The Case of the Baker Street Irregular (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 1)

by Robert Newman

  “No,” he said. “But I think I may have by the time I go back to school.” They went towards the exit. “How’s your mother?”

  “Fine.”

  “And Sam?”

  “Fine too. He says studying is hard work, but I think he likes it.”

  “That’s good.”

  Sam was Sara’s brother—a little older than Andrew—who was now in Stubbington House in Fareham, studying for the examination that might allow him to become a naval cadet. That was Andrew’s mother’s doing too—that, and many other things, like the way she had made Sara’s and Sam’s mother the housekeeper at their new house—all to show her appreciation for what the Wigginses had done for Andrew when he had first arrived in London.

  They were outside now, and there, between a hansom cab and a four-wheeler, was the Tillett’s new landau. Fred had just put Andrew’s bag and trunk into it, and the porter was leaving.

  “Just a second,” said Andrew, reaching into his pocket for a tip.

  “Keep your hair on,” said Fred. “I took care of him.”

  “Why should you?” asked Andrew.

  “You don’t think it was me own brass, do you?” said Fred. “Your mother gave it to me.” He turned to the porter. “Are you all right, mate?”

  “Right as ever went endwise,” said the porter. He touched his cap to Sara and Andrew and went off whistling.

  “In you get,” said Fred, opening the polished black door for them. He closed the door, climbed up into the box, shook the reins and they moved off into the traffic that was going up Praed Street.

  This was another of the things that was so new Andrew found it hard to believe; riding in his mother’s carriage behind a pair of matched bays. And to make it perfect, the weather was warm and the landau’s top was down. Andrew glanced at Sara and could tell that she was enjoying it as much as he was.

  “Is my mother at the theatre?” he asked.

  “Yes. They’re having the dress rehearsal—that’s why she couldn’t come to the station. But she wants you to pick her up at about six.”

  Andrew nodded. “She wasn’t too sure about the play before. How does she feel about it now.”

  “She thinks it’s all right. That it might go.”

  “Might go?” said Fred from the box. “It’s going to be a smasher!”

  Smiling, Andrew exchanged glances with Sara.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “How do I know a Derby winner?” said Fred emphatically. “I seen some of the rehearsals. And I talked to some of the stage hands and the chap at the stage door. They think she’s a ruddy marvel.”

  Like the carriage and the house in St. John’s Wood, this was new to Andrew too. Until recently his mother had been away, playing on the continent and in America and he had known very little about her; certainly not that she was a well-known and successful actress. Though they had become very close since her return to England, he had never seen her on the stage. But he had seen the effect she had on people—men in particular—and was not surprised at Fred’s enthusiastic admiration for her.

  Her relationship with Sara was something else again. Verna herself had been born in Lambeth, the daughter of street musicians, and had come to the stage by way of the music halls. She undoubtedly saw herself in Sara, who was a brave, quick-witted child with natural acting ability; and so Verna had paid special attention to her—her speech and dress and manners—when she took the Wiggins family under her wing.

  “Have you anything else to tell me?” Andrew asked Sara.

  “No.”

  “How’s school?”

  “Oh, all right. How’s yours?”

  “All right too.”

  “Your mother said you were playing a lot of cricket.”

  “Just on the house team.”

  They were just passing Lord’s and Sara nodded to it and said, “Well, you won’t have to travel very far if you want to watch any while you’re at home.”

  “No. As a matter of fact, I want to see the Eton-Harrow match. Would you like to go?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “I’ll see what we can do about it.”

  They crossed Wellington Road and St. John’s Wood High Street, turned left and a few minutes later they were at the house on Rysdale Road.

  It was quite large, larger than most of the villas that lined the street; a three-story stucco house set well back from the road with a garden in front of it. Fred turned into the graveled driveway and stopped under the porte-cochere. Matson opened the door. He was quite tall and grey-haired, and he stooped slightly. Andrew had not understood why they needed a butler when they had Mrs. Wiggins to supervise the running of the house, but Verna said it was expected of someone in her position. That may have been why Matson always looked slightly pained; because he was aware that his post was more ceremonial than anything else.

