by Anthony Read
“Well done, Gertie,” congratulated Wiggins. “You done a great job.”
“Yes,” Polly said gratefully. “Thank you. Thank you both. They’d have caught me, sure as eggs is eggs, if you hadn’t come to my rescue. They’d have locked me up in prison for years and years.”
“Nobody’s gonna lock you up in prison,” Beaver told her. “Not now you got the Baker Street Boys on your side. Right, everybody?”
The others nodded their agreement.
“You’re very lucky,” Wiggins said. “We don’t happen to have a case on just now. So we can start right away.”
“Can we have somethin’ to eat, first?” Gertie asked. “That stew smells good and I’m starvin’ after all that runnin’ about.”
“Good idea,” said Shiner, who was always hungry, even when he hadn’t been running about. “Polly can tell us all about it while we’re eatin’.”
Queenie served up the stew and everyone tucked in apart from Polly, who was too upset and worried to eat. She told them how she had been in service at Mountjoy House for about six months as a skivvy, the lowest of all the servants. She had been taken on as a ’tweeny – a between-floors maid – but soon found that she had to do the work of a scullery maid and general dogsbody as well, as Lady Mountjoy couldn’t afford to keep a full staff.
“So how many servants they got in that house?” Wiggins asked.
“Just the four of us since Lord Mountjoy died,” Polly said. “The butler, Mr Harper; the cook, Mrs Ford; Violet, her ladyship’s maid; and me.”
“Sounds like a lot of people to look after one lady,” said Rosie.
“There’s her brother as well. Mr Gerald. And her stepson, Maurice, but he’s away at boardin’ school most of the time.”
“Still sounds a lot to me,” said Sparrow.
“It’s not enough for a house that size. I have to work all the time, from the crack of dawn till last thing at night.”
“Was everybody in the house when the jewels went missing?” Wiggins asked.
“Yes. ’Cept Master Maurice, of course.”
“And nobody else?”
“No.”
Wiggins looked serious as he considered this.
“So if you didn’t take the jewels, it must have been one of them.”
“I s’pose so, yes.”
“Ain’t no suppose about it. It had to be.”
The Boys all stared at Wiggins, deeply impressed. Shiner even stopped eating, his spoon halfway to his mouth.
“Cor,” Beaver said. “That’s dead clever, Wiggins. You solved the case already! Mr Holmes couldn’t have done no better.”
Wiggins looked at him and sighed. “I only said one of ’em, Beav. I didn’t say which one.”
“Oh. Right. So which one was it?”
Wiggins closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head gently.
“I dunno,” he replied. “That’s what we gotta find out.”
Then he had a sudden thought and turned to Polly. “If there was all them other people in the house, why did the police think you done it?”
“They said it had to be an inside job – somebody what was inside the house, like you said. And they said because none of us had been out since the jewels went missin’, they must still be somewhere in the house.”
“That sounds right,” said Wiggins. “So what did they do then?”
“They said they needed to search the house. They started at the top – that’s where I sleep, in the attic, with Violet. And they looked in my box by my bed, and … and…”
Polly broke off, sobbing so hard she couldn’t speak. Queenie squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “What did they find?” she asked gently.
“I didn’t put it there. I don’t know how it got there, honest…’
“What did they find?” Queenie repeated.
“They found … they found one of her ladyship’s pearl earrings. In my box, where I keep all my things.”
There was a gasp from all the Boys.
“What was it doin’ there?” Rosie asked.
“I dunno,” Polly sobbed. “Really I don’t.”
Wiggins nodded solemnly. “Somebody’s trying to frame you,” he said.
“What, like make a picture of her?” asked Sparrow.
“No. Framing somebody means planting evidence to make ’em look guilty when they ain’t.”
“Right,” said Beaver. “So somebody must’ve planted that earring in Polly’s box.”
“Exac’ly. It was put there on purpose so the coppers would find it …”
“… and think Polly had pinched it?”
“Exac’ly.”
The Boys were silent.
“That’s awful,” said Gertie. “Who’d want to do a terrible thing like that?”
