The Deadly Fire

by Cora Harrison

‘Soon they’ll have the whole street cleared,’ said Jack, looking around him.

  ‘Might get a job there,’ said Alfie, ‘but let’s just have a quick poke around in the ruins of the school, first. I’d like to see if there was anything that might connect Daniel Elmore to the place, or Thomas Orrack – or any of them.’

  Quickly and unobtrusively, the two boys slipped into the masses of timber and rubble where the Ragged School once stood.

  ‘Wonder if the police took away the oil tin,’ said Alfie, looking around. ‘No, here it is, still standing there.’

  ‘Can’t tell much from an empty oil can,’ said Jack, always practical. ‘A man is not going to sign his name to it or something. I’ll have a bit of root around over here. Good piece of timber there – surprised that no one has took it for firewood.’

  Alfie stayed gazing at the tin can; he knew that Jack was right, but still he expected that some clue could be discovered from it. Then he realised that Jack was calling him softly.

  ‘This is why nobody took the chunk of timber!’ said Jack when Alfie joined him. ‘Look, the letterbox is attached to the other side – be no good to put that on the fire.’

  Alfie took the piece of wood and turned it over. The letterbox was there and, what was more, it was almost undamaged. The top had melted a little, but Jack quickly found a narrow, sharp stone and levered it open.

  Inside the letter box, singed but still readable, was a piece of paper. Alfie pulled it out. It was one of the printed leaflets. On the one side were the words about Mary Robinson, but on the other side was a drawing – a drawing that was quite like the one that had been handed to Alfie just after Mary Robinson had nearly throttled him.

  The drawing was of someone hanging from a gallows. But this time the drawing was carefully done in jet-black ink. And the swinging figure was not a boy, but a man with a heavy beard, dressed in pantaloons and a frock coat.

  Under it were letters, printed in rough capitals, by someone who had barely learnt to write and still could not spell.

  MSTR LMO

  ‘EL MORE, get it? Mr Elmore!’ said Alfie as Jack stared at it in a puzzled way.

  So Mary Robinson had visited the Ragged School that night.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE BUILDING SITE

  ‘Any work for two strong boys?’ asked Alfie, approaching a man who was shouting orders at the building site.

  ‘The cart’s coming, Mr Shawcross, and they haven’t finished loading the second one,’ shouted a worker from the top of the platform.

  Mr Shawcross gave Alfie and Jack a quick up-and-down look and then nodded. ‘Two pence an hour to load the carts, half an hour off for dinner. We have two carts and the second one has to be ready when the horse comes back with the empty one.’

  ‘We’d work for two-pence-halfpenny an hour each,’ said Alfie in a businesslike way. ‘How many hours?’

  ‘Eight hours, make it three shillings, then, for the two of you. Take it or leave it.’

  Alfie shrugged. The pay wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad and three shillings at the end of the day would be useful for the rent. And they might find out something useful too.

  ‘We’ll take it,’ he said.

  The work was boring and dirty, loading the broken timber and crumbling plaster on to the carts, with occasional breaks to sprinkle water when the dust of the plaster was choking everyone, but the men were cheerful and friendly.

  ‘You won’t know this place in a couple of months,’ said one of them to Alfie. ‘Mr Lambert will clear the whole of this place and then build some posh new houses here. He’s been waiting for ages to do this.’

  ‘What stopped him?’ asked Alfie. They had a five-minute break where the men could have a drink of small ale to get the dust out of their throats. Alfie took a swig from the jug, passed it over to Jack, and turned back to the man. He remembered Mr Lambert the property developer from the time he went to get the clay, that terrible evening the school burned down, so he was interested in the news.

  ‘That place over there.’ The builder nodded towards the burned-out remains of the Ragged School. ‘No point in building posh houses with a place like that across the road. They had to get rid of that, first.’

  They had to get rid of that, first. The words echoed in Alfie’s mind while he bent and picked up timbers, swung them on to the cart, bent and lifted again and again. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps it hadn’t been an act of revenge by Mary Robinson, or Joseph Bishop, or Thomas Orrack. Perhaps it had just been a way for Daniel Elmore to get rid of his brother. Perhaps money was behind it all, not revenge.

