The Case of the Haunted Horrors (9 page)

“It is a child!” she exclaimed in a strong foreign accent. “A street urchin. What you do, Ivan, locking up innocent children?”

“He is no innocent,” Blackbeard spat. “He was following me.”

“Hah! He probably wanted to pick your pocket.”

“’Ere!” Shiner protested. “I ain’t no dip!”

“Dip?” the man asked, puzzled.

“Cor blimey, don’t you know nothin’? A dip’s a pickpocket. And I ain’t no thief, so you better watch what you’re sayin’.”

“Hmm,” the woman mused. “He is sharp, this one. You are right, Ivan – perhaps he is not so innocent.”

She looked steadily at Shiner. “If you are not dip, what are you?”

Shiner looked steadily back at her, determined to give nothing away. “I’m a shoeshine boy. I clean shoes.”

“Why you follow my friend? You want shine his shoes?”

“Well,” said Shiner, looking down at the man’s scruffy boots, “they could do with a good rub up…”

“Where your brushes? Your boot polish? No, you don’t want clean his shoes. So why you follow him? Someone send you to spy on him. On
us
. Who? Tell me.”

Shiner shook his head stubbornly. “No,” he said. “Can’t.”

“Can’t? Or won’t.”

Shiner shrugged but still stayed silent.

“Very well,” the woman snapped. “You stay here till you tell. Come, Ivan!”

And with that, she left the room. Blackbeard followed, slamming the door and locking it.

Shiner was left alone again, and the attic room seemed darker than ever.

Glad to be out of the Dungeon, Wiggins hurried back to Mrs Pettigrew’s shop and handed the diary to Murray, who opened the book and began to read.

“Is it real?” Wiggins asked.

“Yes,” said Murray, visibly upset. “This is my poor brother’s handwriting. I can hardly bear to look at it.”

He blinked back a tear. Wiggins felt uncomfortable, watching his distress.

“Listen,” he said. “It’s getting late. I’m going back to HQ, to see what the rest of the Boys’ve bin up to.”

“Good idea. I’ll need a little time on my own to read this carefully.”

Wiggins opened the door and squinted out to make sure the coast was clear. “Right,” he said. “I’ll be here first thing in the morning to put it back afore Madame comes to open up.” And he slipped quietly out into the night.

When the Boys started getting up the next morning and Shiner had still not come home, Queenie was worried sick.

“I’m goin’ back to that caff,” she announced. “To see if anybody knows where he might be.”

“Be careful,” Beaver warned. “It might be dangerous.”

“I don’t care. I gotta find him.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Wiggins. “But I gotta go back to the Bazaar first.”

“We’ll all go to the caff now,” said Gertie. “We’ll see you there.”

When Wiggins arrived back at Mrs Pettigrew’s shop, Murray was not looking happy. “I think I know where he was seen,” he told Wiggins.

“Where?”

“The fair on Hampstead Heath.” Murray opened the book at a page he had marked and began to read aloud:
“A splendid day spent enjoying all the fun of the fair. Little Sarah squealed with delight at the merry-go-round. Evie was intrigued by the Ghost Show and especially our very first glimpse of the latest invention, moving pictures.”

“Moving pictures?” Wiggins said. “Cor, I’d like to see that. But anyway, now we know where they was…”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t really help us.”

“Why not?”

“They went there on Bank Holiday Monday – along with half the population of London.”

“Oh, yeah,” Wiggins said. “I see what you mean.”

“Thousands and thousands of people from all over the city.”

“And it could have been any one of ’em.”

“Yes. Ah, well, the diary was a good idea. Not your fault it was no use in the end.”

“I’m sorry about that. Now let me put it back afore anybody notices it’s missing.”

Murray handed the book to Wiggins, who headed for Madame Dupont’s waxworks once again. Now that it was getting light, the Dungeon didn’t seem quite so spooky. He replaced the diary on the desk and turned to leave. As he did so, he noticed that the highwayman’s hat had fallen off. He must have knocked it last night when he bumped into it in the dark. He bent down to pick it up, pausing to straighten the sign beside the exhibit – and stopped, staring at its words:

“Blimey!” Wiggins gasped, hardly able to believe what he had read. “Spaniards!”

