by Anthony Read
“Precisely,” Mr Elliot replied. “And while they’re wasting time looking for me, they’re not looking for the real killers.”
“Nor for Rosie,” said Queenie.
“What if they don’t believe you?” asked Gertie. “The coppers never believed my da’ when he told ’em he was innocent.”
“We’ll all come with you,” Sparrow chirped, “and tell ’em what really happened. We’ll make ’em believe you.”
“That’s right,” Mary joined in. “We’ll give them the locket and the ticket and all.”
“Fine,” said Beaver, “but how’s it gonna help us find Rosie?”
“I’ll tell you how,” said Wiggins. He had just had a brainwave, and his eyes were shining. “We can’t go to the crooks, ’cos we dunno where they are, right?”
“Right,” Beaver replied glumly.
“So we get the crooks to come to us!”
“How are you going to do that?” asked Mr Elliot.
“With this,” said Wiggins, and he picked up the ticket. “They’ve come all the way from America for this – and killed Marvin for it and kidnapped Rosie. So they must want it pretty bad.”
“Yeah,” said Shiner. “If they done all that, what they gonna do to us when they find out we got it?”
“Shiner’s right,” said Beaver. “How we gonna keep it quiet?”
“We ain’t,” Wiggins replied. “We’re gonna set a trap with this as the bait.”
The Boys all gazed at Wiggins in admiration. Yet again he had come up with a brilliant idea worthy of Mr Holmes himself.
“Excellent,” said Mr Elliot. “But how can you be so sure they’ll come for it?”
“They think it’s still inside the locket, don’t they?” Wiggins replied. “And they don’t know that we knows about it. So all we gotta do is sort of dangle the locket in front of ’em, and they’ll come running.”
“And how are you going to dangle it in front of them?”
“Ah, that’s where we’re gonna need a bit of help.”
“From whom?”
“From Inspector Lestrade. Come on, everybody – down to Scotland Yard. Quick!”
It was hard to convince Inspector Lestrade that Mr Elliot had not murdered Marvin. As the inspector said, he had a very good motive for wanting to kill the man who had taken his wife and daughter from him, and he had, after all, followed him all the way to London. But eventually, with the help of Mary and the Boys, Mr Elliot managed to persuade Lestrade that he was innocent and that Marvin had already been dead when he found him. Sparrow’s report of the American woman searching for the locket was a great help, especially since it could be corroborated by Bert and Mr Trump. And the ticket that Wiggins had found hidden inside it was final proof.
“All you’ve got to do now, Inspector,” said Mr Elliot, “is find that woman.”
“And the man what gave Marvin the black spot,” added Sparrow.
“Now what are you on about?” sighed Lestrade, staring at him as though he was mad.
Sparrow reached into his pocket, produced the piece of paper with the bloodstain on it, and handed it over.
“What’s this?” the inspector asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
“Don’t you remember?” said Sparrow. “It was in the dressing room, by the body. You didn’t think it was anythin’ important.”
“But it is,” Wiggins told him. “It’s the black spot.”
“Like in Treasure Island,” Queenie added. “Ain’t you never read Treasure Island, Inspector?”’
“Er, no,” Lestrade admitted. “I don’t have time for fairy tales.”
“Oh, it ain’t a fairy tale,” Queenie said. “It’s all about pirates and buried treasure and suchlike. You oughta read it.”
“I told you, young lady, I don’t have time for such frivolities. Now kindly stop wasting my precious time.”
His face was turning quite red with indignation, but Queenie was unperturbed.
“It’s a wonderful story,” she went on, and proceeded to tell him all about the black spot and what it meant. When she had finished, Sparrow told him how he had seen a man in the audience hand the paper to Marvin, and how Marvin had looked very scared.
“Why did you not tell me all this back at the theatre?” Lestrade demanded angrily. “Don’t you know it’s an offence to withhold information from a police officer?”
“I tried to, but you wouldn’t listen. And you said the paper didn’t mean nothin’.”
