The Case of the Haunted Horrors

by Anthony Read

  “I won’t let that happen, I promise.”

  “All right, then. Your secret’s safe with me – till next week.”

  “Good. Because it is not just my life that is in danger, but the security of our country.”

  When he heard that, Sarge stood to attention and raised his hand in a smart salute. “I’m an old soldier, sir,” he said. “You can rely on me to do my patriotic duty.”

  “And us,” said Beaver, copying him.

  “Hang on,” Wiggins interrupted. “Your brother was killed months ago. If it’s that important, how come it’s took you so long to do anything about it?”

  “I have only just found out. I’ve been away – far away – and out of touch.”

  “Why? Where’ve you been?”

  Murray hesitated, a troubled expression on his face. “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  Wiggins looked steadily at him, then slowly shook his head. “Well, if you don’t trust us,” he said, “I don’t see how we can help you.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you. But if I told you, it might put your lives in danger. I don’t know if I’m prepared to take that responsibility.”

  “We don’t mind a bit of danger, do we Beav?”

  “Er, no,” said Beaver, sounding a bit less sure, but ready as always to follow wherever Wiggins led. “We’re used to it.”

  “Very well. I have been in a Russian prison camp.”

  “Cor!” exclaimed Beaver. “What was you doin’ in Russia? You a spy or somethin’?”

  “Something like that,” Murray admitted. “I was trying to recover some secret plans that had been stolen from the British Admiralty.”

  “And the Russkis caught you?”

  “Yes. Someone betrayed me.”

  “You was lucky they didn’t shoot you,” said Sarge. “That’s what they usually do to spies, ain’t it?”

  “I suppose they thought I might be of more use to them alive than dead. So they locked me away in the frozen wastes of Siberia. I managed to escape, but I was a thousand miles from anywhere and being hunted by the secret police. It’s taken me months to make my way home.”

  “And when you got here, you discovered that your brother was dead,” said Beaver. “That must have been terrible.”

  “Yes, it was,” said Murray, biting his lip at the memory. “It was a terrible blow, made even worse by knowing that it should have been me.”

  “But if you was working for the government, why don’t you go to the police?” Wiggins asked.

  Murray gave a bitter laugh. “Because that would let them know that I am alive and back in this country. It was someone from our government who betrayed me to the Russians.”

  “A traitor!” Wiggins exclaimed.

  “That’s what I discovered in Russia – that there is a traitor high up in the British Admiralty. And I know that he and his associates want me dead before I can unmask him. They will stop at nothing to prevent me from doing so.”

  “Do you know who the traitor is?” asked Beaver.

  “Not for sure. I suspect two or three people, but until I have proof, I daren’t show myself. If I were wrong, I would have alerted the real villain – and then I’d be done for.”

  “There must be somebody you can trust,” said Sarge.

  “No,” said Murray despondently, his shoulders sagging. “Whoever I go to may turn out to be the traitor, or somebody in league with him. There is no one.”

  “Hang on,” Wiggins said, “there is somebody. You got the Baker Street Boys.”

  Murray lifted his head and smiled. “So I have,” he agreed.

  “I told you we’ll help you. Now, first things first – where are you staying?”

  “I’ve taken a room in a cheap lodging house not far from here, somewhere they wouldn’t think of looking.”

  “But they might – and somebody might spot you coming and going. That won’t do. We gotta keep you out of sight while we get to work. And it’s gotta be somewhere where we can report back to you without nobody noticing us.”

  “What about HQ?” suggested Beaver. “He could have my bed. I don’t mind.”

  “You’re a good lad, Beav,” Wiggins told him, “but I don’t think he’d be very comfortable. I got a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You got an empty shop at the far end of the Bazaar, ain’t you, Sarge?”

  The commissionaire nodded enthusiastically – he was starting to enjoy this real-life spy adventure.

  “That’s right,” he said. “We haven’t been able to find a new tenant since old Mrs Pettigrew died. She used to sell ribbons and embroidery threads and such. The windows are boarded up, so nobody can see in. It’d make a perfect hideout.”

