The Truth About Verity Sparks (2 page)

“Dear, dear Bertie,” said Lady Throttle in a caressing voice, standing on tiptoe to kiss him.

He smiled and pinched her cheek. “Here we are then, puss,” he said, taking a small blue velvet case from his breast pocket. She held out her hand.

“No, no,” he said. “Let me.” He took something glittering out of the case and pinned it to her dress.

“I shall wear it tonight, Bertie. Will you be proud of me?” she asked. He gave a long, happy sigh by way of reply, and then turned to leave.

“Wait, Bertie. Won’t you look at my new hat?”

“Of course, my love.”

Crewel clicked her fingers, and I brought the hatbox forward.

Lady Throttle took the hat out and settled it on her curls. “Isn’t it lovely?” she asked, but instead of agreeing, Sir Bertram clutched his throat. His face went purple and his moustache began to quiver. I thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head.

“Put it back,” he gasped.

“What’s the matter, Bertie dear?”

“Feathers …” He held his nose with one hand and waved the other around helplessly. “Feathers … Allergic …” he wheezed, and staggered out of the room.

“Well, well, well.” Lady Throttle took off the hat and let it drop to the floor. “So I shan’t have my yellow bonnet after all.” She gave a little laugh, and then turned to me. “Come here, girl. What is your name?”

“Verity Sparks, ma’am.”

She looked me up and down, and smiled. I didn’t quite like that smile.

“You’ll have to take this hat back, and get me another one instead.”

“There’s nothing else in yellow at the moment, ma’am–” I began, but she cut me off short.

“Who said yellow? Something white, I think … red and white, to suit my new afternoon costume. Something that will set off the brooch. See?” She unpinned it from her dress and held it out in her hand. “This is the famous Throttle diamond. Bertie’s great-grandfather took it.”

Did she mean he’d stolen it? I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

“He took it from the eye of an Indian idol. Just snatched it out and rode off with it. How cross all those natives must have been.”

More than cross, I thought.

“It’s worth thousands of pounds,” she continued dreamily. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Beautiful? I hadn’t seen too many diamonds, not up close anyway. “It’s very sparkly, ma’am,” was the best I could do.

“Those stones around the edge are rubies. See how they twinkle.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sparkly and twinkly was all very well, but my business was bonnets. “Madame Louisette has something in ruby satin, ma’am,” I said. “With white silk ribbons.”

“That will do.” She put the brooch down on her dressing table, and stood up. “Bring it back this afternoon. At three o’clock.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I was surprised. Lady Throttle had made such a fuss about the feathered hat – she’d been fussy about everything she’d ordered – and here she was leaving the choice to me. Still, she was paying the bill. Or would soon, I hoped, for Madame’s sake. I turned to go.

“Come back, Verity.”

I did as I was told.

“Hold out your hand and shut your eyes.”

Why? I thought, but I obeyed.

She moved towards me and stood so close I smelled her perfume. Lily of the valley, it was. “Hand me my purse, Crewel.”

I heard Crewel’s skirts rustle, and she brushed against me, and then Lady Throttle pressed something into my palm. “There,” she said. “For your trouble.”

I opened my eyes. It was a chocolate.

“Thank you ma’am.” I said, and curtseyed.

I don’t like chocolate.

The bell jangled as I opened the door to the shop. Miss Charlotte frowned slightly, but she didn’t stop talking.

“The blue bonnet is charming, ma’am,” she purred. “But I feel that you are one of the few ladies who could do justice to this more unusual shade.”

Unusual shade! It was like mouldy cheese. A customer had ordered it to her own design and then returned it. Madame had promised Charlotte a bonus if she could flog it off to someone else.

Which she did. I waited while Miss Charlotte wrote out the bill with a smile just like the cat that got the cream. She looked up when I put Lady Throttle’s hatbox on the counter.

“What’s this?” She pointed to a dirty streak on the pink-and-white paper.

“Mud, Miss Charlotte. I had to walk back. The omnibuses was full up.”

“You should have taken more care, Verity.”

“Sorry, Miss Charlotte. Anyway, Lady Throttle doesn’t want it. All them feathers give Lord Bertram the sneezes.”

“Sir Bertram,” she corrected me. “He’s a baronet, not a lord.”

“Yes, Miss Charlotte. That red bonnet with the white ribbons, is it still here?”

She pointed to a hatbox on the shelf.

“Could I have it, please? It’s for–”

“Lady Throttle. I know.” She handed it down to me. “Next time,” she hissed. “Don’t come in through the shop. The customers don’t like it.”

“No, Miss Charlotte. I mean, yes, Miss–”

“You haven’t lost that purse?” she interrupted.

“No, I–”

“Go and have something to eat,” she said. Again the smile. “You can pick up the hatbox on your way out.”

I was at the tradesman’s entrance right on three o’clock, and this time Violet opened the door on the first ring. Crewel arrived a few seconds later, and gave me a funny kind of smirk.

“You are very punctual,” she said, and since I didn’t know what that meant, I just bobbed a curtsey and followed her upstairs.

Lady Throttle was standing in front of the fire. She’d changed from the flashy red into a pale blue dress. Very sweet she looked, almost girlish. I curtseyed and tried to hand over the hatbox, but she shrank back like I had lice.

“There she is,” she cried, pointing.

I looked behind me. “Beg pardon, ma’am?”

“You wretch! Where is it? I demand to know. Where is it?”

“Please, Lady Throttle.” A tall man with a big brown moustache loomed out of the corner. “Do not distress yourself, ma’am. Allow me to question the young person.”

“She has it. I can tell. Guilt is written all over her wicked face. And to think,” Lady Throttle pressed a lace handkerchief to her eyes. “To think that I gave the vile creature a
chocolate
!” She sank into an armchair and began to weep quietly.

