Buffalo Bill Wanted! Page 9
“We’re just getting information,” Wiggins told the old sailor. “Like I said, to tell our friend.”
“To be sure, that’s all it better be,” the old salt warned.
“Thanks for your help, sir,” Dooley added.
“You’re welcome, young Dorley.”
“Dooley, sir. Dooley.”
“Aye. I know that.”
Wiggins and Dooley said their good-byes and left the old sailor still sitting on the crate, smoking his pipe.
The shadows were getting longer now, and the docks were almost deserted. The fog had become thicker, seeming to curl and slither along the damp wood of the pier.
“Well, that gave us a lot to tell the others,” Wiggins said. “Especially that part about the rich folks and their connections.”
“That’s true,” Dooley agreed. “But there’s so much going on, so much to remember.”
“Jennie will write it all down,” Wiggins said. “That’ll help. Let’s hurry.”
Eager to meet up with the others, Wiggins and Dooley raced along a particularly desolate part of the docks. During the day, it was jammed with workers, peddlers, and their customers. But now, they saw closed shops, stacked crates, and piles of garbage. The boys were used to the usual vermin that came with this area, but the wharf rats that suddenly stepped out of the shadows were the two-legged kind.
They were large, muscular men, with unshaven faces and worn, ill-fitting clothes. One was bald with a scar that ran down the length of his right cheek. The other had dark, greasy hair. Even from eight feet away, Wiggins and Dooley could tell neither had seen a bath in some time.
“Well, lookee what we have here,” Baldy said, gesturing toward the boys. For the first time, Wiggins saw that he had a knife in that hand. “A bit late for two young tykes to be about these parts.”
“Dangerous parts, at that.” The other man sneered.
“If that’s so,” Wiggins said as he and Dooley backed away, “we’ll just be on our way.”
They quickly turned, then stopped as a third ruffian appeared beside a stack of crates behind them. He was tall and thin, his skin burned dark by the sun. This time Wiggins immediately saw the item in his hand, a small wooden club about twelve inches long. Sailors called them belaying pins. They had many uses on a ship, but here on land, Wiggins could think of only one purpose.
He grabbed Dooley and cut left, going up and over the stack of crates. As the thugs came around the obstacle, the boys jumped onto a pile of garbage, rolled out of it, and ran down a narrow alley between two old buildings.
Wiggins could hear the men shouting and footfalls thudding in pursuit. He and Dooley reached the end of the alley and turned down another narrow passage, hoping it would bring them out onto a busier street.
Dooley staggered into Wiggins as they reached the alley mouth, letting out a cry of dismay. They faced a wharf and warehouse in an area more isolated than anywhere they’d been before.
Forcing a final burst of speed out of his legs, Wiggins darted across the wharf, hoping to find a boat tied up there. No luck. Behind him, Dooley struggled with the doors to the warehouse—they were locked. The younger boy joined Wiggins, staring down at the water.
“Can’t swim,” Dooley whimpered in a tiny voice. They turned around just as the three men appeared at the landward end of the wharf.
“I don’t like to run, brats,” the greasy-haired one wheezed, struggling to catch his breath. “Makes me mad, like you made others mad with your snoopin’.”
“That’s enough,” the tall, thin one said. “Let’s just teach ’em and be on our way.”
The three men came toward them. Old Crowe’s warning echoed in Wiggins’s mind: They’ll find your bodies in the Thames. He curled up a trembling fist and saw Dooley do the same. But they both knew they had no chance against these thugs.
“I’m sorry, Dooley.” Those were the only words Wiggins could think of as he saw the thin man raise the belaying pin.
“That will be enough of that!”
The shout came from somewhere behind the thugs. All three of them turned around as the voice called out again.
“Constable Garrett, throw your light on them!”
Though the fog was thicker here, the boys could see a lantern go on about ten feet back the way they had come.
“This is the police,” the voice shouted from another position in the pea soup mist. This time Wiggins thought he recognized the commanding tones. “Put down your weapons and step forward.”