  “That sounds splendid,” said Murray. “I could camp out there and no one would know.”

  “There’s even a few bits of furniture,” added Sarge. “Old Ma P had a couch in the back room so she could lie down when she felt poorly, which she often did. You’ll be right as rain, sir. The lads could bring you provisions, and I’d be here on sentry duty.”

  “Excellent. Couldn’t be better.” Murray’s eyes sparkled with fresh life and he straightened his back, cheered by the prospect of doing something positive. “We must start planning our campaign immediately.”

  It was already getting light by the time Wiggins and Beaver got back to HQ. They woke up the other Boys, who tumbled out of their beds and crowded around them, eager to know what had happened.

  “Did you see it?” Rosie asked eagerly. “Did you see the ghost?”

  “Well, we did and we didn’t…” Wiggins replied.

  “That’s plain silly,” scoffed Shiner. “Don’t you know?”

  “Yes, we do,” Beaver retorted. “We did see what Sarge thought was a ghost …”

  “…only it wasn’t,” Wiggins continued. “It was a real live geezer, what looks exac’ly like the dead bloke in the waxworks,”

  “On account of him being his twin mirror,” added Beaver.

  “His what?” asked Queenie. “I ain’t never heard of anybody bein’ a lookin’-glass.”

  “His mirror-twin brother,” Wiggins corrected, going on to explain what it meant and how it proved that Alwyn had been murdered. Then he told them the whole story, and how and why Selwyn was in danger. “But we’re gonna help him,” he concluded. “We’re gonna catch the traitor and the murderer.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” observed Shiner.

  “That’s never stopped us afore,” Sparrow said scornfully. “Sounds excitin’ to me.”

  “And me,” Gertie agreed. “An excitin’ adventure. Can’t wait.”

  “Half a mo’,” said Queenie. “What about poor old Sarge? Ain’t we supposed to be gettin’ him his job back?”

  “We will,” Wiggins assured her. “Soon as it’s safe for Mr Murray to show hisself.”

  “Anyway,” Beaver added, “Sarge knows all about it. He’s in on it too.”

  “I s’pose that’s all right, then. So, what do we have to do?”

  Wiggins took off his billycock hat and produced two envelopes from inside it. He smoothed them out and laid them carefully down on the table. Above the name and address on each of them were written the words PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL in bold letters.

  “First thing we gotta do is deliver these,” he said.

  “What are they?” Rosie asked.

  “Bait.”

  “You mean like on a fishin’ line?” said Gertie.

  “Exac’ly,” grinned Wiggins. “And we’re gonna catch a big fish. Mr Murray reckons the traitor’s one of two men, but he don’t know which one. So he’s wrote these letters as bait. Now we gotta dangle the bait and see which of ’em takes it.”

  “Then what do we do?” asked Shiner.

  “We keep an eye on him, and report everything we see to Mr Murray at the Bazaar. He’ll tell us what to do next.”

  After they had eaten a hurried breakfast, Wiggins divided the Boys into two grou
ps of three – Queenie, Shiner and Gertie in one; Beaver, Rosie and Sparrow in the other. He read out the two names and addresses on the envelopes and told each group which one to watch. The two houses were in different districts, though not too far apart, and both were in fairly easy walking distance from Baker Street.

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “All you gotta do is wait for your man to come out, then track him.”

  “Yeah, but how will we know who to track?” Queenie asked. “I mean, we don’t know what either of ’em looks like.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Beaver. “I mean, if some other geezer comes out of the house first, we might follow him and that’d be no good ’cos he’d be the wrong geezer – and if we was to do that, then the geezer we was supposed to be followin’ would come out later and we wouldn’t be there to follow him, ’cos we’d be busy followin’—”

  “Right! Right,” Wiggins interrupted him. “Good point. But I’ve already thought of that.”

  He paused, thinking hurriedly while the others watched him and waited for him to go on.

  “Well?” Shiner prompted suspiciously.

