The Baker Street Boys - The Case of the Ranjipur Ruby (10 page)

“It’s like this,” he explained. “Ravi’s the Raja, right? And Sanjay’s his uncle. So, if anything should happen to Ravi, who gets to be the next Raja?”

“Uncle Sanjay!” the others shouted in unison, amazed once again at their leader’s brilliance. Only Beaver still looked puzzled.

“Hang on,” he said. “When they tried to kill Ravi the first time, he wasn’t the Raja yet. His dad was.”

“No, Ravi was,” Wiggins replied. “His dad was already dead – only nobody knew it.”

“Uncle Sanjay did,” said Queenie. “He was in Scotland with him.”

There was another silence as they all considered this and thought about what it might mean. At last, Wiggins spoke again.

“Oh, my oath!” he said. “He must have killed Ravi’s dad – or had him killed by them two thugs. Then sent ’em back here to do Ravi in.”

“But I thought the Thugs was s’posed to kill people for their goddess, Kali,” said Gertie. “Like a sacrifice.”

“Or in revenge for stealin’ the ruby,” Sparrow added.

“Yeah,” said Wiggins. “That’s what we’re s’posed to think. That way, nobody’d suspect Uncle Sanjay, would they?”

“Oh, that is diabolical,” said Queenie.

“I bet they ain’t even real Thugs,” said Beaver. “I bet they’re only pretending to be. I bet that’s what that sugar was for – to make people think they was real Thugs.”

“Course they ain’t real Thugs,” Wiggins interrupted him. “Like everybody says, the real Thugs was stamped out fifty years ago. This lot are just killers working for Uncle Sanjay.”

“We gotta warn Ravi,” said Queenie. “They’ve had two goes at him already. We stopped ’em first time. The second time it was Captain Nicholson. If they try again, it might be third time lucky.”

“How we gonna stop ’em?” asked Sparrow.

“The captain. We gotta tell him. Now.”

Wiggins headed for the door, but before he got there Shiner came through it, out of breath and wild-eyed.

“Shiner?” Queenie said. “What is it? What’s up?”

“It’s him!” Shiner gasped. “The bloke what was with Moriarty. The bloke with the boots. I seen him comin’ out of the house. He lives there!”

“Who is he? What’s he look like?” Wiggins asked.

“Tall, near enough six foot. Light hair, fair moustache…”

Wiggins, Beaver and Queenie stared at each other in horror. There was only one person in the house who fitted that description.

“Captain Nicholson!” said Wiggins. “Oh, my word … he’s in on it. Now what do we do?”

“We can’t leave Ravi in that house with the captain and Uncle Sanjay,” said Queenie. “We gotta get him out.”

“Yeah, right,” said Beaver. “But how?”

They all turned to Wiggins for an answer.

“I’ll have to think,” he said.

“Well don’t take too long,” said Queenie. “We gotta get to him afore the stranglers do.”

Wiggins paced the floor. He put on his old deerstalker hat, and even sucked on his curly pipe. He sat in his special chair and thought hard. But
still he couldn’t see how they could get into Lord Holdhurst’s house to rescue Ravi.

As Sparrow left for his job at the theatre, Rosie came in, cold and hungry. Shiner said he felt like he had a big hole where his stomach ought to be, and could he have something to eat. Queenie told him to bring in a fresh lump of coal from their little pile in the yard outside, to stoke up the stove so that she could start cooking.

As Shiner dropped the coal into the stove, Wiggins suddenly sat up. Seeing it reminded him of the coalman, emptying his bags into the hole in the pavement. And the hole in the pavement made him think of cellars, and cellars made him think of underground passages. What was it that Sarge had said about Lord Holdhurst’s father, who built the Bazaar? That he used to pop up from nowhere, inside the Bazaar, so he could keep an eye on things. And nobody knew how he got there, but there was talk about underground tunnels. He must have had a tunnel from his house, which was right behind the gallery that now housed Madame Dupont’s waxworks.

“That’s it!” he cried, leaping to his feet. “I know how they got in.”

“How?” everybody wanted to know.

“There’s a secret passage. From Madame Dupont’s waxworks.”

“How d’you know that?” Beaver asked.

“Tell you later. We ain’t got time now.”

“But if it’s secret, how come the thugs knowed about it?”

“Moriarty,” said Wiggins. “He’d know about it.”

