The House at Baker Street (5 page)

One of the boys on the street was Wiggins. He was the wily, clever, cunning leader of the Irregulars.

Wiggins was a boy who could think and plan and see consequences. That made him unusual. He looked around him, at all the urchins running round the street, some surviving, some not, and decided
they needed help. He banded them together, found a place for them to sleep, made sure they shared their food, found them work and kept them safe. He gave them a family, of sorts, and he watched
over all of them. And at some point, they met Mr Holmes, and each could see the advantage of helping the other. They had worked for Mr Holmes often.

I did not even know they existed until one day I opened the front door of 221b Baker Street to find a group of filthy ragamuffins standing there. The one at the front, a young
man all of twelve years with watchful eyes, said very politely, ‘Wiggins and the Baker Street Irregulars, missus, here to see Mr ’Olmes. At ’is invitation,’ he added
quickly, and I looked round at the faces, some nervous, some hopeful, one or two angry. Something told me they expected to be kicked off the front doorstep, told to use the tradesman’s
entrance, told to just go away.

Well, I’ve let far worse people into his rooms, and certainly far ruder, so I stepped aside, and invited them in. They scampered up the stairs, led by Wiggins.

When they came down again, I was at the top of the kitchen stairs. I called to them, ‘I have cake, if any should want some! And tea or milk. Enough for all of you.’

Their eyes lit up, poor half-starved things, but they looked towards their leader first. He, in turn, looked at me suspiciously.

‘I shan’t make you wash, and I shan’t ask questions,’ I promised. I vaguely remembered, from so long ago, what boys were like.

He nodded, and the boys (about ten of them, but as they dashed around and in and out it was difficult to count) rushed past me into the kitchen. He, the older boy, walked towards me, and said,
‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs ’Udson.’

‘My pleasure,’ I assured him. ‘You know my name, and I know you are Wiggins, yes?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said politely, touching his cap, and walked past me into the kitchen, as self-possessed as any city gent. I heard him tell the boys to eat properly, not like a
bunch of savages. I followed him in and watched him pour milk for the younger ones, and make sure each and every boy got his share. He insisted on please and thank you, served himself last, settled
disputes quickly and all the time he watched those boys.

I have known many worse men than Wiggins of the Baker Street Irregulars, but none better.

The boys wolfed down the cakes, all I had, and I was glad to see it.

‘You’re welcome here any time,’ I said to them. ‘I always make too much food, and it just goes to waste.’

Wiggins didn’t trust charity. I could see it in his face. Charity meant the workhouse, and prayers and exhortations to remember your sins and then eat bad food, and never enough of it, and
beatings, and separations.

‘Mr Holmes doesn’t eat his dinner half the time,’ I told him. ‘It pains me to see all my hard work over the stove going to waste.’

Wiggins nodded, but said nothing. He looked round at the others. He had his own stubborn pride, but would he deny his boys because of that?

Wiggins deserved the truth.

‘I had a son once,’ I said to him, in a low voice. I sat down beside him, at the head of the huge wooden kitchen table. I kept my voice low, so none of the other boys could hear me.
This was between Wiggins and me. ‘He died. So did my husband. To tell the truth, I would appreciate the company. Mr Holmes is out most of the time, and I am alone here.’

Then he smiled at me, and nodded his approval of my plan at the rest of the boys. From that moment on, the Irregulars would turn up at my door, two or three times a month, never more than two or
three at a time. I would feed them, and talk to them, never asking questions, but listening to all they said. Sometimes I would treat scratches and cuts and bruises – even with Wiggins’
protection, life on the streets was never easy. Every so often, Wiggins himself would appear, sometimes with a half-starved boy, sometimes alone. After a while, I came to realize that even though I
thought I was looking after the boys, Wiggins believed he was looking after me. His visits weren’t just to eat, but to make sure I was all right, not lonely, not scared, not in trouble. It
touched me more than I can say.

And of course, one day he brought me Billy.

‘How do you find the Irregulars?’ Mary asked. ‘John says they run all over London; they could be anywhere.’