  “Well, what we do is this…” Wiggins replied slowly. Then his face cleared and he went on confidently, as though he had known the answer all along. “When we gets to each house, I go up to the front door and ring the bell. Then when somebody opens it, I say I got a message for the bloke whose name’s on the envelope and I gotta give it to him personal. I say I been told it’s urgent and I’m not to hand it to nobody else. And when they fetch him to the door, I get him to come right out onto the doorstep so you can have a good gander at him.”

  “But that means he’ll get a good gander at you,” said Beaver. “And if he gets a good gander at you, he’ll know you and if—”

  “Don’t matter,” said Wiggins, quickly cutting him off. “He won’t have seen the rest of you, and you’ll be the ones following him.”

  “Cor.” Sparrow gazed at Wiggins admiringly. “That’s brilliant. You think of everythin’, don’t you.”

  “I try. Now come on, let’s get going!”

  The first address was in a quiet street in Mayfair, the most expensive area in all London. While the others stood back, trying to look as though they were nothing to do with him, Wiggins walked up to the shiny black front door and pulled the highly polished brass bell handle.

  “I got a letter for Sir Charles White,” he told the manservant who opened the door.

  The man regarded him with disdain and said nothing but held out a white-gloved hand. Wiggins shook his head and told him he had strict instructions not to give the letter to anyone but Sir Charles in person. The man glared at Wiggins through hard, pale eyes set deep under a heavy brow. He was a big, burly man who towered over the leader of the Baker Street Boys, and for a moment Wiggins thought he might seize the letter. He stepped back out of reach.

  “Wait there,” the man rasped, and he disappeared back into the house, closing the door carefully behind him to make sure Wiggins didn’t follow.

  It was a full two minutes before the manservant opened the door again. He stood holding it for a distinguished-looking gentleman in a black frock-coat and grey striped trousers, who inspected Wiggins carefully.

  “I understand you have something for me,” he said.

  “Are you Sir Charles White?” Wiggins asked him, stepping back from the doorway.

  “I am he.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Don’t be impertinent, boy! Hand it over.”

  “Only, the bloke what give it to me made me promise I wouldn’t give it to nobody except Sir Charles White.”

  “Hmm. Who is this ‘bloke’, may I ask?”

  “I dunno, guv. Foreign-looking geezer. He come up to me in the street and give me a bob to bring this to you. That’s all I know about him.”

  “Gave you a shilling, eh? An expensive delivery when he could have popped it in a post box for a penny.”

  “Yes, guv. Must be something special, eh?”

  “We shall see. Give the boy sixpence, will you, Fredericks?” He stepped out of the door to take the letter from Wiggins’s hand as the servant scowled and delved into his pocket to find a coin. “Thank you. You can run along now.”

  Happy that the Boys had had a good look at Sir Charles, Wiggins posted Beaver, Rosie and Sparrow on watch and left with the others for the next address.

  This turned out to be a much smaller house, in a shabby road on the other side of busy Oxford Street. The familiar cheerful oom-pahs of a German band greeted the Boys, and Gertie pointed as the musicians approached.

  “Sure and isn’t that the band that was playin’ outside the Bazaar when we found Sarge?” she asked.

  “You’re right,” Wiggins replied. “They do get around, don’t they!”

  He took the second envelope out of his hat, checked the address and pointed to a front door across the street. The brown paint was beginning to peel, the brass doorknocker was dull for want of polish, and the whole house looked slightly neglected.

  “What a mess,” Queenie sniffed, remembering her time at Mountjoy House. “Mrs Ford would never stand for that – she’d have the servants on to it in no time.”

  “You gonna show ’em how it’s done, sis?” Shiner teased her.

  “You could apply for the housekeeper’s job, now you’re an expert,” Gertie joined in.

  “We’ll have less of your cheek, if you don’t mind,” retorted Queenie, giving her a playful cuff around the ear.

