by Alex Simmons
“Oh,” Dooley muttered.
“Smugglers would need connections with ships’ captains and crews, merchants in ports, maybe dockworkers, ” Cody said. “Besides, there are no laws saying you can’t move buffalo from place to place, so there’s no profit in doing it secretly, if you see what I mean.”
“Mr. Holmes would have thought of that,” Wiggins mumbled. “Why didn’t I?”
“You’re doing fine,” Cody told Wiggins. “You all are. Now the chief and I have to go meet with some folks.” Cody reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of coins, and gave them to Wiggins. “Please buy Silent Eagle whatever he needs and let me know if you need more.”
“All right, Colonel Cody,” Wiggins called out as the frontiersman and Tall-Like-Oak walked away. “And we’ll meet back with you tomorrow.” He stared after the pair of Westerners. “I can’t help feeling that we just heard something—”
“Well, what he said didn’t help us with the smuggling clue,” Dooley complained.
Wiggins snapped his fingers. “Maybe it did,” he said. “Maybe it did.”
Chapter 11
THE RAVEN LEAGUE WAS JUST LEAVING THE performers’ encampment when Wiggins spotted a familiar figure approaching them from the opposite end of the bridge. Inspector Desmond wasn’t his usual elegant self. The detective’s suit was wrinkled and saggy at the knees, he hadn’t shaved, and Wiggins spotted telltale bags under the man’s eyes. Desmond had obviously been up all night searching for Silent Eagle. Lack of sleep and lack of success hadn’t improved his temper.
“What are you lot doing here?” he demanded when he saw them. “Snooping, were you? Has Sherlock Holmes decided to push his long nose into this business?”
Wiggins was about to respond just as sharply when he bit back his words. It won’t help things to get this copper angry at us, he thought. So how could he answer? “Maybe we are,” he said. “Or maybe we’re earning a few bob running errands for Colonel Cody.” He fumbled in his pocket. “See? He wrote up a special pass for us and all.”
Desmond examined the card Wiggins held out, glared at Wiggins and the others, and finally shook his head and smiled. “I suppose I should admire such an industrious attitude—whoever you may be working for.”
Several uniformed constables had drifted over, looking to their superior for a clue on how to treat the youngsters. Inspector Desmond waved them away. “Off with you now,” he said to Wiggins and the Raven Leaguers. “I have some business with Colonel Cody myself.”
Wiggins and the others didn’t need a second invitation. Walking away from the exhibition grounds, Wiggins took a moment to look back, just to make sure Inspector Desmond wasn’t peering after them. He wasn’t, so Wiggins led the way to the Underground station, deciding to spend some of Colonel Cody’s money on a train ride home.
They wound up with a compartment all to themselves. Wiggins slumped in his seat. “This is getting as complicated as our last case.”
Owens nodded. “And this time, we don’t have Sherlock Holmes to help us sort things out.”
Dooley ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “I don’t know how he can remember everything to do with a mystery.”
“I know what you mean,” Wiggins admitted. “All the time we were talking with Buffalo Bill, I kept worrying that I had forgotten things I ought to be asking about.”
“Maybe Sherlock Holmes can hold everything in his head, but we don’t have to.” Jennie drew her notebook and pencil from a pocket. “Let’s write down everything we know, then we can come up with a list of things we don’t know.”
She licked the pencil lead and got ready to write.
Wiggins felt his lips twist into a wry grin. Jennie didn’t have to say anything, but she might as well have taken that pencil and underlined how important it was for all of them to read and write.
“We know that the copper was nearly beaten to death and then scalped,” Dooley began.
“But we don’t know what he was doing around the stables that night,” Owens pointed out. “He wasn’t on duty. In fact, he wasn’t even in uniform.”
“And he wasn’t actually shot. The newspapers got that wrong. Buffalo Bill’s pistol was loaded with blanks. Turnbuckle wound up with powder burns and was beaten.” Wiggins frowned. “I don’t think it’s likely he just happened to walk past the stables and spot a burglar coming out with Cody’s gun.”