  Now that the rich goldsmith was dead, Daniel Elmore would not only get his father’s wealth, he would also be his brother’s heir. The burned-out school building was worth nothing, but, if Mr Lambert would pay any money for the land it had stood on, this piece of Streatham Street would bring Daniel Elmore quite a sum. Now that he had time to think, Alfie began to suspect why Daniel Elmore had been so keen to hand over two ragged boys to the police. He could not have seriously thought that they had anything to do with the death of his father.

  ‘Your leg all right now?’ queried Jack.

  ‘Yes, much better,’ said Alfie, realising that he hadn’t even thought about it for hours. ‘Just thinking about something.’

  At that moment there was a diversion. The piebald horse that drew the carts was young and mettlesome. From time to time, he seemed to get tired of the monotony – as soon as he arrived back with an empty cart, another full one was harnessed to him. Now he reared up and tried to shake off the cart. The driver, standing by his side, holding the bridle, gave him a vicious cut with his whip and the horse reared up again, his teeth snapping angrily and his hoofs flailing the air until he had knocked the man to the ground.

  Jack acted fast. In a second, he had fearlessly leaped to the horse’s side and grabbed the reins, hauling the animal to one side before the iron shoes could trample the man on the ground.

  ‘Good boy, good boy,’ soothed Jack, stroking the piebald animal and gently scratching behind his ears. ‘Easy now, easy,’ he whisperered, and the horse turned his head and looked down at the boy almost as though he understood what was being said to him. Quickly Jack jumped on to the cart and shook the reins, saying calmly, ‘Move on.’ The horse moved a few paces and then stopped on command and Jack climbed down.

  ‘He’ll be all right now,’ he said and held the bridle while Alfie piled on the last few pieces of timber.

  ‘Why don’t you drive him this time?’ said Mr Shawcross to Jack. ‘It’ll give the driver ten minutes’ rest; that was a nasty fall. Your mate here can manage on his own until you come back. Not many lads would be as good as you with a horse like that.’

  Across the road was a small fat man. Alfie recognised him immediately. It was Mr Lambert – a friendly fellow, he remembered.

  But with him was Daniel Elmore.

  And they had both turned.

  And both had started to walk across the road towards him.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE BOOTPRINT

  Alfie looked around him in desperation. Where could he hide? Then he took a deep breath and steadied himself. Now was his chance. He could not worry about himself. He would never get such a good chance again.

  The two gentlemen were obviously coming over to the demolition site. Mr Shawcross, the foreman, was greeting them and had already signalled to the men on the platform to stop work.

  Alfie looked around for some place to hide. And then he stopped. This time Daniel Elmore wore boots! He had to seize this opportunity. There was no clay around, but the ground was heaped up with crumbling plaster. Rapidly Alfie seized a broom, swept the large pieces of plaster to one side and put them into the cart. But he made sure to leave a good, thick coating of plaster dust on the pathway into the demolition site.

  ‘We’re getting on very well, here, sir,’ Mr Shawcross was saying. ‘We should be finished by the end of the week.’

  ‘I’ll have
another job for you then.’ Mr Lambert was smiling in a satisfied sort of way, his round face creased with good humour and his boot idly tracing patterns in the plaster dust. ‘Mr Elmore, Mr Daniel Elmore, is now the owner of the property across the road. We have agreed terms for it, so the site will have to be cleared as soon as possible.’

  ‘What do you think of that, men?’ shouted Mr Shawcross cheerfully. ‘Another week’s work for you all!’

  There was a huge cheer at that from the men on top of the scaffolding. Mr Lambert and Mr Elmore looked up, smiling broadly at the men’s enthusiasm. While their attention was on the men, Alfie dipped the water container into the water barrel and carefully sprinkled the plaster dust – just enough to dampen it down. Then he quickly took himself off and crouched down behind the waiting cart. He dared not let Daniel Elmore have sight of him. Mr Shawcross wouldn’t miss Alfie for a few minutes.

