Free The Montgomery Murder by Cora Harrison

nodded in the direction of a tall, falling-down house just behind him.
    No more was said, and Alfie did not even acknowledge the information. He strolled over towards the house and climbed the rickety stairs. He had to walk carefully and lightly on the badly sloping
staircase, holding on firmly to the banisters.
    At the first landing he met a man, wide-eyed and drunken, stumbling down the stairs.
    ‘Betty, the clothes girl from Monmouth Street,’ Alfie said briefly. The man hiccoughed and gazed at him with widely open eyes. There was a terrible smell from him, worse than the
smell from the privy.
    ‘Plump little girl, about seventeen, curly hair,’ added Alfie when there was no reply.
    ‘Where is she?’ asked the man. His voice was hoarse and thick with alcohol. Alfie ignored the question and looked around to see if there was anyone sober who might give him
information.
    But then the man seized him by the arm. ‘Who are you?’ he screamed. ‘Oh my eyes and ears, what devil’s spawn are you? Oh my lungs and liver, I’ll rip you open!
I’ll tear you from limb to limb.’
    Crazy, thought Alfie. His heart was thumping, but he had spent the years since his parents died making sure that his feelings did not show on his face, and he looked at the mad man with what he
knew would be a calm, indifferent expression. It seemed to work, as after a minute the man dropped his arm and went clumping down the stairs.
    ‘You looking for a girl?’ An old woman popped out of a door on the landing. Alfie swallowed twice. He didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded.
    ‘You haven’t heard, then?’
    He shook his head.
    ‘A girl fell through the rotten boards in the privy last night. She fell into the cesspool below. She was drowned when they fished her out.’

 
    CHAPTER 15
T HE C RUMBLING H OUSE

    Alfie looked around the crumbling house, with the crazily leaning staircase, the chunks of rotten plaster dangling from the walls, the broken windows and the missing
floorboards. He shuddered. He had been fond of Betty. She had been kind to the boys from time to time – whenever she had some luck herself.
    He returned down the stairs, feeling his heart skip a beat every time that the wood creaked beneath his bare feet. He knew where the privy was: the smell was unmistakable. When he reached the
bottom step he stared down the dimly lit back passageway. The door was askew, swinging on its hinges and, beyond it, from the faint sheen, he guessed that what was left of the floor was underwater.
He turned his face aside at the stench – the smell from the privy in his own place was bad enough, but this was unbearable.
    ‘Don’t go in there,’ he yelled as a little girl of about four, filthy, and dressed in what looked like the moth-eaten top-half of a woman’s frock, approached the door and
stood hesitating on the threshold, peering in at the flooded floor. ‘Go out in the street,’ he said, trying to sound like someone in authority. If she went in, he was afraid that he
would not have the courage to rescue her.
    She looked startled at his shout, burst into tears, but turned and ran out into the street. Alfie heaved a sigh of relief and began to follow her, still treading carefully. It looked to him as
if the whole house had lurched to one side.
    He had only taken a step when he saw a door open slightly and then close again. It was enough, though. He had caught a glimpse of a woman’s boa, its originally white feathers filthy and bedraggled. He knew who always wrapped her throat in that thing.
    Alfie didn’t hesitate. Immediately he knocked on the door. There was no reply, but he knocked again. ‘It’s just Alfie, Alfie from Bow Street,’ he whispered in through the
keyhole.
    There was still no reply, but he sensed that someone was there and waited patiently. A minute later, he heard the sound of the bolt being drawn back, and there was Betty.
    ‘What do you want?’ she asked in a whisper. Her usually pink cheeks