by Darrell Pitt
‘That requires good metal-working abilities,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘I think I see where this is going.’
‘Hmm,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t.’
‘Every bomb maker has their own signature,’ Mr Doyle explained. ‘They have their own way of making the device. It’s understandable when you consider how dangerous it is to construct a bomb. Once they find a method that works, they stick with it.’ He studied Greystoke’s face. ‘I assume you have a lead on the bomb maker’s identity?’
‘Not so much a lead as an avenue to pursue. You’re familiar with Bruiser Sykes?’
‘I am,’ Mr Doyle said, turning to Jack and Scarlet. ‘Sykes was a career criminal, a gang leader operating in the West End for several years. It was through my efforts, and those of Scotland Yard, that he was finally jailed for his crimes. He got his nickname through his early days as a standover man.’
‘Do you think he’s working with the bomber?’ Jack asked the inspector.
‘No, but Bruiser Sykes knows anyone who’s anyone in the world of crime. He once had a team of safe-crackers working under him that broke into a dozen banks. If anyone would recognise the timing device, it’s him.’
‘So how can I help?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘We’ve already approached Sykes,’ Inspector Greystoke said. ‘But he won’t speak to us. He has, however, asked to speak to you.’
‘Me?’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Why?’
‘I have no idea. He will not explain.’
Mr Doyle nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then I will make an appointment to see Sykes at the jail,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, can you have the remains of the timer sent to me?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you mentioned a second matter?’
‘You may have heard about the formation of a new branch of Scotland Yard?’
‘The Wolf Pack?’
‘What a strange name,’ Scarlet said.
‘It’s named after the man in charge,’ Greystoke explained. ‘Detective Inspector James Wolf. Many of its members are not even members of the police force. They’re military men conscripted for security reasons.’
‘Security reasons?’ Mr Doyle said. ‘What do you mean?’
Greystoke looked embarrassed. ‘There was a rumour going around the Houses of Parliament that Scotland Yard had been infiltrated by the Valkyrie Circle,’ he said. ‘It’s made them paranoid.’
Mr Doyle scratched his chin. ‘While a certain amount of secrecy is a good thing, suspecting the people entrusted with keeping you safe is dangerous. What do you suggest we do?’
‘Just watch your back, Ignatius,’ Greystoke warned. ‘There are difficult times ahead.’
The inspector shook hands and left the apartment. After he’d gone, Gloria Scott, the young, blonde-haired receptionist and live-in housekeeper, appeared in the doorway. ‘There’s someone here to see you, Mr Doyle,’ she said. ‘It looks like another case.’
‘They haven’t made an appointment?’
Gloria gave a small smile. ‘I’m not sure he knows how,’ she said. ‘He says it’s very urgent.’
Mr Doyle raised an eyebrow. ‘Then I suppose we must see him. Send him in.’ He turned to Jack and Scarlet. ‘I wonder what this is about.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘Here he is,’ Gloria said. ‘Toby Grant, Esquire.’
The client was a thin young boy with brown hair and freckles. His shirt was clean, but threadbare, and his pants were too short. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.
‘I see,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Please take a seat, Toby.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
After the detective had introduced everyone, Toby looked at Jack and Scarlet with admiration. ‘Are you detectives too?’ he asked.
‘We assist Mr Doyle in his investigations,’ Scarlet said. ‘But yes—we’re in training.’
‘What can we do for you?’ Mr Doyle asked. ‘I see you’ve come all the way from Whitechapel. Does your mother know you’re here?’
Toby’s mouth fell open. ‘How did you know I’m from Whitechapel?’
‘There is a patch on your pants bearing the logo of a fruit shop in that area. In addition, your belt is made from a type of rope that is only sold from a shop in Raven Row.’
‘Wow.’
‘Best get used to that,’ Jack said, smiling.
‘And your mother…?’ Mr Doyle prompted.
‘She’s the one who told me to come here.’
‘Really?’
‘Well…’ Toby said. ‘She said I could solve the mystery. I heard Mr Jones, the storeowner, talking about you and I knew you’d be the person to see.’
‘You’re not at school?’
‘Mum can’t afford to send me.’
‘Oh dear.’
Jack understood the detective’s concern. He had just been speaking earlier that week about the importance of education and how it led to a better life.
‘We’ll make certain you return safely home,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘But first—what exactly is the mystery that has brought you here today?’
‘No-one else believes me,’ the boy said, frowning.
‘About what?’
Toby looked about fearfully. ‘There’s something I’ve seen,’ he said. ‘Something at night.’
He went on to explain how he and his mother, Sally, lived in a small alley off the high street. His father had died from tuberculosis. His mother worked in a garment factory, sewing cloth, while Toby helped to pick up the finished garments and pack them into boxes.
