The Baker Street Boys - The Case of the Disappearing Detective

For Elliot, Jack, Miranda and Oliver

The fog wrapped itself round Wiggins like a dirty, yellow fleece. It was what Victorian Londoners called “a real pea-souper”, fed by the smoke of a million coal fires pouring out of a million chimneypots. It may have been the same colour as pea soup, but it had a very different flavour. The taste in Wiggins’s mouth was sooty and sharp. He had covered his mouth and nose with his scarf, and there was a dark circle where he had been breathing through it. His throat was sore and his eyes smarted. He shivered with the damp cold, and wished he did not have to be out on a day like this.

Although it was only early afternoon, the fog was so thick that he could not see halfway across the street. People passing by him on the pavement materialized like ghosts and then were swallowed up again in the gloom. The sounds of the traffic were muffled: the clinking of harness, the clopping of horses’ hooves and the clatter of iron-rimmed carriage wheels echoed dully from the cobblestones. The jangle of music from a barrel organ and the cries of the hot-chestnut seller on the next corner seemed to come from nowhere. Wiggins could not see the man or his barrow, but the whiff of the chestnuts roasting on a coke brazier wafted past his nostrils. It was a delicious smell. Wiggins’s empty stomach rumbled. A bag of hot, sweet chestnuts would ease his hunger, and warm his hands at the same time.

It was very tempting, but he could not leave his post. Mr Holmes had told him to watch a certain house and look out for the man who was staying there.

“It is a matter of great importance,” the famous detective had told him that morning, looking very serious. “Of national importance. Keep your eyes on that house at all times. Take note of anyone coming or going. If our man leaves, I want to know exactly where he goes, and who he meets.”

“Yes, sir, Mr Holmes,” Wiggins replied, touching his black billycock hat in a salute. “You can rely on me.”

“I know I can, Wiggins. That’s why I’m entrusting you with this mission.”

“And the other Boys,” Wiggins continued. “We’re all at your command.”

“Excellent. But take no chances. This man may be dangerous.”

“We’ll be careful, sir.”

“Good. He must not know he is being watched.”

“No, sir.”

Mr Holmes produced a shiny silver shilling, and handed it over with a nod. Wiggins thanked him, and slipped it into his pocket.

“You will be in charge, as usual,” Mr Holmes concluded. “I leave it to you to organize the rest of my Irregulars.”

Wiggins grinned. Sherlock Holmes liked to call his band of urchins “The Baker Street Irregulars”. He said they were “the unofficial Baker Street division of the detective police force”. When they were working on a case, they sometimes used that name. But generally they called themselves “The Baker Street Boys”. In fact, three of the seven “Boys” were girls, but none of them seemed to mind being called “Boys”. There had only been boys in the gang when they started out, and they had chosen to keep the name when the girls joined them, one by one.

Wiggins was the eldest – he thought he was about fourteen, but he wasn’t sure. He had been living on the streets for as long as he could remember, ever since his home had burnt to the ground in a fire. The rest of his family – his mother, father, sisters and brothers – had all died in the flames. Even now, years later, he still had dreams about that dreadful night. Generally, though, he was a bright and cheerful lad, with a ready grin and sharp eyes under his tangle of dark hair. He had learned to take care of himself, and of his friends. The other Boys all looked up to him and accepted him as their captain, although that was not to say they always obeyed him without arguing.

Fighting off the pangs of hunger, Wiggins turned up the collar of his threadbare old coat and huddled into the shelter of the doorway that was his observation post. He pulled a battered old watch from his inside pocket and checked it for the umpteenth time, scarcely able to believe it was still only three o’clock. He was growing bored and weary, and his eyelids were just beginning to droop when he heard the noise of bolts being drawn back. At once he was wide awake again.

A pale shaft of light spilled on to the pavement as the door he was watching opened, then a man’s shadow fell across it. The man was big, and seemed even bigger because of the heavy greatcoat he was wearing, with its thick collar of black, curly fur, and a black, broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes. He was carrying a stout walking stick with a large silver knob at the top, holding it like a club.

Wiggins shrank back out of sight.

I wouldn’t like to cross
him
, he thought. I bet he’d smash you with that stick if you just looked at him wrong.

The man peered carefully to the left and right. He hardly noticed Wiggins, lounging in the shadows. Or the other Boys, hanging about in different places on the street. They were just scruffy children in ragged clothes, as much a part of the street scene as lampposts and red pillar boxes.