“The one what really pinched the jewels,” Wiggins said. “And that’s the one we gotta find.”
A JOB FOR QUEENIE
Wiggins hardly slept all night. He sat in his special armchair with his deerstalker hat pulled down over his head, sucking at his empty pipe, thinking hard. He would have taken his problem to Mr Holmes, but he knew the great detective was away, working on a case. In fact, only the day before, Wiggins had reported to him at Number 221b with some information regarding an important case Mr Holmes was working on. The information had been so significant that Mr Holmes had left to investigate it at once and would now be working under cover (or, as he put it, “incognito”) for several days. So Wiggins would have to solve Polly’s problem himself.
Polly didn’t sleep much either. Queenie had made up a bed for her alongside her own, but although she was exhausted after all that had happened, Polly couldn’t stop worrying, and wondering who was trying to put the blame on her for the robbery. Wiggins had asked her to tell him all about the other people in Mountjoy House, but the servant girl couldn’t imagine which of them would do something so horrible.
Next morning, all the Baker Street Boys were up early, even before Rosie left for Covent Garden market to buy her flowers for the day.
“The answer,” said Wiggins, as they gathered around the table, “has got to be in that house. I’d find it in no time if I could only get inside…”
“But you can’t, can you?” Queenie asked him.
“No,” he replied. “But you could.”
“Me?” Queenie stared at Wiggins in horror. “How?”
“Easy. With Polly gone, they’re gonna be needing a new skivvy to take her place, ain’t they?”
“You mean you want me to…?”
“That’s right. All you gotta do is roll up at the front door and—”
“No, no, not the front door,” Polly interrupted. “You’d have to go to the kitchen door. Servants and tradesmen aren’t allowed to use the front door.”
“OK. You roll up at the kitchen door and you say you’ve heard as there might be a job going – and that if there is, you’d like it.”
“I don’t think I would like it. Not from what Polly’s told us.”
The others laughed. Then Shiner spoke up. “’Ang on a minute,” he said. “If Queenie goes there, who’s gonna look after us ’ere?”
“Trust you to think about that,” said Sparrow. “All the same, who is gonna look after us? Last time Wiggins and Beaver cooked anythin’ they burnt the bottom out of Queenie’s best pan.”
“Right,” chuckled Rosie, as she headed for the door. “And they was only tryin’ to boil water.”
“OK, OK,” said Wiggins. “That’s enough of that. It’d only be for a few days and I dare say Polly can do a bit of cooking, what with having worked in a kitchen. Right, Polly?”
“Ooh, I never got to cook nothin’,” Polly replied. “Mrs Ford wouldn’t let me touch the food, ’cept to fetch and carry, and peel the spuds and suchlike. But I can try,” she added.
“And I can do a bit,” Gertie chipped in.
“If we all do a bit,” said Beaver, “we’ll be all right. And, like Wiggins says, it won’t be for long. Once Queenie’
s inside that house she’ll soon do what has to be done. Won’t you, Queenie?”
“Course I will. Er, what does have to be done?”
“All you got to do,” Wiggins told her, “is be my eyes and ears, like Mr Holmes always says to us. Look and listen, and then tell me what you see and hear.”
“How am I goin’ to tell you, if I’m stuck inside?”
“She’s right,” said Beaver. “I don’t s’pose they’ll let her nip out to come back here and report to you.”
“No, they won’t,” Polly agreed. “She won’t be allowed out at all, ’cept on errands.”
“Well, if Queenie can’t come to us,” Wiggins said, “then we’ll have to go to her.”
“But we won’t be able to get in,” argued Shiner.
“We don’t have to get in,” Wiggins explained patiently. “All we have to do is wait outside in the street. Queenie’ll have to come out of the kitchen door to fill a bucket from the coal cellar or put rubbish in the dustbin. Right, Polly?”
“That’s right,” said Polly. “I’m always goin’ in and out of the kitchen. You could talk or pass a message through the railings, easy.”