  They went through the accepted ritual with Matson hoping that he had had a pleasant journey (“Yes, Matson. Thank you.”), then went inside where Mrs. Wiggins and Annie, the upstairs maid, were waiting.

  “Hello, Mrs. Wiggins,” said Andrew.

  “Welcome home, Andrew,” said Mrs. Wiggins. Then abandoning dignity—and the ritual—in favor of honest emotion, she embraced him. “I’m that glad to see you!”

  “And I to see you.”

  “Annie,” said Matson, carefully avoiding looking at them, “will you help Fred take Master Andrew’s things upstairs?”

  “Yes, Mr. Matson,” said Annie.

  “I’ll go up too,” said Mrs. Wiggins. She went up the stairs with him, opened the door to his room. It was large and sunny, just across the hall from his mother’s suite.

  “I think you’ve got everything you’ll want,” said Mrs. Wiggins.

  “I’m sure I have,” said Andrew.

  They waited while Fred and Annie brought in the trunk and bag, put them down and left.

  “Would you like me to unpack for you?” asked Mrs. Wiggins.

  “No, thank you. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, just fine. You heard about Sam?”

  “Sara told me he’s working hard but doing well.”

  “Yes, he is. Everything’s too good to be true, thanks to your mother. She’s a wonderful woman.”

  “Yes, she is. But then so are you.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Well, mother and I think you are.” He had gone over to the window and was looking out. “What’s happening next door at the marchioness’s?”

  “Have they started already?” Mrs. Wiggins looked out also. “I guess they have.”

  Three Oaks, home of the Marchioness of Medford, was probably the largest estate in St. John’s Wood. Surrounded by a high stone wall, it was several acres in area. Besides the imposing house, it had formal and informal gardens, lawns, greenhouses and a small lake. Usually quiet, for the marchioness was a bit of a recluse, there was a good deal of activity there now; gardeners were working on the already carefully tended grounds and other men were setting up two large marquees.

  “She’s opening up the house and grounds tomorrow,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “For charity, some hospital or foundling home or something. I think your mother’s expecting to go. Would you like some tea?”

  “I don’t think so, thank you. I understand I’m to meet my mother at the theatre at six.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I think I’ll take a walk, look around, till it’s time to leave.” He opened the door. “Do you know where Sara is?”

  “Probably in her room.”

  “Oh, Sara!” he called. Sara’s room was at the end of the hall, near the back of the house. After a moment the door opened.

  “Yes?” she said, looking at him oddly.

  “I’m going for a walk. Want to come with me?”

  She glanced at her mother, then looked at him again.

  “Are you sure you want me?” she asked.

  “Would I ask you if I didn’t? Come on.”

  Again she glanced at
her mother, then she came toward him, and they went down stairs together.

  “What was that all about?” he asked when they were outside.

  “What was what?”

  “Whatever was going on between you and your mother.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Stop it, Screamer. Of course you know. Now what is it?”

  He had called her Screamer deliberately—to remind her of the things they had done together less than a year ago. And apparently it had an effect.

  “She said, if she let me go meet you at Paddington, then that was that. I wasn’t to follow you around or expect you to spend any time with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Screamer!”

  “All right. Because I’m a girl, and boys don’t like to be with girls, not until they’re much older, and besides I’m younger than you. But most important of all—” She broke off.

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Screamer, the most important thing of all can’t be nothing. Now what is it?” Her face stony, she did not look at him.

  “All right. If you won’t tell me, I’ll tell you. It’s because your mother’s our housekeeper, so it’s not proper.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You mean I guessed what she said to you, but it’s certainly not right. It’s all wrong. Some boys may not like to be with girls, but I’m not some boys. I told you that at the station. And I don’t care that you’re a little younger than I am. As for this housekeeper thing, did it matter who I was and who you were when I first came to London and you took me in, took care of me?”

