The Deadly Fire (11 page)

The sack-load of clay still lay on the ground in front of the gates. The other piece of clay, the lump that he had thrown out, was also still there. It was useless, though. Joseph Bishop had trodden on it, but during the fight with Alfie he had walked on it again and again. The whole piece of clay was just a muddle of different marks.

‘That's not much help,' groaned Alfie.

‘What about inside the gate?' asked Tom. ‘We couldn't take anything back, but we could see if he's left a print.'

‘We should have brought the hardened piece of clay to compare it with,' said Alfie, feeling annoyed with himself. His mind didn't seem to be working properly.

‘Wouldn't do much good – there's nothing there to see,' said Tom, glancing around at the almost liquid mud. He took one step towards the gate and then stepped back again, his face white. A wisp of white
vapour was floating about six feet above the surface of the ground and it was coming towards them. Suddenly the air seemed to smell even worse.

‘Let's go,' he said, picking up the bag of clay and shouldering it.

‘That's just fog,' said Alfie, but he, too, was anxious to get away.

They were about halfway back down the alleyway, when Alfie stopped and looked back. The ghost-like shape had disappeared and things looked more normal.

‘Should we have taken the piece of clay from the ground? It would do to make marbles,' he asked.

Tom gave him a surprised look. Alfie didn't often ask his opinion. ‘Nah, leave it,' he said. ‘It stinks. It'll have picked up the filth that oozes from that ground.'

Alfie glanced down at his leg and said no more. He would be happy never to go near the place again, he thought. But what about Joseph Bishop? Despite Sammy's remarks, they could not rule out the possibility that Joseph Bishop was the murderer of Mr Elmore.

Ten minutes later, they were back in the cellar. Alfie decided to wash his leg again. This time he boiled two pieces of rag and kept one to tie around the wound.
He felt better when the deep, jagged cut was hidden from view. Then Alfie counted the money in the rent box and decided that they could afford to have a day off from the continual efforts to earn money. Jack had already gone off with a sack to get some more coal, but it was probably useless for Sammy to sing in the street, or for Tom to take Mutsy out to do some tricks, as the freezing fog would drive everyone straight into the shops.

In any case everyone seemed enthusiastic about the marble-making. ‘They'd be good if we could colour them,' Charlie said. ‘One of the blokes at the brickyard got hold of some coloured powder and he mixed that in with the clay. It looked good.'

‘What about painting them?' asked Tom.

‘No good,' said Alfie. ‘Where would we get hold of paint? We can't afford to buy it and we can't steal a tinful. Besides, no one is out painting houses in this fog and ice.'

‘I know where I could get you some green,' said Jack, who had just arrived with half a barrowload of coal. ‘There's green powder all over that broken old copper pot out in the back yard.'

‘Good idea,' said Alfie heartily. The back yard was full of broken pots and pans. The huge old wash pot
had been thrown out into the back yard by a washer-woman who lived on the ground floor, just above their heads, and had been there for as long as Alfie could remember. The rain, mist and fog had turned its original copper-gold shade to an elegant green.

So Jack used his knife to scrape as much powder as possible off it into an old tin can. Under Charlie's direction, they mixed the green powder with some water in a bucket, soaked the clay in it and then each took a lump and began to work the air and the water bubbles out with their knuckles. When that was done, they began to form the marbles.

Sammy was enjoying the work, thought Alfie, as he looked at the busy scene. It was not often that his brother could do things that the other boys did, but he seemed more skilful than Tom at manipulating the clay. Charlie had made one marble for him to feel and after the first two, Sammy didn't seem to need to refer to it again, but continued to turn out perfectly rounded marbles. Alfie decided to leave them to the work and carry on with his investigations.

Mary Robinson was striding around the market, speaking sharply to some unfortunate stallholders, reminding them the money was due the following
day, lending a pound to some, crossing others off her list, and followed everywhere by a couple of villainous-looking henchmen who continually wrote in small notebooks.

Alfie spent a long time dodging around the fair, waiting for a good opportunity to take Mary Robinson's footprint. He had thought of bringing the baked bootprint, but had decided it was too big and awkward and would only draw attention to himself. He wanted evidence, evidence that would convince Inspector Denham that she was the guilty person. He had to compare the prints and then it would be up to the police to make her produce the boot. Albert, the Ragged School monitor, would testify that a clean, smooth lump of clay had been placed in the cupboard a couple of hours before the fire and that it had been found next morning with a bootprint baked into it.

Alfie had his plans made. An old sack was thrown over his shoulders as if to shelter his ragged jacket from the worst of the weather and inside that sack was a piece of thin wood with an inch-thick piece of clay moulded on top of it. It would take the print and would be easy to pick up and carry away.

At last his opportunity came.

There was a narrow lane between the flower stall
and the apple stall. Alfie noticed the woman in the flower stall look apprehensively towards the tall, bulky figure of Mary Robinson and then take some money from a box under her counter and start to count it.

As quick as a flash, Alfie took the thin piece of board from his sack and set it on the ground, just beside the flower stall's trestle table.

And then he moved away as rapidly as he had come and sauntered around the back of the apple stall.

‘Give us an apple, will you?' he appealed to the seller, a fat, glum-looking woman with cheeks as red as her own apples.

‘Not on your life,' she said sourly. ‘Why don't you get a job and stop trying to cadge things for free.'

‘Just one little apple,' pleaded Alfie. He was anxious to stay near there for a moment.

‘You can have this one for a farthing.' The woman sorted through the pile of shining apples until she found a small, wizened one with a large patch of rot next to its stalk.

