The Montgomery Murder (18 page)

The fog had seeped away overnight. Heavy black clouds replaced it, making narrow Monmouth Street as dark as if the day had decided to end almost as soon as it had begun. Small
triangles of candle flames burned inside most windows and the lamplighter had already propped his ladder against a gas pole, his lighter in hand.

Sarah appeared so quickly that Alfie knew she had been waiting for him. Neither spoke as they made their way to Bedford Square. Alfie guessed that she was nervous, but he couldn’t think
what to say. He kept throwing quick glances over his shoulder, expecting to see a giant, top-hatted shadow on the road behind them.

The mews at the back of the Bedford Square houses were busy. Almost every stable had men working on horses, brushing them, cleaning out the straw, putting in new straw, putting hay in the
feeding racks, all except for the stables behind number one. These were silent and empty. All were at the funeral.

Sarah went confidently down the steps, through the yard and then slipped around the corner. Alfie followed her and Sarah already had the scullery door unlocked by the time he reached her.
Luckily the yard had been swept clean so their bare feet did not leave marks on the luxurious carpet as the two of them raced up the main staircase, passing gold-framed mirrors, white marble
statues and a marvellous stair window with pictures made from coloured glass. Alfie wished he could stop and study these, but he knew that he shouldn’t. There had been no servants in the
kitchen, but that did not mean that some of them would not be coming back after the church service, and before the burial, in order to get the lunch ready for the mourners.

‘Where are the bedrooms?’ asked Alfie, but Sarah shook her head, looking around her helplessly.

‘I told you; I was never allowed upstairs,’ she whispered.

‘That’s where the drawing room was; the bedrooms are probably up the next set of stairs.’ Alfie had spent quite some time staring at the house from the gatekeeper’s
shelter and he remembered the three rows of windows. The upper servants would probably be in the attics, so the bedrooms would be in the top row.

‘Not that one,’ whispered Sarah as Alfie opened the first door when they reached the top of the stairs. ‘That must be the missus’s.’ It did look like a
woman’s room, with pretty flowery hangings on the bed and a table piled high with little boxes and jars in front of a tall looking glass.

‘Not this one either.’ The second room obviously led from the woman’s room and the doors were set open between the two rooms. This was probably Mr Montgomery’s room. The
furniture was darker and the curtains plainer.

‘I’d say this is Mr Denis Montgomery’s room,’ said Sarah after a pause while they gazed into the third room. ‘There’s such a lot of things here – a
visitor wouldn’t have this many bits and pieces, and look – that looks like a boy’s cricket bat. Why would Mr Scott bring that all the way from India? They’ll be back
soon,’ she added nervously. ‘They won’t be gone for long.’ Her voice was trembling and she jumped when a loud explosion sounded.

Alfie jumped too. ‘Sounds like a gun,’ he said. He glanced out of the window and saw jagged streaks of lightning cross the sky. ‘Just thunder,’ he said with an attempt at
a laugh. He didn’t like thunder much, but he didn’t want to admit it in front of Sarah. He turned his back on the sky, marched out of the room and followed her in through the next
door.

‘This looks like Mr Scott’s room.’ Alfie’s voice was full of satisfaction as he gazed into the fourth room. It was bare and tidy, and a labelled trunk stood in the middle
of the floor, with a few tightly packed leather bags arranged beside it. In fact, he thought, everything was so neat and orderly that it looked as though Mr Scott planned to leave the house soon
after the funeral was over. He walked over towards the bags and then suddenly another clap of thunder ripped through the air. He jumped. ‘What’s that? Something moved there.’

‘That’s just the looking glass. You saw yourself in it.’

Alfie spun around. The room was filled with a strange light and opposite him he saw a boy in ragged clothes.

‘My ghost, maybe.’ Alfie tried to joke, but his voice was trembling. He looked all around the room, trying to imagine that he was a police inspector.

