by Holly Webb
“Are you all right, madam?”
“It was the smoke,” Maisie explained.
“Oh, you need to go to the pharmacy next door,” the man said, nodding helpfully, his fair hair flopping forwards over his face.
Maisie blinked, trying to work out where she had seen him before.
“It’s Mrs Hitchins, isn’t it? Bert Dodgson. I rent a room with Miss Barnes, next door to you in Albion Street.” He smiled at them.
“You need a bottle of Metropolitan Mixture, Mrs Hitchins. Specially made, it is, for those overtaken by the fumes.”
“You see?” Gran muttered to Professor Tobin, as they slowly climbed the stairs out to the street. “It’s unhealthy, this Underground business. Why else would they be making special medicines for it?”
Maisie looked back down the steps and sighed. It had been a gloriously scary adventure and she couldn’t imagine when she would next have the chance to travel on the railway.
“But an artist, Gran! That would be much more interesting!” Maisie pleaded, looking up from scrubbing the kitchen table.
Gran folded her arms grimly and shook her head. “Artists don’t pay, Maisie. Poor as church mice, all of them. No, I want a nice, clean, sensible lodger. Who do you think would be cleaning up after a painter, Maisie Hitchins?”
Maisie sighed. She had liked the artist. He had a pointed beard and he’d managed to get streaks of blue paint down one side of his hair. Gran had also refused to rent the rooms to a violinist, a friend of Miss Lottie Lane, the actress who lived on the top floor. He played in the orchestra at the theatre where Miss Lane was appearing and he’d seemed quite respectable. But Gran had told Maisie afterwards that she just couldn’t abide the noise. It was like a cat being strangled. She hadn’t said that to the musician, of course – she’d told him that Professor Tobin suffered from terrible headaches and had to have a quiet house.
“A nice-sounding young man is coming to see the rooms this afternoon,” Gran told Maisie now. “He came to ask about the rooms this morning, but he was on his way to work and in a bit of a hurry, so he’ll be back later for a proper look. I just hope he’s suitable. I don’t want those rooms standing empty for any longer than they have to.”
Maisie wrinkled her nose. Nice sounded rather boring. “What does he do?” she asked.
“He works as a clerk in the office of a biscuit company,” Gran told her.
Eddie looked up at Gran hopefully. He liked the sound of this young man too.
“Very quiet,” Gran went on. “Lovely manners. No nonsense, not like some I could mention.”
Between Miss Lane coming home from the theatre at midnight, and Professor Tobin filling his rooms with stuffed animals and strange tribal masks, Gran was sick of interesting lodgers. But Maisie thought that working in a biscuit factory sounded desperately dull.
“Perhaps he’ll bring home samples,” she said, trying to look on the bright side.
Mr Fred Grange was dull. He was polite, clean and utterly boring, which meant that Gran thought he was the perfect lodger. He liked the rooms, which Maisie felt he certainly should, considering how long she and Sally the maid had spent cleaning them. So Mr Grange moved in that very afternoon, with nothing but a couple of carpet bags. This made Maisie’s gran like him even more. It had taken her ages to recover from Professor Tobin arriving with a cartload of packing cases, assorted weapons and a shrieking parrot.
Gran sent Maisie up to take Mr Grange some tea. As Maisie looked around the second-floor rooms, she couldn’t help missing Madame Lorimer. Until only a few days ago, there had been lacy tablecloths everywhere, and vases of wax flowers that were awful to dust. But now the rooms looked quite empty. Mr Grange didn’t seem to have many personal belongings at all. Not even a picture of his mother, or a sweetheart. And no biscuits, either, Maisie noticed sadly.
“Thank you … Maisie, is it?” He took the tea and began to usher her towards the door, almost as though he wanted to get rid of her, Maisie thought. “I’ll bring the tray down later.”
“Would you like me to help with the unpacking at all?” she asked, but he shook his head firmly and shooed her out, shutting the door behind her with a determined click.