At night, they walked the short distance to their home, where Sally made dinner and helped him with his reading and writing. Soon after they would turn in for the night and the cycle would begin again the next day. They worked six and a half days a week, with only Sunday afternoons to spend at the park.
‘A few weeks back I woke in the middle of the night,’ Toby explained. ‘It was raining outside. The noise was terrible, like. Thunder and wind. I was scared. Out my window at the alley there was a flash of lightning…and then I saw it.’
‘You saw…what?’ Jack asked.
‘The monster.’ Toby’s eyes were round as saucers. ‘It was big. Maybe ten feet tall, with huge hands, and his face was all mixed up.’
Scarlet leant forward in her seat. ‘How do you mean?’
Toby indicated. ‘One eye was up here, but the other was down near his mouth.’ He shuddered. ‘He was terrible to look at.’
‘And what happened then?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘I watched him go up the alley, looking in rubbish bins. ‘Then he went onto the high street and came back a few minutes later.’ Toby swallowed. ‘And guess what he was carrying.’
‘What?’ Jack asked breathlessly.
‘A cat.’
‘A cat,’ Jack repeated the words in confusion. ‘Why?’
Toby pointed to his mouth. ‘To eat, of course,’ he said. ‘Why else would he have it?’
Mr Doyle sat back in his chai
r and formed an arch with his fingers, thinking for a long moment. ‘I must tell you, Toby, that I have rather a lot on at the moment,’ he said. ‘Sadly, I can’t spare the time to investigate your… monster.’
‘Oh.’ The small boy looked crestfallen.
‘However, I believe I can still help you.’ Mr Doyle indicated Jack and Scarlet. ‘My young assistants will take on your case.’
‘We will?’ Jack asked.
‘Absolutely.’ Mr Doyle turned to Toby. ‘I’ll get Gloria to look after you for a few minutes while they gather their things.’
After Mr Doyle had led Toby away, he returned to find both Jack and Scarlet wearing puzzled expressions. ‘Confused?’ he asked, popping a piece of cheese into his mouth. ‘I hope you don’t mind helping young Toby.’
‘We don’t mind at all,’ Scarlet said, digging Jack in the ribs. ‘Do we?’
‘I’m just not sure how we can help,’ Jack said. ‘Where do we begin?’
‘You’ll know when you get there,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Oh, just one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Be careful. That part of the city can be quite unsafe. Keep your wits about you.’
Jack and Scarlet went to their rooms to get ready. Mr Doyle’s apartment was on the top floor of 221 Bee Street. Many of the rooms were without ceilings: it was possible to peer up into the roof to see the maze of rafters and steam pipes.
As Jack gazed about his room with satisfaction, he was once again amazed at how far he’d come since being stuck in the orphanage, where he’d shared a room of this size with a dozen boys. At Bee Street, he had his own bed, chest of drawers and an en suite bathroom. Luxury, by comparison!
Jack changed quickly, throwing on a blue-and-white striped shirt and dark pants. He pulled on his green coat, containing goggles, a disguise kit, pencils and other paraphernalia. Finally, he slipped in the locket photograph of his parents and compass: he always carried them with him. The photograph was of the three of them dressed as The Flying Sparrows, and the compass was the last gift they had given to Jack before they died.
Scarlet had changed into a grey day dress and sensible shoes. ‘You see the importance of education,’ she said as they strolled along the hall.
‘You don’t believe in Toby’s monster?’
‘And you do?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Education dispels darkness so we don’t have to believe in monsters, ghosts or demons,’ Scarlet said.
‘You’re not about to start telling me again about classical music, are you?’
She sighed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, otherwise you might try sharing some of that American jass with me.’
‘Jazz,’ he corrected her. Phoebe Carfax, Mr Doyle’s old friend and an extraordinary archaeologist, who they’d met on their last adventure, had sent Jack a few records. He had taken quite a liking to it. ‘And I thought you enjoyed it.’
‘It’s an acquired taste.’
‘Like Brumbie Biscuitlid?’
‘Brinkie Buckeridge,’ Scarlet said, rolling her eyes. ‘Will you ever get that name right?’
‘Probably not.’
Scarlet’s greatest love was a series of adventure novels written by Baroness Zakharov. They featured a larger than life heroine, Brinkie Buckeridge, who, with derring-do and aplomb, managed to vanquish evildoers and blackguards alike—and all without breaking a fingernail.
‘This tale of the monster does remind me of one of her novels—The Adventure of the Six-Fingered Glove.’
‘I can’t even imagine what that would look like,’ Jack sighed.
