Death in the Devil's Den (4 page)

He’s the spy, all right, thought Alfie as he climbed. Any honest man would have called the policeman’s attention to the person on the roof, would have complained that someone had
flung a piece of stone and then shot peas at him from a peashooter. It was probably breaking some law to climb up to the roof of the Abbey, but Alfie didn’t care. The man had put his knife
away, but Alfie remembered how sharp it had been and how long the blade was and how it had glinted under the light of the gas lamp.

‘There’s a rope just above your hands,’ came the whisper. ‘Grab onto it and feel for footholds with your feet. He’s still there. He’s just waiting for you to
come down again.’

Alfie did what he was told. Big Ben, the new clock at Westminster, struck twelve as he climbed, startling him for a moment. Like most Londoners, Alfie was still not used to that giant bell with
its booming sound. Then he took a firmer grip on the rope and found that the stone was pitted in places and his bare toes could get a good grip. The voice of his friend on the roof belonged to a
toff; but what was a toff doing on top of Westminster Abbey roof? Sometimes, during the day, men with ladders came and repaired something, but no one in their sane senses would be up there on a
winter’s night.

‘The rope finishes there,’ whispered the voice with the swell’s accent. ‘Grab the devil’s head and pull yourself up by it.’

An ugly, leering, carved face peered down with water dripping from it. It was green and slimy but Alfie managed to get a firm grip onto the stone curls and lever himself up. In a moment he was
on a small, narrow section of roof above the door. The light was dim here, but it was enough to show that the voice that had guided him up belonged to a boy no older than himself.

‘Keep still for a minute,’ whispered the voice. ‘He’s going away.’

Alfie’s heart beat with relief. Perhaps the man was going to give up the chase.

‘Where’s he going?’ he whispered back.

‘Into Little Dean’s Yard.’

By now Alfie could see his rescuer more clearly. He was a boy of about Alfie’s own age and size, but not dressed in rags as Alfie was. This boy wore a suit like a gentleman and his shirt,
though stained with smears of mud and streaks of wet moss, had been stiffly starched and the points on his collar still stood up beside his chin. He had a well-combed head of blond curls and a pair
of blue eyes. He must be one of those posh schoolboys from Westminster School, thought Alfie.

‘I’m Richard,’ he said, holding out a hand that had a few smudges of dirt on it, but felt soft – the hand of a boy who had never had to work. ‘What’s your
name?’ he asked politely.

‘Alfie . . . I’d better be getting out of here. Will you be safe?’ Alfie looked anxiously at the young gentleman who had probably saved his life. Young gentlemen, in his
experience, knew little about the rough underbelly of London. Richard wouldn’t know what it was like to be hunted through the streets or across the rooftops of the city. It would be just a
game to him. ‘That fella’s got a knife,’ he added.

The boy, however, seemed quite unworried and continued to study Alfie with a smile, until a slight sound from below made him peer down at the pavement.

‘He’s coming after you. What a lark,’ said Richard with a chuckle. He leaned over the parapet and peered down. ‘Found himself a ladder, too! I wonder how he managed to
get hold of that? It’s kept in the gardener’s shed at the back of the yard. How would he know about that? And how did he get a key to go into the yard? It’s always locked at
night.’

Alfie joined him and peered over the edge of the parapet; but Richard suddenly drew well back.

‘Oh my sainted aunt,’ he said under his breath. ‘I know who that is. I can’t be wrong. I know those hunched-up shoulders – I should do. I spend enough hours staring
at them while we’re rehearsing in the Abbey. He’s disguised himself, though. He doesn’t really have a beard, or a scar, or those bushy eyebrows. He must be wearing some sort of
mask.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Alfie in a whisper.

‘Boris Ivanov, the organ master at the choir school. I’d stake a penny on it. Never seen that fur coat before, but I’m sure that it is he. I’m in terrible trouble if he
finds me on the roof in the middle of the night. He’ll flog me if he catches me.’

‘He’ll certainly kill me,’ whispered Alfie back; but his heart was beating hard with excitement as he followed Richard along a gulley that lay between two sections of the
roof.

