Death of a Chimney Sweep (4 page)

‘Toff, was he?’ enquired Alfie, listening with interest. ‘Sounds like a toff.’ Toffs, in his experience, were very likely to shout at people and threaten them with the
law.

‘Not sure,’ said Lizzie, her black eyebrows drawn together while she searched her memory. ‘Perhaps he was, but he was a bit rough for a toff. Bit of a lunatic, if you ask me.
Screamed out laughing when an old man slipped in the mud while he was trying to get out of the way.’

There was a long queue outside the door to Covent Garden Theatre when Alfie got back. Sammy, Tom and Mutsy were standing under one of the arches to the square. Sammy had
stopped singing; the doors would open at any minute.

‘How did you do?’ asked Alfie, rubbing his cold hands through Mutsy’s warm fur.

‘Good,’ said Tom. ‘Eleven pence. We’d better be getting home now, I was just saying to Sammy. It’s getting colder every minute.’

‘Be snow, soon, I wouldn’t be surprised. I smell it.’ Sammy sniffed the air as if he were a dog himself.

Alfie looked around. ‘More likely rain,’ he began and then stopped. Sammy was right. First one icy snowflake drifted down and then another. The children in the queue screamed with
excitement. Men and women came out of the shops and turned their faces to the sky.

‘Sammy,’ said Alfie, watching the flakes begin to settle on the wet roof of the market, ‘do you remember that song that you learnt from Grandad – all about stars and snow
and all that?’

Sammy did not reply. A look of concentration came over his face, then he nodded.

‘Wait until I bring you to the top of the queue,’ said Alfie. ‘Tom, you bring that bowl, but don’t hold it out until I give you the nod.’

The snow had begun to fall heavily. The children were beginning to shiver. Sammy’s voice rose up high and clear.

Only when Sammy reached the last words about the poor children shivering in the snow did Alfie nod to Tom to walk along the line with the bowl. Even some of the people who had already given
money walked back to slip some more change into Tom’s bowl.

‘Two whole pounds of sausages for tonight, Jack old son! And two pints of that small beer.’ Alfie was exploding with their success. He led Sammy to the fire, piled
on some more coal, saw Mutsy sink down on his brother’s cold feet and then, quite suddenly, thought of Joe again. He had to find out what was happening.

‘Be back in a few ticks,’ he said as he went to the door.

‘I’ve no news for you, Alfie,’ said Inspector Denham. He beckoned to Alfie to come into his private office and shut the door before continuing.

‘I sent a man around to Goodwin’s Court this morning, where Joe was working that day, but we got nothing useful. Just one old lady lives by herself in Number Four, a Mrs Leamington.
As far as Grimston, the master chimney sweep, is concerned, the boy just disappeared. He went up the chimney in the morning and never came back. Grimston dropped him off and went to Leicester
Square with another couple of boys. When he came back to pick up Joe, there was no sign of him and no one in the house had seen anything of him either.’

‘So what did Mr Grimston do then?’ Alfie put in the question as Inspector Denham had fallen silent and was staring at the opposite wall with an odd look on his face.

‘Just went home, apparently,’ said Inspector Denham. ‘He told the constable that he often lost chimney sweeping boys – and anyway Joe was getting a bit too big for some
of the chimneys so he didn’t really care if he saw him again or not.’

Once more there was that odd look, almost as though he were angry about something. Alfie stared curiously at him. Respectable people didn’t usually seem to bother themselves too much about
poor children.

‘Apparently he told the scullery maid to light all of the fires before her mistress came home.’ The words seemed to explode with fury from Inspector Denham. ‘That’s what
he does, this man Grimston! Burns out the boys! Calls himself a good Christian!’ Inspector Denham went to the door and called, ‘Constable, come in here a minute. Tell me what that . . .
what the master chimney sweep said.’

PC Fairley dug in his pocket, gave Alfie a look, then produced a notebook, gave Alfie another look and read aloud. ‘Some of these boys gets too comfortable. They falls asleep.
There’s just one way to get them out. We just lights a fire and then they pop out of the chimney as fast as lightning. It always works, it does . . . as long as they’s still alive, of
course.’

PC Fairley closed his notebook and looked enquiringly at Inspector Denham.

‘Thank you, Constable.’

Alfie waited until the door shut to speak; he had a funny feeling that he had to comfort the inspector. ‘But Joe wasn’t burnt to death, was he, sir? He was strangled. Someone choked
the life out of him with a pair of hands.’

CHAPTER 7

A
LFIE
T
AKES A
C
HANCE

‘Goodwin’s Court!’ said Sarah sharply. ‘Not Number Four?’

‘That’s right,’ said Alfie, looking at her curiously.

Inspector Denham had told him that the old lady had gone to her daughter’s house the night before Joe was killed, so that her fires could be left unlit until the chimneys had been cleaned.
This left the three women servants at home – the cook, the parlour maid and the scullery maid. But why should any of them murder Joe?

What had Joe seen that day? Alfie wished that he could remember his words better. A bend . . . the wrong way . . . being scared?

‘Alfie, are you listening to me?’ Sarah sounded exasperated and Alfie shook his head, trying to shake out the words spoken by the dead boy.

‘Yeah, I’m listening,’ he said.

‘I was trying to tell you that I know the scullery maid there, Ellen. She was at the foundling hospital at Coram Fields with me. We were both trained as scullery maids at the same time and
we got jobs the same week. I haven’t seen much of her since, but sometimes we meet when we’re sent out for vegetables from Covent Garden. I went back to Goodwin’s Court once with
her when she couldn’t carry all her shopping herself. I met the cook – Mrs . . . something beginning with B . . . Bailey, I think.’

