by Anthony Read
“In here, was she? With him?”
“That’s correct,” Mr Trump said. “I can vouch for the verisimilitude of that.”
“She could be in terrible danger!” Beaver cried. “We gotta find her. Quick.”
He turned to go, but Lestrade signalled to a large police constable standing in the corridor, who blocked his way.
“Nobody leaves this theatre, my lad, until I say so,” Lestrade told him. “This Rosie has obviously run away because she was in league with the murderer. She probably let him in through the window. Unless it was somebody else already in the building.”
He leaned over the body and pulled the knife out of Marvin’s back. It was a long stiletto with a sharply pointed blade dripping with blood. He held it up under the nose of Mr Trump, who gulped and turned quite pale.
“I understand that one of your acts is a knife-thrower,” the inspector said with great seriousness.
Sparrow was sent to fetch Signor Macarelli, who arrived on the scene looking very agitated, loudly protesting his innocence and his ignorance of anything that had happened. His wife followed him down the corridor, weeping and wailing even more loudly. Lestrade glared at them.
“Now then, Mr Macaroni,” he began.
“Macarelli,” the knife-thrower corrected him. “Is a Macarelli. I notta pasta.”
“Never mind all that,” Lestrade continued, speaking very slowly and loudly and separating each word, although Signor Macarelli understood English perfectly well. “Do … you … know … anything … about … this?”
He pointed to Marvin’s body, then held up the knife. Signor Macarelli examined it with professional interest, then shook his head. His wife let out a howl behind him.
“Is-a no’ mine,” he said. “Is-a trash made in America, not Italia. No good for throw, only for stabbing.”
And he demonstrated by miming a stabbing so realistically that the Boys and Mr Trump all shuddered with horror. Signora Macarelli howled again, louder than ever.
“Well, it’s good for that, right enough,” Lestrade replied. “Very well, Signor, you … can … go … back … to … your … room … for … now.”
“And take your wife with you,” added Mr Trump. “Please!”
As Signora Macarelli’s sobs and moans died away down the corridor, Lestrade moved around the dressing room, looking for clues. The three Boys watched him closely, in case they spotted anything he might have missed.
“It would appear,” said the inspector, opening the bag into which Marvin had been stuffing his clothes and belongings, “that our mind-reader was intending to make a hurried departure but was interrupted by his murderer. Interesting… Now, what have we here?”
He opened a long wardrobe and looked at the clothes hanging inside.
“Rosie’s clothes!” Sparrow exclaimed.
“That means wherever she’s gone, she’s still wearing her stage costume,” Wiggins declared.
“Mary’s stage costume,” Sparrow corrected him.
“Why didn’t she get changed?” Beaver worried. “She’ll catch her death of cold out there.”
“Quiet!” shouted Lestrade. “I’m the one who asks the questions here!”
“Sorry, Inspector,” said Wiggins courteously. “Do go on. Please.”
Lestrade gave him a hard stare – he had sounded uncomfortably like Sherlock Holmes letting the inspector make a fool of himself.
“Clearly,” he said, “the girl was in too much of a hurry making her escape. But she’ll discover she cannot escape from Scotland Yard. We shall find her. We shall find them both – Rosie and Mary. I shall start a manhunt.”
“Don’t you mean girl-hunt?” Wiggins asked innocently.
“And your bearded villain,” Lestrade went on, ignoring the interruption. “I shall circulate their details to every member of the Metropolitan Police Force. We shall cast a net over the whole of London.”
He looked around the room again and nodded.
“Nothing more to do here, apart from removing the body,” he said. “So you lot can go home.”
He waved the Boys to the door, but as they turned, Sparrow caught sight of a small square of paper on the floor near Marvin’s body. He bent down to pick it up.
“Look, Inspector,” he called out. “What’s this?”
Lestrade glanced at the paper.
“A note?” he asked. “Anything written on it?”
“No,” Sparrow told him. “There ain’t nothin’ on it, ’cepting a bit of blood.”