‘It looks like, well, a Six-Fingered glove. Anyway, Brinkie finds the glove on level sixty-seven of her home.’
‘That’s a big house.’
‘Larger-than-life characters need big houses,’ she said. ‘Hers is called Thorbridge. Anyway, it turns out the glove belongs to a creature made from several different animals. It has the head of a mouse, the body of a rhinoceros and the legs of a giraffe.’
‘The head of a mouse,’ Jack mused. ‘That’s a very small head.’
‘It turns out to be a fairly harmless monster.’
‘A zombie would have been more fun,’ Jack said. He had been reading a series of adventure novels entitled Zombie Airships and had become fixated on the living dead. ‘A crewman finds a zombie in the hold. He gets bitten and, before you know it, there’s a zombie plague.’
‘Zombies aren’t real.’
‘That’s what they said on the airship,’ Jack said. ‘And then—bite!’
They met Toby back in the waiting room, and within minutes all three were on a train heading to Whitechapel. It was an old Hooper 55, an almost obsolete locomotive. Jack peered about with interest. The people on board looked poor: thin, dirty and unhealthy. Three men sat near the back of the carriage, passing a whisky bottle between them.
The train pulled into Whitechapel Station. Toby led them down an alley. While much of London was being torn down and rebuilt, this part of the city was still old and rundown. Jack spotted a woman in a doorway with a flagon under her arm. Further along, a cat, missing most of its fur, ran across the street chased by a mange-covered dog. There were a few shops, but many pubs.
‘We’re not far now,’ Toby said.
They skirted down another narrow alley until a man appeared at the far end.
‘Look what we got here,’ he said. Unshaven and filthy, he had a flat nose as if he’d been in too many fights. ‘Some toff kids wanting to give me some money.’
Jack looked behind. Two other men, one with a white, cloudy eye, and the other with a black beard, now blocked the alley entrance.
It’s the men from the train!
‘Stay between us,’ Jack said to Toby.
‘There’s an easy way,’ Black Beard said. ‘And a hard way.’
‘We’re not giving you a penny,’ Scarlet said.
‘Then we’re gonna do this the hard way.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Flat Nose laughed as Scarlet squared up to him.
‘This girly thinks she can fight. She—’
He got no further as Scarlet slammed a fist into his stomach, followed by an uppercut to his nose. Grunting, he fell in a heap.
Jack snatched up a piece of pipe from the ground and waved it at the other two men.
‘Just give us yer money, kid,’ Cloudy Eye said. ‘And no-one gets hurt.’
Without waiting for a reply, he swung a fist. Jack ducked, slamming the pipe into his knee. The man cried out and Jack punched his good eye, knocking him out.
This only left Black Beard. He swung, clipping Jack across the side of his head, and the blow made Jack see stars.
‘That’s enough!’
The voice came from behind Scar Face, who glanced back, and Jack saw his opportunity, kicking straight up into the man’s groin. Scar Face slumped, choking, hatred in his eyes.
‘I said that’s enough!’ It was an old woman, wizened and tiny like a witch. She cracked a walking stick against the wall.
‘When Granny Diamond speaks, you listen!’
Cursing over their shoulders, the three men hobbled away. The woman called Granny Diamond peered closely at Jack and Scarlet, then her eyes focused on Toby.
‘You’re Sally’s boy, aint ya?’ she said.
‘Toby.’
‘Why’re you with these toffs? You in trouble, boy?’
‘No, Granny.’ Toby looked around, fearfully. ‘I brought ‘em here because of the monster.’
‘How’re they going to help?’
Scarlet cut in. ‘Ma’am, we work with Mr Ignatius Doyle, the detective,’ she said. ‘Toby asked us to come and investigate.’
‘I see.’ She regarded them, the lines in her face deepening. ‘You best come to Granny’s home and we’ll talk. It’s not safe for foreigners in these parts.’
Jack was about to point out they were English, but then understood what she meant: they were foreign to this part of London.
Granny led them out of the alley and to a door under a set of rickety stairs. A faded sign on the building read Pete’s Papers and General Supplies. Inside was a single cramped room, jammed full with a bed, chest of drawers and a bench. A deck of cards sat on the drawers.
Granny was very short, little more than five feet tall, with wispy grey hair. She wore half-a-dozen layers of torn clothing; none of it seemed to match. Her hands were gnarled with rheumatism, her fingernails long. She pointed to the bench and they sat on it.
‘So Toby’s told you about the monster,’ she said.
‘You know about it?’ Jack said.
‘I know everything that happens here,’ Granny Diamond chuckled. ‘A few in these parts have seen it at night. They say it comes out at the witching hour when the moon be dark.’
‘The witching hour?’
‘Three in the morning.’