“Moriarty knows everythin’,” said Shiner gloomily.

“But does he know we’re on his trail?” asked Gertie.

“He does now,” said Wiggins. “We told the captain – and the captain’s in league with him.”

“Oh, lawks,” said Queenie. “What we gonna do?”

“We got no time to lose,” Wiggins said. “You go and see Dr Watson. Take Shiner with you, and Gertie. They can tell him what they seen the captain and Uncle Sanjay doing. And tell him Beaver and me and Rosie are going into the house through the secret tunnel in the Bazaar.”

He hurried over to the shelf in the corner and lifted down his bull’s-eye lantern.

“We’re gonna need this,” he said. “It’ll be dark in there.”

“But where exac’ly is this tunnel?” asked Beaver.

“I dunno yet. But if it’s there, we’ll find it. Queenie, tell Dr Watson to send for Inspector Lestrade, quick as he can. Right, everybody – let’s go!”

It was dark and the evening fog was swirling through the streets as the Boys left HQ on their missions to save Ravi. Queenie, Shiner and Gertie ran up Baker Street to 221b, but when they finally managed to persuade Billy to open the door, he told them the doctor was out and he didn’t know when he would be back. This left them with a quandary. They could make their way to Scotland Yard on their own, but without Dr Watson they knew that Inspector Lestrade probably wouldn’t listen to them. They decided that all they could do was wait on the doorstep.

Wiggins, Beaver and Rosie, meanwhile, hurried to the Bazaar. But when they arrived they
found that Madame Dupont’s waxworks were locked up for the night. And there was no sign of Sarge in his lodge.

“Where could he be?” Rosie asked.

“He’s probably took his jug down the pub to get some beer,” said Wiggins. “He does like a quiet pint of an evening.”

“Yeah, but we need him here,” said Beaver. “How else are we gonna get into Madame Dupont’s?”

“Easy,” said Wiggins. “Look.” He pushed open the door of the lodge and shone the beam of his lantern on the rows of keys hanging on the wall. Each key was neatly labelled, and it didn’t take him long to find the one they needed. They ran past the shops and the parked carriages, the sound of their footsteps on the cobbles echoing through the empty Bazaar, and in no time Wiggins was unlocking the doors of the gallery.

“Quiet, now,” he told the others. “You never know who might be around.”

Inside, the Red Indian brave looked more menacing than ever in the dark hallway, and, as the Boys tiptoed through the gallery, the glassy
eyes of all the wax models seemed to watch every step they took. Most of the gaslights were turned off, but two or three were still burning, very low, leaving big patches of deep shadow.

“It’s scary in here,” Rosie whispered, staying close to Beaver.

“What we lookin’ for?” Beaver asked. “D’you think it might be a trapdoor or somethin’?”

“Could be. Whatever it is, it’s probably hidden.”

“That room where Madame Dupont kept the leaflets was hidden,” said Rosie. “You wouldn’t have thought there was a door there if you didn’t know.”

“That’s right,” said Beaver. “It looked like part of the panellin’ till she pushed it.”

“Good thinking, Rosie,” Wiggins congratulated the little flower girl. “C’mon, let’s take a look.”

They moved quickly to the hidden door and pushed it open. Behind it, the storeroom looked dark and forbidding. They crept inside nervously and looked around by the light of Wiggins’s lantern. The wax figures under their dust sheets looked even more sinister than Wiggins
remembered, and Rosie clung to Beaver’s sleeve, trying desperately not to scream as she thought she saw one of them move.

“It’s all right,” Wiggins reassured her. “They can’t hurt you. They ain’t real people.”

“I know that,” Rosie squeaked. “But they’re still scary.”

“Don’t you fret. Beaver and me’ll look after you.”

But a moment later they all jumped as something in the room really
did
move. Wiggins swung the light towards the sound and they all sighed with relief as they saw a little grey mouse skitter across the floor and dive into its hole in the wall.

The mouse hole, though, seemed to be the only opening in the wall. There were no doors or windows. But when Wiggins walked over to the far corner of the room he discovered something else.

“Found it!” he cried triumphantly. “Look, Beav – there it is.” And indeed it was. A small iron ring set into the floorboards betrayed the presence of a square trapdoor. Wiggins stared at it for a moment, then took a deep breath, grabbed hold of the ring and pulled. Nothing happened.

