a moment, trying to picture the words in his
mind’s eye, counting on his fingers and muttering his ABC until he came to the end of the recitation. ‘As far as I can tell,’ he said excitedly, ‘it seems like every letter
of the alphabet is in that sentence. If you give a number to each one of the letters in that sentence then you can send a private message anytime you want to.’

‘Safer than a message that has the number one for
A
, the number two for
B
and so on,’ agreed Sammy.

‘Let’s have a try,’ said Alfie. He took a pointed piece of coal from the rusty old bucket by the fireplace and began to mark out the letters on the stone flag of the hearth,
putting a number in front of each letter.

‘Thirty-five letters, and there’s only twenty-six in the alphabet,’ he said in a disappointed tone. He looked down his list. ‘The word
the
comes in twice, and some
of the other letters are repeated as well.’

‘That don’t matter,’ said Sammy calmly. ‘Whoever made up the code had to make a sentence that would be easy to remember. It has a picture in it, that sentence. You see
the fox and the lazy dog in your mind. Even I can imagine it.’

‘Well, here are the numbers from that message,’ said Alfie. He took the slip of paper that he had taken from the organist’s room and began to read aloud: ‘The first
number is twenty – that’s a
P
; the second number is 5 – that’s a
U
; the third number is 1 and that is a
T
.’

‘
Put
’ said Sammy, his voice high with excitement.

‘The next word is dead easy: it’s just 123 so it must be
the
.’ Alfie gave a low whistle.

‘Read out the next numbers,’ ordered Sammy.

‘Six of them in this word: 9, 5, 29, 29, 3, 1. The first letter is a
B
. . .’

‘And the second is a
U
,’ put in Sammy. He had an extraordinary memory.

And the third and fourth are both
L
.’

‘And the last one is a
T
,’ guessed Sammy.

‘
Bullet
,’ said Alfie. He stared at Sammy, hardly able to believe his eyes. ‘Remember what Inspector Denham said about the new kind of rifle that’s been passed to
the Russians,’ he said in almost a whisper.

‘That’s what I was thinking. Just work out the rest of it quickly.’ Sammy’s face was flushed with excitement.

‘
PUT THE BULLET INTO THE FUDGE,
’ yelled Alfie triumphantly. ‘And one of the sweets in the box is called
fudge
– Richard said so. Looks a squashy sort of
one, too.’ He picked up the box and smelled the sweet in the very centre of the rows, the one that Richard had pointed out was called fudge. This sweet did not have the same mouth-watering
scent as the others: it smelled bitter. It looked powdery, too. Perhaps, he thought, you could dip the bullet into it and it would keep its shape even when the bullet was removed, like a sort of
mould. He prodded it with his finger and nodded with satisfaction. Yes, it would be perfect for that.

At that very moment there was a knock at the door. His heart sank for a moment. It was probably the rent collector. He was not due today, but he did what he liked and his demands had to be met.
Still, the knock didn’t sound loud enough for him. Perhaps it was Inspector Denham or one of his constables. Alfie went to the door and opened it. A tall man, wearing a coat, hat and scarf, a
man who smelled of cigars stood there, his right hand buried in his pocket.

‘Alfie Sykes?’ he asked. And then looked into the fire-lit cellar. ‘And our property, the box of sweets; and the blind boy,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Alfie, you
come with me!’ He spoke in strongly accented English. His left hand went to Alfie’s collar. ‘Come on, young man,’ he said, still with that strong accent. ‘You’re
coming with me, boy.’

And while his left arm grabbed the boy’s wrist, his right hand aimed a gun directly at Sammy’s heart.

Sammy only heard the one short sentence: ‘
You’re coming with me, boy
.’ There were a few steps into the cellar, a gasp of pain from Alfie and a
scuffling noise, and then footsteps – boots and bare feet, it sounded like – moving away.

The door slammed closed and Alfie was gone.

Left to himself, Sammy sat very still. One minute, he and Alfie were chatting, sharpening their wits on each other. And then he was alone.

Alfie had been dragged off.

The strange thing was that Alfie had not protested, had not shouted for help, had not tried to escape. He had gone with the rough-voiced stranger, gone without a word of protest.

There could only be one reason for that, thought Sammy, who knew Alfie well and knew the extent of his brother’s courage.

Alfie had been threatened with a pistol and had gone with the man in order to avoid the two of them being shot here in the cellar below Bow Street.

Sammy sat very still and waited. There was no point in pursuit. Over the years Sammy had learned what he could do, and what was not possible for him. By the time he had managed to stumble out,
there would have been no sign of Alfie and his captor. Even if he managed to get someone to go after them, the result would probably be a body – Alfie’s – found in a dark doorway
the following morning.