The door closed behind the man. As the bolts were drawn again from the inside, he strode away, passing so close to Wiggins that the young detective could have reached out and touched him. If he had wanted to – which he didn’t. But Wiggins did get a close look at the man’s face: the skin was coarse and ruddy, the nose had been broken and there was a white scar running down one cheek. His mouth was partly hidden by a heavy black moustache that turned up at the ends, but in the half-light it looked cruel. His eyes, shaded by his hat, seemed narrow and mean.

Wiggins shivered again, and this time it was not from the cold. He slipped out of his doorway and followed the man, walking a few paces behind. He did not dare get too close, but he had to take care not to lose him in the fog. As he passed the entrance porch of a darkened house, he nodded to another Boy, Beaver, who was lurking there. Beaver emerged and followed a little behind him, as backup in case anything went wrong.

As Wiggins’s deputy, Beaver always seemed to be following him. If Wiggins was a born leader, Beaver was a born follower. He was about one year younger than Wiggins, but nearly as big, and much stronger – he was easily the strongest of the Boys and could lift surprisingly heavy weights, which was sometimes very useful. He got his name from the hat he always wore – an old-fashioned sort of top hat, known as a “beaver” because it was made from beaver fur. He had discovered it in someone’s rubbish and taken an instant fancy to it. (Most of the Boys wore clothes they had found among people’s cast-offs.) The name suited him, anyway. He looked a bit like a beaver, and he was just as hard-working and amiable as that furry creature.

Beaver’s father was a seaman, who had sailed away to the East and never come back. His mother had deserted him soon afterwards. Beaver still dreamed that his father would turn up again one day, laden with gifts from his travels, but even he knew that it was a vain hope. He had been adopted by a shopkeeper, who fed him on scraps and made him slave from early morning till late at night and sleep on a pile of sacks under the counter. One day, Beaver had gone out on an errand and never found his way back. He had not deliberately run away – it had just sort of happened. Beaver was that kind of chap. Wiggins had found him and taken him under his wing. Together they had become the first of the Baker Street Boys.

The little procession – the big man, Wiggins and Beaver – made its way along the street. After a few yards, they passed a girl standing on the edge of the kerb, selling small bunches of flowers from a tray hung around her neck.

Rosie was another of the Boys – a pretty girl aged about twelve, but who looked much younger. Wiggins signalled with his hand that she was to stay there and not follow. Two Boys could pass unnoticed, but any more might not. Rosie tossed her head in disappointment, making her fair curls fall across her delicate face. But she brightened up when an old gentleman approached her, smiling kindly, and handed over two pennies for a nosegay.

As Wiggins reached the hot-chestnut seller’s barrow on the street corner, the temptation became too much. He could not resist stretching out his hand and helping himself to a chestnut. It was so hot he had to toss it from hand to hand to stop it burning his fingers. The hot-chestnut seller was busy serving a customer, and didn’t see him. But when Beaver helped himself too, he was caught in the act.

“Oi!” the hot-chestnut seller bellowed. “You! Come back ’ere, you rascal!”

Hearing the shout, the man they were tailing half turned and looked back – straight at the two Boys. Wiggins thought fast. If the hot-chestnut seller grabbed them and handed them over, they wouldn’t be able to follow him. There was only one thing to do.

“Run for it!” he cried to Beaver. “This way!” And they raced off, passing one on either side of the big man.

A few yards further on, they took cover behind a stack of boxes outside a greengrocer’s shop.

“Oh, lor!” Wiggins panted. “I hope we ain’t lost him.”

“Sorry, Wiggins,” Beaver replied. He looked down at the chestnut he was still holding, then shrugged, pulled off the shell and took a bite. As he nibbled at it with his two big front teeth, he looked more like a beaver than ever. “Mmmm … that’s good…”

Wiggins paused for a moment, then peeled his own chestnut and stuffed it into his mouth. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Very nice.”

Beaver thought as he chewed. His face cleared. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “He’s gotta come past here.”

“Unless he crosses the road or takes a cab.”

Beaver’s face fell again. “Oh. Yeah… Hadn’t thought of that. Oh dear.”

“Hang on. Here he comes.”

They heard the sound of the metal tip of the big man’s stick clacking on the pavement, then the man himself appeared. To the Boys’ horror, he stopped in front of the shop, barely a yard from their hiding place. Wiggins put his finger to his lips, and clutched Beaver’s sleeve in case he decided to run. But the man had not seen them. Tossing a penny to the greengrocer, he picked up an apple from the neat display outside the shop, rubbed it on his sleeve to polish it and took a bite. Then he set off again at a brisk pace. Wiggins and Beaver followed at a safe distance.