by Holly Webb
She looked so pale and sad that Maisie pulled her up and marched her across the hallway to the back stairs. “You need a cup of tea,” she said firmly. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”
Maisie steered Alice down the stairs and into the little passageway that led to the kitchen and scullery, and her tiny bedroom. As Maisie led her friend into the kitchen, Mr Smith jumped up, dropping the peeling knife.
“Good gracious! Miss Alice!” Gran turned round from the stove to stare. “Whatever’s the matter with you, child? You’re as white as skimmed milk. Here, Maisie, sit her down.”
“She’s upset, Gran. She’s got to go away.” Maisie explained about China and the lost ships, while Gran and Mr Smith stared at Alice, and Alice stared at her hands in her lap.
“Oh dear. Oh dear me,” Gran murmured, when Maisie had finished. “That’s a terrible thing. China! Such a long way away…”
“It isn’t right,” Mr Smith muttered suddenly. He had been silent all the way through Maisie’s story, and now both girls jumped when he spoke. “Not right to take such a little thing all that way. Look at her. She’s not made for the sun.”
Maisie eyed Alice. She understood what Mr Smith meant. Her friend was always pale, even when she wasn’t miserable, and she had been thin and delicate-looking ever since she had been ill a few months before.
“Nor for a long sea voyage either,” Mr Smith added, shaking his head. “It’s just not right.”
“My stepmama said the same thing,” Alice told him, looking up at last. “She said it wasn’t a healthy place to take a young lady. But then she hugged me and said that perhaps we would grow used to the heat after all and she was going to take the most special care of me.”
“Why don’t you—?” Maisie started to ask, and then she stopped. She had been going to ask why Alice didn’t just go back to Miss Prenderby’s Academy for Young Ladies, the boarding school that she had attended while her father and stepmother went on their wedding trip. Even though there had been a spate of thefts while Alice was at the school, and one particularly horrible girl who had bullied everyone, Maisie knew that Alice had enjoyed being there. It had been so different from her quiet life at home with a governess.
But just as Maisie had started to say it, she had remembered that Miss Prenderby’s was probably dreadfully expensive. Several of the young ladies were the daughters of lords, after all, and there had once been a girl at the school who was almost a princess, or would have been if several cousins had obligingly died.
Maisie frowned and went on. “Why don’t you come and stay with us?” Then she looked up at Gran guiltily. It wasn’t really up to her to invite people to stay. And Alice’s parents might not be able to pay much for lodging now. Besides, they didn’t have any rooms free.
But Gran was nodding. “She’d have to share your room, Maisie,” she murmured, thinking it out. “Goodness knows how we’ll fit another bed in there, but Miss Barnes next door would let us have that old canvas cot she keeps in the attic, perhaps. That wouldn’t take up much room.”
Alice stared at Maisie and her gran with widening eyes. “You’d really let me?” she asked shyly. “Do you mean it?”
Maisie nodded back – she felt shy, too, all of a sudden. “It wouldn’t be like your lovely bedroom,” she said quietly. “Gran’s right, we’ll hardly have room to move. And you might miss your parents. Oh! We haven’t even thought! What will they say? Will they let you stay without them?”
Alice nodded. “I think so. Mama really was worried about the heat making me ill. And Papa is concerned that something unsavoury is going on.
He would be glad to leave me behind in London, if he knew that I would be looked after. He likes you, Maisie – and I’m sure he would see that you would be a very good person for me to stay with, Mrs Hitchins,” she added. She stood up, looking a great deal better. “I shall go home at once and ask.”
Alice’s father and stepmother sailed for China two days later. Maisie and Alice and Gran went to see them off at Alice’s house, the two girls waving their handkerchiefs as the carriage jingled away. Alice had cried a little as her parents climbed into the carriage, but only a tiny bit, and then she wiped her eyes determinedly and hugged Maisie tight.
“I do hope they find out who sank those ships,” Maisie murmured, as the carriage disappeared at the end of the road.
