The Case of the Racehorse Ringer (2 page)

Five pairs of eyes turned to the doorway and stared at the newcomer. For a moment no one said anything. Then Shiner saw who it was and started to laugh. The others joined in, apart from Queenie, who could see that Gertie was upset and close to tears. She put down her serving spoon, hurried over and put an arm round her shoulders.

“Gertie, love,” she said gently. “What’s happened? What’s up?”

Gertie bit her lip, then took a deep breath.

“It’s my da,” she said. “He’s in prison.”

“Again?” Wiggins grinned. “What’s he done this time? More poaching? Tickling a few trout?”

“No. He ain’t done nothin’. But they say he’s a murderer. And they’re goin’ to hang him.”

The laughter stopped. Everyone was shocked into silence.

“Come and sit down,” Queenie said. “Have some breakfast and you can tell us all about it.”

The Boys shuffled round and made room for Gertie at the table.

“Now then,” said Wiggins. “First things first. Who’s your da s’posed to have murdered?”

“A lad at Major Lee’s racin’ stables.”

“What’s a racin’ stables?” Shiner asked.

“It’s where they train racehorses, stupid,” said Sparrow.

“Who you callin’ stupid?”

“That’s enough,” Queenie cut in quickly. “We don’t need you two squabblin’. This is serious.”

“Right,” agreed Wiggins. “Now, Gertie, I need to know everything.”

“He didn’t do it. Not my da. He don’t mind killin’ a rabbit or a pheasant – for the pot, like. We have to eat. But not a lad, like Tommie. He would never do that. He couldn’t.”

“Is Tommie the lad what was killed?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know him, then?”

“A bit. I’d see him exercisin’ the horses. It’s what the lads do – they look after the horses, feed ’em, groom ’em, ride ’em out. And sometimes, when he’d finished work for the day, he’d come to the woods where we had our wagon parked.”

“What’d he come for?” Wiggins asked.

“Sure and it was just to get away from the stables for an hour.”

“He wasn’t happy there, then?”

“He loved the horses, but the other lads, and the trainer – if you ask me, they used to knock him about a bit.”

“You mean they bullied him?”

“They did so. Black and blue he was sometimes.”

Wiggins got up from the table and began pacing the room, deep in thought. As the others finished their porridge, they watched and waited. Wiggins was their leader. If someone had a problem, he could usually think of a solution. He had learned a lot from working for the great detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes.

At last he stopped and turned back to Gertie.

“What was you and your da doing there?” he asked.

“Watchin’ the lads ridin’ the racehorses on the gallops.”

“What’s the gallops?”

“It’s where the horses can run flat out. You know, first they walk, then they trot, then they canter and then they gallop, fast as they can go.”

“Why d’you want to watch ’em?”

“So we could time ’em.”

“How?”

“With a stopwatch, of course. There’s this fella, see. He give my da a stopwatch, and he was payin’ him to time the horses, to see which was the fastest.”

“Why would he want to know that?” asked Beaver, looking puzzled.

“So he’d know which one to bet his money on,” said Wiggins.

“That’s right,” Gertie answered. “The one that was goin’ to win when they went into a race.”

Beaver let out a low whistle of admiration. “Cor,” he said, “you could get rich if you knew that.”

The other Boys nodded in agreement.

“Yes. Very clever,” said Wiggins. “Who is this geezer, Gert?”

Gertie shook her head. “I dunno. I never seen him. My da said he was called Slippery Sam or some such. They always met up in secret.”

“Secret, eh?” Wiggins thought for a moment. “The lad what was killed…”

“Tommie.”

“Yeah, Tommie. Could he have found out the secret? Could that be why he was murdered?”

Gertie shrugged. “Dunno. All I know is, it weren’t my da what did it.”

Wiggins paced the floor again for a moment.

“Could your dad have an alibi?” he asked.

“What’s an alibi?”

“It’s when somebody couldn’t have done a crime ’cos they can prove they was somewhere else.”

“He was with me.”

“That’s no good. You’re his daughter – they won’t believe you.”

“But it’s true.”

“
We
know that, but the coppers won’t. They’ll think you’d say anything to get him off.”

“I would if it was my dad,” Sparrow piped up. “If I had a dad, that is.”

The other Boys all agreed, and sat in silence for a while, thinking about the families they might have had. Then Queenie cleared her throat and turned to Wiggins.

