The Deadly Fire

by Cora Harrison

‘And two pence during the day,’ said Alfie.

  ‘And, of course, the vicar will be paying him a salary, too,’ said Sammy quietly. ‘Did you notice how he said that the vicar would be in charge?’

  ‘But is it enough to commit murder for?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘What did his boots look like?’ asked Sammy.

  There was a startled silence.

  ‘Blessed if I know,’ said Jack. ‘I forgot to look.’

  ‘So did I,’ admitted Alfie.

  ‘It’s just that I thought he walked a bit to one side,’ said Sammy.

  Alfie felt furious with himself. Perhaps Thomas Orrack was the man who set fire to the Ragged School. It could have been revenge – Mr Elmore had got him sacked – or it could have been a way to get Mr Elmore’s position for himself. Alfie made an exasperated sound. How could he have forgotten to check the boots? It would have been easy to spill a little water on the floor, get the man to walk on it, then examine it with a candle after Mr Orrack left.

  The problem was his leg, he thought. The pain from it stopped him thinking straight. As time wore on it was getting worse and worse. By the light of the fire he took off the rag and examined it carefully.

  Now the cut had closed over, but in its place there was a red, throbbing swelling.

  And his head ached. And he felt shivery, and slightly weak.

  He looked over at Sammy, sitting peacefully by the fire, his sightless face alive with intelligence. What would happen to him if Alfie died of blood poisoning?

  CHAPTER 20

  INSPECTOR DENHAM

  The next morning, Alfie boiled some water again and this time, as well as putting the two rags in it, he held the blade of his knife in the bubbling water for as long as he could bear the heat.

  Then, gritting his teeth, he put the sharp edge of the knife against the swollen lump and sliced into it. A flood of yellow pus came out, and then a little blood followed it.

  Now the cut looked much better. It was clean and the swelling was less. Alfie began to feel cheerful as he wiped away the fluid and then tied the rag over it again. His head still felt heavy and he was still unusually cold, but he buttoned an old waistcoat of his father’s over his jacket and set to work to wash Sammy’s hair and get him as tidy as possible.

  There were only a few good pieces of clothing in the cellar. Alfie borrowed a scarf from Jack, a pair of breeches without too many holes from Tom and then found a white shirt which he had snatched from a stall in Petticoat Lane and added his own good tartan waistcoat. Carefully he rubbed out any clots of dirt, cobbled a few holes together with a needle and thread, attacked some grease spots with a piece of stale bread and helped Sammy dress in all the finery. By the end of it, his brother looked pretty good, he thought. Alfie had done his best with his own clothes – they didn’t look too different – but he reckoned his appearance didn’t matter as long as Sammy looked respectable.

  ‘Where are you off to, then?’ Jack re-knotted the red scarf around Sammy’s neck. It had been kind of him to lend it. It was a good warm scarf and had been given to Jack by a woman whose husband had drowned in the river. Jack had helped to drag the body out and had gone back to the house to console the weeping woman. She had given him the scarf when he went away. He was a nice fellow, Jack; everyone along the riverside liked him.

  ‘Thought we’d drop into the hospital and see the inspector.’ Alfie did not explain any further and was thankful that Jack did not press him.

  ‘Will they let you in?’ Tom was very cheerful this morning. They had taken out the tray of marbles from under the coals and found that all, except one or two, had baked hard. The pale green had turned a dark green, and where they had mixed the copper powder with some rust, the marbles were a dark red.

  Tom and Charlie practised with them for a while, sending them scooting across the stone floor of the cellar and deliberately crashing them, one against the other. Not one of them was damaged – they were as hard as pebbles. Mutsy watched with interest, his head cocked to one side, and one large ear half-raised in an effort to understand what was going on.

  ‘I’ll try, anyway,’ said Alfie. ‘You and Charlie should go on with the marble-making. You could do with a few hundred before you start selling. We’ve plenty of clay left. If people buy them, then we can supply them.’