Alice’s father’s mystery did sound so very like the notes in her father’s book, which was hidden under her bed in its beautiful Chinese wooden box. It could even be part of the same mystery… Maisie gave a tiny sigh. She could see why Alice hadn’t wanted to go to China, but it would be so exciting to travel all that way…
“I wish we could help,” Alice whispered, as they hurried back to Albion Street after Gran. “Don’t you think we could, Maisie? Somehow?”
“Maybe.” Maisie nodded. “Maybe…”
“What’re you two doing, then?”
The growly voice made Maisie and Alice jump. They’d been sitting on the stairs from the hallway, talking with their heads close together, and they hadn’t noticed Mr Smith coming down the stairs behind them.
Snowflake, Alice’s white cat, sat up and glared at him haughtily, and her two kittens, Blanche and Lulu, peered out from behind the table legs in the hall. Maisie had left Eddie down in the kitchen with his favourite bone. He was still very miffed about sharing the house with the cats, especially since Snowflake had scratched his nose when he’d sniffed at her. But Alice could hardly have left them all behind. Maisie was hoping that they would get used to each other soon, but at the moment both Eddie and the cats seemed to be sulking.
Maisie jumped up. “Sorry, Mr Smith. We were just chatting.” She smiled at him. “If Gran sees me downstairs sitting still, she gives me jobs to do. I just wanted to talk to Alice.”
“And Mrs Hitchins doesn’t like me helping,” Alice put in. “She says I shouldn’t, because I’m a young lady, and also because my papa is paying for my board and lodging. But I like helping. I do the dusting for Maisie when her gran isn’t looking.”
“You’re good girls.” Mr Smith nodded. “You sit back down, Maisie. I ain’t got nothing needs doing this minute. What were you two so worried about that you didn’t hear me thumping down the stairs?” He sat down himself, a few steps further up, sticking his short legs straight out with a sigh – he had rheumatism, it was one of the reasons he’d given up his life at sea.
Maisie and Alice exchanged glances. Mr Smith knew about the sea, and ships. Maisie had told Alice about her father’s notes – having sworn her to secrecy first – and they were both determined that they had to find out more. But they just weren’t sure how to go about it. Perhaps Mr Smith would be able to help?
Alice nodded at Maisie, and Maisie began to explain. “It’s Alice’s father. We’re worried about him, you see. We were thinking about investigating the case here in London, too.”
Mr Smith frowned and turned to Alice. “But your father did that, didn’t he? He didn’t just go haring off to China without trying to find out what was happening here first. How do you two think you’re going to discover anything he didn’t?”
Maisie shrugged. “Well, everyone at the shipping office would know Alice’s father, wouldn’t they?” she pointed out. “He couldn’t really ask questions like a detective. No one would tell him anything, in case they got into trouble.”
Mr Smith eyed her thoughtfully. “S’pose you’ve got something there,” he admitted. “So what’re you planning to do, then?”
Maisie sighed. “That’s what we were trying to work out,” she admitted. “We don’t know where to start. Alice knows more about the shipping business than I do.”
“But I don’t know very much.” Alice shook her head. “We were thinking we could go and look round my father’s warehouse at the docks.”
Mr Smith sniffed. “Not much of a place for young ladies, down there,” he muttered disapprovingly.
Maisie tried not to roll her eyes. Mr Smith was only being ki
nd, but sometimes she wished that people would understand – she was a detective first and a young lady second.
“What if the ships didn’t really go down,” she asked Mr Smith. “What if it was all a big trick, so someone could sell off the cargoes and the ships, too? Or just repaint them and call them something else. Then the person who really owned the ship – Alice’s father – would lose out, but the thief would have a whole new ship, wouldn’t they?”
Mr Smith growled. “That’s an old, old trick. But I can’t say I didn’t think of it, Miss Alice, when you were telling your story the other day. It could be, could be… Dangerous, though. We old sailors, we know a ship we’ve sailed on. A paint job wouldn’t fool us.”
Maisie nodded. That’s exactly what had happened – her father had recognized his old ship.
