The Montgomery Murder (7 page)

Nothing. Almost as if they were both there, just staring at each other.

And then a throat cleared. Not the first man. This man cleared his throat differently – lightly and almost apologetically, almost ‘ahem, ahem.’

And then a voice . . .

Was this the first or the second man? Sammy thought it was the second. The voice, like the throat clearing, was slightly hesitant, slightly unsure.

‘You found Coutts Bank open yesterday, sir?’

There was something strange about the query – as if something unspoken were lurking beneath. However, the speaker was obviously not Mr Denis, or Mr Scott. The accent was wrong for a toff.
Sammy was good on accents. He had spent so much time singing outside the Covent Garden Theatre that he knew how toffs talked. This must be the butler, thought Sammy.

‘Yes.’ The one-word reply was harsh and abrupt, the voice of someone with power. This might be the son of the house, Mr Denis Montgomery, a man brought up surrounded by servants. Or
was it Mr Scott from India?

And then no more was said.

Sammy strained his ears. Sarah was right about the double-lined baize door. Even for someone with his marvellous hearing, it was difficult to catch every word.

There were no more words, but there was a sound. It was not the clink of lids; it was the sound of money being counted out on to the table.

Sammy got up carefully and silently and moved towards the door, hands outstretched to make sure that he did not touch any obstacle. It was agonising, expecting at any moment to stumble over a
chair or to overbalance a small table, but he reached the door successfully, his sensitive fingers feeling the softness of its baize lining. He stayed very still, trying to control his
breathing.

Listening . . .

And then another softer sound.

For a moment Sammy could not identify it, but then he realised that it was the gentle swish of coins being swept across a linen cloth and next – he was sure that he was right in this
– being dropped into a waistcoat pocket.

After that, footsteps crossed the room again. The door opened and was shut quietly.

Sammy did not move. Why did the first man give money in this silent way to the second man? And what was the reason for the question about Coutts Bank? Unless, of course, that the second man had
already asked for the money – perhaps he was a blackmailer. Perhaps he asked for more than the other carried around with him, and that was the reason for the question about the bank . . .

Sammy’s agile mind played with the problem while the first man continued to chomp on his toast, swill his drink and rustle his newspaper and it seemed a long time before anything else
happened. Sammy stayed where he was, though. His fingers found the keyhole to the baize door and when he heard the door of the breakfast parlour open again, he bent his head down so that he could
listen better.

This time the footsteps had a different tread. A third man! The shoes trod the carpeted floor confidently, greetings were exchanged, lids banged, something poured out into a cup – coffee,
thought Sammy, immediately identifying the odour. There was a coffee house in Bow Street; he had always thought the smell of that drink, spilling out on to the pavement, was wonderful.

Which man was which? he wondered. One man had a high voice and laughed a lot and the other had a deep voice and said very little. The trouble was that each man addressed the other as
‘sir’. So which was Mr Denis Montgomery and which was Mr Scott, the partner in the dead man’s enterprise in India? And which was the man who had spoken with the butler?

Sammy listened carefully, but not much was said. The conversation all seemed to be about the newspaper, plays at the Covent Garden Theatre, and Queen Victoria paying a visit somewhere. Nothing
of interest.

He wasn’t wasting his time, though – he would have something to tell Alfie. Both men were afraid. Dogs could smell fear, they said, but Sammy knew that he was almost as good as a dog
– he could always hear tension in a voice, no matter how low the tone.

What had they both to be afraid of?

CHAPTER 12

The morning passed slowly in the butler’s pantry. Sammy was uneasy. There had been some sort of blackmail attempt earlier; he was sure of that. He didn’t like to
think what might happen if one or both of those men discovered that there had been a witness to their meeting,

At twelve o’clock, Sarah came to fetch him down to the kitchen for his midday meal. This was a nice mutton hash pie and the cook was good to him, telling Sarah to put plenty of food on his
plate and giving him a slice of cake and drink of milk to finish up with. Sammy felt as if he wouldn’t need to eat for a week.

But when Sammy returned to work in the butler’s pantry he still felt troubled – and bored. He was glad when Sarah came in to whisper to him that he was wanted in the drawing room to
help Mrs Montgomery choose a hymn to be sung at her husband’s funeral.

‘Can you check the knives first, Sarah?’ Sammy got thankfully to his feet and stretched. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go on too long with this knife cleaning. It was deadly
dull compared to wandering around the streets, his hand on the loop of rope around Mutsy’s collar, stopping to sing from time to time, collecting money for the gang, or chatting to some of
the street-sellers. Or else Alfie or one of the others would join up with him and get Mutsy to do some tricks. Sammy always liked to hear the people laughing.

‘They’re fine, all of them. You’ve done a good job. Come on, now,’ whispered Sarah. Her small rough hand led him down the back stairs – no carpet, there – too
good for servants, Sammy supposed. ‘Here he is, Nora.’

‘You go off and finish those pans, Sarah, or Cook will be furious. I’ll take the boy upstairs.’ This was Nora. She sounded bossy, thought Sammy, feeling sorry for Sarah.

‘Don’t speak until you are spoken to in the drawing room.’ Nora was keeping pace beside him on the stairs up to the first floor. She sounded unfriendly, but she did take the
edge of his sleeve when he reached the top step and guided him to the door, knocking gently on it.