  ‘That looks like St Bart’s Hospital, there, Sam, don’t it?’ Alfie stared thoughtfully at the tall building, carefully spelling out St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

  Sammy laughed quietly. ‘I’d be more of a help if my eyes worked better.’

  Alfie punched him on the arm and chuckled. There was no doubt that Sammy had a great sense of humour. In some ways, it hurt Alfie when he heard his brother say things like that, but in other ways he was proud of him. He knew that Sammy did not want pity. What he felt about being blind he kept to himself and did not ask for sympathy.

  Alfie also kept to himself the feelings of terror and panic that sometimes overwhelmed him when he wondered where the next meal, the next week’s rent would come from. He did not want ever to confess that weakness to Sammy or the rest of the gang.

  ‘How’s the leg?’ asked Sammy.

  ‘Fine,’ said Alfie.

  ‘Pity we can’t find someone who could give you something for it,’ said Sammy.

  Alfie did not reply; it was obvious that his brother did not believe him. The bond between the brothers was very strong and both always knew when the other was hurt or worried. But nothing could be done without money to pay a doctor, so there was no point in Alfie talking about his leg. ‘Let’s go in and visit Inspector Denham,’ he said.

  St Bart’s Hospital was huge. Inside the door was an immense space, the ceiling high above their heads and the tiled floor cool and smooth beneath their bare feet.

  ‘Looks like a church with big high windows and all that,’ Alfie whispered in Sammy’s ears.

  ‘Bit spooky, like, ain’t it?’ returned Sammy and Alfie squeezed his brother’s arm.

  Sammy was right. There was an odd echo from the hurrying footsteps of the doctors and nurses and well-dressed men and women who hurried past, and it did give a weird feel to the place.

  At the far end of the hall, there was a woman sitting behind a desk. She looked very forbidding, thought Alfie. He took a deep breath, placed Sammy on a chair by the window, then took one of Mr Elmore’s leaflets from his pocket and approached the desk, holding it folded in his hand.

  ‘Message for Inspector Denham from Bow Street police station,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Give it here,’ the woman said impatiently, holding out her hand.

  ‘Has to be given into his own hand,’ said Alfie firmly. ‘That’s my orders. Inspector Bagshott said that. These were his very words. Into his own hands.’ He stared boldly at the woman and kept the folded leaflet slightly tilted so that she could see the print, but not read it.

  After a minute she shrugged her shoulders, consulted a large ledger full of neatly written names in front of her and then said dismissively, ‘First floor, room number 222.’

  Alfie nodded in an off-hand manner, went back to his brother, grabbed his arm and marched towards the steep stone stairs as quickly as he could before she could change her mind.

  By the time that they reached the first floor, Alfie felt as if he could not climb another step. His leg was on fire with pain and he was shivering so much that Sammy noticed. Alfie saw him turn his head with concern on his face as they walked down the corridor. He was in such pain by the time they reached number 222 that he just walked straight in without knocking and immediately sat on a chair, still keeping a tight hold of Sammy’s hand. To his relief, only Inspector Denham himself was there in the small room, lying on a high iron bedstead.

  ‘Well, well, what wind brought you two here?’ The inspector’s voice was weak and hoarse. He was tucked into bed, well-propped up with pillows. He looked pale and he needed a shave.

  Alfie wasn’t feeling well, but the sight of Inspector Denham wearing a strip
ed nightgown and a nightcap with a tassel, instead of his usual smart, well-brushed uniform, brought a smile to his lips and his courage began to come back.

  ‘Here to investigate your disappearance from Bow Street police station, sir,’ he said cheekily. ‘Glad to see that you are still with us.’

  Inspector Denham gave a grin. He looked more human there in the hospital than he did in the police station.

  ‘Nothing for you to find out. I can tell you the name of what struck me down; it was pneumonia,’ he said, his voice a little stronger. ‘That’s the culprit, but I’m on the road to recovery now. Have some of my hothouse grapes.’

  Alfie had never tasted grapes, but he took two, put one in his own mouth and popped the other into Sammy’s. It was an astonishing taste, sweet and yet sharp. It made his sore throat feel better.