“There you are, then,” Wiggins announced. “What we got to do is always have one of us hanging about in the street outside. If we take it in turns, they won’t notice and get suspicious.”
Polly was quite amazed at Wiggins’s cleverness. Realizing how lucky she had been to find the Baker Street Boys, she began to feel more hopeful. Perhaps they really would be able to prove that she was innocent. Just being with them at HQ made her feel safe. It was like being back home, for she came from a large family. Indeed, it was so large that she had had to get a job as a housemaid, “going into service” as it was called, because her parents couldn’t afford to feed and clothe them all. Their tiny cottage had been so crowded that Polly and her brothers and sisters had had to sleep five to a bed. Even so, she missed them terribly, only seeing them on the one day each month that she was allowed off from work. Thinking about them now brought tears to her eyes.
“Now then,” Queenie reassured her. “No need to cry, my love. It’ll be all right, you wait and see.”
“Just leave it to us,” Beaver joined in, smiling kindly at her. “We’ll get it sorted. Promise.”
“I was thinkin’ about my family. What’s my mum and dad goin’ to think of me?”
“They’ll know you ain’t done it.”
“I wish I could see them,” she sniffed. “I wish I could go home.”
“Well, you can’t,” Wiggins said firmly. “First place the coppers’ll look for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ain’t been round there already.”
“Oh, no,” Polly cried. “The shame of it!”
“Wiggins is right,” said Beaver. “You gotta lie low. Stop here and don’t even poke your nose outside the door.”
“Tell you what,” said Queenie. “You tell us where your family lives, and one of us’ll go and see ’em, all secret like, and let ’em know you’re safe and that you ain’t done nothin’. How’s that sound?”
“I’d like that,” Polly said, drying her eyes and managing a little smile.
“I’ll go!” Sparrow and Gertie both volunteered together. “Me! Me!”
“Why don’t you both go?” Wiggins said. “And while you’re there, find out if the coppers have been, and what they said. OK? We need to know what they’re up to.”
Everyone was eager to leap into action. Polly told Sparrow and Gertie where to go and how to get there – it was quite a long way away – and they set off at once. Shiner looked quite grumpy, as he would have liked to go too, but Wiggins told him that he was needed – to take the first watch on Mountjoy House, setting up his shoeshine box in the street nearby. This made him feel better at once, and more important.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Wiggins told him, “and watch everybody what goes in or out of that house. ’Specially if they look suspicious, like they might be carrying valuable jewels.”
“How will I know that?” Shiner asked.
“Just keep a lookout for anything unusual,” Wiggins said. After Shiner had left, he turned to Queenie and Polly. “Now then,” he said. “Let’s get Queenie ready.”
Queenie pushed open the black iron gate and walked down the stone steps to the kitchen door in the basement of Mountjoy House. Her heart was thumping in her chest with nerves, but she took a deep breath, straightened her dress, and reached for the brass handle of the bell pull at the side of the door. She hesitated nervously. Wiggins, trying to look casual as he leant against the railings above her, signed to her to pull it. When she did, she heard the bell tinkle inside the house.
The door was opened by a young woman wearing a maid’s uniform: a long grey dress, a white apron and a frilly lace cap. She seemed a bit flustered, with strands of her dark hair escaping from her cap and clinging to her flushed face. She looked Queenie up and down and raised her eyebrows snootily. Queenie was glad she had put on her best dress. She had dug it out of the box of clothes that Mr Holmes had bought for the Boys to wear when he had taken them to eat in a hotel as a reward for helping him. But the maid, whom she guessed must be Violet, did not seem to be impressed.
“Yes?” Violet snapped. “What d’you want?”
Queenie swallowed hard and tried to remember what Wiggins had told her to say.
“Er,” she hesitated, “I heard tell as you might be needin’ a new maid…”
Violet stared at her suspiciously.
“Where d’you hear that?” she asked.
Queenie thought frantically. This was something she and Wiggins hadn’t expected. She would have to be careful not to let on that she knew Polly.
“Er,” she hesitated again, “the milkman?”