Alfie handed over the farthing. At least now he had a reason to linger and by taking small, infrequent nibbles, he could make the tiny apple last for a long time. He kept his cap well pulled down to hide his
face; he had no desire to be seen by Mary Robinson, but he owed it to the memory of Mr Elmore to identify his killer.

Despite his care, the apple had almost disappeared by the time that Mary Robinson made her way towards the nervous flower seller. It was obvious, straight away, that the woman did not have enough money. She was mopping tears with the corner of her shawl as the moneylender bore down upon her. Alfie froze, the tiny apple in his hand and his mouth opened as he peered from behind the back of the apple stall. Would Mary Robinson step on to the clay? By now, he hated her so much that he wanted to trap her, not just to avenge Mr Elmore, but to relieve the unfortunate stallholders of the London markets of her greed.

For a while, it looked as if she would not step on the clay. Her loud, hoarse voice rose up, the stallholder wept, her henchmen wrote in their notebooks with no sign of emotion, other stallholders nearby kept their heads down, averting their eyes, and Mary Robinson stood there, her men's boots planted firmly on the ground.

And then the flower seller, in desperation, snatched a ring off her hand and held it out towards Mary
Robinson. Mary Robinson took a step forward in order to look more closely . . . And placed one heavily booted foot right on top of Alfie's carefully prepared mould.

But what Alfie had not taken into account was that Mary Robinson was a woman who, despite wearing exactly the same outfit of men's clothes and boots every day, was very particular about her dignity. She looked down with annoyance and then took a closer look. There was the piece of wood and there was the piece of clay with the perfect imprint of her boot on top of it.

‘Where did this come from?' Her deep, husky voice was suddenly shrill.

‘It was that boy over there. I saw him put it down.' The flower seller pointed immediately at Alfie.

‘This boy, ma'am?' The apple seller decided to curry favour from Mary Robinson. Before Alfie could escape, she had knocked his cap off and grabbed him by the cluster of curls on the top of his head. Rapidly one of the two henchmen came around the back and grabbed him by the arms.

‘Trying to break my leg, weren't you?' Mary Robinson looked at him sourly. Bending down she picked up the clay mould with the perfect imprint of
her foot, reversed it and stamped on it, smashing the wood and reducing the clay to a piece of mud.

‘You're the varmint that was giving out the leaflets a few days ago!' She peered closely at him and looked around. The market was full of people. He could see her wondering whether to try choking him again and then deciding against it.

‘Take him down to Bow Street police station, George,' she said to the man who was holding him. ‘Swear out a statement that he tried to break my leg. You're a witness and you are, too.' She swung around and glared at the flower seller, who nodded in a terrified way.

Alfie allowed himself to be dragged along, taking care to give no trouble to George. He had no worries, now. He would be taken to the police station and he had no doubt that he could convince Inspector Denham that he had not intended any harm to Mary Robinson.

‘Shut that door,' shouted the duty sergeant when the constable pushed Alfie inside. The fog entered with them and swirled around the gas lamps. Despite the fire the room was icy cold.

‘Accused of harassing a lady in the course of her
business,' explained the constable, jerking a thumb at Alfie.

‘Put him in a cell,' grunted the sergeant, busily engaged in inserting wads of paper into the ill-fitting window frames.

‘Inspector Denham won't be too pleased if you do that without consulting him,' warned Alfie. He was confident that he could explain himself to the inspector.

‘He's not here. He's in St Bart's Hospital with pneumonia,' said the sergeant. ‘Take him in to Inspector Bagshott, then. He's a troublemaker, this one.'

Alfie's heart sank. Without his ally, what would become of him?

The man behind the desk looked with disdain at Alfie. Inspector Bagshott was nothing like Inspector Denham. He was an extremely tall, very thin, very upright man with a beak-like nose, a harsh face and cold, grey eyes. His voice was as harsh as his appearance.

‘So what were you up to, if you were not trying to lame the poor lady?' he asked aggressively, after the constable had given his report.

Alfie studied him. He kept his face blank as his mind raced through the possibilities. He could say that he didn't mean any harm, that he had just
dropped a clay-covered piece of wood by accident. He was unlikely to be believed, though, and what could be his explanation for carrying the object in the first place? In the end, he decided to tell the truth. This inspector didn't look amiable, but he might be open to reason.

‘I was doing a job of work for Inspector Denham,' he said eventually. It wasn't exactly true, but it was the best he could think of.

‘Rubbish!' Inspector Bagshott made an angry gesture across the table as if he were on the point of punching Alfie in the face.

‘It's the truth.' Alfie stared back at him. The man looked aggressive, but not stupid. Perhaps he could make him understand. ‘That lady might be a suspect in a murder case.' Alfie tried to make his voice sound as confident as possible.

‘Murder case? What murder case? PC 22!' the inspector roared.

The door opened instantly, almost as though the constable had been standing just beside it.

‘Have we a murder investigation going on here?' demanded Inspector Bagshott.

‘No, sir.' The constable sounded shocked. ‘You would have been informed of the matter the minute
you arrived, sir, if anything like that was happening.'

‘The murder of Mr Elmore, teacher at the Ragged School,' said Alfie, looking directly at the inspector.

‘Unfortunate death through fire, sir,' said the constable smartly, sending a glare at Alfie.

‘Murder!' contradicted Alfie. ‘Inspector Denham took it seriously.' Alfie, who never minded telling a lie in a good cause, arranged his face to look serious and trustworthy. ‘There was a footprint baked into some clay at the scene of the crime,' he went on, ‘and Inspector Denham asked me to try to match it. Since Mr Elmore had published a leaflet about Mary Robinson ruining the stallholders by charging so much interest, she hated him.'