“If it wasn’t a burglar, then the attacker had to be connected with the show,” Jennie said. “Perhaps there’s another connection. Chief Tall-Like-Oak mentioned that Constable Turnbuckle was the one who stood up to that buffalo when it went wild.”
“We know.” Owens nodded. “Turnbuckle passed a remark that Silent Eagle didn’t understand—and didn’t like.”
“But there were two other men involved in all that,” Dooley said. “What about that big bloke who keeps chasing us? He was one.”
“Zeke Black.” Wiggins remembered the name. “He sure doesn’t like us nosing around.”
“And then there was the funny-looking fellow with no chin,” Owens chimed in.
“Does he work for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West?” Jennie asked. “They’ve been here almost four months. But Silent Eagle said that fellow came from the ship that just arrived from America—the one that brought the buffalo. Zeke Black brought him.”
“All right, so we have two men connected to the constable.” Owens rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Where do we go from here?”
“Let’s just suppose that Zeke Black is the attacker,” Wiggins said. “Working backstage, it would have been easy enough for him to get hold of Buffalo Bill’s gun. He could have been around the stables that evening.”
Wiggins leaned back in his seat. “When Mr. Holmes investigates a crime, he looks for certain things, like the means of committing the crime and how the guilty person had the chance to commit it. We’ve just gone over those. Another thing Mr. Holmes looks for is the motive. Why would Zeke Black attack and scalp a copper?”
“Why would the chinless bloke do it?” Dooley asked in frustration.
“Scalping would set people looking in the wrong direction,” Jennie replied. “Everyone would blame the attack on an Indian.”
“And there are nearly a hundred of them at the Wild West camp,” Wiggins said.
“But why would Zeke Black go after Mr. Pryke?” Dooley asked.
Wiggins raised a hand. “First things first. Why would Zeke Black use the gun on the copper?”
“A gun with blanks,” Owens added. “He’d know that—he’s part of the show.”
Jennie looked up from her scribbling. “When Inspector Desmond tried to speak to Turnbuckle at the hospital, all he managed to say was ‘smuggling’ and ‘buffalo.’ ”
“ ‘Smuggling,’ ” Owens repeated, “and Zeke Black brought the buffalo from a ship that had just come from America.”
“Maybe that ship brought more than buffalos, ” Wiggins muttered.
“Well, we know it brought the chinless man too,” Jennie said. “Perhaps he was the buffalo’s minder.”
“That gink didn’t know nothing about how to handle the beast.” Dooley’s voice was scornful.
“So his coming along wasn’t much help,” Wiggins said.
Owens laughed. “More like the opposite.”
Wiggins nodded. “If Chinless had no experience with animals, why did Zeke bring him along?”
He snapped his fingers. “Remember what Buffalo Bill told us when we asked him about smuggling? He didn’t think any of his people could be involved because they wouldn’t have the connections with people on the ships.”
Owens grinned. “But Zeke Black seems to have had a friend on this ship.”
With a loud whoosh of steam, the train jerked to a halt. Jennie glanced out the window. “This is our stop!”
The train’s conductor gave the members of the Raven League a dirty look as they barely managed to get off the train in time. They stood on the station platform, enveloped in cloud
s of steam and smoke.
“I hope you got all that written down,” Dooley told Jennie.
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be forgetting it very soon.” Wiggins reached into his pocket. “Right now, though, we have a little business to take care of.” He fished out half a crown and plopped the heavy coin into Jennie’s hand. After a moment’s thought, he added a few shillings more. “Will that be enough to feed Silent Eagle and get him a new set of clothes?”
She jingled the coins in her fist. “More than enough if I can get my friend Jacob to help.”
Wiggins glanced at Owens. “Would you help too—with the carrying and such?”
Owens shot him a suspicious look. “And what will you be doing all the while?”
“Dooley and I will be visiting the docks,” Wiggins replied. “Most everything that comes into London— legal and illegal—has to pass through there. The folks that work in the area have to see things.”
He smiled at Dooley. “We need to learn about smuggling, and I’m hoping that some friend or other of your father’s will have something to teach us.”