Maisie stood on the other side of the door, feeling rather cross. She had only wanted to help! And perhaps to nose about a little, but that wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. It was important that she and Gran knew a bit about the lodgers. They knew next to nothing about this one.
Over the next few days, Maisie didn’t learn a great deal more. Mr Grange left for his work early in the morning and didn’t return until nearly dinner time, so he was obviously very hard-working. He hated kippers, he’d told Gran, when she asked about meals. Then so did anyone with any sense, Maisie thought.
But after Mr Grange had been at Albion Street for a few days, Maisie made a surprising discovery. She had gone out to buy some groceries for Gran and was hurrying back with her basket, when she saw Mr Grange. He was nowhere near his offices, which were several streets away, at the back of the biscuit factory. He was standing at the door of a tall, shabby-looking house, talking in whispers with a tall, shabby-looking man. A suspicious man, Maisie thought at once, as she noted the hat pulled down low over his face, and the way he kept glancing from side to side, as though he were keeping watch on the street.
Maisie sucked in an excited breath. She didn’t want their new lodger to be up to no good – of course she didn’t – but this did make him a great deal more interesting…
She walked past quickly, hoping that neither of them had noticed her watching them. She didn’t want to put Mr Grange on his guard.
After that, Maisie kept a much closer eye on the new lodger. Instead of Mr Grange being desperately boring, she began to think of him as mysterious. For example, on a perfectly dry Monday afternoon, how could he come back from work with his boots so plastered in mud that Maisie had to scrub the tiled hallway? He was apologetic about it, at least, when he came back down the stairs and found her on her knees with a bucket of hot water and a scrubbing brush. He’d changed his boots, thank goodness, so he wasn’t still tracking mud everywhere.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Maisie. I didn’t notice I’d brought in all that mud. Um, here…” He fished in his jacket pocket and passed her a penny. “I must have trodden in a puddle,” he added rather vaguely.
But there were no puddles on his way to work, Maisie reflected, putting the coin in her apron pocket. She knew that because she had been to the factory a couple of days earlier, after she’d spotted him loitering in the street. She hadn’t been quite sure what she was expecting to find out, but she knew it was something that Gilbert Carrington would have done. She had even copied down the sign outside the factory in her notebook – Libbey’s Fine Biscuits and Crackers. Made with the purest of ingredients.
Maisie carefully examined the mud too, as she cleaned the floor. But it just looked like mud, even through the magnifying glass that the professor had given her.
Despite the lack of useful clues, Maisie was sure there was a lot more to the new lodger than first appeared. In fact, she was wondering if he really worked at the biscuit factory at all. It was time to test him out, she decided, as she sluiced the muddy water down the drain in the yard.
“Maisie, bring the washing in, since you’re out there!” Gran called from the kitchen. “It must be dry by now in this wind.”
Maisie wiped her damp hands on her apron and went to unpeg the washing – mostly the professor’s, although there were some of Miss Lane’s pretty underclothes as well. She stacked the washing in the baskets that had been left by the door and carried them in to Gran, who was heating the irons over the stove. Washing took up most of Monday, as Gran and Sally and Maisie did it all themselves to save money, rather than sending it out to a laundrywoman. There were odd bits of washing done in the rest of the week too, but most of it was saved up for Mondays.
“Good gracious! Where did this old-fashioned thing come from?” Gran exclaimed, as
she turned over the washing in the first basket and held up a wide petticoat made of greyish-white woollen flannel, stained with mud around the hem. “That’s not Miss Lane’s – she wouldn’t be seen in something so scruffy!”
Maisie frowned. “It was on the line, Gran. Is it Sally’s?”
Sally popped her head round the door from the scullery and snorted disgustedly. “It most certainly is not! Miss Lane wouldn’t wear it and neither would I!”
“But where’s it come from then?” Maisie asked.
“And more to the point, where are the professor’s combinations?” Gran snapped. “Maisie, is this some sort of silly joke?”
