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said: he’s a foul and wicked man.
    Bedford Square had three sides of tall brick-built houses, all with huge chimneys and impressive front doors behind the tall white pillars framing the porches. Leafless
    creepers grew up many of them, and in the centre of the square was a garden filled with dead leaves and bare shrubs.
    The fourth side of the square had high, black railings and a double gate. Both gate and railings had spikes on them and there was a small lodge for a porter beside the gate. Alfie gazed at the
splendour for a moment and then tucked his arm inside Sammy’s.
    ‘Back entrance for us, old son,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Only posh gents and ladies come into the square through the front gate.’
    ‘Did you see number one?’ Sammy sounded unconcerned.
    ‘Yes, it’s the closest to us. Ah, there are the mews for the horses and the carriages at the back of the houses.’ Alfie chatted on, as he always did, doing his best to be
Sammy’s eyes in the dark world that his brother inhabited. ‘Hang on,’ there’s a small door here. Let’s go in, yes, we’re just behind the house now. We ’ll
just go down the steps here into the basement. That’s what Sarah said.’
    ‘Here she is,’ Sammy exclaimed, and then Sarah appeared looking worried and even paler than usual.
    ‘Come on in,’ she whispered. ‘The housekeeper remembers Mrs Montgomery listening to Sammy singing on the street and getting her coachman to bring him here. She says that Mrs
Montgomery will have to see him for herself and then decide.’
    Alfie pulled off his own cap and Sammy’s, and then followed her into the kitchen, which seemed full of women wearing various types of aprons.
    ‘This is the boy, Mrs Higgins.’ Sarah gave a quick bob of a curtsy.
    ‘She’s very charitable, the missus, taking on a blind boy.’ The housekeeper slightly lowered her voice – just as if I were deaf as well as blind, thought Sammy –
and then raised it again. ‘Better go and tell her that he’s here, Nora. She said she wanted to see him when he arrived. Said it would take her mind off her sorrow.’
    There was a slightly sarcastic note in the voice. Sammy wondered whether Alfie had noted it.
    ‘She’s got that inspector from Bow Street with her.’ So that was Nora, the parlour maid – Sammy knew he would recognise her voice again, pretending to be posh, but London
cockney underneath.
    ‘He’s to go into the breakfast parlour; the Missus said to take him straight in. She’ll be finished with the inspector by then, more than likely.’
    Or else she wants to show the inspector what a nice, kind lady she is, thought Sammy. At the very same moment he felt Alfie nudge him and knew that it had occurred to his brother, too –
that Mrs Montgomery would probably like the inspector to think that a woman who would take on a blind boy as a member of her staff would be incapable of murdering her husband.
    ‘I’ll come with you.’ There was a tremor in Alfie’s confident, slightly cheeky voice that only Sammy would hear. He wouldn’t like these posh places, Sammy knew.
Alfie liked to be the top dog. He wouldn’t want anyone looking down on him.
    ‘No, you won’t. Off with you.’ The parlour maid sounded definite. Sammy pressed Alfie’s hand lightly. Tr ust me, his fingers said.
    As the door banged shut behind his brother, Sammy remembered what Alfie had said to him. Listen to Mrs Montgomery. Listen to the butler, too. But I still reckon that son of theirs, Denis, is
the most likely. It suited him to murder his father – after all, he was in debt and his father was probably not too keen on him hanging around with no job and up to his eyes in debt. He’s more likely to be the one that croaked the old man, not Mallesh, whatever the police think.
    ‘You come with him too, Sarah. The boy knows you.’ Nora said no more until they had climbed the stairs leading up from the kitchen and were walking across a tiled floor, the two
girls’ heels