Alfie was on his feet in a moment. ‘Could you take me round there, Sarah? I’d like to see that house, talk to the servants, find out what’s going on there. Joe saw something
that scared the living daylights out of him. We could go now and I’ll walk back home with you afterwards.’ He hesitated for a moment and then looked across at his brother. Sammy was a
good person to have nearby during a conversation. He could hear things – things that had not been said, like fear or anger – and he could sense when someone was lying.

‘All right if Sammy comes too?’ he asked. ‘Could do with a bit of a walk, couldn’t you, Sam? You’ve been indoors all day.’

The day had been freezing with a bitter north wind that swept around corners and straight through the boys’ ragged clothes. Alfie had begun to regret spending all that money on the
sausages, which were nearly all gone already. In weather like this, no one wanted to hang around watching a boy doing tricks or singing, so it was hard to earn anything on the streets. Alfie had
gone down to the river to help Jack with the coal and sent Tom to scrub potatoes for Lizzie at Hungerford market, but by midday they had all given up and come home. The river was too icy even for
Jack, and not even baked potatoes were selling on this terrible day.

So the boys had spent the afternoon teaching Mutsy some new tricks. Alfie had made a sign that said,
MUTSY, CHAMPION OF THE SUMS
.

Tom called out the numbers. ‘Two and two,’ he shouted, and Mutsy gave four short barks. ‘Three and three,’ he said, and Mutsy gave six barks. By the end of the afternoon
Mutsy could do six sums and was so excited at all the praise he got that he started to tear round and round the small cellar, leaping over the tatty old cushions and the boys. When Sarah had
arrived, he went through the whole performance again for her.

Once Mutsy had calmed down, Alfie had told Sarah what Inspector Denham had said about Goodwin’s Court and the old lady being away, and she’d recognised the address.

‘So it’s the servants that we have to look at,’ said Sarah. ‘Ellen’s not a murderer, though, and the cook seemed nice enough . . .’

‘Or old Master Grimston himself,’ said Jack.

‘Don’t make sense, though, do it?’ argued Alfie. ‘Why should he murder Joe? He’s got no reason to. If he didn’t like him, he could just sack him.’

‘Perhaps Joe found out something about Master Grimston,’ suggested Tom. ‘Maybe there was a dead body in the chimney!’

‘Stupid!’ said Alfie with annoyance. Tom was interrupting his thoughts.

‘He’s got something, though, Alfie,’ said Sarah. ‘Why should they call the sweep in December? In our house, the sweep comes in summer, when the fire’s not being
used.’ She narrowed her eyes as she thought. ‘The only time I can remember a sweep being called during the winter was when the smoke wasn’t going up the chimney properly –
and they found that the last sweeping boy had left half a broom head in the chimney.’

‘See!’ said Tom triumphantly. ‘There’s something up the chimney!’

‘We’d better be going,’ said Alfie, ignoring him. It was pointless trying to guess. Surely Sarah’s friend, Ellen, would be able to tell them why the sweep had been called
in December.

Goodwin’s Court was a small alleyway off St Martin’s Lane, too narrow for any traffic to pass down it. It was lit by three large gas lamps and lined on both sides
by a terrace of old-fashioned brick houses. Each house was three storeys high, with black-framed, bow-fronted windows on the ground floor, tall eight-paned windows on the first floor and small,
square windows at the top. The servants probably slept up there, thought Alfie, looking up.

‘We can’t just knock on the front door,’ whispered Sarah in his ear. ‘We’ll have to go round the back and find the kitchen entrance.’

Alfie looked at the neat black-painted door with a gold number four, gold knocker, gold knob and gold letterbox, and decided that she was right. Front doors were for toffs, not for people like
them. But suddenly the door opened and a stout, middle-aged woman wearing a snowy white apron appeared, followed by a well-dressed little old lady.

‘Wait in the warmth while I find a cab for you, ma’am,’ the woman in the apron was saying.

Alfie acted fast. ‘Call you a cab, ma’am?’ he said quickly and sped back up towards St Martin’s Lane as soon as he received a nod. He was in luck. There was a cab
sauntering along St Martin’s Lane. Alfie stuck two fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing whistle and the horse stopped almost before the man had time to pull the reins.

‘Fare for you down there. I’ll hold the horse.’ Alfie was brisk. A little business on the side was always welcome – he might earn a penny.

When the cabman came back, carefully matching his step to the old lady’s, he winked at Alfie. ‘Good lad, ain’t he, madam?’ he said, and she smiled sweetly and gave Alfie
a sixpence before getting into the cab.

Nice old lady, he thought as he bolted back down the alleyway.

Sarah was talking to the stout woman in the apron at the front door of Number Four, as Sammy stood by silently. ‘And here is Alfie, who just helped your mistress find a cab,’ she
said nervously.

‘Well . . .’ the cook was saying, looking up and down the street with a frown, ‘I suppose you might as well come in this way, now Mrs Leamington has left. Quickly, now, while
no one’s around! Ellen’s in the kitchen. Now wipe your feet carefully on that mat. There’s only three of us here in the house to do all the work so we don’t want no
mess.’

The cook sounded a bit bad-tempered, thought Alfie, so he snatched off his cap and Sammy’s, made an exaggerated show of cleaning his bare feet and helping Sammy to do the same. She seemed
to be softened by the sight of Sammy and said more affably, ‘Come in and get warm, all of you.’

She opened the door at the far end of the hallway and then clicked her tongue with annoyance.

‘Drat that chimney,’ she said. ‘It’s still smoking.’

CHAPTER 8

T
HE
B
LOCKED
C
HIMNEY