Murder on Stage (17 page)

Two doors in the room . . .

Leaving his broom leaning against the desk, Tom turned the handle of the second door.

It did not lead to a corridor, but to a huge, walk-in cupboard. The top hat was on a shelf there. Beneath it hung a few spare shirts, and a glossy black frock coat. Nothing else was in the
cupboard except a large locked case. Tom tried to force the lock open, but it was no good. The case was old but the lock was sturdy. Tom went quietly to the door and looked out. There was no sign
of the manager coming back. Quickly he went to the desk. Would there be anything there to help him?

Immediately he found what he was looking for. On the desk lay an envelope and stuck into the flap of the envelope was a long, thin knife. The manager must have been slitting it when he was
called to the booking desk.

Tom slipped out the knife and went back to the cupboard. His hands shook. Would he be able to do this in time? Quickly he inserted the knife into the lock on the case. One of Maggie the
Plucker’s gang had taught him how to do this. For a moment he thought it would not work and then suddenly there was a click. One of the locks snapped open.

And then loud footsteps sounded in the corridor. The manager was coming back. Quickly and silently Tom pulled the door shut. He moved soundlessly behind the frock coat. If anyone came in and
shone a light he was sunk, but still it was worth a try. The man might just take his hat from the top shelf, finding it by touch and by long habit.

But he was in luck. The door to the cupboard did not open. A drawer was slammed shut and then another. And then a voice raised. He was shouting something to the box office clerk. There was no
answer. The manager shouted again. Still no answer.

‘Deaf fool,’ he muttered and then left the room in a hurry, slamming the door shut after him.

Tom acted quickly. One second to open the door a little and allow some light in, another second to insert the knife into the second lock.

Nothing happened.

Try again. He heard the words in his mind and they steadied him. Funnily enough they were spoken with Sammy’s voice.

Lightly and almost carelessly he inserted the knife into the lock once more and this time it worked.

And there was a clown’s costume – in black and white with a frilly-sleeved shirt and frills on the ends of the pantaloons. Beside it was a tall, cone-shaped clown’s hat and an
orange wig. Tom picked up the frilly-sleeved shirt. The frills were edged with orange fur to match the wig. With trembling hands, he stuffed the shirt under his jacket.

Replacing everything else as carefully as he could, Tom left the office and returned to the corridor. Quickly he dumped the broom and picked up the dustpan.

‘Just going to find the bin,’ he muttered to the man at the desk and flew down the steps, abandoning the dustpan at the bottom of them.

The frilly shirt fell out as he bent over, but he picked it up in a flash and this time he squeezed the muddy garment into his pocket.

It would be a mess, but perhaps he could rinse it under the Broad Street pump.

The important thing was to keep the shirt safe until Joey and Lucky got a chance to show it around. That muddy, crumpled piece of material might be able to save Alfie’s life.

In his mind was a picture of the gallows outside Newgate prison.

Only two more days to go.

The courtroom of the Old Bailey seemed to be filled from floor to ceiling with faces – strange, oval shapes that glistened white in the flaring light of the gas
lamps.

The noise in that place was terrible. Alfie stopped for a moment when he met the solid wall of sound and had to be pushed on by the warder who dealt him a savage blow in the small of the back
and made him stumble. Roars, shouts, moans, laughs – how could anyone laugh in a place that gave out such savage sentences – in a place that meant death for some and a life-in-death for
others?

Alfie was pushed into the wooden dock, heard the door slam shut behind him and looked out at the scene, at all the faces and then he turned away, sickened. He stared down at the wooden floor of
the dock where he stood, looked at the walls that caged him in, looked at his manacled hands and his shackled legs. Anywhere, except at that inhuman crowd. He clutched the wooden sides of the dock
and tried to stiffen his knees. He hoped that no one was near enough to see how he trembled. Suddenly he thought of his grandfather who had a great belief in Heaven – who thought that the
minute you died you shot straight up through the blue sky to this unknown place where no one was ever hungry, thirsty or cold. Was it true? Alfie hoped so.

The jury were to one side of him, twelve men sitting on cushioned seats behind a glass screen in their own box. They looked at him suspiciously – almost as though he had already been found
guilty and they were just waiting for sentence to be passed. Alfie raised his head and straightened his back. The boy before him, who had been sentenced to transportation for fourteen years, had
been carried out screaming and calling for his mother. Alfie was determined that he wasn’t going to do that.

‘All rise!’ yelled a court official and most people stood up, though many in the gallery above did not bother.

The judge came in, his long robes sweeping the floor behind him, the coarse white hair of his wig hanging on either side of his long face. He didn’t look at Alfie, but climbed the steps,
seated himself and arranged his mantle around him – a dark red mantle, the colour of old blood. The usher seemed about to call for silence again, but the judge opened his mouth and all the
noise died down as people leant forward to hear what he was going to say about this new case.

‘There has seldom been a more heinous crime,’ said the judge with emphasis. Alfie was not too sure what he meant by ‘heinous’, but he guessed by the shocked faces of the
lawyers on the benches in front of him that it was pretty bad.

He had no lawyer to defend him. The turnkey had told him cheerfully that he didn’t stand a chance without a lawyer.