Violet snorted. “He’s got a big mouth, that one. I’ll have to have words with him.”
“No! Don’t,” Queenie said quickly.
“Why not?”
“I, er, I don’t want to get him into trouble.”
“Hmmph! Well, as it happens we are a little short-handed.”
“You mean there’s a job goin’?”
“There might be a vacancy. But it’s not for me to say. You’ll have to speak to Mrs Ford. This way, come on.”
Queenie followed Violet into the house and found herself in the large kitchen. There was a huge black range along one wall, with a fire burning in it and lots of pots and kettles simmering on top. On another wall hung what seemed like dozens of pans, some of them black with years of use and others gleaming brightly. On a third wall plates and bowls and dishes were stacked on shelves – there were so many that Queenie thought you could feed an army off them. More plates and pots were piled up in the big sink under the window. In the middle of the room was a huge table, its wooden top scrubbed white as snow. And at this stood Mrs Ford, a plump, middle-aged woman with grey hair swept up in a bun on top of her head and a face that reminded Queenie of a bulldog that had once tried to chase her in the park. The cook was busy rolling out pastry to line a large tin, for a pie.
“Who’s this?” she barked, pointing her rolling pin at Queenie. “What does she want?”
“Please, ma’am,” said Queenie. “I’m lookin’ for a job.”
“What sort of job?”
“I don’t mind. ’Tweenie. Skivvy. I’ll do anything.”
“What’s your name?”
“Queenie, please, ma’am.”
“Queenie?” Violet scoffed. “What sort of a name’s that?”
“It’s what everybody calls me.”
“It’s not a proper name. What was you christened?”
“Victoria, miss.”
“Victoria. That’s better.”
“Yes,” Mrs Ford chuckled. “You can’t get more proper than that. And you don’t have to call Violet ‘miss’, never mind her uppity ways. She’s just a servant, like the rest of us.”
Violet glared at her. “I’ll have you remember I’m a lady’s maid, not a skivvy. And I�
��m not going to go on doing a skivvy’s jobs as well as my own. So you better find a replacement for Polly – and quick.”
Mrs Ford put her hands on her broad hips and glared back at Violet.
“And I’ll have you remember, my girl, that I’m the housekeeper here, and I’m in charge.” She turned back to Queenie and looked her over carefully. “Now then, young Queenie Victoria, have you ever done this sort of work before?”
“No, ma’am. But I took care of the house when my ma was sick and looked after her and my little brother.”
“And where’s your mother now?”
“She died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And that’s why you need a job?”
“Yes, ma’am. And a place to live. I’ll work real hard, and I’m a quick learner.”
“Well, you look like a clean and decent girl. Have you got a reference?”
Queenie looked puzzled and shook her head. “No. I haven’t got one of them,” she confessed.
“Well, I can’t give you a job without one. There’s too many precious things in this house, and we’ve already had one thief.”
“What’s a reverence?” Queenie asked Polly, back in HQ. She’d already asked Wiggins and Beaver, and neither of them knew. Beaver thought it might be some sort of vicar or bishop, but that didn’t make much sense.
“D’you mean a reference?” Polly replied. “It’s like a letter. From somebody that knows you, saying you’re all right and can be trusted.”
“That’s easy, then,” said Beaver. “I know you and I can write you a letter like that.”
“No, it has to be from somebody respectable, like a schoolteacher or a vicar. And it has to be on proper paper – in pen and ink and all that.”
“Did you have one when you got your job?” Wiggins asked.
“Yes. From my old teacher.”
“Well, that’s no good to us,” said Queenie. “I ain’t got one of them. Sorry, Polly. Looks like it ain’t gonna work.”
There was a moment’s gloom before Wiggins suddenly perked up. “Oh yes, it is,” he said with a grin.
“I have known Queenie Davies for some time,” Mrs Ford read aloud, holding the letter up to the light and peering through the steel-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. “She is honest, reliable and hard-working, and may be trusted in every respect.” She passed the letter to Mr Harper, who was standing beside her, and he read it for himself and nodded with satisfaction.