Free The Body in the Fog by Cora Harrison Page A

was a job that he could manage better than any flat-footed policeman.
    ‘I’ll tell you something about that scrawl, sir,’ he added. ‘I’d say it were a toff that wrote it. Ordinary coves just print their name.’ He noticed with
satisfaction that the man looked more cheerful at that news.
    ‘I still think it might have been someone from the post office that did it,’ said the inspector as he slipped something from his pocket into Alfie’s hand. ‘The thing I
can’t make out, though, is why that old beggar man was murdered. That’s the real mystery in this business. Solve that and we might solve everything else.’
    Sarah was in the cellar when he got home. She smiled to herself as she heard Alfie coming down the steps, whistling. His interview with Inspector Denham must have gone well, or
else given him ideas.
    ‘Lumme, you’ve been tidying up here, haven’t you,’ said Alfie when he came in. Whenever Sarah felt nervous she always organised the boys into a clean-up.
    ‘I can’t think when there’s a mess around me,’ she said.
    ‘Doesn’t bother me,’ said Sammy with a quiet smile.
    ‘Not Mutsy, neither.’ Alfie hugged the big dog exuberantly and placed the shilling that the inspector had given him into the rent box. Then he sat down beside the newly-cleaned
window and told them about his talk with the inspector.
    Sammy listened thoughtfully, then spoke. ‘I was thinking that the link might be between Jemmy and the cove who drew the pictures. It might be nothing to do with Flash Harry.’
    ‘Flash Harry wouldn’t bother about someone like Jemmy,’ Tom chipped in. ‘Old Jemmy couldn’t tell the police anything they didn’t already know about Flash
Harry and his mob.’
    ‘I was thinking about that, too, Sammy,’ said Alfie with a nod at Tom. ‘But I don’t suppose this toff who wrote the note, whoever he might be, was around that night,
directing operations. There’d be no point in writing that note if he was going to be on the spot, unless he was just there secretly, of course.’ A sudden idea occurred to him and he
turned to Jack.
    ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘could Jemmy read?’
    ‘Yes, he could,’ said Jack readily. ‘I was telling him about going to the Ragged School and how I was getting on well with my reading and then he got a bit down and told me
that he and his brother had both learnt to read and write before their mother died, and that the only good it did him these days was that he was able to write down Opium Sal’s orders for
drugs.’
    ‘Opium Sal,’ said Sammy thoughtfully.
    Alfie punched his brother on the arm. ‘That’s what I’m thinking too. It’s not just sailors, lascars and such like, who take opium. You get toffs there too. What do you
say that a toff, perhaps someone working at the post office who was in league with the robbers, wrote the note down there in Opium Sal’s place – safer than at the post office? Perhaps
Jemmy saw him . . .’
    ‘Saw the name of Flash Harry on the envelope.’ Sarah was starting to look excited.
    ‘And then when Mr Unknown Toff was walking through Trafalgar Square, just strolling around to see everything was going well, Jemmy saw him . . .’
    ‘And put two and two together . . .’ finished Jack. ‘Jemmy was a clever fellow. I told you that, didn’t I?’
    ‘And the toff raises his stick and hits him on the head.’ Sammy looked a bit doubtful. ‘But that would be a great risk, wouldn’t it? To do it right in the middle of all
the crowds. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to get Jemmy another time – perhaps at Opium Sal’s place?’
    ‘I think Sammy is right,’ declared Sarah. ‘I can’t see a toff behaving like that. They’ve got too much to lose, these fellows with money and good positions. If
anyone murdered Jemmy on the edge of Trafalgar Square like that – well, I’d say it would be Flash Harry or one of his mob. They don’t care. They have so many hiding places that
they can get out of the