‘Boris Ivanov . . .’ Alfie tried the words on his tongue. ‘Sounds funny!’

‘Oh, he’s Russian,’ Richard replied.

Alfie’s eyes widened. What was it Inspector Denham had said?

‘ . . .passing secrets and plans about a new weapon, a splendid new gun, to our enemies, the Russians
.’

And the man had been to the Russian Embassy. Things were starting to fall into place!

‘Yes, he’s a Russian. He’s always talking about Russia; tells us that he had no parents, no brothers or sisters – just Mother Russia,’ whispered
Richard over his shoulder as he led the way. ‘Funny old cove – great musician, though. You should hear him play the organ. Be careful here, this roof is very slippery.’

‘Anything the matter, sir?’ The voice rang out clearly in the foggy air.

Alfie groaned to himself as Richard muttered, ‘The copper! Now we’re in trouble. Edge up here; careful of that gutter – it’s broken. Don’t put any weight on it. Get
behind this chimney.’

Alfie did what he was told. His bare feet were proving to be more useful than Richard’s gleaming black leather boots.

And then the shrill note of a policeman’s whistle split the air and Richard moaned. ‘That’s torn it. The coppers will surround the Abbey. Quick, follow me. Boris will have some
explaining to do and that will give us a few minutes’ start on them.’

‘It’s a boy, a boy selling newspapers, stole my purse.’ The Russian organist sounded flustered.

Alfie clambered over the head of a stone lion and crouched down beside Richard, whose white teeth flashed a grin in the moonlight. A cool customer, thought Alfie admiringly.

‘That boy over there?’ asked the policeman. ‘Come back, you young villain; come back, I say!’

The policeman was shouting at another boy, down below, and Alfie recognised Tom! He realised that his cousin must have come back to Westminster, instead of going back to the cellar in Bow
Street. So now Tom was making a run for it – and, knowing Tom, he would be trying to take the newspapers with him.

Alfie’s heart lurched. Tom could be annoying, but Alfie’s mother had been very fond of him and she had told her son to look after his cousin when she died. He imagined her above in
the heaven of his grandfather’s tales and he winced as a picture of her reproachful face flashed in front of his mind’s eye.

You were always a troublemaker
, he could hear her say.
And now you’ve got your little cousin into trouble
.

I’m doing my best!
The words were in his mind, but they didn’t help. He would feel guilty for ever if Tom was caught and dragged off to Newgate prison. The penalty for
stealing a gentleman’s purse could be death by hanging.

‘Good,’ said Richard calmly, breaking into Alfie’s thoughts. ‘They’ve found someone to occupy them. Careful here; grab onto that saint’s hand. Put your foot
on his foot. It’s quite firm. I’ve been up here hundreds of times.’

Alfie did as he was told, fitting his bare toes around the carved stone beneath the statue’s feet and then stepping up onto the foot itself. The voices of several policemen moved nearer.
Had they given up on the chase after Tom? They seemed to be talking to the Russian now.

‘Come down from that ladder, sir, if you please. It’s an offence to scale a building like the Abbey.’ The constable’s voice was polite: the man was obviously a toff,
wearing a fur coat and a silk top hat, but there was no doubt that he was behaving suspiciously.

‘This is a tricky bit,’ whispered Richard. ‘We have to make a jump here. Don’t look down.’

Alfie’s mouth was dry as he watched the boy, hand on hat, coat tails flying up, make a leap from the roof to a wall. For a moment it looked as though he would fall, but at the last moment
he recovered his balance.

‘Come on,’ Richard said quietly. ‘You can’t go back down there. The place is swarming with policemen. They’re always around when the MPs sit late. They fetch cabs
for them and things like that.’

Alfie knew that he shouldn’t go back down for a while until the policemen had wandered off back to New Scotland Yard. Left to himself, he would have spent a few hours on the Abbey roof and
then climbed down around dawn. Once more he glanced down at the distance that Richard had leaped so effortlessly. It must be at least thirty feet above the ground, he thought, feeling his breath
shorten. He imagined what a fall would do to him, pictured himself splayed out on the pavement with his skull split and the blood oozing from him, like that steeplejack he had once seen fall from
the roof of St Martin’s church in Trafalgar Square.