  Wiggins began to cross the road to the house, but he was barely halfway there when the door opened and a man came out, blinking at the morning light through steel-rimmed glasses. Although, like Sir Charles, he was dressed in the black coat and striped trousers of a government official, there was something distracted about him. His coat was crumpled, the creases down the front of his trousers were not really sharp, and his shoes were scuffed. His leather dispatch case looked worn, his umbrella was not as tightly rolled as it should have been, and wisps of hair protruded untidily from beneath his bowler hat.

  “D’you think that’s him?” whispered Queenie.

  “Gotta be,” said Wiggins. “Split up, quick!”

  He hurried after the man, who was setting off in the direction of Oxford Street, and quickly caught up with him.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” he called out as he drew level. “Would you be Mr Harold Redman?”

  “I am he. Why?”

  Wiggins handed over the letter and gave the same story that he had given Sir Charles. Redman looked puzzled, but thanked him and tore open the letter at once. As he read it, he became agitated.

  “Bad news, guv?” Wiggins asked innocently.

  “Er, no… No…” He fished his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and consulted it, looking worried and distant. Suddenly remembering Wiggins, he handed him a sixpence, thanked him and set off at a brisk pace.

  Wiggins signalled to the others, and the four of them followed Redman along the street, dodging between cabs and carriages and omnibuses as he threaded his way over Oxford Street and into Soho Square. He hurried across the garden in the middle of the square, past the little black-and-white pavilion at its centre, and out onto one of the narrow streets that led from it. Soho was one of the oldest areas of London, popular with immigrants and refugees from France, Italy and a host of other countries. So many of them had opened restaurants and shops selling food and other goods from their own countries that the Boys felt they could easily have been in a foreign land.

  Redman’s pace did not slacken until he reached his goal, which turned out to be a café in a quiet side street. A bell jangled as he pushed his way through the door. It was hard to see inside through the heavy lace curtains that hung at the window, and in any case the glass was steamed up. Queenie looked up and saw the café’s name painted above it. She pointed to it. LUBA’S, the sign read, and underneath: RUSSIAN TEA ROOM.

  “Bingo!” said Wiggins.

  RUSSIAN TEA AND BLINI<
br />
  The Mayfair street was quiet. Too quiet for Beaver, Rosie and Sparrow, who were afraid they would be noticed while they watched and waited for Sir Charles to make a move. But when the black front door finally opened, it was the tough-looking manservant, Fredericks, who emerged. He stood on the edge of the pavement, looked up and down the road impatiently, then walked quickly away.

  “What d’you reckon?” Beaver asked the other two. “Should we follow him?”

  “He could be on a secret mission for his boss,” Rosie suggested.

  “That’s right,” said Sparrow. “He could be his henchman what he sends to do his dirty work.”

  “You go after him,” Rosie said. “Me and Sparrow will stop here and keep an eye open for Sir Charlie.”

  “Watch out for yourself, though,” warned Sparrow. “He looks like he could turn nasty.”

  Beaver ambled off down the street and round the corner behind Fredericks, trying to look as though he was not actually following him, while Rosie and Sparrow settled down again to watch and wait. In the next street the manservant hailed a hansom cab and climbed into it. To Beaver’s surprise, he took the cab straight back to his master’s house, then held the door open as Sir Charles came down the steps and climbed in.

  “Blimey,” said Sparrow. “Must be nice to be rich. Old Charlie don’t even have to call a cab for hisself!”

  “Yeah,” Rosie agreed. “Not when he’s got a henchman to do it for him.”

  “Wonder what else he does for him. We better keep our eyes open.” Sparrow turned to Beaver, who had just arrived back. “You stick with Charlie. We’ll stop here and keep an eye on Fred.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. The cab was hardly out of sight round the corner with Beaver trotting after it, before Fredericks came out of the house again. He looked carefully up and down the street, then set off at a smart pace, seemingly unaware of his two young shadows.

  Outside Luba’s Russian Tea Room, Wiggins fished out the sixpences he had just earnt and handed them to Queenie. “You and the others go in and get a cup of tea or something,” he told her. “And have a good look around. See what Redman’s up to and who he’s talking to. I’ll keep out of the way in case he sees me and twigs he’s being followed.”