Lestrade’s face turned even redder.
“Humph!” he spluttered. “That was then. It now appears from fresh evidence that we are looking for two people. At least.”
“Don’t worry, Inspector,” Wiggins reassured him. “We’ll help you find ’em.”
Lestrade did not seem to be soothed by Wiggins’s offer. In fact, he looked as though he was about to explode with exasperation. But Wiggins just grinned cheekily at him.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said, and began to outline his plan. At first the inspector was very doubtful, but by the time Wiggins had finished, with enthusiastic support from Mr Elliot, he was almost won round.
“It is very, er, unorthodox,” he grumbled. “The sort of stunt that your friend Mr Holmes might try. But it just might work. Are you quite sure, though, that you could play your part?”
“Certain sure, guv’nor,” Wiggins answered. “Trust me.”
“And I’ll be helping him,” said Mary.
Lestrade looked at their two eager young faces, then sighed and nodded. “Very well,” he pronounced. “I may come to regret it, but I agree.”
The next day, all the newspapers in London carried reports on their front pages saying that Mary had been found, alive and well. Most of them had a picture of her, wearing her locket round her neck. Inspector Lestrade had circulated this news and the picture to the editors, asking them to report that she would be giving a special performance at the Imperial Music Hall that night. The proceeds, it was announced, would be used to pay for her to return home to America.
Wiggins and Lestrade had had to let Mr Trump into the secret – they would not have been able to use his theatre without his agreement. He had not been keen at first, even though he knew that the theatre would be packed. He soon changed his mind, however, when he was told that the ticket money would not really be used to pay for Mary’s fare and that he would be able to keep it all. After that he became very enthusiastic, happy at the thought of all the free publicity the Imperial would be getting. Only one thing still worried him.
“Who will be taking poor Mr Marvin’s place in the act?” he asked.
To the manager’s horror, Wiggins stepped forward.
“I will,” he said.
“You?! How can you possibly…?”
“S’all right – Mary’s gonna learn me.”
“Mary’s going to teach you,” Mr Trump corrected him automatically.
“That’s what I said. She’s gonna learn me all about it. Like she did with Rosie.”
“Humph,” Mr Trump snorted. “I always suspected there was something underhand transpiring in that respect.”
“Worked, though, didn’t it?”
“Only too well,” Mr Trump admitted. “If she had not been quite so convincing, the villains would not have mistaken her for Mary.”
“Don’t worry,” Lestrade said, “I don’t think anyone will mistake young Wiggins for Mr Marvin. And in any case, I shall have men posted throughout the theatre, keeping their eyes open for our villains.”
For the rest of that day, and most of the night, Wiggins and Mary practised and rehearsed. And when they woke up the next day after only a few hours’ sleep, they practised and rehearsed again, this time in the theatre, until Wiggins was word-perfect. The only breaks they had were for quick meals and costume fittings. Although Rosie had been wearing Mary’s best costume, Mary had a spare one, which was still hanging in the dressing-room cupboard. But Wiggins had nothing, and finding an evening-dress suit f
or him, complete with tailcoat and bow tie, was a problem – all the suits in the shops were for adult men, and would have been too big for him even if they were cut down.
It was Mr Trump who found the solution; he borrowed a suit from a famous woman performer who dressed up as a man in her act, and who was only slightly taller than Wiggins. It was a bit baggy for him, particularly around the chest and bottom, but that was soon put right with the help of a few safety pins and a clothes peg. With his hair plastered down with brilliantine he was ready to face the audience, looking every inch the seasoned performer.
The first part of the evening passed off uneventfully, with all the usual turns doing their stuff and enjoying the buzz of excitement in the theatre, even though they knew the excitement was not for them. Sparrow peered at the audience through the spy hole at the side of the stage, doing his best to remember what the man who had given Marvin the bloodstained paper looked like, and trying to see if he could spot him anywhere. He thought he saw someone like him standing at the back of the stalls, near the bar – but when he pointed out the man to Lestrade, the inspector told him that was one of his policemen in plain clothes. In fact, several of the more suspicious-looking characters in the audience turned out to be policemen in disguise. Sparrow gave up pointing them out when Lestrade began to get annoyed and stomped off to check on the men he had posted outside the theatre.