‘Come in. Ah, Sammy. Well, how has he worked, Nora?’ Mrs Montgomery was a distance from him, probably sitting at the piano.

‘Very well, I believe, madam.’

‘Good. Sammy has been working away in the butler’s pantry cleaning the knives all day.’ Mrs Montgomery obviously gave this piece of information to someone in the room, but
there was only a grunt in reply.

‘And now, Sammy, I want you to help me to select a hymn for my dear, dear husband’s funeral service . . .’

Here there was an audible sniff and a slight rustle as if the lady had taken out her pocket-handkerchief. It all rang false to Sammy’s ear. He was fairly certain now that Mrs Montgomery
had not cared too much for her husband. There was something forced and unnatural about the few sobs she produced.

‘I want to hear how the hymns sound in a boy’s voice. Bloomsbury church has a wonderful boys’ choir, though I’m not sure whether you haven’t a better voice than the
chief chorister.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Sammy politely. He was interested to hear how natural and brisk her voice sounded once she had ceased sobbing into her handkerchief.

‘Denis, dear, are you paying attention? Mr Scott, I would value your opinion, also.’

So the two of them were in the room. Neither man replied and that was annoying. Presumably they had just nodded. He wished that he could have had another chance to hear their voices, to work out
which one of them had had that odd conversation with the butler. Sammy had sensed one man quite near to where he stood, but the other must have been at the end of the room, because footsteps
approached. And there was the sound of a heavy body sinking into an armchair. A waft of some slightly odd smell too.

‘I can’t make up mind between “Abide with Me” and “Rock of Ages”,’ said Mrs Montgomery. ‘Let’s try “Abide with Me”. I’ll
teach you the first verse and then we’ll try it out.’

‘I know it, ma’am,’ said Sammy respectfully. That particular song had been a great favourite of his grandfather, and it was always popular when sung outside the theatre when
the late night crowd was milling around waiting for a cab.

‘Wonderful!’ said Mrs Montgomery when he had finished. ‘Goodness, what a marvellous voice! I think this will be my choice. We’ll just try that again in a higher key.
Nora, open the door so that everyone in the house can hear.’

And then, less than one minute after the high C broke from Sammy’s lips, there was a scrabble and a skidding noise from the hallway, a thumping of paws on the stairs, a sudden pungent
smell of dog in the scented room and an ear-splitting howl. Mutsy had joined in the hymn.

Mrs Montgomery screamed.

One man shouted and the other laughed . . . And then Sarah was in the room, stammering out apologies again and again. She had just opened the back door, she said, and the dog had got in, dashed
up the passageway, passing through the swinging doors with ease and then up the stairs. Sammy had stopped singing instantly. Sarah sounded terrified. He had to do something.

‘Mutsy,’ he said sternly. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

Before the last word was out of his mouth, Mutsy hit the carpet with a thud. He would be lying on his back with his two front paws covering his eyes, Sammy knew. Alfie had taught him this trick;
the big dog would peep out from time to time and then cover his eyes again.

It never failed on the street and it didn’t fail now. There was a loud braying noise from one man, a deep laugh from the other, and a little trilling laugh, instantly suppressed, from Mrs
Montgomery – even Nora gave a discreet little chuckle. Only Sarah didn’t laugh, and Sammy heard her catch her breath as if she were still panic-stricken.

‘I’m sorry, Madam,’ she said again.

‘It’s not Sarah’s fault,’ said Sammy. ‘Mutsy is used to looking after me; he heard me singing, I suppose, and he thought he should come to me. He sings with me in
the street. He never leaves me. He was probably waiting outside the back door for me.’ Sammy knew that Tom was supposed to meet him, so Mutsy must have escaped from him.

‘So that’s what it was.’ Mrs Montgomery sounded amused, but then rapidly returned to the deeper, tragic tone of someone whose husband has just been murdered. ‘Well,
Sammy, perhaps it would be best if you took the dog out. Go on, girl – take them downstairs. You’ve done enough for today, Sammy. You can go home now.’

And then he, Mutsy and Sarah were going down the stairs slowly, while Nora ran down lightly ahead of them.

‘You can wait for Tom in the back kitchen,’ whispered Sarah in his ear as Nora’s footsteps disappeared down a long corridor.

‘Sarah, bring the boy in for something to eat. Cook says she’s just made some cakes – and she’s got a bone for the dog,’ Nora called back. She sounded friendlier
now. Her voice had a little chuckle in it. She must have told the story in the kitchen to the amusement of everyone. For a moment, Sammy felt sorry for the dead man. It didn’t seem as if
anyone in the house was particularly upset about his death. Obediently he followed Sarah, who had pushed open a door with a slight squeak.

Sammy’s hand had just felt the baize lining – they must be going to the servants’ part of the house – when he heard a man’s voice – a harsh, menacing posh
voice – from above on the landing. ‘Was that boy in the butler’s pantry all the morning?’

Was this the man who talked with the butler? Sammy thought so. He could almost sense waves of hatred – or was it fear – coming down the stairs. His scalp prickled and, in spite of
the heat of the stove in the hallway, he felt a cold shiver go down his back.

CHAPTER 13

It was a relief to be out of that house, although he had enjoyed the cake and Mutsy, he knew, had enjoyed the bone. Sammy was tired of that closed-in, perfumed smell and he was
worried about the man with the harsh voice – was he the murderer? The more that Sammy thought about it, the less he liked the thought of going back to the house the following morning.