“Well,” she said, “if we can’t prove he
didn’t
do it, there’s only one thing we can do. Prove who
did
.”

“Exac’ly,” said Wiggins. “That’s exac’ly what we’ve gotta do. We gotta find the real murderer.”

“How we gonna do that, then?” asked Shiner.

“Dunno yet. First thing, we’ll go and see Mr Holmes.”

Five minutes later, the seven Baker Street Boys were standing outside 221b Baker Street. Wiggins rang the bell, and the door was opened by Billy, Mrs Hudson’s pageboy. Billy had been eating his breakfast and was busy trying to fasten the many buttons on his jacket – and getting them in a tangle.

“Oh, it’s you lot!” He scowled. “What do you want at this time of day?”

“We gotta see Mr Holmes,” Wiggins told him. “It’s urgent. Matter of life and death.”

“Well, you’ll have to die, then,” Billy replied. “He ain’t here.”

“Do you know where he is? When he’ll be back?”

Billy shook his head and started to close the door. Wiggins quickly stuck his foot in the gap to stop him.

“In that case, we’ll see Dr Watson. Is he in?”

Billy sighed. “Wait here.”

While they were waiting on the doorstep, the Boys heard a familiar cry: “Milko! Milko!” and Mr Gorman stopped his pony and trap beside the kerb. A kitchen maid came out of the next house, carrying a large white jug. Mr Gorman lifted the lid off the churn in his trap, and ladled milk into the jug. Most of the houses around Baker Street now bought their milk in the new-fangled bottles from the big dairy company, but some still liked to have it delivered in the old-fashioned way by Mr Gorman.

When he had finished serving the maid, the milkman gave Gertie a friendly smile.

“You found your friends OK, then?” he called to her.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered. “And thanks again for the ride.”

“Any time,” he said. He clicked his tongue at his horse to tell it to walk on, though it knew exactly when to move on and when to stop without being told. His call rang down the street as they carried on their way. “Milko! Milko–o–o!”

Billy reappeared in the doorway. “The doctor says you can come up if it’s urgent,” he said. “But just two of you.”

Dr Watson was finishing a breakfast of kippers and toast when Billy showed Wiggins and Gertie into the room. He carefully moved a kipper’s skeleton to the side of his plate and popped the last bit of fish into his mouth. One of the tiny bones had become caught in his moustache and it waggled when he spoke. Wiggins gave a small cough and touched his own upper lip. The doctor reddened and cleared his throat. “Ah, right you are,” he said, hurriedly wiping his mouth with his napkin before taking a sip of coffee.

“Now then,” he said. “What’s so urgent?”

“It’s Gertie’s dad…” Wiggins began.

“Ah, yes. I remember him from the fairground on Hampstead Heath.” The doctor smiled at the memory of a successful investigation. “Splendid chap. He recovered the stolen plans, right?”

“Right.”

“What’s the problem?”

“They’re going to hang him.”

“Oh my goodness. Why?”

“They say he’s done a murder,” Gertie blurted out. “But he ain’t.”

“And we need Mr Holmes to prove it,” Wiggins added.

“I see.” The smile disappeared from the doctor’s face and was replaced by a serious expression. “I’m afraid Mr Holmes is working on a case in Germany, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Oh, Lor’! What we gonna do, then?”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

“No, we only just found out – when Gertie come home.”

“Came home from where?”

“From the orphanage,” Gertie told him.

“The
orphanage
? Is that why you’re wearing those clothes, young Gertie?”

“They made me wear ’em,” she explained. “They took my own things away and burnt ’em.”

“I see.” He nodded sympathetically. “What were you doing in an orphanage?”

Gertie pulled a face at the memory, took a deep breath and then told him the whole story. The police, she said, had arrested her father in the middle of the night. The racehorse trainer, Major Lee, had led them to the caravan. When the police took her father away, the major told them he would look after her. But in fact he and his assistant, Harry Hogg, had taken her back to the racing stables and locked her in an empty stall for the rest of the night. Next day, they had chucked her onto the dirty straw in the back of a horsebox, and Hogg had driven her to the orphanage, where he handed her over to the awful Mrs Hackett.