“No! Honestly, Gran, I just brought in what was on the line. Maybe I left them…” Maisie hurried out into the yard again, but the washing line was empty – the professor’s droopy woollen underclothes were nowhere to be seen. She looked around the yard, biting her lip. Gran would be furious if she couldn’t find them. What would she tell the professor? And why on earth would someone steal woollen underclothes anyway? Maisie stood by the washing line, scowling. Could someone have pulled them off the line by accident? One of the delivery boys, perhaps? Then she gave a triumphant gasp – there was a scrap of white trailing out from behind the outhouse. Maisie darted over and snatched up the muddy combinations. Gran wouldn’t be pleased about having to wash them again.
“But what on earth happened?” Gran muttered, when Maisie told her where she’d found the muddy underwear. “It makes no sense… If it hadn’t been for the petticoat you found, I’d have thought you’d just dropped them, Maisie.” She darted a stern look at her granddaughter, but then patted her hand. “However careless you are, you do tell the truth. Except when you’re messing around with that detective nonsense. Humph!” She snorted. “Well, here’s a mystery for you, Maisie. It’s a pity your Mr Gilbert Carrington’s in New York, isn’t it? The Case of the Droopy Drawers…”
“That’s odd… It isn’t only your clothes going missing, you know,” George said to Maisie in the yard the next morning. She had asked him about the washing when he’d brought the meat delivery. “Next door had something nicked off their line as well. Last Monday it would have been, I suppose. Miss Barnes had the cheek to say it was me what took it! And I didn’t, before you ask, Maisie. What would I want with her unmentionables?”
“It must be boys playing tricks…” Maisie said doubtfully. “I don’t mean you, George,” she added, as he glared at her.
“Gran said I should try and solve the mystery, but it has to be someone being stupid. What else could it be?” She frowned to herself. It was interesting that it wasn’t only their washing that had been messed about with, though. She wondered if anyone else in the street had been affected. Maybe it was a real mystery after all…
“Did Miss Barnes find anything on her washing line that wasn’t meant to be there?” Maisie asked George, but he only scowled.
“How do I know? I was too busy running away. She nearly boxed my ears!”
“Maybe I’ll ask up and down the street,” Maisie murmured. “You never know.” Missing washing might not be as exciting as missing paintings, but it was worth investigating.
The newspapers were still full of stories about the infamous Sparrow Gang and their string of art thefts. There had been another painting taken, just a few days before, from a grand house in Richmond. In fact, it had been the very same day that Maisie had been in the neighbourhood for Madame Lorimer’s wedding.
The article she had read that morning said the police were baffled, particularly as the thefts were being carried out in broad daylight. One of the paintings had turned up in France, offered for sale to a private collector, who had recognized it and informed the French police. So Charlie Sparrow, the leader of the gang, had obviously managed to smuggle it out of the country. The article suggested that was probably what had happened to all the others. They were somewhere in Europe, sold to collectors who knew quite well that they were stolen.
How annoying to have been in Richmond, so close to the scene of the crime, and not to know anything about it, Maisie thought, as she took the meat delivery in to Gran. She might even have seen the thief!
Still, I’ve got my own detective work to do, Maisie told herself. She would ask around about the washing, and she mustn’t forget to try and find out some more about Mr Grange, and his muddy boots and suspicious friends.
She got her chance that afternoon, when she met him coming in from work. She eyed his boots, but they were reasonably clean. His coat was damp, though, Maisie noticed, as he lifted his hat to her in the hallway. How could that be? It had only rained in the middle of the afternoon – Gran had sent her running out to bring in the professor’s newly washed combinations off the line, so Maisie knew it had. But surely a clerk would have been at work in his office at that time, not out getting wet?
“Mr Grange!” she called, as he started up the stairs.
He turned, looking back down at her, and Maisie sighed silently to herself. He was so very normal looking, with his mousy hair and plain sort of face. He didn’t look at all suspicious now.
“Would you like some tea and biscuits?” Maisie asked, thinking quickly. “You look chilled, sir. I bought some Garibaldi biscuits this morning. Very nice with tea. Or cocoa, perhaps?”