“Which is not surprising,” Lestrade replied, handing it back to him. “Obviously of no importance.”
Sparrow was not so sure. He wondered if it might be the piece of paper that had been handed to Marvin in the audience that had given him such a shock. He tried to tell the inspector this, but Lestrade cut him short and sent him on his way. Sparrow shrugged, slipped the paper into his pocket and followed Wiggins and Beaver out.
“What we gonna do about Rosie, then?” Beaver asked when they got outside the stage door. “What d’you think’s happened to her?”
“Probably took fright and scarpered,” Wiggins said. “I know if I’d seen somethin’ like that, I’d have got out fast as I could and run all the way home. I reckon that’s where she’ll be – safe and sound at HQ.”
But Rosie was not safe and sound at HQ. When the three Boys arrived back, they found no sign of her. At first the others could not understand why Wiggins, Beaver and Sparrow were so worried.
“Rosie’ll be all right,” said Gertie. “Sure and doesn’t she know the streets round here as well as anyone.”
“I dare say she’s lyin’ low somewhere,” Queenie said. “She’s a sensible girl, after all.”
“Course she is,” Shiner agreed, then asked eagerly, “Was there a lot of blood?”
“Not as much as you might think,” Beaver told him. “Course, it could have all been underneath the body…”
“Oh, please, don’t,” Mary begged, bursting into tears. “I can’t stand it.”
“Sorry,” Beaver apologized. “I oughta have thought – him bein’ your stepdad and all…”
Queenie put her arms around Mary and gave her a hug. But it didn’t seem to comfort her.
“It’s all my fault,” she cried. “I better give myself up to the police.”
“Don’t talk so daft,” Wiggins said. “What good’s that gonna do anybody?”
“I know I hated him, but I never wanted him murdered. I could tell them that.”
“They wouldn’t listen to you. Not Inspector Lestrade. All he’d do is lock you up in a orphanage, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
Mary shook her head.
“An orphanage … gee, I guess it would be. If I can’t find my ma’s family, I got nobody now…”
“Just like the rest of us, love,” said Queenie cheerfully. “So you’d best stick with us.”
“Anyway,” Wiggins continued, “if you did go to the police, you’d only be getting us into trouble.”
“How come?”
“They’d say we lured you away from the theatre. Might even think we had something to do with the murder.”
“Oh, no!” Mary looked quite shocked. “They couldn’t!”
“You don’t know old Lestrade like I do. No, best thing you can do is stop ’ere with us till Mr Holmes and Dr Watson gets back. If anybody can find your family it’s Mr Holmes.”
“You really think he could?”
“Course. Mr Holmes can do anything.”
“And if he can’t,” Sparrow assured her, “we will.”
Mary managed a weak smile, and Queenie gave her another hug.
“Come on,” she said, “it’ll be morning afore we knows where we are. Time we all got some shut-eye.”
Reminded of how late it was, and how tired they were, most of the Boys began yawning and rubbing their eyes.
“What about Rosie?” Beaver asked. “I think I’ll go and look for her.”
“In the dark?
” Queenie said. “It’s pitch black out there.”
“Queenie’s right,” said Wiggins. “You’ll never see a thing. Best wait till morning.”
“She’ll be back by then, anyway,” Gertie said. “Just you wait and see.”
The others nodded sleepily, and headed for their beds. But Beaver was still worrying.
“It ain’t like her to stop out,” he muttered as he pulled his blanket round his head.
Despite his fears, he was so weary that he fell asleep at once. But he dreamed of Rosie being chased along dark streets and alleyways by a bearded man with a limp, brandishing a large knife dripping with blood.
The Black Spot
When the Boys woke the next morning, there was still no sign of Rosie. Beaver would have set out to search for her right away, but Wiggins said they had to plan what they were going to do, and where they were going to go. And Queenie insisted that they all have some breakfast first, even though it was only crusts again.