“Jiggers, it’s the law!” Baldy instantly slipped his knife into his belt. “Best get out of here!”
The three men pushed past the boys to the far end of the wharf, disappearing in the fog to the sound of three loud splashes.
“They jumped into the river!” Dooley called. “Come quick, you lot, or they’ll get away!”
He blinked as only Inspector Desmond came out of the thick, greasy mist.
“Where are the other coppers, uh, policemen?” Dooley asked.
Desmond smiled. “This way.” He walked them back off the wharf to where a barrel of tar sat against a wall. A bull’s-eye lantern sat on top, its white light much brighter as they came close.
“You’re alone,” Dooley said in amazement.
“When you don’t carry a weapon and the bad ones do,” the inspector replied, “you have to keep your wits about you. That’s what you boys need to be doing,” Desmond told them. “Keep your wits about you, and keep your nose out of police business. These are dangerous people hereabouts.”
“We know that,” Dooley said.
“You know more than that, I think,” Desmond continued. “If it’s anything that can help with this case, you need to tell me . . . now.”
Wiggins wanted to tell the officer about Silent Eagle’s innocence. But to explain how he knew, Wiggins would have to mention talking with Silent Eagle—and where, giving away the Indian’s hiding place. Besides, all they had were suspicions. As Mr. Holmes was always saying, deductions without facts were useless.
“We really don’t have anything to tell you, Inspector,” Wiggins said finally. “But believe me, we’ll get on to you the moment we know something. Honest.”
“Pardon?” Desmond raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"If we find something out, sir,” Wiggins said. He cleared his throat, then began pushing Dooley along ahead of him. “Well, thanks for saving us. We’ll be seeing you!”
“I sincerely hope not,” the police inspector called after them.
“You should have seen them run!” Dooley stood on top of a keg in back of the Raven Pub. Wiggins, Jennie, and Owens were seated around the room, listening as he finished his tale about the attack on the wharf.
“It was amazing how Inspector Desmond tricked those villains,” he said.
Jennie smiled. “Sounds like you’re changing your mind about policemen.”
“Nah,” Dooley said. “Just him.”
“We’ve all had a busy time of it,” Owens said. “I took some food over to Silent Eagle, and Jennie bought him some clothes from that tailor friend’s shop.”
“Grand,” Wiggins replied. “Now, if we could just figure out how everything we learned today fits together.”
Jennie immediately dug out her little notebook. “Let’s go over the notes I made,” she suggested.
Wiggins and Owens leaned in, eager to hear her read back the facts they had collected. As Dooley bent forward, something crackled inside his shirt—the magazine he’d retrieved from behind the Wild West show stables. He had completely forgotten about it in all the excitement!
He crept back, sitting down in the dim space behind a barrel so he’d have the magazine to himself. Dooley dug it out and flipped through the pages. Many of them were covered with text, but here and there were pictures of hard-looking characters like the ones they’d seen on the docks. Dooley even recognized a face from the local newspapers—the posh jewel thief, Gentleman Jeremy Clive, being apprehended by detectives.
The last two came apart more easily, and Dooley was glad because there was a great picture on one. It showed what looked like a snake with a human face squirming out of a jail cell. Dooley chuckled and went to turn the page when something struck him.
That face looked familiar. Most of it was pretty unremarkable, but that bristly mustache and the way the jaw sloped back below his lips . . .
Dooley suddenly realized this was an exact likeness of the man they’d seen handling the buffalo the day Constable Turnbuckle had been shot. He jumped up.
“Look at this!” His excited cry turned into a yell of horror. Now that he was in the light, he could see that the sticky, reddish brown stuff that had glued the pages together was a large, unmistakable stain . . . dried blood!
Chapter 13
WIGGINS’S EYES MOVED QUICKLY FROM THE PICTURE ON the bloody page to Dooley’s face. “Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“I found it, didn’t I?” Dooley replied.
“Right,” Wiggins said. “Where?”