“It’s a bit stiff,” he groaned. “Come on, Beav, give us a hand.”

The trapdoor was too heavy for Wiggins to lift on his own, but when Beaver added his strength they were able to pull it up together and lean it against the wall. Beneath it, a flight of stone steps led down into a deep black hole. The Boys looked at each other and gulped. It would take every bit of their nerve to climb down into it. But they knew they had to – Ravi’s life was at stake.

Full of apprehension, they set off, Wiggins leading the way with the lantern. At the bottom of the steps, the floor levelled out into a tunnel, stretching before them into a threatening darkness. The air smelt dank and musty. The walls and floor were dripping with moisture. Black beetles scuttled away from the light, and Beaver was sure he heard the high-pitched squeaking of rats ahead of them. Wiggins could not help crying out as cobwebs as thick as knitting wool wrapped themselves round his face. He tried to brush them off, then stopped and turned back to the others.

“These cobwebs ain’t been disturbed for years,” he said.

“No,” Beaver agreed. “They’re real thick, ain’t they.”

“No, what I’m saying is, nobody’s been in this tunnel lately.”

“But what about the thugs?” Beaver asked. “How did they get into the house, then?”

“I dunno. P’raps they didn’t.”

“What d’you mean?”

“P’raps it weren’t the thugs what murdered the dewan.”

“If it weren’t the thugs, who was it?”

“The captain,” said Wiggins. “Gotta be.”

“You mean he was tellin’ lies when he said he’d seen the killers?”

“Right. He thought he could do it quiet like, with the handkerchief, and nobody would know till they found the body in the morning. But he wasn’t quick enough, and the old bloke got out a scream afore he snuffed it.”

“And that woke everybody up.”

“Exac’ly. When Annie found him bending over the body, he hadn’t just disturbed the killers,
like he said. He’d just killed the dewan.”

“The villain! We better hurry up and get Ravi out of that house.”

“Can we hurry up and get ourselves out of this tunnel?” asked Rosie, who had not said a word since they climbed down through the trapdoor. “I don’t like it down here.”

“No more do I,” said Wiggins. “Come on, then. All stick close together.”

He pushed on, through more cobwebs. Beaver followed, with Rosie hanging onto his coat. Soon they reached another flight of steps, going up. At the top was a solid door. Wiggins turned the handle and pushed at the door. It had not been used for a very long time and was as heavy and stiff as the trapdoor at the other end. As it opened, it creaked alarmingly. The noise sounded very loud in the tunnel. The three Boys froze, holding their breath and listening for any sound from the other side. After what seemed an age, Wiggins turned back to the others.

“Can’t hear nothing,” he whispered. “We’ll have to chance it.”

He pushed the door again, very carefully, moving
it only a little at a time. When the opening was wide enough, he peered through into a darkened room, and when he was sure there was no one there he slipped inside and beckoned the others to follow. They stood huddled together as he swung the beam from the bull’s-eye lantern around the room. It looked familiar to Wiggins.

“I know where this is,” he whispered. “It’s His Lordship’s study. But I don’t remember this door.”

Beaver and Rosie crept through the door after Wiggins and looked around them at the book-lined walls. The door they had just come through was part of the shelves, complete with books. When it was closed it would be invisible, looking no different from the rest of the bookshelves. Only one leather-bound book was not real: now that the door was open, they could see that when it was pulled forward, this book worked the handle. Wiggins fingered it thoughtfully. No wonder no one knew about the tunnel.

“That’s clever,” he said, and looked around him curiously. With the picture hiding the safe, and now the bookshelves concealing the door to
the tunnel, he wondered what other secrets the room held. He would have loved to explore it to find out, but he knew there was no time.

“Where do we go now?” Rosie asked. “How do we find Ravi?”

“We have to look in all the rooms till we find his.”

“But what if we open the wrong door and somebody sees us?” asked Beaver.

“And what do we do if we bump into the captain?” Rosie wanted to know.

“We just have to be very, very careful. Come on, now.”

Wiggins tiptoed over to the door into the corridor, beckoning the others to follow. But as he stretched out his hand to grasp the doorknob, it turned. The door began to open. They would never get back to the secret tunnel before whoever was on the other side came into the room and caught them. The door swung open. Wiggins tried to hide behind it and pull the others in with him. But there was no room, and no time. They were trapped.

L
IVING
W
AXWORKS