As he sat down and chewed on the stale bread, Sparrow dipped his hand into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the piece of paper he had picked up from the dressing-room floor. He smoothed it out and stared at it, trying to make sense of it.
“What you got there?” Shiner asked, and snatched it away.
“You give that back!” Sparrow yelled, trying to grab it. “I found it. It’s a clue!”
“Garn!” scoffed Shiner. “It’s only a bit of paper. What’s this on it?”
“Blood.”
“Marvin’s blood? Crikey…”
“No, it ain’t Marvin’s.”
“Whose is it then – the murderer’s?
“P’raps.”
The others fell silent as they heard this, staring with awe at the small square of paper. Wiggins picked it up and examined it carefully.
“Yeah, I reckon it’s blood right enough,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”
Sparrow told him about finding it next to the body, and how Lestrade had dismissed it as being unimportant.
“Why ain’t it Marvin’s blood, then?” Beaver asked.
“’Cos it was old,” Sparrow told him. “And dry. If it had been Marvin’s from the stabbin’, it’d have been fresh and sticky.”
“Good thinking,” Wiggins congratulated him. “We’ll make a detective out of you yet.”
“But that ain’t all,” Sparrow said, and proceeded to tell them about the man in the audience passing something to Marvin, and how Marvin had reacted.
“He was real scared,” he said. “He tried to hide it, but I could see.”
“Why didn’t you tell Lestrade about this?” Wiggins asked.
“I tried to, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Wiggins nodded thoughtfully, stroked his chin and studied the piece of paper again. The others watched him, waiting for words of wisdom.
“This ain’t no splash of blood,” he announced at last. “This has been done very careful. Look, it’s somebody’s thumb. Somebody’s pricked their thumb, or dipped it in blood, and pressed it down to make a mark right in the middle of the paper.”
“I know what it is!” Queenie exclaimed. “It’s the black spot!”
“Don’t be daft,” Shiner jeered. “Anybody can see that ain’t black.”
“Don’t matter,” said Queenie. “It’s the same thing.”
She told them about one of the books she used to read to her mother when she was really ill, a marvellous story called Treasure Island. It was all about pirates, she said, and when they’d tracked down one of them who’d cheated the others and stolen the treasure map, they gave him a piece of paper with a black spot in the middle of it, as a warning that if he didn’t give it back they would kill him.
“You mean Marvin was really a pirate?” Gertie asked. “Oh, my!”
“Of course he weren’t a pirate,” Wiggins told her. “Ain’t no such thing no more.”
“But he could have been a crook,” said Queenie. “He could have cheated on his mates and they could have been out to get him.”
“What d’you think, Mary?” Wiggins asked.
Mary thought hard for a moment, then said, “Yeah, could be. Maybe that’s why we had to leave America in such a hurry.”
“That’s it, then,” said Wiggins. “Marvin belonged to some secret society, like the Black Hand Gang, and he done the dirty on ’em. So they’d want their revenge. And this –” he held up the piece of paper – “was to let him know they’d caught up with him. That they were gonna kill him.”
The others stared in horror at the bloodstained paper. Then Queenie let out an anguished cry: “Rosie!”
The Boys began to panic at the thought of the danger Rosie was in, but Wiggins held up his hand and called for calm. There were two things that could have happened, he reasoned. The murderer could have taken Rosie, to keep her quiet. Or she could have escaped and was hiding somewhere, too scared to come out in case the murderer caught her.
“If she is hiding,” Wiggins said, “we gotta find her before the murderer does, and bring her back here.”
“Yeah, but what if he’s got her locked up somewhere? What do we do then?” Beaver asked.
“Keep our eyes peeled and our ears open for any clues to where she might be,” Wiggins answered. And ask everybody we know if they’ve seen the geezer with the black beard and the limp.”
Leaving Queenie to look after Mary, the remaining Boys set off on their hunt. Wiggins and Shiner went off in one direction, while Beaver and Gertie went the other way. They were soon poking into every corner and searching every nook and cranny, every back court and alleyway around Baker Street, calling Rosie’s name and questioning everybody they met. But it was soon obvious that the little flower girl was nowhere to be found.
