Read Online The Baker Street Boys - The Case of the Stolen Sparklers by Anthony Read - Free Book Online Page A

no! You can’t suspect her ladyship!” cried Polly. “She wouldn’t.”
    “Well,” said Wiggins, “somebody did. There was only six people in that house, so it has to be one of ’em. We know it wasn’t you, so that leaves five. Mrs Ford was downstairs in the kitchen, baking. So it wasn’t her. That means it has to be one of the others: Mr Harper, Violet, Mr Gerald or her ladyship. One of ’em took the sparklers, and I reckon whoever it was has still got ’em, and they’re hid somewhere in that house.”

 

A T ELEGRAM FOR M R G ERALD
    Next morning, the Boys took up their posts once more in the street outside Mountjoy House. Wiggins said they should take it in turns to watch the house, in case anyone got suspicious of them hanging about all day. He, Sparrow and Gertie took the first turn, so that Rosie and Shiner could carry on with their jobs in a busier street and earn a few more pennies and Beaver could get food for Polly to try to cook for supper. They had not been waiting long when the front door opened and Lady Mountjoy came out and began walking briskly along the street. Wiggins signalled to the others that he would follow her and they were to stay where they were.
    Wiggins and Lady Mountjoy were hardly out of sight when someone else came out of the house, this time not through the front door but up the steps from the basement.
    “It’s Violet,” Sparrow whispered to Gertie. “And look – she’s carryin’ somethin’.”
    It was Violet, and tucked under her arm was a package wrapped in brown paper.
    “D’you think the sparklers could be in there?” Gertie asked. “In the parcel?”
    “Could be. Only one way to find out – you’ll have to follow her,” Sparrow said. “If she sees me, she might remember me from yesterday. I’ll stop here and keep an eye on the place in case anybody else comes out.”
    Looking quickly along the street as though making sure Lady Mountjoy had gone, Violet hurried off in the opposite direction. Gertie waited a moment, then set off after her, a few yards behind, leaving Sparrow on his own.
    “Blimey,” he thought. “What do I do if somebody else comes out?”
    And at that very moment, somebody else did. This time it was Mr Harper, carrying not a bag or a parcel, but a letter. While Sparrow was trying to decide whether or not to leave his post and follow him, the butler stopped at the pillar box on the corner, checked the address on the envelope in his hand, touched it briefly to his lips as if he was kissing it, and popped it into the slot. Then, to Sparrow’s relief, he turned and retraced his steps back to the house, looking very pleased with himself.
    Wiggins was glad that Lady Mountjoy had not taken a cab, which meant, he thought, that she could not be going very far. She led him across busy Baker Street and then turned into a quieter area and rang the bell on a white-painted building with a polished brass plate beside the door. After she had gone inside, Wiggins strolled up to the door and looked at the plate. Engraved on it were the words P ARKER AND M UNRO , I NSURANCE A GENTS .
    “Insurance,” he murmured. “I dare say she’ll be talking about collecting the insurance money on the jewels. Does that mean she don’t expect to get ’em back?” Could Lady Mountjoy herself have faked the robbery, he wondered, so that she could get the money and still keep the jewels? He found the idea hard to believe, but he had to admit that it was not impossible.
    Gertie almost lost Violet as she made her way through a crowded street market, still clutching the brown-paper parcel. The lady’s maid seemed to know a lot of the people there, who called out to her cheerfully as she passed. At the far end of the market she went into a shop selling second-hand ladies’ clothes. Gertie ambled up to it and peeped in through the window. Inside she saw the shopkeeper, an enormously fat woman with crinkly black hair, greeting Violet like an old friend as she handed her the