The Deadly Fire (14 page)

‘Measles, I suppose,' he said quietly. ‘The spotted fever, they call it.'

‘He's a very good singer,' said Alfie loyally. ‘Sing for the doctor, Sammy.'

Sammy broke into a song and the young doctor looked at him sadly, but then clapped enthusiastically.

‘What a gift,' he said. ‘Well, as they say in church, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Your sight was taken, but many a person would envy you of that gift to sing.'

Sammy said nothing, but there was a faint flush on his cheeks and a slight smile on his lips.

‘Now let's look at this leg of yours, young man,' said the doctor, turning to Alfie.

‘I already let lots of the bad stuff out of it with me knife this morning,' said Alfie, watching apprehensively as the doctor took a tray of tiny sharp knives from the shelf.

‘More to come, I'd say. First of all, drink this. It will bring your fever down and make you more comfortable. Stop the shivers.' He poured something from a flask into a mug and handed it to Alfie. Alfie swallowed it hastily. It tasted vile, very bitter, but he would have done anything to stop that shivering feeling. That was even worse than the pain in his leg. It made him feel so weak and unwell.

‘Now, put your leg up there and try to be brave
because I'm going to hurt you. Would you like to hold your brother's hand?'

‘What? Me! Not likely!' scoffed Alfie, trying to raise a laugh and looking uneasily at Sammy. It was a good job that Tom was not there, he thought.

The young doctor spent a long time on Alfie's leg. The smell was terrible; even Sammy's nose twitched from time to time. And the pain was worse. Alfie shut his eyes, clenched his hands, the nails digging into his palms, and concentrated hard on thinking about the fatal fire. Which of the suspects wanted the death of Mr Elmore so badly that they were willing to burn down a building in order to kill him?

‘Brave boy,' said the doctor eventually.

Alfie opened his eyes and looked down. Instead of a swollen mass, there was now a large hole in his leg. It looked cleaner, though, and perhaps it might heal now.

‘Thank you, sir,' he said.

‘Now as soon as you go home, put your leg up on a cushion or something and rest for the remainder of the day. Take some more of the fever drink from this bottle every four hours. You should feel a bit more comfortable by tonight.' He stuffed some paste from a jar into the large hole and then wrapped snowy-white
bandages over Alfie's leg.

Alfie looked at it with satisfaction. It was still sore but he had already begun to feel a lot better in himself.

‘Wait a minute. Let me see if I can find something to go over that bandage and keep it clean in the streets.' The young doctor went to his black medical bag, rummaged in it and then produced a sock with a large hole in the heel and a smaller hole in the toe. Quickly and efficiently, he sliced the foot off the sock with a couple of slashes from his sharp knife.

‘There you are, then,' he said with satisfaction, drawing the sock leg over Alfie's bandage. ‘This will keep your leg clean and will save me the trouble of trying to find some kind nurse to darn my stockings.' He gave a quick wink at Alfie and walked to the door with an arm over each boy's shoulder.

‘Now remember to rest that leg, or it might swell up again,' he called after them as they went down the corridor.

‘Aren't we going home?' Sammy sounded puzzled when they got outside the hospital and turned to the left. Alfie grinned. His brother was as good as Mutsy. He always seemed to know which direction they were heading in.

‘You didn't think this smart clobber was just for Inspector Denham, did you? No, we're going to have a little chat with our fourth suspect.'

Alfie shivered slightly. Should he be leading Sammy into this danger? A man who could burn his own brother to death would not hesitate to get rid of two boys. One blind boy and one lame. Did they stand a chance against a murderer?

Mr Daniel Elmore was not pleased to see them. ‘You say my brother wanted you to deliver a message to my father?' While he was speaking, he ran his eyes over both of them. Alfie made sure that his expression was blank and innocent.

The gold merchant's shop was the richest that he had ever seen and the man in front of him, dressed in a frock coat and stylishly fitting trousers, wearing a wonderful gold watch and two or three gold rings on his fingers, was a person that even Inspector Denham would hesitate to annoy.

‘That's right, sir.' Alfie's voice was respectful and
humble. ‘It was the last thing he said to me on the night when he lost his life in that fire. We're very sorry about your brother, sir, he was very good to all the children in St Giles.' Now he looked at the ground, conscious that Daniel Elmore was scrutinising him and fearful that his own eyes might give away his suspicions of the man.

‘Well, tell me and I'll make sure that he gets the message. My father is not a well man.'

‘What's this? Stop fussing about me, Daniel. I'm perfectly well, just a little breathless.' The old man came in slowly through a door behind the counter in the goldsmith's shop.

‘It's nothing, Father, just a couple of boys trying to beg.'

‘I have a message for you, Mr Elmore, from your son that died,' said Alfie hastily. ‘From Mr James Elmore.' He spoke fast, fearing that in a moment they would be pushed out of the shop. Already Daniel Elmore had made a signal towards a young shopman at the back of the premises.

‘From James?' The old man's face lit up for a brief moment, then fell back into an expression of deep exhaustion.

‘Yes, sir.' Alfie seized Sammy by the arm and
dragged him forward. There was nothing for it now but to speak the truth. ‘Mr James Elmore wanted you to hear my brother, Sammy, sing. He said that you were an expert, sir.'

