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and several people stopped to listen. ‘My
husband was there. They were just loading up the mailbags when someone shouted out, Fire! and the place was full of smoke. Of course they all rushed outside. The fire turned out to be in the
coffee room at Morley’s Hotel and they were all standing there looking up when the mail van drove out.’
    ‘Didn’t they see the robbers go in, then?’ asked a stout lady with a shopping basket.
    ‘Sneaked in by the side entrance didn’t they?’ retorted the wife of the post office worker. She sounded quite annoyed, as though her husband was accused of not doing his duty.
‘Nobody expected it. Bold as brass, they were. Picked up all the mailbags and drove out and were gone before anyone thought to question them.’
    ‘Well, they’ll be hanged when they’re caught, that’s certain,’ said the stout lady.
    ‘ If they’re caught,’ said a man. He had been standing on the other side of the road, but came across to join the little crowd around the police station. He looked as if
he might be a street beggar, with torn, ragged clothes and eyes bright with starvation or fever. ‘Not sure that I’d like to turn in any of that mob – they say Flash Harry never
forgives and never forgets.’ He looked around and then gave a quick shudder and shuffled away as rapidly as he could.
    Sarah looked over her shoulder, following the direction of his eyes as he had looked down the street. There, just opposite the cellar where the boys lived, a man was standing.
    And he was wearing a red scarf.
    Sarah stared fearfully at the man for a few minutes. Surely that was the man who had come into the bar last night looking for the boys? He was leaning against the wall of a shop, picking his
teeth idly with a straw. She noticed that his eyes only moved from the cellar steps to give a quick hasty glance down Bow Street, and then came back again to focus on the cellar where the four boys
lived. He looked as though he were prepared to wait patiently there all day until his victim turned up.
    There was something odd about the way that the man stood there, something rigid about him. His left hand held the straw, but his right hand was stuck deep into his pocket. Sarah narrowed her
eyes and drew in a sharp breath as she saw the shape of a gun outlined within the pocket.
    Casually, Sarah crossed the road, taking care not to allow her eyes to meet those of the watcher. He was definitely the same man. He must have seen her last night, but she had been in the
background, loading her tray with drinks for the parlour where the engineers from Birmingham clamoured for more beer. It was unlikely that he would have bothered looking at a parlour maid. She was
safe for the moment.
    And then something odd happened. Opium Sal came shuffling along Bow Street. That was the second time she had been seen there. Why would she bother to climb the steep hill from her home on
Hungerford Lane? She, too, seemed to be interested in the cellar where the boys lived.
    She limped along the pavement towards it, muttering to herself, and then, suddenly, she stopped. Her eyes met those of the watcher across the road. Sarah held her breath. Were they in
league?
    No – the watching man took no notice of the old lady. No sign or look of recognition came from him. But Opium Sal seemed to recognise him. She turned on her heel and went straight back in
the direction from which she had come.
    Sarah wondered whether to follow her to see where she went. However, she could not just walk away and leave the boys at the mercy of the armed watcher. She had to do something.
    Sarah walked quickly until she reached Bow Street police station. Once inside, she went straight up to the tall wooden counter where a policeman was writing busily in a notebook.
    ‘I’d like to see Inspector Denham,’ she said in a firm voice. ‘I have some information for him from Alfie Sykes. It concerns the post office raid.’

CHAPTER 10
D ROWNED R ATS

    The