“When you and Owens went and left us to muck around in the stables, I found it on the hill that goes down to the railway tracks—”
“The embankment,” Jennie put in.
“Where all the stone and gravel is,” Dooley went on. He explained how he’d rescued the magazine. “I was just putting away the pitchfork when Zeke Black turned up,” he finished. “After the scare he gave us, I clean forgot I had this.”
Jennie took the magazine and turned back to the soft yellow cover. “The Policeman’s World,” she read, pointing to the title at the top of the page. “Under that it says, ‘Illustrated news from around the globe for the Empire’s law enforcers.’ ” She looked up. “Since it’s in English, I expect they must mean the British Empire.”
Owens nodded. “Americans wouldn’t say that. I bet if you look inside, you’ll see it’s printed here in London.”
Jennie riffled through the pages. “So, we have a British magazine full of international news and pictures, probably favored by a policeman—”
“Judging from all the blood on it, I think we can say it belonged to Constable Turnbuckle,” Wiggins said. “And we can also say he had it when he was beaten.”
“The same constable who was guarding the entrance when the buffalo began acting up,” Jennie agreed. “He saw all three men involved and at some point made the connection between the chinless fellow and this picture in the magazine.”
“The copper was out of uniform,” Owens added. “So, he must have figured it out after he went home. He came right back to question the chinless man and was attacked.”
“And scalped.” Dooley shuddered.
“As Wiggins says, first things first,” Jennie said. “When Constable Turnbuckle spoke to Inspector Desmond at the hospital, he said ‘buffalo.’ I think he was trying to say that one of the men with the buffalo attacked him. He also said ‘smuggling.’ That’s the reason he was attacked.”
“How do you get that?” Owens said in disbelief.
“What were they smuggling?” Dooley asked.
Jennie opened the magazine to the bloody page and pointed at the picture. “This story isn’t about smuggling tobacco, jewels”—she glanced at Owens—“or buffalo. It’s about smuggling people. Didn’t that Old Crowe person mention that?”
“He talked about smuggling Chinese,” Wiggins admitted.
“I think these people smuggle criminals.” Jennie turned back to the page. “The print under the picture tells how a gangster called Chinless Ed Gorham made a getaway from jail in New York City. Now he’s here in London.”
At the word getaway, Wiggins suddenly turned to stare at Jennie.
“You want to argue?” she asked.
Slowly, he shook his head. “You made me remember something. A few times while we were working for Mr. Holmes, he sent out the Irregulars to get word of different villains he wanted to put his hands on. But it was like some of these blokes had vanished from London.”
“Maybe they ended up dead,” Owens said.
“Maybe.” Wiggins shrugged. “But you know how you hear things round here—though you may not believe it all? Well, when a lot of these blokes vanished, I heard stories about a secret, special route for getaways. I wouldn’t have called it smuggling, but when you put it that way. . . .”
“So what were these rumors about?” Jennie asked.
“The way I heard it,” Wiggins said, “if London got too hot for business—”
“Thieving,” Dooley said.
“If the coppers were really on your trail, you could get out of the city—even out of the country. It could cost a burglar everything he’d stolen, and even then, he might have to work off a debt wherever he wound up. Other kinds of villains could use the service too. Supposedly, some South American dictators have turned up in England—or gotten out— very quietly this way.”
Owens raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like a pretty wild story to me.”
Wiggins didn’t offer any answer. But he could see everyone was thinking much the same thing. A month ago, they’d have thought a plot to assassinate the queen would be just as wild. Then they’d stumbled onto one.
“Maybe it’s just thieves’ gossip,” Wiggins finally said. “But we have to dig into it tomorrow, and I can think of three places where we can try.”
“Three?” said Dooley.
Wiggins nodded. “The pubs Old Crowe mentioned to us—the Oak and Ivy, the Midnight Flit, and the Bucket.”
Dooley stared. “He also said we could get our throats cut.”
“That’s why we’re not going to spy—we’re going to work.”