The old man smiled sadly. ‘James had a lovely voice himself, especially when he was a boy. I wanted to get it trained, but he didn't want to. All his life he wanted to be a teacher.'

‘And where did he end up? In that Ragged School!' Daniel Elmore's voice had a sour, jealous note in it.

‘Would you listen to my brother sing, sir?' Alfie felt himself trembling with eagerness. He had what he had come for. Daniel Elmore wore polished town shoes, probably with smooth leather soles, not boots with ridged soles, so it was no good getting a print, but he had the right size of feet – quite small for a man. It wasn't just the murder hunt that was on Alfie's mind, though. This would mean so much for Sammy if Mr Elmore's father thought that he had a good voice.

‘Come along then, sonny.' The old man smiled at Sammy and stretched out a hand.

‘My brother is blind, sir,' said Alfie quickly. Mr Elmore's own sight must be very poor, he thought,
if he were unable to see that Sammy was blind at a distance of only a few feet.

‘Poor child.' There was a compassionate tone in the voice. No doubt Mr Elmore of the Ragged School had taken after his father. Could Daniel Elmore be so different that he would be ready to murder his own brother?

‘Mr Elmore thought his voice was very good and that you would be interested to hear him.' Alfie stopped talking and looked around him in surprise. Mr Elmore's father had led them through a small room, crowded with safes and cabinets and shelves full of cardboard boxes and now they were in a large, bright room with six tall windows stretching from the ceiling almost to the floor, the rich blue silk curtains looped back, showing a garden outside of bright green grass dotted with rounded shrubs, some of them even flowering on this winter's day. It was a beautiful room, full of books, sofas and cushioned gilt chairs, but Alfie's eyes were on a huge piano which stood in the centre.

‘What would you like to sing, child?' The old man went straight to the piano and sat on the upright stool.

‘I'd like to sing
O, for the wings of a dove
, sir,' said Sammy promptly.

‘Mendelssohn!' Mr Elmore looked surprised. ‘How did you learn this song, my boy?' he asked gently.

‘I learnt it from the choir at St Martin in the Fields church, sir,' explained Sammy. ‘I go in and I sit at the back and listen to their songs and I remember them.'

‘Like a sparrow picking up crumbs,' mused the old man in thoughtful tones. He sat himself at the huge broad piano and leafed through a pile of sheets until he found the one he wanted. And then he began to play.

Sammy did not sing, or even move. He just sat and listened, his ear turned towards the piano. Alfie was puzzled. Why didn't Sammy sing? Perhaps he wasn't used to singing with music. When he went into St Martin's Church he just listened to the organ and to the voices; he never joined in.

After the last piano note sounded Sammy was very still, but then he sighed. ‘I have never heard music like that before,' he said simply. ‘You are much better, so much better, than the organist at the church.'

Old Mr Elmore smiled at that. ‘I wanted to be a concert pianist when I was your age,' he said, ‘but my father had other ideas for me. He wanted me to be a goldsmith and as I was the only son, I had to be a goldsmith and the piano had to take second place.'
He seemed to think for a moment and a great look of sadness came over his face. ‘I was kinder to my eldest son, but look what happened to him. . . .'

Alfie thought of saying, ‘but he will never be forgotten' but then felt that might be a bit too familiar.

‘Now, let's hear you sing, Sammy.' Mr Elmore seemed to put the sad thoughts from him. ‘I'll just play the last line as an introduction, then you come in.'

Sammy lifted up his glorious voice and began to sing:

‘O, for the wings, for the wings of a dove

Far away, far away would I rove'

The piano followed him, softly and lightly, just a gentle echo.

‘In the wilderness build me a nest

And remain there forever at rest —'

Suddenly there was a huge crash, a jangled muddle of notes. Mr Elmore had fallen over the piano and lay there splayed out, his arms stretched in front of him, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of pain and his eyes wide and staring.

‘What's happened? What is it?' cried Sammy.

‘Help!' yelled Alfie, running to the door that led into the room behind the shop. ‘Help!'

A moment later, he was thrust out of the way by
Daniel Elmore. The shopman followed and then a young boy in a brown linen coat.

‘He just collapsed,' stammered Alfie and saw his brother's face grow white. Quickly, he seized Sammy by the arm and moved towards the door. They would be unwelcome here, now; he knew that.

Daniel Elmore was bending over his father, calling his name and shaking him by the arm, but one look at those staring eyes had told Alfie the truth.

The man was dead.

‘We'll get out of your way, sir,' he muttered as he steered Sammy through the door into the storage room.

They had just reached the shop when a shout came.

‘He's dead!' yelled Daniel Elmore. And then with hardly a second's pause, ‘Where are those boys? They tried to rob him; they killed him!'

In a flash, Alfie, dragging Sammy by the hand, was through the door.

There would be no justice for a couple of ragged boys accused of theft and murder. It would be the hangman's noose or a life in prison.

He and his brother had to run for their lives.

Ludgate Hill was steep and full of people. Alfie thundered along, feeling stabs of pain from his bad leg. He knew that if he were by himself, it would be easier to escape. But it was impossible to leave Sammy and so he had to keep finding openings through the crowds that were large enough for the two boys to go through. He realised, also, that Sammy's blindness made them objects to be remembered.