Chapter 12
WIGGINS TOOK A DEEP BREATH, RELISHING THE BRACKISH smell in the air. He and Dooley had spent hours walking the docks, but Wiggins never tired of coming down here. On the few cases for Mr. Holmes that involved the river, he’d run into some truly amazing characters. Even the villains and scoundrels were more colorful than the common thugs of London’s underworld.
There were men from many countries—India, Africa, even the South Sea Islands. And there was the booty—ivory, gold, even lost treasures of precious jewels.
Now it appeared that this case, even though it started with an Indian from America, was leading in the same direction. Down to the sea.
Well, at least down to the river, Wiggins corrected himself. He wondered if his friend shared his feelings about the docklands, especially since Dooley’s father worked on land and sea as a carpenter and laborer. Certainly Dooley knew a lot of the dockworkers and sailors, and the boys had spent some time talking to many of them.
“So far we haven’t learned much.” Dooley sighed as they moved along the wharves. The cargo boats here seemed large enough to an ignorant landsman’s eye, but Wiggins knew far-larger vessels pulled into the gigantic dockyards to load or unload cargo, while even larger oceangoing ships often put in farther downriver, closer to the sea.
“Most of the workers we spoke to wouldn’t even talk to us once we mentioned smuggling.” Wiggins poked Dooley with an elbow. “I hope that means they’re honest men.”
Dooley pulled his jacket closer, shivering. “I was thinking the same thing. What if word gets back to the people we’re looking for?”
“That’s why we’re only talking to friends of your father,” Wiggins replied, “and why I made up that story we’re telling them. So don’t give up. Now, who’s next?”
Dooley pointed toward a teetering wreck of a flophouse held up, it seemed, only by the wisps of incoming fog. “That’s where Old Crowe lives.”
“Who?”
“Old Barnabas Crowe,” Dooley replied. “He’s been a sailor since before my father was even born.”
Dooley squinted again as a short, dark figure exited the run-down building. “There he is! Come on!”
The two boys easily caught up with the old seaman, who seemed in no hurry to go anywhere in particular.
“Why, it’s young William O’Dare,” Barnabas Crowe declared cheerfully. “’Ow are ye, lad?”
Dooley grinned and shook his head. “I’m fine, and it’s Doolan, sir —Dooley to my friends. You know my da. He works on—”
“Half the rigs on these docks,” the old man finished for him. “Course I know him. What old salt worth his cast wouldn’t?” He seemed to notice Wiggins for the first time. “Who be ye, boy?”
“This is Wiggins,” Dooley answered eagerly. “He’s my friend, and—”
“I was about your age when I went to sea,” Crowe told Wiggins. “That was on the old Venture. Grand ship out of . . .” He scratched his head. “Now, what was that port?”
“Sounds like a great story, sir,” Wiggins said politely. “We’ve been trying to find out something very important, and Dooley thought you might have the answers.”
“If it has anything to do with the sea, I’m your man.” The old seaman took a seat on a nearby crate and motioned for the boys to do the same. “What’s your question?”
Wiggins took a second to recall the details of his prepared story. “A friend of ours is in trouble,” he explained. “He found some goods that didn’t belong to him—”
“Stole ’em?” The old seaman scowled. “Got no time to palaver with a thief.”
“No, sir,” Dooley quickly declared. “He didn’t steal nothing, and neither did we!”
“That’s right,” Wiggins added. “We think the, uh, things he found were brought here by smugglers. And if we don’t find out who they are, our friend could wind up in trouble with the law.”
“Smugglers, eh?” Barnabas Crowe rubbed his stubbled chin. “Now, there’s a scurvy lot, to be sure.”
Wiggins and Dooley leaned forward eagerly.
“They run about every port in the world the way rats swarm through the sewers,” Crowe told them. “They’ll steal anything, lie through their teeth, and slit your throat for a tumbler of gin and a song.”
Dooley shuddered and then glanced around the almost-empty street. Wiggins tried to appear as if this were old news to him, but he felt almost as uneasy as his friend.
“Seen ’em in every port I traveled,” the old seaman went on.
“Even here in London?” Wiggins asked.