There was only one thing out of place in the room. In the corner, by the window, there was a tall sloping desk, just like the ones at the police station. On it there was an inkwell with a quill
stuck into it, a piece of sealing wax flung down beside the flintlock tinder-box for melting it, and a tin canister with its lid lying next to it. A piece of white paper with marks on it lay beside
it, pushed askew as if someone had carelessly dislodged it before leaving the bedroom.

‘He was writing a letter,’ said Sarah, moving over.

‘I suppose he took it with him. What’s that for?’ Alfie pointed at the white paper.

‘Oh!’ There was another clap of thunder. Sarah had been in a state of nerves ever since she had entered the house.

‘Take no notice of it,’ said Alfie firmly. ‘What’s written there?’

‘That’s blotting paper. They dry the ink with that. I can’t read the word. It’s backwards. Wait, though. Nora had a piece of blotting paper that she’d picked out of
the waste-paper basket from Mrs Montgomery’s bedroom. She’s very nosy, Nora, and this is what she did to read it.’ Quickly she went over to the looking glass and held it up.

‘It’s to a bank in the Strand,’ she said after a minute. ‘I’m not sure how to pronounce the first word. It’s either
Cowts
or
Coots
. It’s
spelled C-o-u-t-t-s.’

‘
Coots,
I think,’ said Alfie firmly. ‘Do you remember Sammy heard the butler ask the man at breakfast if he had found Coutts Bank? Now, did he take this letter with him,
or could it be in his bag?’

In a second he had the smallest leather bag up on a chair and unsnapped the catches. There was another crash of thunder, but in his excitement he ignored it.

‘There it is,’ he said immediately, taking out a sealed and stamped envelope. ‘Right on the top of his bag. Got its penny black stamp already on it, too. Go on, Sarah, read
it.’ With an effort he kept his voice steady. Sarah was nervous enough already. She would be worse if he, too, betrayed any nerves.

Sarah gasped as he recklessly broke the seal and tore open the envelope, but she took the sheet of paper in her trembling fingers.

Alfie waited. From the square he heard the noise of a heavy front door slam closed. He reckoned it was a few doors down, but even so he could not help giving a slight jump. Sarah was screwing up
her eyes in an effort to make out the words on the page. She had learned to read at the Ragged School – she had often suggested that he should go, but he had never wanted to bother. It had
all seemed too difficult.

But how well could she read?

‘It’s not easy,’ she said after a moment.

‘I’ll just have another look through his bags and see if I can get any clue there. Perhaps I’ll find some of those betel leaves and those nuts that Mallesh was telling us
about.’ Alfie felt that he could not bear to stand there, doing nothing, for another moment.

‘No, wait. I’m getting the hang of it now. It’s just that he makes some of the letters in a funny way. Listen.

‘Messrs Coutts & Company, The Strand, London.

‘Dear Sirs, I enclose the deed to the diamond mines in Calcutta. I also enclose a report from an engineer in which you will see that the diamond mines, after years of being considered a
failure, have started producing good quantities of fair-sized diamonds.

‘Please note that I am now the sole owner of the mines according to the deed of agreement between myself and the late Mr Montgomery. I believe you have that deed in your
possession.

‘In view of the number of diamonds which are now being found on a daily basis, I’m sure that you will have no problem in giving me a draft for two thousand pounds which I will
need for covering my expenses in developing the mines on my return to India.

‘Please reply to my address in India, as I am leaving London this evening.

‘Yours faithfully, R. Scott.’

Alfie stared at Sarah. ‘Sammy was right. So that’s why he murdered Mr Montgomery. Now he can have the diamond mines to himself, instead of just half of them. Quick, give me the
letter. This is better than any betel leaves. Let’s go.’

‘Hush,’ said Sarah. ‘Listen!’

There was the sound of the big mahogany front door downstairs being opened with a key and then slammed closed again. Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Heavy footsteps clumped up the stairs,
getting nearer and nearer . . .

Alfie and Sarah looked at each other in horror. They were trapped!