  ‘You might think of investing in some of this property,’ Mr Lambert was saying in a low voice as the two men walked down the pathway through the site. ‘You can see that we have space here for a good, wide road with blocks of houses on either side.’

  Alfie watched them from between the wheels of the cart and was relieved to see that they did not return by the same way, but turned and went along the back of the property.

  ‘Where did you go?’ asked Jack when he got back.

  Alfie did not answer; he was busy pulling and nudging the cart. The wheels were large and it was almost empty, so it was an easy matter to manoeuvre it above the footsteps in the plaster dust. Plaster dried quickly, he knew that, but it needed protecting in the meantime.

  By the time the cart was full and the horse hitched up to it, the boot marks in the plaster had dried. Alfie stared down at them. He had watched carefully. Mr Lambert had walked beside the scaffolding and Mr Elmore had walked by his side.

  But would they match the clay footprint back at the cellar?

  ‘You gave me a fright!’ gasped Sarah.

  ‘Thought you’d never come! It’s getting late and I want you to look at something.’ Alfie sounded impatient. He had been waiting for quite some time outside the railings of the big house in Bloomsbury where Sarah worked. He had a sack in his hand with something heavy at the bottom of it. Sarah looked puzzled, but walked on rapidly. It would do her no good to be seen hanging around on the pavement outside the house with a ragged boy and a large tousled dog.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss you.’ Alfie’s voice was apologetic. He understood Sarah’s worries. ‘I wanted to catch you because the light goes early these days.’ He cast a worried look upwards. The fog was coming back again. Soon it would blanket everything and it would be impossible for Sarah to see what he wanted her to see. ‘This way,’ he said, crossing the road before she could say any more.

  Sarah followed him. She knew from the expression on Alfie’s face that it was something serious. She was not surprised when he turned to go down Streatham Street. But she was surprised to see what had happened to the street itself.

  ‘They are knocking down all the houses, and they’ll be clearing what’s left of the Ragged School next week.’ Alfie waved his hand around and then stopped. They were too late. The fog had thickened and it was too dark and murky now to see what he needed to show. He bit his lip in annoyance. The plaster was too fragile to lift and it was only a miracle that he had managed to keep the marks intact through the day.

  ‘Wait here, Mutsy, stay with Sarah.’ In a moment he was gone, limping down the street, before Sarah could say anything.

  The Cock & Pye public house was already doing a good business. Alfie could hear singing and drunken shouts from inside. He approached it cautiously, keeping close to the wall and looking around him continuously. It was an old building, though in better repair than the houses on Streatham Street. There were no gas lamps on this side of St Giles so the Cock & Pye had large pitch torches stuck into iron holders on its outside wall. Alfie sidled up to one of them, then quickly seized the torch and returned to Sarah as fast as he could.

  ‘I had awful trouble keeping this safe all day,’ he said as soon as he joined her. He lowered the torch to show a large rotten piece of timber, carefully propped up on a couple of small pieces of wood so that it did not touch the ground. Alfie handed the torch to Sarah and lifted off the timber.

  ‘Footprints,’ said Sarah. She looked at him with instant understanding.

  Alfie nodded. ‘Mr Daniel Elmore, the brother of our Mr Elmore, and the property developer, Mr Lambert, they both walked along here this afternoon. But wait, I have something else to show you.’

  He fumbled in the sack and drew out the piece of clay that had come from the cupboard floor in the Ragged School.

  It only took Sarah a few seconds of looking from the baked clay to the footprints in the fragile plaster to make up her mind.

  ‘That one,’ she said pointing. ‘That’s the one. It’s the exact match. Look at the way the heel is worn down on the outer edge. Do you remember what Sammy said about the villain perhaps leaning more heavily on that side?’

  ‘That’s right – he does limp a bit.’ Alfie’s face was expressionless.

  ‘Mr Daniel Elmore? You didn’t tell me that! You didn’t say anything about him limping!’

  Alfie looked at her. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I was just over there,’ he continued, pointing to a place just behind where Sarah stood. ‘I was hiding under the cart and I watched them walk down there. Mr Lambert walked on that side, just by the scaffolding, and Mr Elmore walked beside him.’