  “Because we didn’t know who you were—you didn’t know yourself—though I knew you were a toff.”

  “Well, I knew who you were—you were my friends. And my mother knew it too, and that’s why she asked you to come here. So let’s not have any more of this nonsense.”

  “It’s not nonsense!” said Sara forcefully. “I don’t want you to do me any favors!”

  “Well, I’d like you to do me a favor. I’d like you to stop talking rot! If I ask you to come out for a walk with me, it’s because I want you to!”

  “Well, all right then,” said Sara more quietly. They looked sideways at one another and when Andrew smiled at her, Sara flushed and finally smiled also.

  They were out on Rysdale Road now, approaching the high stone wall that surrounded Three Oaks.

  “I hear there’s going to be a big do in there tomorrow,” said Andrew.

  “A quid to get in,” said Sara. “But that includes tea or bubbly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I heard the marchioness’s head groom telling Fred. Your mother’s going.”

  “Why? She doesn’t know the marchioness, does she?”

  “No. But since it’s for charity she thinks it’s the neighborly thing to do.”

  Andrew was thinking about this, wondering why she should want to be neighborly, when a barrel organ began playing somewhere behind them. They turned, the music got louder, and a street musician came around the corner and into Rysdale Road. He was a slight, dark man with a large mustache. He was wearing a brown velvet jacket, baggy trousers and a black felt hat with a feather in it, and sitting on his shoulder, dressed exactly as he was, was a small monkey.

  “Coo! Lumme! A hurdy-gurdy man!” said Sara, months of practice in proper speech forgotten in her excitement. “Have you got ha’penny for him?”

  “I think so,” said Andrew.

  They walked back toward him. As they approached, the monkey leaped to the top of the barrel organ, from there to the ground and held up a tin cup. Andrew took some coins out of his pocket but when Sara said, “Oh, let me!” he gave them to her and she dropped them into the monkey’s cup.

  “Grazie, signorina,” said the organ grinder, bowing. “Grazie, signor.”

  He pulled on the cord that was fastened to the monkey’s belt, and the monkey bowed too, taking off it’s hat, then leaped back to the organ and from there to the man’s shoulder again.

  “Will you play something for us?” asked Sara.

  “Con piacere,” said the musician. He began turning the crank of the organ and the strains of “Funiculi, funicula” echoed along the quiet street. Her face rapt, Sara closed her eyes and began dancing as she must have danced dozens of times before when she was a dirty-faced street urchin living in Dingell’s Court. Andrew watched her, admiring—not just her grace—but the way she forgot where she was and how she was dressed, everything but the music and what she was doing. He had a feeling that when his mother was Sara’s age she had danced in the streets of Lambeth just as Sara was doing now.

  But this wasn’t Dingell’s Court or Lambeth. It was Rysdale Road in St. John’s Wood.

  Heavy footsteps sounded on the pavement.

  “Now then,” said an official voice. “That’ll be all of that. Pack it up and move along there.”

  The music stopped in the middle of a phrase, Sara opened her eyes, and she and Andrew looked up at the policeman.

  “Si signor,” said the organ grinder. “Si, si.”

  “Oh, no!” said Sara.

  “Why does he have to move along?” asked Andrew. “He’s not bothering anyone.”

  “I assume you can read,” said the policeman, pointing to the notice on the wall of Three Oaks that said, “Hawkers, Circulars, Barrel-Organs and Street Cries of any Description Strictly Prohibited.”

  “Yes, I can read,” said Andrew. “But I think it’s jolly unfair to tell people what they can do and what they can’t do out in the street!”

  “For a slow bowler,” said the policeman, “you’re certainly quick to challenge the status quo.”

  “What?” said Andrew. “How do you know I’m a slow bowler?”