“Oh – oh, that’s kind of you, Maisie, but I’m quite all right. I’m not really partial to Garibaldi biscuits – I don’t like coconut.” And Mr Grange hurried up the stairs to his room, leaving Maisie staring after him, open-mouthed.
It had worked far better than she could have expected. She had only been trying to get him to talk about biscuits, so she could ask about his job – just to be on the safe side, really. Mr Grange had looked so pleasant, and so, well, boring as he crossed the hallway. It had seemed foolish to suspect that there was something going on. She hadn’t expected him to give himself away.
But someone who actually worked in a biscuit factory would know all about biscuits. He’d know that Garibaldi biscuits had currants in, and not even a hint of coconut.
He was lying, after all!
“Is it convenient for me to sweep your floor, sir?” Maisie asked, hovering hopefully outside Mr Grange’s door a few minutes later and trying to peer inside. If she could only get into his room, she was sure that she’d be able to take a closer look and find out what he was really up to. “I noticed when I dusted this morning that I hadn’t quite got all the mud from yesterday out of the cracks in the floorboards.”
“Oh, er, not at the moment, thank you,” Mr Grange murmured. “Perhaps later. I’m working just now.”
“On biscuits?” Maisie said, catching a glimpse of a pile of papers on the table.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re working on biscuits?” Maisie nodded at the papers, and then suddenly realized how nosy she sounded. She smiled at him. “I do love biscuits. You’re ever so lucky, working at a biscuit factory. But don’t you find that you’re hungry all the time? With the smell of baking?”
“Oh! Er, yes…” Mr Grange nodded.
“What’s your favourite kind of biscuit? I like shortbread, myself.” She knew she sounded completely woolly headed, but it didn’t matter. In fact, if Mr Grange thought she was just a silly girl, he was less likely to worry about clearing away his papers. “And Marie biscuits,” she added, beaming at him.
“Ah! Well, um … digestives. I like digestives. I must get back to work now, Maisie. I’ll be going out shortly, perhaps you could sweep up then?”
Maisie nodded. “I’ll be back later.”
Digestives. Really. The most boring biscuits of all were his favourite? Maisie was more and more convinced that Mr Fred Grange knew nothing about biscuits at all.
When she heard the front door bang a little while later, Maisie bundled the potatoes she’d been peeling into a pan and snatched up the broom. “Gran, I’m just going to sweep Mr Grange’s rooms – he was working earlier, and didn’t want me to disturb him.”
; “But you swept all the rooms this morning, Maisie!” Gran turned round from the stove, looking confused.
“I didn’t get all that mud up properly!” Maisie darted out of the kitchen, clutching the broom, with Eddie trotting after her.
As Maisie had hoped, Mr Grange had left his work on the desk. Maisie had obviously convinced him that she was stupid. It was a little insulting that he had believed her so easily, Maisie thought, but she wasn’t going to complain. She hurried over to the table and stared down at the sheet of paper lying there.
It was a list, Maisie saw at once. But a strange one – not a shopping list, or a list of things to remember. And certainly nothing to do with biscuits.
Maisie stared at it, unconsciously trailing her fingers over the spiky letters as she read. This was a list of paintings – familiar ones too. It was a list of the paintings that had been stolen by the Sparrow Gang. He was adding up how much they were worth.
Her heart thudded so hard, and so quickly, that she felt sick. One of the Sparrow Gang was lodging in Gran’s second-floor rooms! She’d been bringing him his meals and fetching him cups of tea! She had cleaned a master criminal’s muddy boots!
There was a fumbling sound at the door, and Maisie whirled round. She had been concentrating so hard on the list, she hadn’t heard the footsteps on the stairs. Taken completely by surprise, she stood like a statue by the table, staring at Mr Grange, who was framed in the open doorway.
It seemed that Mr Grange was just as shocked as she was. He froze in the doorway, gaping at her.