CHAPTER 29

‘Quick,’ whispered Sarah. ‘We’ll hide in one of the cupboards.’

‘No, he’ll miss the letter, and then he’ll come looking for us.’

‘Well, leave the letter then!’

‘Not on your life! Come on!’ Alfie seized Sarah by the hand and dragged her through the French window leading on to the balcony. Carefully he inched the window shut after them and
then looked around. Yes, he had remembered correctly.

Some tall tree-like creeper grew up the wall from the ground, stretching its way right up to the roof. Now, in November, it was blackened and dead, but the strong trunk and side branches still
remained, and that should be easy enough to climb. Luckily they both had bare feet. Alfie made a quick decision. To go down would be fatal – if Mr Scott came to the window, he was bound to
look down first of all and then shout to the gatekeeper to stop them. No, the only safe thing would be to go up and hide on the roof for a while.

‘Go on,’ Alfie said, giving Sarah a push towards it with one hand while with the other he rolled up the letter to Coutts Bank and shoved it deep into his pocket.

And then he almost lost his grip as another flash of lightning came, followed instantly by a terrible crash, and then a heavy silence.

Sarah was a good climber, quick and neat and he was on her heels immediately, listening all the time for sounds from within the house. Yes, Mr Scott had discovered the missing letter. Alfie
could hear the exclamation when he clicked open the bag. He grinned to himself, picturing Mr Scott wondering whether he had put the letter in the bag after all. Then another faint click. The trunk
was being opened.

Alfie was suddenly worried that he could hear all the sounds from the bedroom so clearly – perhaps the window wasn’t quite shut. He daren’t tell Sarah to hurry, as his own
voice might carry to the man in the bedroom.

Now they were passing the small windows at the top of the house. These would be more bedrooms. If one had been left open it would have been tempting to go in and then creep down the back stairs,
but they were firmly closed.

There was a violent crash as the French window was flung open and slammed against the wall, followed by the sound of a heavy footstep.

And then the rain began, long lines of it slanting down from the sky and soaking them through in less than a minute. Both of them stopped, clinging desperately to the thinner stems of the top of
the creeper, trying not to be swept off by the terrible cloud burst.

Alfie risked a quick glance down. Mr Scott was on the balcony, but he was not looking up. He was looking down, leaning over the rail and scrutinising the pavement below.

Only two more minutes and they would be safe. Sarah was now quite near to the roof. He could see her hand reach up and clutch on to the white-tiled parapet which reared up like a tiny wall to
hide the gutter pipe.

But just as Alfie had begun to take the final few steps to safety, one of the white tiles broke off and fell down to the iron railings of the balcony with a crash. Alfie heard a sudden curse. He
looked down and straight into Mr Scott’s eyes. For a moment, Alfie froze, but then Mr Scott dived back into the bedroom.

‘Quick, Sarah, quick!’ Alfie hissed. ‘Get over the parapet, get up to the chimney. Get behind it! I’m just behind you.’

It was too late, though, for him to follow her. In two seconds, Mr Scott was back out on the balcony.

There was another explosion. No lightning, though. Nor thunder, either. Alfie risked another glance and saw a gleam of light from something round and metallic clutched in Mr Scott’s big
fist.

Mr Scott was pointing a small revolver straight at him. The explosion had been a shot.

‘Murderer!’ yelled Alfie. ‘Murderer, murderer, murderer!’ he continued to yell as he dropped over the parapet and sank to his knees. He had little hope of anyone hearing
him, though, as the thunderstorm still continued. A shot whizzed past him, striking the edge of the parapet, then another shot and another. Four, five shots. Although he was soaked to the skin
Alfie felt hot sweat flood his armpits. The terrible sour taste of vomit filled his mouth.

And then there was another flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. Or was it thunder? No, it must have been a bullet. A small piece of tile fell down past his eyes. Desperately he tried to
flatten himself against the roof edge. Sarah had managed to wedge herself behind the chimney, but Alfie didn’t dare to move or else he would risk a bullet in the spine.