From the other side of the Abbey, he could hear more voices and the strong Russian accent of the organist as he tried to explain to the policemen why he had been starting to climb onto the roof
of Westminster Abbey in the middle of a winter’s night.

‘Don’t look down – look at me. Jump!’ Richard’s voice had a note of alarm in it. He could see something that Alfie could not.

And then one policeman’s voice rose up, stronger and louder than the others.

‘You just stay down here, sir,’ it said. ‘Constable Davies will get him. ’e’s from Wales – ’e’s used to mountain climbing and ’e’s
younger than you are, begging your pardon, sir. He’ll catch the little beggar what stole your purse, sir.’

That settled it. A young, fit, mountain-climbing Welshman, armed with a truncheon, was after him. He had to trust Richard. After all, he told himself desperately, Alfie Sykes could do anything
that a boy dressed in a tailcoat and wearing a hat and a pair of boots could do.

The distance between the two buildings was only about four feet. That was not the problem; it was just that it was a very long way down if he happened to jump short. However, Alfie’s mind
was made up. Clamping his teeth tightly together and pulling a deep breath into his chest, Alfie leaped across, clawing at the wall’s parapet with stone-cold hands. For a moment he fumbled,
but then despair sent the blood flowing back into his veins and he felt the slightly rough surface through his fingertips.

Richard did not say a word but slipped around a pillar and began to scramble up the slippery slate roof of a building joined to the wall. This was more difficult than the Abbey’s roof, but
Richard twitched a rope and Alfie grabbed hold of it instantly. Quickly they came to a set of tall chimneys, hot to the touch and still smoking slightly. Once behind them, Alfie sighed with
relief.

They were no longer on the Abbey roof but on a building close by. Alfie looked down and saw the small yard that Richard had spoken of – Little Dean’s Yard, he had called it. It was
shaped like a square, paved in two colours of soot-stained stone and was surrounded by tall, neat brick buildings on all sides. What took Alfie’s attention, though, was the archway. There was
a stout wooden gate with heavy bars on it, blocking it at the moment; but he was sure that it would be opened when morning came and that he could get out through there and back into Westminster
again. In the meantime, he would just follow his new friend along the narrow crest of the roof.

Richard was lying down now, seeming to squash himself against the roof ridge, a hand on the slope on either side. It was a good precaution as the sky was still unclouded and watery gleams of
moonlight seeped through the fog. There was a danger that anyone looking out of one of the buildings opposite might see them. Eventually they came to another of the tall chimneys and, with a sigh
of relief, Alfie was able to follow Richard’s example and to straighten himself against its bulk.

‘Don’t slip,’ whispered Richard. ‘I did once and I only saved my life by grabbing onto that flagpole down there by the gutter. It was a near thing, I can tell you. I tied
the rope onto the chimney after that.’ Alfie looked down. The roof was a steep one and the fog-wet slates were incredibly slippery. More than ever he admired the nerve and courage of this
Westminster schoolboy.

‘In here!’ Richard pushed open a casement window to the back of the chimney. He climbed over the windowsill into a small dark room. ‘This is my study. I share it with Smith
Minor, but he’s been sent home with measles. You can sleep there and, in the morning, I’ll bring you breakfast. Here’s a box of matches if you want to find your way around.
I’ll draw the curtains. Better go now before I’m missed from the dormitory. I’ll be flogged to death if I’m found out.’

As soon as he was gone, Alfie lit a match, looked around rapidly, noting the position of the furniture and the cupboards, and then blew it out. Darkness was safer. He felt his way around and
took a cushion from a chair and made himself a bed inside a large cupboard whose shelves were full of old books. Once he was settled there, he pulled the door almost shut. Now, if anyone chanced to
look in before Richard came, there would be nothing to be seen. He determined not to move unless all was safe.