At last it was time for Wiggins and Mary to make their appearance. Behind the heavy red velvet curtain, Mary sat on a small golden chair in the centre of the stage, surrounded by potted palms. Wiggins took up his position at her shoulder while Mr Trump walked out in front of the curtain and called for a minute’s silence in memory of the murdered Marvin. The audience was suitably hushed, with most people bowing their heads and managing to look solemn for a full sixty seconds.
Then Mr Trump noisily cleared his throat and held out his arms. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!” he boomed. “And now, for your delectation, it is the Imperial Music Hall’s proud privilege to present to you a young lady who has displayed fantabulous fortitude following the tragic demise of her beloved paterfamilias and partner in performance, known to you as Mystic Marvin. By the greatest of good fortune, to support her tonight we have been able to call on the services of a remarkable young noviciate in the psychic skills of telepathic transcendentalism, a worthy successor to Mystic Marvin himself. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, for the first time on any public platform, Little Mary, Clairvoyant Extraordinaire, and the Amazing Arnoldo!”
The orchestra sounded a loud chord, followed by a long drum roll and a crash of cymbals, and the curtain rose to a burst of polite applause from the audience. The first sight of the packed house made Wiggins’s knees shake and his hands tremble with nerves. He was suddenly conscious that some of the brilliantine on his hair was melting in the heat of the stage lights and running down the side of his cheek, mingling with the perspiration on his face before trickling down his neck and into his collar. For a second or two he wanted to run off the stage and hide in the wings, but he gripped the back of Mary’s chair with one hand and bowed low to acknowledge the applause. Then he took a deep breath, stepped forward and held up one hand.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, trying to pitch his voice to reach the very back of the theatre, as Mary had taught him that afternoon. “My name is Arnoldo and this is my assistant, the lovely Little Mary. Tonight we will demonstrate to you the amazing powers of mentalism. In order to achieve this, I shall begin by hypnotizing Mary, so that her mind is completely receptive to the messages which I shall transmit to her.”
There was an expectant murmuring from the audience, and Wiggins held up his hand to stop it before continuing with Marvin’s patter.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “I must ask for complete silence while I induce a hypnotic trance in Mary. Any disturbance at this time – any disturbance whatsoever – could be highly dangerous to her.”
He leant over Mary and very deliberately lifted the locket and its chain from around her neck, then held it up to make sure everyone could see it clearly before he started swinging it before her eyes like a pendulum. Once she was supposedly hypnotized and he had performed the trick with the long sharp pin, he replaced the locket around her neck, again taking care that everyone could see it.
With the act under way, Wiggins found that he was actually beginning to enjoy himself, and he was soon climbing down from the stage and moving among the audience asking for objects for Mary to identify. He was doing so well that all eyes were on him as he held up each object and called out the coded words with complete confidence. So nobody noticed when one of the men who were standing at the bar put down his glass and slipped quietly away.
The policeman on duty in the alleyway behind the dressing rooms was feeling cold and bored. He had been watching and waiting all evening. Nothing had happened, he had seen nobody and he was sure he would not see anybody. This whole thing was a wild goose chase, he thought, and he would be glad when it was over and he could get back to the police station and a warm fire.
He perked up when a man came round the corner and approached him with a friendly smile.
“Constable,” the man said, addressing him with the voice of authority. “Any sign?”
“No, sir. Quiet as the grave.”
“Good. I have a message for you from the inspector. You’re to report to him at the stage door.”
“What, now, sir?”
“That’s right. I’ll keep watch here ’til you get back.”