After a while, Sammy got up. Moving carefully, with outstretched hands, he made his way to the door. If only he had Mutsy, but the dog had gone with Tom for the breakfast sausages. The butcher
was friendly and often gave Mutsy a bone, especially if he managed to catch a rat in the yard behind the shop.

Bow Street Police Station, thought Sammy, as he carefully crawled up the wet and slippery steps that led from the cellar to the level of the street.

Once he had reached the pavement, he clung with one hand to the iron railings which prevented pedestrians from falling from the street into the open area in front of the cellars and made his way
slowly along, waiting for someone to offer to guide him.

‘These children should be shut up in some institution,’ muttered a woman as she passed him. His groping hand accidentally touched her dress and she shouted, ‘Constable,
can’t you keep the streets clear for respectable women like myself?’

‘You get on home, sonny,’ said the constable’s voice in Sammy’s ear and Sammy turned his face in that direction and decided to trust the policeman. It sounded like PC
27.

‘I have a message for Inspector Denham.’ Sammy wished that he had not had to come out with these words in public. The trouble with being blind was that you never knew who might be
listening. If only he could have had a quick look around, before speaking. The woman was still there; he sensed her anger.

‘Could you take me to him?’ He allowed a shake of anxiety to come into his voice.

‘All right, sonny,’ said the constable. Sammy decided that it probably was PC 27. He was a decent fellow; Alfie always said that about this particular policeman.

Sammy leaned back gratefully as the constable put a large firm hand under Sammy’s elbow. In another few minutes he would be with Inspector Denham and he would get help for his brother.

‘I’ll take him, Constable, if you wish?’ Sammy listened anxiously to the voice. The accent was unusual. Was this man, also, a Russian? Another of the spies?

‘That’s all right, sir, I’m going that way myself.’

Sammy breathed a sigh of relief. But would the man be waiting for him on his return?

Still, at least he would have given the message to the inspector by then, and perhaps by then some police constable would be on Alfie’s trail.

Inspector Denham greeted Sammy warmly, sent the constable for cakes and hot chocolate for both of them and settled down to hear what Sammy had to say. Sammy could hear the pen
scratching across paper as he explained how he and Alfie worked out the code and Inspector Denham told him to slow down a few times.

‘He’s done well, your brother,’ he said when he had heard the whole story. He spoke with a seriousness that Sammy appreciated. It struck him that Inspector Denham respected
Alfie and was concerned about him, as though he had been someone important. ‘Well, I’ve certainly got some good information for Scotland Yard.’

‘Alfie wanted to get it all sorted out for you, sir,’ said Sammy. ‘He was wondering who had murdered the organist, the Russian spy, and why he was murdered in the yard outside
the school. If you could get him back from the Russians – he’s probably been taken to their Embassy – then he might be able to tell you the answer, sir.’

Inspector Denham sighed. ‘The problem is, Sammy,’ he said with a lowered voice, as though he did not wish any of the policemen in the outer office to hear him, ‘the trouble is
that if Alfie has got himself into the hands of the Russian Embassy, it’s very difficult for us to rescue him. They have something called
diplomatic immunity
and that means that we
cannot really send a party of policemen along to the Russian Embassy and rescue your brother.’

‘Does that mean that they can murder him, sir?’ asked Sammy. He was amazed to find how calm his voice sounded.

‘No,’ said Inspector Denham and he spoke slowly and carefully. ‘I don’t think that they would go as far as that.’

He paused for a moment and then said, ‘I don’t know if you have ever played a game of chess, Sammy – I’d say that you and your brother could be good chess players –
but I’ll just explain to you what I’m going to do. If it were a game of chess, then they have made a move and now it’s up to us to make the next move. What we’ll do is this.
We’ll send a policeman, armed with a truncheon, to walk up and down Welbeck Street, opposite the Russian Embassy. I
’
ll give the order straightaway. No one can object to that. He
can chat to the nursemaids with children, keep an eye on the street hawkers, but . . . ’

‘But all the time,’ Sammy broke in, ‘if anyone looks out of the windows of the Russian Embassy, they will wonder what the policeman is doing and they will not want to have a
body to dispose of . . . ’

‘Precisely,’ said Inspector Denham, and there was the hint of a smile in his voice. ‘We’ll keep a man on duty there, day and night, until your brother is back with you
all in Bow Street. And for the moment, I will send my men around to Westminster School to work with the Scotland Yard crowd on the murder of Boris Ivanov and they will find out what’s
happening there.’