The Truth About Verity Sparks (6 page)

The next morning Etty said, quite casual, that I was to come down to breakfast with the family.

I couldn’t work it out. Ladies and gentlemen don’t usually have much to do with the likes of me. Servants and shopgirls and apprentices were on one side of the fence, and they were on the other. Still, my whole world had already been turned topsy-turvy. What was one more thing?

Mrs Morcom had breakfast in her room, and Miss Judith only ate eggs and toast, but both Mr Plushes ate ham and kidneys and sausages and fish all full of whiskery bones, as well as the eggs and toast. Amy, a late riser like her mistress, joined us in time for scraps and a dish of milky tea. They all drank a lot of tea, and then read their newspapers (even Miss Judith) and their letters. There was a pile of letters, and though Miss Judith said gently, “Oh, Papa.” Mr Plush senior opened them all with his eggy knife.

“Aha!” he said, leaving one large envelope intact and waving it around.

“What is it, Father?” asked young Mr Plush.

“It’s our invoice to Lady Throttle, SP. It’s got ‘Return to sender’ written on it. Very quick off the mark, isn’t she?”

Perhaps it wasn’t my business. But perhaps it was, considering as how it involved Lady Throttle. “Invoice, sir?” I asked. “Is that like the bill, sir?”

“Indeed it is, Miss Sparks.” He put it back in the pile. “Perhaps, my dear, you could address me as ‘Professor’? You know, I really do prefer it.” He beamed his beautiful smile at me. “We are a very informal household. No need for ‘Miss Plush’, is there?”

Miss Plush – I mean, Judith – smiled and shook her head. “You could also call Saddington here SP, as we all do. It’s a lot shorter.”

I looked from one to the other. An informal household, he called it. Bloomin’ mad, I called it. “Professor” was all right, for it sounded respectful, but how could I – Verity Sparks – address a lady and gentleman as “Judith” and “SP”?

Brother and sister smiled encouragingly.

“Please do,” said young Mr Plush.

Orders is orders after all, I thought. “You’d better call me Verity, then, SP, sir,” I said. For some reason, they all laughed.

“Professor, sir, was Lady Throttle going to pay you to find the diamond?” I persisted.

“She was.”

“And now you’ve lost money on that job?”

“Yes,” said the Professor, seeming quite unconcerned. “I suppose we have.” Just then the door opened and Etty came in.

“Mr Opie is here, sir,” she said. “He says he’s sorry to make such an early call, but he has something important to tell you.”

I pricked up my ears. Opie? Wasn’t it a Mr Opie who’d helped SP to rescue me?

“Ask him to come in right away, please, Etty,” said the Professor. “Important information. So soon. Splendid.”

The Professor sat back, all smiles, to wait for his visitor, but Judith had gone rather red in the face. She pushed back her chair suddenly and got to her feet.

“Excuse me,” she said, so quiet it was almost a whisper, and left the room. I wondered if perhaps she’d been took ill, but if either gentleman even noticed, they didn’t seem concerned. A couple of seconds later, in walked the handsomest young man I’d ever clapped eyes on. He wasn’t as tall as SP, but more strongly built, and he had beautiful dark wavy hair, a lovely moustache, bright blue eyes and lashes as thick as silk fringe.

“My dear fellow!” said the Professor, jumping up. “What news?” But SP had better manners and took the trouble to introduce me.

“My dear Miss Sparks. I’m very glad to see you looking so well after your terrible experience of yesterday,” said Mr Opie. He stepped forward and shook my hand. “I’m only glad I was able to be of service to you.” He gave me a smile like he meant every word, and I felt like a little princess.

“What’s more,” he said, turning to the Professor, “I was able to find out the scoundrel’s identity. His name is Pinner. He’s a dog thief by trade.”

“A dog thief,” said SP. “Can that really be a speciality in crime?”

“Yes,” I broke in. I knew about dog-stealing. “Any number of our ladies has had their lapdogs taken and a ransom note sent. Five pounds, Lady Purslane paid up, and they didn’t even send Pansy back.”

“Miss Sparks is right,” said Mr Opie. “Valuable dogs are ransomed or even exported, and the cheaper ones are sold for their skins. Dog stealers are very odd fellows; it seems they’re bred to that particular kind of crime, and that’s why it’s highly unusual for this Pinner to have attacked someone.”

“Her purse was taken, so it may have been a simple street robbery, even if Pinner was acting out of character,” said SP.

“Indeed,” said the Professor. “But I wonder why? Why this particular young girl? It’s not as if Verity looks particularly prosperous. She wore no jewellery, her clothes were perfectly ordinary and her bag, if she’ll forgive me for saying so, was distinctly shabby. Verity, my dear, do you remember anything about the attack? Can you describe what happened?”

I described. I described so much that SP had to scribble to catch up with me, and the Professor shook his head in amazement. “Verity,” he said. “Do you know that you have a most remarkable memory?”

“No, sir.”

“But you do. You seem to have almost total recall.”

“He means that you remember everything,” said SP.

“Oh.” I’d never thought about it before.