The policeman nodded, pleased to have the tedium relieved. He began walking off – but as soon as he had passed, the man leapt at him. Moving like lightning, he pulled a cosh from his pocket, knocked off the policeman’s helmet and cracked him over the back of the head. The policeman fell to the ground, unconscious. In a few seconds, he was bound, gagged and dragged into a dark corner. The man glanced quickly around, then proceeded silently towards the dressing-room window.
The Game is Up
Wiggins and Mary finished their act to the sound of great applause, bowed to the audience, then walked off the stage as the curtain fell. Wiggins was so elated by their success that for a moment he quite forgot why they had been doing it. So did the other Boys, who had been watching from the wings and now clustered around them offering their congratulations. They were soon brought down to earth, however, as Inspector Lestrade greeted Wiggins with a sour face.
“I knew it wouldn’t work,” he said in a told-you-so kind of voice.
“You ain’t seen nobody, then?” Wiggins asked.
“Not a soul. Complete waste of time.”
“Hang on,” Wiggins replied, “the night ain’t over yet. You gotta let the dog see the rabbit.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, we flashed the locket so everybody could see it. Now we gotta give ’em the chance to try and collect it.”
“While you two are arguing,” Mary interrupted impatiently, “I’m going to get changed.”
She hurried off to the dressing room and closed the door behind her. A moment later, a piercing scream came from inside the room. It was Mary’s voice. Wiggins beat everyone in the race to the door, but it was locked from the inside. Lestrade joined him and Beaver in putting their shoulders to it. After three attempts, it splintered under their combined weight and crashed open. Inside, Mary was lying on the floor, clutching at her neck where the locket had been torn off.
“Look after Mary,” Wiggins yelled at Queenie and Sparrow as he dashed across the room to the open window.
At the end of the alley he could see a man just disappearing round the corner. Wiggins climbed out and gave chase, the tails of his evening coat flying out behind him, as Beaver, Gertie and Shiner scrambled through the window and joined in. As they rounded the corner they were just in time to see the man being driven off in one of the cabs that were always waiting outside the stage door. They tried to catch it, but it had too much of a
start and they were forced to turn back.
There was only one other cab waiting. They rushed up to it – but there was no driver to be seen. He was sheltering from the cold inside the theatre, enjoying a baked potato and a chat with Bert. Wiggins let out a yell of frustration, but Gertie was already climbing up into the driver’s seat.
“Get in!” she shouted. “We’ll catch ’em yet!”
“Can you drive this?” Wiggins asked.
“Sure. Didn’t I grow up in a caravan?” she replied. “Get aboard! Quick!”
Wiggins needed no second bidding. He, Beaver and Shiner piled into the cab as Gertie grabbed the reins, cracked the whip and ordered the horse to “Giddup!” In seconds they were careering along the street in hot pursuit of the other cab. Behind them, the driver came tumbling out of the stage door, shouting, “Stop, thief! Stop them! STOP, THIEF!” Lestrade, who was too old and too slow to climb through the dressing-room window, emerged from the door alongside him, tore off his bowler hat and flung it to the ground in rage.
Gertie had not driven for ages, but she had been taught well by her father and had not forgotten the skills they had practised together at gypsy horse fairs. There was little traffic on the London streets at that time of night, and she soon whipped up the cab horse from a fast trot to a canter and very nearly a gallop. While she whooped with delight and shouted encouragement to the horse, the Boys inside clung on desperately as the cab swayed and rattled and skittered over the cobbles, its iron-shod wheels striking showers of sparks from the stones.
But no matter how fast and furiously Gertie drove, the other cab had too much of a head start and there were too many turnings and junctions for her to keep it in sight. When they came to a crossroads there was no sign of it, and nothing to tell them which way it had gone. Gertie pulled the horse to a halt.
“It’s no use,” she called to Wiggins. “We’ve lost ’em. I’m sorry.”
To everyone’s surprise, Wiggins did not seem particularly upset.
“Don’t worry,” he told Gertie. “You did your best.”