Jennie and Owens joined in the stare. “Doing what?” Owens demanded.
“Cleaning,” Wiggins replied. “All of us did it for Mr. Pilbeam once at the Raven Pub.”
The expressions on the other members of the Raven League brightened as they remembered how Mr. Pilbeam had paid each of them a shilling apiece.
They weren’t smiling when they got down to the docks the next day and actually saw the Oak and Ivy. Unlike the Raven, this pub hadn’t seen a mop or a cleaning rag in years. And the owner offered only a shilling—to split among them.
For two hours, Wiggins, Jennie, Owens, and Dooley scrubbed and polished. They saw plenty of suspicious-looking characters muttering with one another over pints of beer and tumblers of gin, but they didn’t hear anything that might be a clue.
Finishing at the Oak and Ivy, they moved along High Street to Broad Street and the Midnight Flit. The place was even filthier than the first pub, and this time the owner offered them only six-pence to do the job—half as much as they’d made just before.
The job took longer too. Partly, that was because they had to deal with caked-on dirt. Also, the members of the Raven League were getting tired.
After the owner paid them, they walked slowly down the street in the mid-afternoon sun. Jennie blew a wisp of hair off her sweaty face. “Tell me, please, that you heard something—anything useful.”
Wiggins and the others shook their heads. The drinkers at the Midnight Flit were a rough lot. Wiggins could easily imagine any of them slitting a throat. But they turned out to be remarkably close-mouthed. During Wiggins’s time with the Baker Street Irregulars, he’d noticed that most criminals grew loud and boastful after a few drinks.
“Maybe smugglers are just naturally more cautious, ” he muttered as they walked along to Gun Lane and the Bucket.
This place was the seediest and filthiest yet. The owner had only one eye and a scarred pit where the other one had been. From the look of his matted hair —and the smell that came from his clothes—he hadn’t bathed in the last year.
He scowled as he listened to the Raven Leaguers’ offer of work. “I can’t go throwing away no money for cleaning.” He paused for a moment. “Tell you what�
�do the job, and I’ll give you a meal.”
Wiggins didn’t even want to think of what he was scrubbing off the floor. He noticed, however, that none of the benches and tables matched, and much of the furniture had nicks and traces of repairs. Plenty of barroom brawls in here, he thought. If the drinkers at this pub were more boisterous, maybe they’d also turn out to be more talkative.
But by the time Wiggins and his friends had finished, the patrons—as scurvy a bunch as Wiggins had ever seen—hadn’t said a thing worth spying for.
The ordeal wasn’t over, though. Wiggins, Owens, Jennie, and Dooley faced a truly horrible meal. The pub owner’s wife did the cooking. She was a fat, blowsy woman who was, if possible, even filthier than her husband. The potatoes were burned; the meat was tasteless, gray, and tough as shoe leather. The plates were greasy and spotted with earlier meals.
Wiggins gritted his teeth and choked the stuff down. This was their payment, after all, and refusing it might make the owner and his patrons suspicious. Pretending to cough, Wiggins spat a piece of gristle into his hand and let it drop to the floor.
The place would be filthy again soon enough. Why should he care?
He was doggedly chewing away when a group of men came swaying and staggering into the Bucket. Wiggins glanced over. Sailors, by the look of them, he thought.
After buying a round of drinks, one of the men raised his glass, saying in a slurred voice, “Here’s to our friends on the good ship Sea Foam, leaving on the tide.”
Another of the men brought up his glass as well. “So long as the old tub don’t sink on the way to Hamburg.”
That brought a roar of drunken laughter from the group. The sailors continued to exchange rude jokes and banter as they slurped gin from their tumblers.
“So,” one man said, “are you going to have any passengers without tickets on this trip?”
One of the Sea Foam’s crewmen nearly spilled his drink from laughing so hard. “Our cap’n has started to discourage regular folk from sailing with us. The old skinflint makes more money from the other kind of cargo. Knowing him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were fiddling the accounts for supplies as well.”