  ‘You don’t look too well yourself,’ said Inspector Denham, eyeing Alfie with a sharp glance.

  ‘Just a cut on my leg,’ said Alfie. He didn’t want the inspector to think that he was bringing some disease into the hospital.

  ‘So what brings you here, then? Eat the grapes, I don’t like them, myself. I’d prefer a whisky but they don’t let me have it in here.’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of evidence for you in the case of the murder of Mr Elmore,’ said Alfie.

  ‘Go on.’

  He didn’t contradict the word ‘murder’, Alfie noticed. Perhaps Inspector Denham had thought it over and had begun to come round to Alfie’s view that the deadly fire was more than a simple accident.

  So Alfie told him about the piece of clay, next to the empty oil tin, about Albert the monitor, his witness, and about Mary Robinson’s fury when she saw that he had tricked her into leaving an imprint of her foot on another piece of clay.

  ‘I’d swear that she understood what I was doing,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe, or maybe not,’ said the inspector. ‘She’s a woman, after all. Women don’t like getting dirt on their shoes.’

  ‘She wears boots,’ said Alfie dryly. ‘Man-sized boots, and the boots looked about the same size as the fire-baked print that I have at home in the cellar.’

  ‘Tell Inspector Denham about Thomas Orrack,’ said Sammy.

  ‘You tell him,’ said Alfie. A violent fit of shivering had seized him. He had just about been able to say that sentence with his jaw set rigidly to stop his teeth chattering. He swallowed a few more grapes in the hope that they might make him feel better and half-listened to Sammy’s account of how Thomas Orrack had opened a fee-paying school in the room by the church of St Giles.

  ‘So you have two suspects.’ The inspector sounded thoughtful.

  ‘Three,’ said Alfie. ‘There’s Mr Elmore’s younger brother, Mr Daniel Elmore. He will inherit all the money now when the father goes, and the father is in bad health. And then there’s Joseph Bishop. He tried to murder me two nights ago. That’s how I got this cut on my leg. He hit me with his shovel.’

  ‘Let me see; take off that filthy rag.’

  Alfie obeyed. It was true that the rag, which he had boiled clean that morning, was no longer a pale grey, but was covered with the mud and filth of the street.

  ‘Doesn’t look too good to me. Just ring that bell there, Alfie, will you?’ Inspector Denham sounded more like himself. ‘Could you ask one of the doctors to step in here, Nurse,’ he said as a starched, uniformed women came bustling in.

  A few minutes later, the door opened and a young man, wearing a white coat, came in.

  ‘Ah, Doctor, could you do me a favour and have a look at this boy’s leg. He was hit by a shovel that had been used in a burying ground . . .’

  Alfie saw the young doctor frown at those words and his heart sank. His guess was right. There was something poisonous about the earth that buried those dead bodies near Drury Lane.

  Inspector Denham saw his look and gave him a cheerful wink. ‘He’s tough. He’ll soon be well again,’ he said to the doctor.

  The doctor already had his hand on Alfie’s forehead. ‘He’s running a fever. I’ll take him off and get the leg bandaged up, sir.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ Inspector Denham fumbled in the cupboard next to his bed and then produced his purse. ‘Here you are,’ he said, placing a shilling in Alfie’s hand. ‘Now you look after your leg and no more investigating. Wait until I’m back at the station and then we can talk about it. Off with you now, go with the doctor. And keep away from that man, Joseph Bishop!’

  CHAPTER 21

  THE GOLDSMITH AT LUDGATE HILL

  ‘Have you always been blind?’ The young doctor had taken several looks at Sammy, touching him lightly on the arm before he spoke.

  ‘Since I was about two or three.’ Sammy’s voice was placid and he stood very still as the doctor gently pulled down his eyelid and examined his eye by the light of a gas lamp. Alfie looked hopefully at the doctor; he had often wondered whether, if they could pay for medical help, something could be done about Sammy’s eyes, but he saw the young man sigh and shake his head.

  ‘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 wi
th 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?

  CHAPTER 22

  SAMMY SINGS

  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.’