Even when she was cleaned up and dressed, Gertie had not been allowed to see any of the other girls in the orphanage. Instead, they had shut her up in a small room in the attic, with just a narrow iron bed and one rickety wooden chair. Still smarting from her beating by Mrs Hackett, she had made up her mind to escape as soon as she could. But when she tried the door, she had found it was firmly locked. The only window was a skylight in the sloping ceiling. It did not look as though it was locked, but it was too high for her, even when she stood on the chair. Refusing to be beaten, she dragged the bed across the room, put the chair on it and tried again. It was a bit wobbly, but now she could reach the skylight, open it and put her head out.

At first, all she could see was roof. Then she heard voices from somewhere below. Craning her neck, she looked down and saw two people walking across the yard of the orphanage towards the back gate, where a saddled horse stood waiting patiently. One was Mrs Hackett, the other was a wiry man wearing a flat cap, a ginger tweed jacket and riding breeches. He walked with a stick, limping on one leg, which was shorter than the other. Gertie recognized him as Major Lee, the trainer. They were talking busily, but Gertie could not hear what they were saying until Lee mounted his horse, ready to leave.

“Keep her out of the way until it’s all over,” Gertie had heard him say. “Then we’ll decide what to do with her.”

Wiggins and Dr Watson had been listening in horror to Gertie’s tale.

“Blimey,” said Wiggins, “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“No, nor do I,” agreed the doctor. “I can quite see why you wanted to get away. But how on earth did you manage it?”

“I waited till night-time so nobody’d see me,” Gertie replied, “then I climbed out of the skylight and crawled across the roof till I came to a drainpipe. After that it was easy.”

“Easy, you say?”

“Yeah,” Gertie replied. “All I had to do then was shin down the drainpipe, cross the yard and climb over the fence.”

“Amazing!” Dr Watson shook his head in astonishment.

“Our Gertie can climb anything,” Wiggins said proudly. “Good as any monkey, she is.”

“Yes, I remember.” The doctor smiled. “So, Gertie, you got away. Then what did you do?”

“I started walkin’, fast as I could. Back to Baker Street and the Boys. It was a long way, but I was lucky – I met Mr Gorman.”

“Who?” The doctor looked puzzled.

“Mr Gorman the milkman. You know, he’s got the dairy shop just round the corner.”

“Oh yes. What was he doing there?”

“Turns out he goes to a farm past there every mornin’ in his horse and trap, to collect his milk for the day. So when I seen him I shouted out to him, and he give me a ride all the way home.”

“That was a bit of luck.”

“It was so,” Gertie said fervently. “It’s a long walk.”

“And did you tell Mr Gorman what had happened?” asked the doctor.

“Only that they’d tried to shut me up in a orphanage, even though I’m not a orphan. I wanted to talk to Wiggins first. And Mr Holmes, of course.”

“Quite right.”

“But Mr Holmes ain’t here,” said Wiggins. “So what we gonna do?”

Dr Watson stood up, brushing toast crumbs from his waistcoat. “You must speak to the police,” he said firmly.

“But they won’t listen to me,” Gertie groaned. “I know they won’t.”

“I shall make sure that Inspector Lestrade does listen,” the doctor assured her. He reached for his overcoat, bowler hat and umbrella. “Come along – we shall go to see him at once.”

At Scotland Yard, Inspector Lestrade did indeed listen carefully to what Gertie had to say, after sending a sergeant to fetch the file on the case. He stroked his lean, blue-tinged chin with his square-tipped fingers as he thought.

“This orphanage,” he said. “Where exactly is it?”

“You ain’t gonna try and send me back there, are you?” Gertie asked.

“I don’t think we need to,” the inspector replied. “Not now you’re safely back with your friends.”

“Oh, she is,” said Wiggins. “She’s got Queenie and me, and the rest of the Boys. We all look after one another.”

“I can vouch for that.” Dr Watson nodded.

“What about school?” the inspector asked sternly.

“I don’t have to go to school,” Gertie said quickly. “I’m thirteen.”

Lestrade looked at her suspiciously, with a very official face, then nodded. “Very well. Now, the orphanage?”

“I can’t
tell
you where it is. I could probably take you there, though.”

“That won’t be necessary,” the inspector replied. “As far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing wrong. They took you into their care, cleaned you up, fed you, clothed you…”

Gertie snorted indignantly and looked down at the dress. “I didn’t want their frock. I want my own clothes, but they burnt ’em.”

“Probably the best thing to do with them,” the inspector said acidly, comparing her clean grey dress with Wiggins’s ragged outfit.