“Sit over here, if you please.” The man indicated the stool I’d perched on that morning. “You may put the hatbox down,” he added kindly.

I’m not slow on the uptake, and I could see where this was leading. Someone had nicked something. And they thought that someone was me. Bloomin’ hell!

“My name is Saddington Plush,” the man said. He was quite a young man, maybe just turned twenty in spite of the moustache, with curly brown hair and kind green eyes. “I am a confidential inquiry agent, and Lady Throttle has called me here today, in great distress.” He paused, and she let out a long, shuddering sob. “Let me take down a few details.” He whipped a little notebook and a pencil from his top pocket.

“Your name?”

“Verity Sparks, sir.”

“The name Verity,” he said, looking down at me all serious and stern, “comes from the Latin
veritas
, and it means ‘truth’. I hope you intend to be truthful, Verity?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Pompous ass, I thought.

“Your age and employment?”

“Thirteen, sir. I’m an apprentice trimmer at Madame Louisette’s.”

“Who are your parents?”

“Thomas and Elizabeth Sparks, sir.”

“Where do they live?”

“They’re dead, sir.”

“We don’t need her pedigree,” interrupted Lady Throttle. “Search her.”

“Just a few more questions.” He turned back to me. “After your parents died, where and with whom did you reside?”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Who took you in?”

“Auntie Sarah and Uncle Bill.”

“Tell me about your uncle and aunt, Verity.”

“They run a used-clothes stall. Auntie Sarah couldn’t keep me, and so I got apprenticed to Madam Louisette.”

“When did you last see them?”

“Christmas time, sir.” Only for a few minutes though. Auntie Sarah had a black eye, and that meant Uncle Bill was back on the grog. I didn’t want to cause any trouble, so I’d given her a quick kiss and gone away.

Lady Throttle stamped her foot, and Mr Plush turned to her. “There is method in my questioning, as you will see. What is your uncle’s name?”

Oh, no, I thought. So this is where Mr Plush was leading. “Bill – I mean William – Bird, sir.”

“Aha!” Mr Plush got out another notebook and flipped through the pages till he found what he was after. “Just as I thought,” he said. “Are you aware, Verity, that he is a notorious fence?”

Lady Throttle was wide-eyed. “A fence? Whatever do you mean, Mr Plush?”

I tried to look as blank as a sheet of paper, but I knew. We used to have visitors, lots of them, coming at all hours with parcels and packages for Uncle Bill. Money changed hands, no questions asked, and then they’d go away. So I knew about Uncle Bill all right, but I wasn’t going to tell Mr Saddington Plush.

“No, sir,” I lied. “He’s an honest man, he is. He’s no fence.”

“Fence is thieves’ slang for a receiver of stolen goods, Lady Throttle,” he explained.

“Stolen goods.” Lady Throttle was shrill. “A rookery of thieves! A den of criminals! Thank God we were not all murdered.” She shot me a glance that’d poison a snake. “It is all clear to me now.”

“Verity Sparks, I propose to you that you have stolen Lady Throttle’s brooch, with the intention of passing it on to your uncle, the notorious fence, William Bird. What do you say to that?”

“I say I haven’t done it, sir.” I tried to speak loud and strong, but I felt like a rat in a trap, and it came out as a whisper. They’re fitting me up, good and proper, I thought.
Who done it?
That bony old maid, Crewel? I stole a glance at her, and she met my eye, cold as an icicle. Then again that little smirk. Something was going on.

My fingers began to itch. It was annoying, and I rubbed them together, but it only got worse. They were stinging now, worse than a wasp bite. What was wrong with them? Lady Throttle was saying something but I couldn’t hear what it was. The only thing I could think of was my itchy fingers, and then …

“The brooch is in Lady Throttle’s purse,” I gasped. All eyes turned to the embroidered bag on her bureau.

Lady Throttle almost fell off her chair. “What nonsense.”

“It is,” I insisted. In a flash I’d seen it, clear as day.

Mr Plush turned to Crewel. “May I have Lady Throttle’s purse, please?”

“You may have no such thing, Mr Plush!” Lady Throttle was red in the face. “This creature is simply trying to delay the inevitable. Search her, sir!”

“Crewel?” Mr Plush held out his hand.

Mistress and maid locked eyes, and I saw Lady Throttle give a tiny shake of her head.

“Surely, Lady Throttle, if there is any chance of a mistake?” pleaded Mr Plush. “I know that a lady such as yourself would not wish to falsely accuse this young person, however dubious her ancestry.”

My what? Never mind that. Grabbing my chance, I snatched up the bag and handed it to Mr Plush.

His hand hovered over it. “I need your permission, Lady Throttle.”

“Which I do not give.” Lady Throttle snarled. For a pretty little thing, I thought, she can come up ugly all right. “Hand it over, and
search the brat
.”

Mr Plush bowed. “Of course, Lady Throttle.” But somehow, in the handing over, he fumbled and dropped it, and out onto the threadbare carpet rolled a hair comb, three gold-wrapped chocolates, a couple of sovereigns – and the Throttle diamond.

“My God!” cried Lady Throttle. “Crewel, you idiot. Why did you not tell me you’d put it in my purse?”

“I … I …” stammered the maid, and dodged as Lady Throttle threw a small clock at her. A silver hairbrush and a cut-glass perfume bottle followed, then Lady Throttle flung herself into the armchair and began drumming her heels on the floor like a child having a temper tantrum.

“You’d best go,” said Crewel sourly, and opened the door.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I hurtled down the stairs and into the hall. It was empty, but when I opened the front door I nearly collided with the master of the house. Sir Bertram looked down at me with surprise.

“What’s this?” he said.

I pushed past him and ran as fast as I could.

“Hey, you!” I heard him shouting, but I was down the street and round the corner already.