Sparrow headed back to the theatre, to see if he could spot any clues that might have been missed the night before. The stage door was shut, so he crept round the side of the building and down the alley behind the dressing rooms. The window of Marvin’s room was closed, but Sparrow knew the catches on all the windows were old and worn, and he soon managed to undo it with his penknife. Glancing back to make sure nobody was watching, he climbed inside, carefully sliding the window shut behind him.
To his great relief, Marvin’s body had been taken away, though a large bloodstain showed where it had lain. He tiptoed carefully past this, and began looking around. But he had not got very far when he heard the sounds of someone in the corridor, and a key being inserted into the lock. His heart almost stopped beating as he saw the doorknob turning. There was no time to get back through the window. Instead, he yanked open the door to the wardrobe, dived inside and pulled it shut. Hiding behind Rosie’s clothes, he heard someone enter the room.
“This here’s his dressing room, madam,” came the familiar voice of Bert. “But I can’t let you go in.”
“Oh, please,” an American woman’s voice pleaded. “It’s real important to me … would this help?”
Sparrow heard the chink of coins, then Bert spoke again.
“Well, I don’t know. I got my job to think about …’
“It means so much to me,” the woman said. “It was a gift from my dear departed husband. It would break my heart to lose it.”
There was more chinking of coins.
“Well, just for a minute, mind,” said Bert.
“You are a dear, sweet man. Thank you so much.”
Sparrow huddled into the corner of the cupboard, hardly daring to breathe, listening to the sounds of the woman moving around the room. Please don’t let her look in here, he prayed.
“Where does this lead to?” she asked.
“It don’t lead nowhere, madam,” Bert answered. “That there’s a wardrobe.”
“A what?”
“Where the artistes hang up their things.”
“Oh, a clothes closet.”
“S’right.”
“Let’s take a look inside, shall we?”
Sparrow shrank back even further as the door sta
rted to open. Then it stopped at the sound of a new voice – the unmistakable, plummy tones of Mr Trump. Sparrow had never thought he would be pleased to hear the theatre manager’s voice, but he was now.
“May I enquire as to what is transpiring here?” Mr Trump asked.
“Oh, Mr Trump, sir,” Bert stammered. “I can explain.”
“You’d better, Bertram. And your explanation had better be good.”
“Oh, please, sir,” the woman said, sounding as sweet as honey. “Don’t be hard on him. It’s all my fault. You see, I lost something very precious in your theatre last evening, and this dear man was helping me look for it.”
“In a dressing room? At the scene of a gruesome murder?”
“I handed it to Mr Marvin during the show, for his little girl to identify, and somehow he never got around to returning it.”
“Why did you not ask him for it last night?”
“I would have, but when I tried to come backstage…” She broke off, and began sobbing. “Oh, it was just too, too awful…”
“Yes, yes,” Mr Trump said, clearly embarrassed. “Pray don’t distress yourself. What exactly was it you were seeking?”
“A locket, a dear little golden locket. I’m sure it was an oversight on Mr Marvin’s part not to return it, and I have no wish to involve the police, with all the bad publicity it would bring to the theatre …”
“The police searched this room most thoroughly last night, madam. I fear your locket could not be here. Perhaps it was dropped elsewhere in the theatre – in the auditorium, say. I shall instruct my cleaning staff to be especially vigilant in keeping a lookout for it.”
“Thank you. You are most kind.”
“Not at all. Now, Bertram, if you would secure this room again, and give me the key, I shall escort this lady from the premises.”
Sparrow heard the door close and the lock turn. Then there was silence and he could breathe again. His head was spinning. He couldn’t wait to tell Wiggins and Mary what he had just heard. He jumped out of the cupboard and dashed across the room, opened the window and climbed out. Then he hurried home to HQ as fast as his legs could carry him, with never a backward glance.