“I got it!” Wiggins burst excitedly into Mrs Pettigrew’s shop. “I found the answer!”

Murray sat up, startled. “What the…?” he exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

“I know what ‘Spaniards’ means!”

“You do?”

“It’s a pub. Or it was in 1740.”

“It still is. It’s quite famous. Of course!”

“D’you know where it is?”

“Yes. It’s—”

“On Hampstead Heath, right? Where your brother went to the fair.”

“My goodness! But how…?”

Wiggins quickly told him about the sign next to the highwayman in the Dungeon.

“That’s amazing,” Murray said. “But we still don’t know if the two things are connected.”

“They must be,” Wiggins replied. “All we gotta do is find out how.”

Murray smiled at his confidence. “Oh, is that all? And what about the other part of the message?”

“Yeah, well … maybe if we go up to Hampstead and have a sniff around…”

“You may find it crowded. It’s holiday time again, and the fair will be on. Besides which, you don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

“That’s true,” Wiggins admitted. “This calls for a bit more thinking about.”

“It’s a pity Mr Sherlock Holmes isn’t around – from what I’ve heard of him, he’d be able to work it out.”

“That’s the trouble with Mr Holmes. He’s never here when he’s needed. We have to manage without him most of the time.”

“Do you think you can manage without him this time?”

“Course. But I’ll have to think about it a bit more. I gotta go now.”

“Where to?”

“We lost one of the Boys. Looks like some of your Russian revolutionaries might have took him.”

“That’s terrible! Some of these reds can be quite ruthless. I couldn’t bear it if anything dreadful were to happen to one of you on my account. We must find him before it’s too late.”

Queenie and the others were waiting outside the Russian tea room when the stern-faced waitress arrived to open up for the day. She looked at them with suspicion.

“More of you, huh?” she asked. “What you want? Where my friend who like blini?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Queenie told her. “He didn’t come home last night.”

“He is lost?” She sounded dismayed.

“What, Shiner? He couldn’t get lost round here,” Gertie said. “Not in a month of Sundays.”

“Knows his way around, does our Shiner,” Sparrow added.

“If he didn’t come home,” Beaver said, “it must have been ’cos he
couldn’t
. And if he couldn’t, he must’ve been locked up or somethin’. So if he—”

“Wait,” said the woman, interrupting him. “One moment.” She unlocked the door of the café and ushered them inside.

“Now,” she said as she closed the door behind them, “why you think Luba know where your Shiner is?”

“Who’s Luba?” asked Queenie.

“I am Luba. This my tea room.”

“Oh, we thought you was just the waitress.”

“Waitress, cook, bottle-washer, I am everything. Now tell me why you think I know about Shiner.”

“’Cos he was followin’ one of your customers,” Gertie blurted out.

“Why?”

“We’re not allowed to tell you,” Beaver said.

“Then I cannot help you.”

Queenie thought hard. She did not want to put Murray in danger – but if Shiner already was, she had to do everything she could to rescue him. She took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “We might as well come clean. We’re the Baker Street Boys, and we’re tryin’ to help a friend of ours find out who murdered his brother.”

Luba stared at her scornfully. “You think I have murderers in Russian tea room? Why?”

“’Cos when we was followin’ one of the suspects yesterday, he come in here. Our friend’s just escaped from Russia, and if they spot him, they’ll kill him.”

“Who will?”

“The Russian secret police.” Beaver lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. “It’s all to do with spies and secret agents and stolen plans and stuff.”

“Ha!” Luba let out a hollow laugh. “You think my customers work for Okhrana?”

“What’s Oker … whatever you said?”

“Okhrana is secret police of Tsar.”

“What’s Tsar?”

“Not what –
who
. Tsar is Emperor of Russia. He is tyrant. We hate him. But we hate Okhrana more. They spy on us, even in London.”