‘I leave a message in the newsagent’s window on the corner,’ I told her. ‘That’s how Mr Holmes contacts them. They check it every day, every hour
sometimes.’

So I did.
BSI contact Mrs H. I have work for you.

Wiggins came the next day, to the front door, as befitted a business transaction. Normally he slipped in through the kitchen door, as the boys did when they came for cake, but Wiggins was very
conscious of the proprieties. He wasn’t here as a boy, but as a worker. I invited him down to the kitchen, my own particular office.

‘You all right?’ he asked, coming down the stairs. He hesitated when he saw Mary sitting there. He wasn’t used to seeing anyone else in the kitchen. I think he was worried that
Mary was a do-gooder, come to take him away to some place to be prayed at and ordered about and locked away.

‘This is my friend, Mary Watson,’ I said quickly. ‘Dr Watson’s wife.’

I walked over to the hob and poured the tea as Mary and Wiggins took the measure of each other. She would have seen a boy of indeterminate age, somewhere between twelve and fifteen, thin but
lean, with a suggestion of a hungry strength in the way he moved. He could be still, so very still, as if carved from stone, except for his eyes. His eyes watched and assessed and judged all the
time. He was calm, though he never stopped thinking and his thoughts were not often pleasant. He was taller than most of his boys, with dirty skin, pale underneath all the grime. His dark blond
hair was too long, and filthy, and his eyes were dark, very dark, and shadowed. He was dressed all in mismatched brown rags – a disguise to help him blend in on the streets. I knew he had
better clothes as I had given them to him. All this Mary saw and understood as she looked at the boy standing before her.

‘Mr Wiggins,’ Mary said to him, nodding. He nodded back, all cool politeness.

‘Just Wiggins, ma’am,’ he told her.

‘No other name?’

‘Never needed one.’

‘Wiggins, then,’ she said, smiling at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he smiled back. In that moment they had made their assessment and found each other perfectly
satisfactory. Wiggins sat down at the table and I poured tea for all of us.

‘Do you need help?’ Wiggins said to me. ‘The advert said you, not Mr ’Olmes.’

‘I do. I’m not in trouble, but someone I know is. I said I’d help her, and for that I need you,’ I told him, placing a very large slice of seed cake in front of him. It
was his favourite. He looked at it suspiciously, recognizing it for what it was – a bribe. ‘And I’d rather Mr Holmes did not know.’

Wiggins looked at us, from one to the other, warily.

‘Not tell Mr ’Olmes?’ He didn’t like this. He had a great deal of loyalty for Mr Holmes, not to mention a healthy amount of respect. He knew it would be very difficult to
keep a secret from his major employer.

‘This is our case,’ Mary said forcefully. ‘Not his.’

‘Your case? You setting yourselves up as ’tecs, same as Mr ’Olmes?’ he said, with a mixture of incredulity and amusement.

‘Yes we are,’ I said calmly, sitting opposite him. ‘Why ever not?’

His smile faded as he realized I was deadly serious.

‘Your case,’ he said, looking at the two of us.

‘Our case,’ Mary replied. ‘Our client to protect. Our obligation to fulfil.’

He watched her earnest face for a moment, and saw how seriously she took this. He nodded, and ate an enormous bite of the seed cake.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Mind, on one condition.’

‘What condition?’ I asked.

‘If either of you get into trouble, or get hurt, I go straight to Mr ’Olmes,’ he insisted.

‘Agreed,’ Mary said quickly. We were daring, but not fools.

‘Right then, what’s the job?’ Wiggins asked, as businesslike as ever.

‘To follow two people,’ Mary told him, handing over a piece of paper. Wiggins, unusually for a street boy, could read and write. I do not know where he learnt these skills. I suspect
the price for them was high. But they were skills he was determined to use and expand.

‘Mrs Laura Shirley and her husband. This is their address, details of where he works, and so on. We need to know the names and descriptions of everyone who calls at their house, everyone
they have any contact with, everyone they see or meet, no matter how insignificant.’

‘Blimey, you don’t half ask a lot!’ Wiggins said, amused, peering down the list.