  “How do I know that you’re just home from school and that the young lady has lived elsewhere most of her life, probably near Edgeware Road? Elementary, my dear friends.” And he started to walk on.

  “Wait a minute!” said Andrew, hurrying after him. “That’s what he used to say!”

  “He?”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” said Andrew. He stopped in front of the policeman and looked up at him. “Who are you?”

  “Constable Wyatt.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Andrew. Among other things, Holmes had been famous for his disguises. But there was no chance that this was Holmes. The policeman’s eyes were blue, not grey. He was fair, not dark. And though he was as tall as Holmes, he was heavier and several years younger.

  “Quite sure,” said the policeman. “I’m sorry.” When he smiled he looked younger than ever and less like a policeman.

  “Are you really a policeman?” asked Sara.

  “Really. Presently attached to B division, Wellington Road Police Station.”

  “Well, you don’t look like a copper and you don’t talk like one,” said Sara flatly.

  “That, my dear, is one of my crosses,” said Constable Wyatt. He looked over his shoulder. “Our musician seems to have scarpered.”

  They looked too and saw the little Italian and his monkey disappearing around the corner.

  “I don’t care about that anymore,” said Andrew. “But I do care about this. There’s something strange about it.” He frowned at Wyatt, then it came to him. “You know Holmes!”

  Wyatt’s smile became even broader. “Deduced like a true Holmesian disciple. Yes, I do know him, had the pleasure of talking to him on quite a few occasions.”

  “And he told you about us?” said Sara.

  “He pointed you out from his window one day, said the two of you had been very helpful to him on one of his cases. The rest I deduced myself or got from talking to your coachman, Fred.”

  “What were you talking to Fred about?” asked Andrew.

  “A case I’m on.”

  “Then you’re a detective too,” said Sara.

  “Unfortunately, no. I’m just doing
some legwork for Inspector Finch.”

  “What’s the case?” asked Andrew.

  “The disappearance of a young woman named Lily Snyder some four days ago.”

  “Around here?”

  “Yes. We found a cabby who took her to Wellington Place at about six in the afternoon on Monday. You weren’t here so you couldn’t have seen her,” he said to Andrew. “But did you, by any chance?” he asked Sara. “An attractive girl in her early twenties, brown hair, wearing a white shirtwaist, navy blue jacket and skirt and a black hat?”

  “No,” said Sara. “She’s been gone since Monday?”

  “Yes. And I’m afraid—”

  “Wyatt!” said a sharp, authoritative voice. They turned. A short, aggressive-looking man in a bowler stood under one of the streetlights on the other side of Rysdale Road. He beckoned peremptorily.

  “Finch,” said Wyatt under his breath. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you again.” And he crossed the street, saluting as he approached the inspector.

  “I wanted to ask him about Mr. Holmes,” said Andrew. “I’d like to see him while I’m in London.”

  “He said we’d see him again,” said Sara. “Constable Wyatt, I mean. I liked him.”

  “So did I.”

  2

  Verna

  Andrew changed his clothes, and a little after five he walked around to the stable, which was behind the house. Fred was just bringing the landau out.

  “Why’d you come back here?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know what time we were going to leave.”

  “I would have come round when it was time. Why don’t you try acting like a gentleman instead of a schoolboy?”

  “Why don’t you try acting like a coachman instead of the Earl Marshall?”

  Fred threw a punch at him, Andrew blocked it, and they sparred for a minute, then quit, grinning at one another. However Fred would not let Andrew sit in the box with him and handle the ribbons as he did sometimes when they were alone, insisting that it was not proper when they were going to call for his mother. So Andrew sat in back and they talked as Fred drove over to Regent’s Park, around it and down Baker Street. The curtains were drawn on the windows of Sherlock Holmes’s rooms but that didn’t mean anything; Holmes often kept them drawn when he was talking to a client or thinking about a particularly puzzling case.