The Professor and SP exchanged a glance, and then the Professor continued with his questions. “Anything else?”

It was the one thing that really puzzled me about the whole thing. “When I walked past the laneway, the girl called out my name.”

“Your name?” the Professor boomed. “She knew your name?”

“Why, yes, sir. She must of, sir.”

“D’you hear that, SP?
She knew her name
. Verity, are you sure you’ve never heard of this Pinner fellow? What’s his first name, Opie?”

“Mic-Mac.”

“Mic-Mac?” I said. “Why, that’s Miss Charlotte’s sweetheart.”

Over the next few days, it all fell into place. After a few of what the Professor called “discreet inquiries”, they found out that Lady Throttle was up to her ears in debt. Too many hats, too many card games and too much keeping up with rich friends. So she hatched a plan to fake the robbery of the Throttle diamond and sell it, thus paying her debts, with her husband none the wiser. Lady Throttle, it turned out, had once been a hat-shop
vendeuse
herself, and that was how she knew Miss Charlotte. Miss Charlotte was in on the scheme, and she’d asked Mic-Mac to retrieve the ruby when my itchy fingers spoiled their plans. It turned out she’d been in on the dog-nappings too.

Anyway, the long and short of it was that the Plushes invited me to continue as their guest until the Throttle affair was all sorted out.

A week later found us with a private appointment at the Throttles’.

Lady Throttle ignored me, but greeted the gents with a charming giggle. I could tell she was nervous. Her little white hands were trembling as she unwrapped a chocolate. “Would you like tea? I’ll ring for Crewel.”

“No, thank you, Lady Throttle. This is not a social call. It’s a business matter.”

“I can’t think what you mean. Surely our business is concluded. My maid put the wretched thing in my purse. It was found and that’s the end of the matter.”

“But what of Miss Sparks?”

“Miss Sparks? Who is Miss Sparks? I’ve never heard of her.”

“Miss Sparks is here in the room with us, Lady Throttle.”

She reddened slightly. “The girl, you mean.”

“Yes, the girl. This girl. You were quite happy for this girl to be tried and found guilty of theft. You were quite happy for her to go to prison. And when your plot failed, you took your spiteful revenge. You had her dismissed from her place. Do you know what that can mean for a young girl in a city like London? Do you, Lady Throttle?” The Professor’s voice got louder and louder. He rose to his feet, looking very tall and stern, a bit like a hellfire preacher I once saw in the street, only better dressed.

“It’s … it’s nothing to do with me,” she said faintly.

“I think it is.”

“Not at all,” she said, rallying. “I shall tell all my friends. I have many friends, Mr Plush, and you’d better believe it. Rest assured you and your son will never find any clients again. Lady Archcape was the one who recommended you to me. Just wait until I tell her.”

“Just wait until I tell your husband,” said the Professor.

Her rosebud mouth fell open and her eyes bulged slightly. The chocolate box fell to the floor. “What do you want?”

“I want our fee, I want you to pay your bill to Madame Louisette’s, and I want Miss Sparks, should she so choose, to be reinstated in her place of employment.”

“That’s … that’s blackmail.”

“No. That’s justice, Lady Throttle.”

“But I haven’t got any money,” she wailed.

“Economise, my dear lady.”

“Economise.” She said the word so savagely she almost spat. “I know all about economising. Growing up in mended gowns and retrimmed hats and always moving to cheaper lodgings and grimier streets.”

“Save the tragic tale for a sympathetic audience,” interrupted the Professor. “We will accept our fee in instalments, and I am sure Madame Louisette would be happy if you commence paying your account.”

Her beautiful face was now all crumpled up and red. “You won’t … you won’t tell …”

“Our service is completely confidential, Lady Throttle,” said the Professor, bowing, and the three of us left the room.

“It’ll be funny being back at Madame’s after this,” I said as we walked to the waiting carriage.

“Back at Madame’s? Whatever do you mean?” said the Professor.

“Just what you said back there at Lady Throttle’s. She’s going to talk to Madame and restate me, or something. So I can go back to work there. Isn’t that what you meant?”

“Yes and no,” said the Professor. “Naturally, I want Lady Throttle to withdraw her threats to your former employer. But, my dear young friend, I think you could be of inestimable value to us in our investigatory endeavours.”

I must have looked blank again (it happened dozens of times a day at the start, until I got myself a vocabulary) and SP rephrased his father’s words so I could understand.

“We need you, Verity. We’ve got a new case, and we think you can help us solve it. Won’t you please stay with us a little while longer?”

“Your amazing memory, not to mention your, ah,
itchy
fingers, would make you a most valuable assistant. And we really do need a female operative. A sharp-eyed young girl would make all the difference to some of our inquiries,” said the Professor. “We would provide you with accommodation and a wage of … let me see … how does twenty pounds a year sound? With a dress allowance. Would that suit? Unless, of course, you wish to return to Madame Louisette’s. Do you?”

I thought about the cold early mornings. The omnibus drivers who wouldn’t stop and the snooty clients and the stuffy workroom. The pricked fingers and the eyestrain.

“No,” I said. “I’ll stay.”