The Case of the Racehorse Ringer, page 1
For Rosemary, as ever, with love
“I wish all Holmesian pastiche could be as honest, as knowledgeable, as enthusiastic and as well written – in short, as good – as these children’s books.”
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES SOCIETY OF LONDON
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
ESCAPE
A HIDEOUT IN THE WOODS
A NEW STABLE LAD
RIDING LESSONS
NIGHT IN THE DARK WOODS
A BLACK-AND-WHITE CASE
HORSE THIEVES
A NIGHT RIDE
A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK
Other Baker Street Boys Adventures
More titles from Walker Books
About the Author
“Right,” the man rasped. “Out you come. We’re here.”
He threw open the door of the horsebox, reached inside and grabbed Gertie’s arm with a grip like an iron band. Gertie blinked as he dragged her out into the street. It had been dark in the back of the van, and now she was out in the daylight everything seemed too bright.
“Where’s here?” she asked.
“Your new home,” the man said.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, Gertie saw that they were standing outside a grim, grey building behind tall iron railings.
“It don’t look much like home to me.” She sniffed. “Looks more like a blinkin’ prison.”
“What do you want? Roses round the door?”
“Sure and that’d be nice.” Gertie grinned. “Pink and white would do just fine.”
“Cheeky little devil!”
“I ain’t goin’ in there.”
“Oh yes you are. Come on!”
He tightened his grip on her arm and began to drag her through the gate. Gertie yelped in pain, but there was no way she could escape.
The man yanked on an iron handle at the side of the front door, and a bell clanged somewhere inside the building. After what seemed like an age, Gertie heard footsteps approaching. There was the sound of a key grating in the lock and the heavy door creaked open. A hard-faced woman stood facing them.
“What’s this?” she demanded through thin lips. “Major Lee told me it was a girl.”
“It is a girl. This is Gertie O’Grady.”
The woman glared at Gertie. Gertie glared back. Neither of them liked what they saw. Gertie saw a big woman in a long black dress, buttoned high up at the neck, with a large bunch of keys dangling from her belt. The woman’s pale eyes moved down from Gertie’s cropped ginger hair and freckled face, taking in her ragged jacket, tattered boy’s trousers and bare toes poking out of well-worn boots. She did not try to hide her dislike.
“Where are her things?” she asked the man.
“I ain’t got none,” Gertie said. “My stuff was in our wagon and the coppers—”
“Be quiet!” the woman barked. “Who said you could speak?”
“You asked about my things—”
“And don’t answer back! In this house you speak when you’re spoken to, and not before. Understand?”
“Sure and I was only—”
“Hold your tongue, miss!”
The woman slapped her, hard, on the side of the head. Gertie glowered at her in silence.
“I can see we’ve a lot to teach you before you’ll fit in here,” the woman sighed. She nodded curtly to the man. “Very well, Hogg. You may go.”
“Thank you, madam.” He let go of Gertie’s arm and stepped away. “She’s all yours – and the best of luck to both of you.”
When he had gone, the woman closed the door behind him and locked it. Then she walked slowly around Gertie, inspecting her carefully.
“My name is Mrs Hackett,” she announced. “I am the matron of this orphanage.”
“I ain’t a orphan, missus,” Gertie began. “I got—”
“Quiet! What did I tell you? Speak when you are spoken to, and address me at all times as Matron or Mrs Hackett. Do you understand?”
“Yes, missus. Er, Matron.”
“That’s better.” Mrs Hackett turned and yelled down the hallway as loud as a steam whistle. “Ethel! Sarah!”
Her voice was still echoing round the walls when two young women wearing long aprons and mob-caps scuttled out of a doorway. Mrs Hackett shoved Gertie towards them.
“Clean her up!” she snarled. “And get rid of those filthy rags!”
The next half-hour was one of the worst Gertie had ever known. Ethel and Sarah grabbed an arm each and hauled her up the stairs and into a bare, grey room, in the middle of which stood a large bathtub filled with water. Gertie had never seen a bath before, and she feared this was some sort of torture chamber. Her fears were soon justified.
The two maids roughly pulled off her clothes, then dragged her towards the bath. Gertie kicked and bit and scratched and yelled, but it was no use: they picked her up and plunged her in. Gertie was used to cold water – ever since she was little she had swum in rivers and lakes and ponds. But this was so cold that it took her breath away. When she got it back again, she screamed louder than ever. Ethel and Sarah shut her up by pushing her head under the water, then attacking her with bars of hard, foul-smelling yellow soap and scrubbing her all over until her skin was red and raw.
At last they pulled her, shivering, out of the water, rubbed her dry with a rough towel and thrust a small pile of clothes at her.
“Now put these on,” Ethel ordered. “And look sharp about it. Mrs Hackett don’t like to be kept waiting.”
Gertie stared at the clothes. A coarse woollen vest, navy-blue knickers, black knitted stockings, canvas shoes, a white mob-cap … and a thick grey cotton dress.
“I don’t wear frocks,” she said.
“You do here,” Sarah replied. “That’s the uniform.”
“What’s a uniform?”
“It’s what everybody has to wear. So put it on and shut up.”
“No! I won’t!” Gertie folded her arms and shook her head.
“What’s going on here?” a harsh voice barked out. “And what’s taking so long?”
Mrs Hackett stood in the doorway, her face like stone. As she stepped forwards, Gertie saw that she was holding a length of bamboo with a hooked handle. A cane. It made a humming noise as the matron swished it through the air.
“Get dressed!” she hissed. “Now!”
Bravely, Gertie shook her head again. The matron raised the cane and whacked her on the back of her leg. The pain came as a shock to Gertie. But she clenched her teeth and did not cry out, staring defiantly at her attacker.
“Hold her!” Mrs Hackett told the two maids. “Hold her tight while I give her the beating she deserves.”
“Just you wait!” Gertie cried angrily. “Just you wait till my da comes for me. He’ll show you what for!”
“Your da won’t be coming for you,” Mrs Hackett sneered. “He’s never coming. Your precious da is a murderer. And he’s going to hang!”
ESCAPE
Rosie was carrying the day’s flowers from Covent Garden market back to HQ, the secret cellar where she and the other Baker Street Boys lived. It was still early and the streets of London were empty. Behind her, the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves cut through the quietness, slowing from a trot to a walk and then stopping altogether. Rosie turned and saw it was Mr Gorman, the local dairyman, bringing large silver churns of milk from the farm in his pony and trap. He had a passenger with him, a strange-looking girl in a grey dress.
“Rosie!” the strange girl shrieked. She leapt from the trap and hurled herself at the flower girl, throwing her arms around her.
“Oi! Mind my flowers. Who d’you think you are?”
“Don’t you know me, then?”
Rosie certainly knew the voice. Her mouth dropped open.
“Oh my word! Gertie! What happened to you?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get to HQ.” Gertie turned back to the milkman in his peaked cap and long striped apron. “Ta, Mr Gorman. Thanks for the ride.”
Mr Gorman waved and started his horse again. The two girls hurried back to HQ.
Queenie was dishing out porridge to the rest of the Boys – Wiggins, Beaver, Shiner and Sparrow – when Rosie and Gertie clattered down the steps and into the cellar. Porridge for breakfast was a rare treat, and no one looked up from their battered tin plates to see who had come in until Rosie called out.
“Look who I found,” she said.
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
“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.