“And you’d need a crooked crew, to carry off a swindle like that,” Mr Smith added. “Though I suppose that ain’t so hard to find. And somewhere to get rid of the cargo, afterwards…”
“Do you think any of the ships would come here?” Maisie asked. “The London docks are huge, aren’t they? Wouldn’t they be a good place to offload the stolen cargoes?”
Mr Smith gave a little snort of laughter. “You’re right there. Proper old rabbit warrens, those docks are. Who knows what disappears in and out of there.”
He stared at the girls, frowning a little. “Just you be careful, you hear? Don’t go sniffing around too deep. Watch yourselves…”
“Maisie! Maisie!”
For once, Maisie was glad to hear Gran calling for her, even though she knew it probably meant more chores. She didn’t like the look on Mr Smith’s face. It was as though he was about to tell them they shouldn’t be heading down to the docks at all.
Of course, they’d still have to go, even if he did warn them off. But perhaps they had better take precautions, Maisie thought, and then she grinned to herself. She knew just the thing…
“You want me to disguise both of you?” Miss Lane’s eyes brightened. “Oh yes. Oh, it’s such an age since I’ve dressed you up as a boy,
Maisie. What fun!”
Miss Lane was the actress who lodged in the rooms on the top floor of 31 Albion Street. She wasn’t home all that often, as she was busy performing in a new musical revue. But as it was the middle of the morning the girls had managed to catch her not only in but awake. Miss Lane had a huge stock of clothes that she had worn for various parts, and stage make-up, too. She had dressed Maisie to look like a boy before, when Maisie had been trying to solve the mystery of the missing money at the local butcher’s, where George worked.
Miss Lane pushed Alice into the middle of the room and strolled around her thoughtfully. “Tricky,” she said at last. “Definitely tricky. You’re so fair, dear. Not boyish at all.”
“She never goes out in the sun, that’s why,” Maisie sighed. “Or not without a parasol, anyway.”
Alice smiled at her. “It’s very boring, you know, always having to wear a hat and gloves, and never getting your nice white boots grubby. Wearing scruffy boys’ clothes sounds blissful.”
Miss Lane twirled a lock of Alice’s silvery-fair hair around her finger. “I suppose we can hide this under a cap. And darken up your cheeks with greasepaint.” She smudged some brownish colour expertly over Alice’s skin, then she frowned at the rich child’s pretty hands, the skin white and soft. “You’ll simply have to take her out into the yard and make her scrabble around in some mud,” she told Maisie. “No one will ever believe she’s a ragamuffin boy with hands like that.”
Maisie nodded, and Miss Lane flitted about her rooms, finding caps and jackets and mufflers, which she held up against Maisie and Alice, muttering to herself. “Perhaps this one? No, no, not quite right. Here, put this waistcoat on.” The two girls stared at each other, fascinated. All traces of the rich little girl that Alice had been disappeared as she pulled on the tattered garments.
“You look quite different,” Maisie murmured to Alice. “You’ll have to talk to match, you know.”
Alice gazed back at her worriedly. “Will I? I don’t know how…”
“Try and sound like George,” Maisie suggested. “Just a bit … less nice. And growlier.”
Alice made a gruff, squawky sort of noise that sounded a bit like “Hello”.
Eddie came out from under Miss Lane’s bed where he’d been snoozing and glared at her suspiciously. Then he started to bark, walking round and round the girls, and eyeing them both as though he thought they might be burglars.
“Eddie!” Maisie crouched down to rub his ears. “It’s us, you silly dog. You’ve seen me like this before. Stop it! Shh!”
Eddie sank down, growling a little. He didn’t like Alice’s appearance one bit.
“Well, it must be a good disguise if even Eddie couldn’t tell it was me,” Alice said, peering into the mirror. “I don’t think I look like me at all! But I’m really not sure about changing my voice, Maisie. Maybe I’d better just not talk to anyone?”
Maisie nodded. “Maybe. I suppose if you wrap that muffler around your throat, we can say that you’ve got a cold if anyone asks.”