  Sarah nodded, moving the torch so that the light shone more clearly on the footprints.

  The prints next to the scaffolding showed exactly the same slightly worn heel with the heavy ridges, whorls and nail marks as the baked clay impression from the Ragged School fire.

  The second man’s print was a smooth leather sole with a perfect heel, showing no sign of wear.

  Sarah raised the torch and looked at Alfie’s face. He was nodding.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t Mr Daniel Elmore. It was Mr Lambert whose boot made that mark in the cupboard. Mr Lambert was the one who set fire to the Ragged School!’

  CHAPTER 27

  THE THREAT

  Alfie and Sarah stared at each other across the narrow pathway and then looked down again at the prints. There was no doubt that the print of the man who walked by the scaffolding matched the print from the burned-down school.

  ‘But why?’ said Alfie eventually. ‘That’s what I keep saying to myself. Why murder a man just because he won’t sell a house to you? Surely Mr Lambert would think that he might be able to persuade him to do it at some stage. Offer him enough money, offer to build him a new school somewhere else, something like that. Murder seems a bit much.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t mean to murder him,’ said Sarah shrewdly. ‘Perhaps he just meant to burn down the school. He waited till all of the kids were well gone – perhaps he never dreamed that Mr Elmore would stay on, preparing his lessons.’

  Alfie’s mouth tightened. ‘He’s responsible for Mr Elmore’s death all the same and I want to see him behind bars.’

  ‘Can you move those footprints?’ asked Sarah. ‘We need to have evidence.’

  Alfie shook his head. ‘I’ve tried, but they just start to crumble. What will we do? We must do something now – tomorrow may be too late.’

  ‘Go and see the inspector,’ suggested Sarah and then bit her lip, remembering the story of Inspector Bagshott and his threat to Alfie. ‘No, you can’t. He might put you in jail – in any case he will probably not believe you. Let me do it. I owe a lot to Mr Elmore. I’m like you – I want the man who killed him to be punished.’

  ‘No need for you to get involved,’ said Alfie gruffly. ‘You might get the sack from your job. Anyway, you can’t swear to which man made which print – only I can do that.’ He frowned. ‘Let’s go back to Bow Street.’

  ‘Why don’t you take Jack with you?
Or even let him go on his own?’ Sarah made the suggestion just as they turned into Bow Street. She hesitated for a moment, but then said bravely, ‘I’m not saying anything against you, Alfie, but some people find you a bit cheeky. Lots of men like Inspector Bagshott would be more ready to listen to someone like Jack who is quiet and shy and very respectful. Jack was there as well as you. He can swear to it.’

  Alfie shrugged his shoulders. He felt a bit annoyed, but tried to hide it. ‘All right, then,’ he said, ‘I don’t care. I’ll take Jack along. He can be a second witness anyway.’

  ‘I’d just send Jack by himself,’ said Sarah stubbornly. ‘I don’t see why not, and then you won’t run the risk of being clapped in prison by Inspector Bagshott.’

  ‘ . . . so Sarah thinks that you should do the talking.’ Alfie was beginning to feel a bit exasperated with Jack. He had explained everything very clearly, had even told him what to say, but Jack just kept saying that he couldn’t do it.

  ‘Think of it like an act on the street,’ said Alfie with a sudden inspiration. ‘Hang on here for a moment, let’s just practise. Don’t forget to keep calling him “sir”. And you can pretend that you were the one that Mr Elmore sent for the clay. And that you were the one that just spotted the footprints in the plaster being the same as the footprint burned into the clay.’

  ‘I’ll give it a try,’ said Jack in a resigned manner.

  ‘And I’ll tell you what, don’t ask to see the inspector. Just talk to the constable. Now let’s practise all that again.’

  ‘Then I put the wet clay on the floor of the cupboard, sir.’ Jack was still very hesitant, but Alfie, listening intently from outside the badly fitting window of the Bow Street police station, felt heartened. Sarah was right. Jack did sound very respectful. When he risked a quick glance into the well-lit room, he could see PC 22 was looking at Jack in a tolerant way.

  ‘And the next morning when we were picking up some pieces of timber for our own fire, I found this.’