‘
All the world’s a stage
, as the great William Shakespeare observed, but few people meet their death on a real stage,’ said the judge, looking hard at Alfie. He seemed
to be very keen on this chap Shakespeare, as the next few sentences were all about him as well, but then he got on to Harry Booth. He seemed to be very upset about the fact that Harry Booth
actually snuffed it on the stage in front of the Queen, instead of being knifed down a dark alley at night, or strangled with a wire and his body thrown into the river at dawn.

Then the judge sat back, nodded to one of the bewigged lawyers and said, ‘Yes, Mr Witherington.’

Mr Witherington rose and gave the judge an elegant bow, before throwing his gown back over his shoulders and sticking his thumbs under his armpits.

‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ he said solemnly. ‘As you would expect, Scotland Yard have been tireless in their endeavours to catch the man or men who planned this terrible
murder.’ He paused for a moment and then said dramatically, ‘Unfortunately, because of the obdurate obstinacy of a boy, that boy whom you see before you, gentlemen of the jury, they
have not been able to make any more arrests.’ He paused again and then continued. ‘So, shall Harry Booth go to his grave unavenged? Gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that Heaven,
itself, would cry out for vengeance if no one pays the penalty for his murder.’

And then all of the jury turned their faces towards Alfie and he read his fate in their accusing eyes.

‘This boy,’ Mr Witherington was saying, ‘was central to the plan. You could say, gentlemen of the jury, that he was the lynch-pin, that he was the —’

‘Mr Witherington,’ interrupted the judge, ‘get on with the case.’

Probably wanted to get home for his dinner, thought Alfie. His life was at stake, and the judge just wanted this case over and done with quickly!

‘Yes, m’lud,’ said Mr Witherington obediently and went on to explain to the jury how Alfie came up through the trapdoor to divert the attention of Harry Booth and of the
audience while poison was being poured into the glass. Alfie half-listened. Inspector Cutting from Scotland Yard had said all of these things many times to him and he had denied it until he was
weary.

Alfie had considered inventing a gang for them – a vicious, brutal leader who had bullied and beaten a poor innocent boy like himself until he did their bidding. However, he realised that
he would do himself little good by a story like this. He had enough sense to know that nothing would satisfy them but to lay their hands on a man who could be hanged for murder.

And failing that, a boy would have to do.

‘Any witness to good character?’ The judge sounded bored and contemptuous.

‘Yes, sir.’ Alfie’s voice was low and husky. He cleared his throat.

The warder standing behind him gave him another savage poke in the back. ‘Say, my lord,’ he whispered loudly.

‘Yes, my lord,’ echoed Alfie. ‘I have a witness to good character.’ For a moment he panicked in case the judge would pretend not to hear him. This was probably his last
chance. The message from Sarah had just come to him last night. It was a short note and just said,
Ask for a witness to good character.

‘Witness of character of the prisoner, Alfie Sykes, accused of murder,’ bawled the usher, going to the door and raising his voice as if he was endeavouring to alert the whole
population of London.

Just one man entered, though. A neat, small man with dark eyes and bushy eyebrows. He gave a piece of paper – his name, thought Alfie – to the usher and then went into the witness
box and laid his hand on the bible, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Inspector Denham looked quite at home, thought Alfie.

‘My lord, I can bear witness to the good character of this boy, Alfie Sykes. He is an orphan.’

‘They all are, Inspector, they all are,’ said the judge and his joke made the whole court laugh. Mr Witherington almost doubled up, he was so amused. Alfie’s heart sank.

‘He lives in Bow Street near to my police station and cares for his blind brother and his two cousins,’ continued Inspector Denham as the laughter died away. He didn’t seem
bothered by it. He looked directly at the judge as he said with emphasis, ‘He has never been in trouble with the police – on the contrary he has been of assistance on many
occasions.’

The judge, Alfie was thankful to see, did not make a joke out of this. In fact, he looked sharply at the Bow Street inspector as if he were interested in that statement. It was a slight
exaggeration, of course, to say that he had never been in trouble with the police, but Alfie supposed that you could say he had never been in bad trouble.

‘I am very glad to have the occasion to give this evidence,’ continued Inspector Denham. ‘Could I beg your ludship’s indulgence to present a few facts about this boy and
the terrible murder? Facts,’ he added quickly as the judge opened his mouth, ‘which have only just come to my notice.’

‘Go ahead, Inspector.’ The judge sounded weary. He cast another quick glance at the clock. Alfie’s heart sank again.

‘The boy’s story, that he saw a hand wearing the frilly sleeve of a clown, come out from behind the curtain holding a phial and just rushed on stage to warn Harry Booth, has been
disbelieved,’ said Inspector Denham in dry tones. ‘I have waiting outside a witness who is prepared to swear that this clown’s shirt . . .’

Inspector Denham broke off, turned around, picked up the brown paper parcel from the bench behind him, gave one look at the court and began slowly to unwrap it. The crowd in the gallery stood
up. Those in front craned their necks over the rails and those at the back started to shout: ‘Siddown! Hats off! Hold it up, Bobby!’ Suddenly the whole court was in uproar.

The judge looked annoyed, the usher shouted for silence, the lawyers stopped yawning and whispering to each other behind their hands and some of them stood up also. Now there were shouts of
‘Hurry up! Wottcher doing?’