Gertie suddenly had an awful thought. “What if,” she said, “Blackbeard thinks Shiner’s spyin’ on him for the Okarina thingy?”

Queenie and the others were aghast.

“Who is Blackbeard?” Luba asked.

“The geezer what Shiner was trailin’,” said Gertie. “You know, him as was sittin’ in the corner over there when we was in yesterday.” She pointed to the table.

“Ivan!” exclaimed Luba, narrowing her eyes. “I know him. He is wild man. Come!”

She headed for the door, ushering the Boys before her.

“Where we goin’?” Queenie asked.

“Ivan’s house!” she replied. Then, as they opened the door, she stopped suddenly. “Wait!” she called, then dashed across to the counter, scooped up a handful of blini from a glass case and stuffed them into her coat pocket.

“My little Shiner will have hunger,” she said. “These from yesterday, but he not mind.”

Wiggins arrived just as Luba was locking the door behind them. “Where you lot off to?” he demanded.

“Madam Luba knows where Shiner might be,” Beaver said.

“Madam Luba?”

“I am Luba.”

“Pleased to meetcha.” He raised his hat as he had seen Mr Holmes and Dr Watson do when they met a lady. “I’m Wiggins, captain of the Baker Street Boys. What they been telling you?”

“Enough to know we are on same side. Come. There is no time to lose. We talk while we walk.”

Luba led the Boys through Soho and into the warren of little streets beyond Shaftesbury Avenue, telling Wiggins what had happened and listening to him as he explained about the Boys’ mission. At last she stopped outside a small old house with a battered front door that had once been painted red. She hammered on it with her fist, and shouted, “Ivan! Ivan Ivanovich! Open up!”

After a minute or two, a man’s sleepy voice from inside called, “What you want? Who is there?”

“Is Luba. I must speak with you! Open door!”

There was the sound of bolts being drawn back and then the door was opened a little way. Through the crack, the Boys could see a dark eye under a bushy eyebrow peering out at them suspiciously. Luba snorted and pushed the door wide open, to reveal Blackbeard. He looked startled to see the Boys and tried to close the door again, but Luba shoved him back and stepped inside.

“What you do, crazy man?” she demanded fiercely. “You kidnap child. Lock him up?”

“He was spying on me. Spying for Okhrana!”

“No, he wasn’t!” Queenie shouted. “He was followin’ you ’cos he thought
you
was spying for the Oki-whatsit.”

“I do not understand.”

“Never mind for now,” Luba said. “Where is boy? What you do with him?”

“He is safe, locked in attic.”

“Bring him,” she ordered sharply. “Now!”

Blackbeard scuttled away upstairs, unnerved by Luba’s ferocity. She marched into the nearest room and the Boys followed her. It was a bare room, with worn lino on the floor, a sofa against one wall and four hard chairs around a wooden table. On the table were piles of pamphlets and handbills, some in English, some in Russian, all printed in lurid red ink, echoing the colour of the flag hanging over the empty fireplace. The days and dates on a calendar hanging on another wall were also printed in bright red, in English this time, and some of the numbers had rings around them. Wiggins strolled over to look more closely at the picture on the calendar, which was of a foreign city filled with elegant white buildings and churches whose strange domes looked like golden onions gleaming in the sunlight.

“Is that Russia?” he asked Luba.

“Saint Petersburg,” she answered. “Our capital city. Is beautiful, no?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t mind going there.”

“Hmm. Is pity it is home to so much cruelty, so much misery.”

Before Wiggins could ask her any more, Blackbeard came back, dragging Shiner by the arm and thrusting him roughly into the room. Shiner’s face lit up when he saw the Boys, but he did his best to hide his relief.

“What you lot doin’ ’ere?” he asked gruffly, trying to shake off Queenie as she rushed to give him a hug.

The Boys grinned. This was the Shiner they all knew.

“Well, he’s OK, at least,” said Beaver. “No need to ask.”

Luba stepped forward, wagging her finger at Shiner and looking as stern as ever.