The two girls thanked Miss Lane and headed cautiously down the stairs to the ground floor. Maisie didn’t have any more housework to do – with Alice to help she could get her chores done faster than usual. But Gran would be horrified to see them dressed up in boys’ clothes, especially Alice. She was supposed to be looking after Alice for her father, not letting her go out in a most improper disguise.
They slipped out of the front door to avoid having to go through the kitchen, and Maisie held her breath until they were round the corner of Albion Street. They were out! They’d done it! Alice hugged Maisie and did a little dance step round the pavement.
“Is that you, Maisie?” someone asked uncertainly.
Maisie spun round. “No,” she muttered, lowering her voice as much as she could.
“Yes, it is,” George said, peering at her red curls, which were tucked up under a cap. “I thought someone had stolen that dog of yours at first. What are you doing? And who’s he?”
Alice giggled, and George looked at her more closely. “Oh! Sorry, Miss Alice.”
“Shh!” Alice told him in a stern whisper. “I’m a boy. My name’s, um, Albert.”
“Be quiet, George. You’ll spoil everything. We’re detecting – go away!” Maisie said crossly.
George sniffed. “Well, don’t go dancing about and cuddling each other in the middle of the street, then. And don’t bring the dog! Half the butcher’s boys in London probably know him, sausage thief that he is.”
Maisie sighed. Eddie had only stolen sausages from George once, but he’d never let her forget it. “He’s right, Alice. We’d better be more careful. Remember you’re a boy. Put your hands in your pockets and try to slouch a bit.”
Alice nodded and hunched her shoulders up to her ears, which made George snort with laughter. “Where are you two off to, anyway?”
“The docks,” Maisie whispered.
George frowned. “What, on your own?”
“There’s two of us. And Eddie,” Maisie pointed out.
George eyed them doubtfully, and Maisie gave a tiny sigh. She knew he wanted to say something like, “But you’re just girls…” If Alice hadn’t been there, he’d have said it straight out, but she was a proper young lady, and he was being polite.
“We’d better be going,” she said firmly. She went to take Alice’s hand, then remembered that they were grubby boys and grabbed her sleeve instead.
When she glanced back at the corner of the road, George was still staring after them worriedly.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Maisie whispered to Alice, as she looked up at the huge buildings. They had taken an omnibus and then walked down the Commercial Road to the East India Docks, where Alice’s father had a warehouse. It had taken a very long time to get there, and Maisie felt oddly nervous. Usually she loved strange places and new people, but the docks f
elt like another world, somehow separated from the rest of London. Another city almost. They were so large that she and Alice had been able to see the ships and buildings as they came down the road towards the huge arched entrance. The great masts loomed over the walls and warehouses, dark against the grey sky.
“Oh yes.” Alice nodded confidently. “Papa brought me here several times. Don’t worry, Maisie. I know my way around.”
But Maisie couldn’t help feeling anxious. She hadn’t expected the docks to have such high walls – they wouldn’t be able to sneak in unnoticed, as she’d planned. Instead, they’d have to march through the archway and look as though they were meant to be there.
“No one will suspect us, Maisie,” Alice promised. “Most of the men here come every morning to ask for work. They’ll be taken on if there’s a ship to be unloaded, and if there isn’t, they won’t make any money that day. It’s a hard life. But it means that we can be two boys hoping to earn pennies running errands or carrying boxes.”
“I suppose so,” Maisie murmured, trying to march along confidently as they passed through the archway. She needn’t have worried, as no one seemed to be taking the slightest bit of notice.
In front of them sprawled the great enclosed import dock, surrounded by wharves – long platforms for the ships to moor up against. Alice had tried to explain all the different words to Maisie, but it was confusing. At least the dock basin was what it sounded like, though. As far as Maisie could tell, it was just a big bowl of water. The ships waited there to go through the locks and on into the docks themselves. The locks were like gates that shut the docks off from the river, so that the ships moored in them stayed level even when the river went up and down with the tides. Otherwise, Alice had pointed out, the ships would be moving up and down while they were being unloaded.