“Oh, aye,” Old Crowe replied. “More here than in most places. That’s because London is a rich port city.”
Crowe fumbled in his old peacoat to pull out a stained clay pipe. “Even with open trade, there still be bounty that folks want, but the law says otherwise.”
“Like what?” Dooley asked. All around, the evening fog began to roll in. The buzz of a busy and crowded seaport slowly faded, replaced by the sound of lapping waves and a calm but eerie quiet.
“Folks might want to bring goods in without giving the queen her due.”
Seeing the puzzled expression on Dooley’s face, he explained, “They don’t want to pay no duty, uh, taxes, on tea, tobacco, and suchlike. If they get caught, it’s off to prison, and their goods are burned here on the docks.” He frowned as he lit his pipe. “Burnin’ good tobacco. You’d think they could give it away free.”
“Is that all they smuggle?” Wiggins asked.
Old Crowe laughed. “No, no, lad. All sorts of things come through. Opium, I hear—and even people.”
“People!” Dooley exclaimed.
“I hear tales.” The seaman blew smoke from between his yellow teeth. “How do you think all the Chinese folk are turning up in Limehouse?”
Wiggins knew some of the old tales of brandy and wine being smuggled in from the Continent, but this sounded much bigger. “How can they get away with it?” he asked in amazement. “The police must know what you know.”
“Ha!” The sarcasm in Crowe’s voice was thick. “Nay, laddie, they know some of what I know. But ye have to realize that the smugglers have been at this longer than there’s been a law.”
The old sailor closed his eyes thoughtfully. “Some of those gangs go back three or four generations,” he said. “Their course is sure and their channels clear.”
Crowe opened his eyes and must have noticed the boys’ confusion. “I mean, they have all their connections set, all the right people in place.”
Both boys nodded. Colonel Cody had told them much the same thing earlier.
“There’s captains, crews, and port officials to be paid off,” Crowe went on. “Then, once you’ve got your cargo past them—and the honest lawmen—you need a place to hold your goods till your . . . customers come for them.”
“Sounds like a lot of business to take care of,” Wiggin
s commented.
“I told you, lad.” Crowe relit his pipe and took a few short puffs. “Some of the best smugglers been at this a long time. In fact, many fine old merchant families made their fortunes from smuggling rum, spices, and slaves.”
“Old families?” Wiggins mused aloud.
“You mean some of the posh folks was criminals? ” Dooley gasped.
“Still are.” Crowe snorted. “Along with the folks they put in office.”
Now Wiggins rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Could Pryke be involved in smuggling? Mr. Shears said he used to have a shabby little office, but now he was moving up the ladder of importance.
Maybe he was involved in smuggling, and some of his cronies turned on him—beat him up, Wiggins pondered. Maybe Zeke was one of those cronies. If so, what were they smuggling?
“Aye, they’re a wild bunch of gentry, they are,” Crowe added, speaking more to himself than the boys. “And to hear them talk, nobody can outsail, outfight, or outdrink ’em. But I showed ’em. Showed ’em up good.” A leer appeared on the old man’s craggy face. “I can ’andle me drink and me fists.”
“You had to fight ’em?” Wiggins asked, trying not to seem too eager. “Where?”
“Quite a few places,” Old Crowe admitted. “Never too far from pier or port. Smugglers, they like being close to water in case they have to leave sudden-like.”
“But where in London?” Wiggins pressed.
“Oh, pubs like the Oak and Ivy, the Midnight Flit, the Bucket. Dangerous places, they be. Best keep your teeth in your head, your back to the wall, and your coin out of sight.”
“We will,” Dooley assured him.
“Eh?” Crowe blinked, jarred out of his memories.
“Nothing, sir,” Wiggins said, grabbing Dooley by the arm. “He was just caught up in your story.”
Crowe eyed them suspiciously. “Don’t you be goin’ near them places, boys,” he warned in earnest. “One wrong word or step and they’ll find your bodies in the Thames.”
The warning hit home for both boys. The memory of Dooley’s brother, Tim, found floating in the river, was still fresh and painful.