The Baker Street Boys - The Case of the Ranjipur Ruby (12 page)

“Excellent. But how did you know?”

“His boots,” said Shiner. “They needed mending, and he couldn’t afford to buy new ones.”

“Well, I never,” said Lord Holdhurst.

“Excellent!” said Mr Holmes. “I could hardly have done better myself. By the way, where exactly
is
the ruby?”

“Wiggins hid it,” said Beaver, “so they couldn’t take it off him if they caught us.”

“Splendid,” said Mr Holmes. “Good thinking. But where?”

“Somewhere they’d never think of looking.” Wiggins turned to the tableau and reached out for the jewel on its velvet cushion being presented to Queen Victoria by the waxwork Ravi. He picked it up and held it out on the flat of his hand. It sparkled in the gaslight and glowed with an inner fire.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” he asked with a broad grin.

Back in Lord Holdhurst’s drawing room, although it was the middle of the night, the Boys were treated to tea and cakes and lemonade while they recounted their story from the beginning. They were served by William the footman and Lily, the other maid, since Lord Holdhurst had insisted that Annie sat with them. She was wearing a bandage around her head instead of her usual lace cap. Mr Holmes and Lord Holdhurst had found her on the floor of the study after being knocked over by Prince Sanjay and Captain Nicholson while she tried to keep them out of the room and the tunnel. She was, said Wiggins, a proper heroine,
and His Lordship promised she would be duly rewarded for her bravery.

“What I don’t understand,” said Lord Holdhurst, “is where this Moriarty fellow fits into all this.”

“Quite,” said Dr Watson. “I was wondering that myself.”

Mr Holmes looked at Wiggins and raised one eyebrow in a question.

“Well,” Wiggins began, “the way I see it is this. Captain Nicholson owed a lot of money, and he thought as how if he had the ruby he’d be able to pay off all his debts. But he needed the professor to sell it for him.”

“Good,” Mr Holmes congratulated him. “As far as it goes. But I suspect it goes much further. I suspect that Professor Moriarty was behind the whole thing from the very beginning. I suspect that he deliberately drew the captain into debt, perhaps through gambling, so that he could force him to steal the ruby for him, as payment.”

“And Prince Sanjay?” Lord Holdhurst asked.

“Ah, that is the truly diabolical cleverness of the plot. No doubt Moriarty knew that the prince
was jealous of his brother, and wanted his throne and all the wealth and power that goes with it. I am sure we shall find that it was Moriarty who provided the so-called Thugs, in order to create a diversion.”

“Right,” said Wiggins. “So everybody would think they’d took the ruby, as well as murdering Ravi and his dad, and all for their goddess, Kali. So it would look like it wasn’t nothing to do with Prince Sanjay getting to be the Raja, nor Captain Nicholson paying off Moriarty.”

“Exactly,” said Mr Holmes. “Well done, Wiggins.”

“As you say,” said Lord Holdhurst. “Truly diabolical. I shall make it my business to have this Moriarty fellow locked up.”

“Ah, if only it were that simple,” said Mr Holmes. “It’s one thing knowing what he’s done, and another thing entirely to prove it. Besides which, you have to catch him first. And, as I know to my cost, he is as elusive as a wisp of smoke.”

At that moment there was a tap on the door and Mr Hobson, the butler, entered.

“Beg pardon, My Lord,” he said. “But the constable apprehended this young person, loitering outside the front door. He claims to be connected with Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

He stepped aside to reveal Sparrow, looking very nervous.

“Sparrow!” cried Queenie. “What you doin’ here?”

“Lookin’ for you lot,” said Sparrow. “I got back from the theatre and you was all gone. And there was no supper.”

“I take it he’s one of you?” asked Lord Holdhurst. And, when assured by Ravi that Sparrow was indeed one of the Boys and had played his part in solving the mystery, he welcomed him in and signalled to the footman and maid to bring more food.

“What’s gonna happen to Ravi now?” Wiggins asked.

“I shall act as his guardian,” said Lord Holdhurst, “until he comes of age. And this house will be his home in England for as long as he wants it.”

“Will he go back to India?”

“If he wishes it. But first he has an important engagement to fulfil at Windsor Castle.”

“To present the ruby to Her Majesty,” said Ravi. “And I’d like my friends to be there.”

“I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“After all,” Ravi continued, “without them, we would have no ruby to present.”

The footman came back into the room pushing a trolley laden with food, and the Boys tucked intoit eagerly. As they were eating, Queenie leant towards Beaver and whispered to him. “What are you going to call this one?” she asked.

Beaver thought for a moment, then mumbled through a mouthful of cake, “What about ‘The Case of the Ranjipur Ruby’? Or should I make that ‘The Curse of the Ranjipur Ruby’? What d’you think?”

T
HE
B
AKER
S
TREET
B
AZAAR
was a real place in nineteenth-century London. It was the original home of Madame Tussaud’s waxworks until they moved to their present address, and it was also used as a carriage repository. The Bazaar was built by a mysterious man, who may have been the Duke of Portland using a false name. He really did used to appear in the middle of the Bazaar as though from nowhere, and people believed he had a secret tunnel from his house near by. The duke, in fact, built lots of tunnels on his country estate, as a hobby, so it may have been true.

The Thugs also really existed in India, exactly as described by Dr Watson, worshipping the goddess Kali and murdering thousands of travellers in her name, until they were eliminated by the
British in the 1840s. But Madame Dupont, Sarge and all the other characters in this story (apart from Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade) were made up by Anthony Read, as was the Indian state of Ranjipur and its fabulous ruby.

Anthony Read studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and was an actor-manager at the age of eighteen. He worked in advertising, journalism and publishing and as a television producer before becoming a full-time writer. Anthony has more than two hundred screen credits to his name, for programmes that include
Sherlock Holmes, The Professionals
and
Doctor Who
. He has also written non-fiction, and won the Wingate Literary Prize for
Kristallnacht
.

The Baker Street Boys books,
The Case of the Disappearing Detective, The Case of the Captive Clairvoyan
t and
The Case of the Ranjipur Ruby
, are based on Anthony’s original television series for children, broadcast by the BBC in the 1980s, for which he won the Writer’s Guild TV Award. The series was inspired by references to the “Baker Street Irregulars”, a group of young crime-solvers who helped the detective Sherlock Holmes in the classic stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.