‘Can you manage all that?’ I asked, watching this boy.

‘No more than I done for Mr ’Olmes a dozen times,’ he told me with a touch of scorn as he folded the paper and put it into his pocket. ‘Servants, too?’ he asked. I
hadn’t thought of that.

‘Not yet,’ I mused. This was more complicated than I first thought. There must be so many people Laura Shirley had contact with, day in and day out, and those people had contacts,
and then there were her husband’s friends and colleagues . . . how would we track down all those connections?

‘Unless you spot something significant in the servants’ interaction,’ I added.

‘How will he know what is significant?’ Mary asked.

‘Wiggins will know,’ I said confidently. ‘Mr Holmes has great faith in his abilities.’ This was true. I had often heard Mr Holmes say that Wiggins was destined to rule
Scotland Yard one day – or set it by its heels and outwit it completely. Wiggins’ back straightened unconsciously.

‘Send Billy to me twice a day for reports,’ Wiggins said. ‘He’ll know where to find us.’

Have I mentioned Billy? He was our page-boy. More on him later. He has quite a story of his own.

No one knew where the Irregulars slept, not even Mr Holmes. They guarded their lair fiercely, for who knew who would come for them in their sleep – the law, the beadles, the criminals.
‘I’ll come myself if anything happens.’

He nodded once at Mary and me, and turned to go.

‘Remarkable boy,’ Mary said, watching the door as Wiggins left.

‘They all are, all the Irregulars,’ I said, clearing up the tea things. I was suddenly angry that all that intelligence and kindness should go to waste. ‘What kind of world is
it where Wiggins and Billy and the like scrape a living on the streets whilst worse boys than them get an education and a home and parents?’

‘A world where you take Billy in and Mr Holmes employs Wiggins and Wiggins cares for the lost boys,’ Mary told me gently, handing me her tea cup. She patted me on the shoulder, and I
sighed. She was right, of course. Others failed them. We would not. ‘Now what happens?’ Mary asked.

‘Now we wait,’ I sighed, and sat down. ‘Mr Holmes hates this part.’

‘I can’t say I blame him.’

Mary left soon afterwards, to take care of her own home and husband. I made cakes all afternoon – it was the most restful occupation I knew. And all day, even until the nighttime, I heard
Mr Holmes pace back and forth above me. I didn’t know what he was working on, but his restlessness matched my own.

I have to admit the next two days were exciting. Dr Watson was spending a lot of time with Mr Holmes, so Mary was free to visit me. We sat round the kitchen table, the sun
pouring through the window, tea always in front of us, and the two of us planning and deducing. The plight of Laura Shirley had touched us, but I must say it was the thrill of the chase that was
driving us onwards. We came up with a dozen different scenarios to catch the blackmailer, each more ridiculous than the last. We pored over the letter, searching it for clues, making terribly
far-fetched deductions from the colour of the ink or the smudge in the corner. We talked and planned and, most important and thrilling of all, we
thought
.

I did love my job as housekeeper, more than I had enjoyed being merely a landlady. Mary did love being married to John. Yet neither role offered much in the way of mental
stimulation when the men were out, chasing about the streets of London. But now we had something to do, not just a way to while away the hours, like embroidery or baking, but a problem to solve and
a puzzle to piece together. For the first time in years I felt my thoughts racing and my mind turning and my imagination creating and I felt alive: intensely, gloriously alive.

The kitchen vent stayed shut for two days. We could hear John and Mr Holmes moving about upstairs, the occasional slammed door, once in a while an excited shout. Mr Holmes would not eat the
meals I brought him, and his light burnt all night, always the way when he had a case. Mysterious telegrams arrived for him (using various aliases of his) at all hours of the day and night. And
yet, for once, I had no curiosity about his case. I was utterly absorbed in my own.

Reports from Wiggins and the Irregulars arrived twice a day, via Billy. We examined every word for something, someone out of place. Laura visited her dressmaker, her father’s solicitor,
paid her bill at the milliner’s. Mr Shirley went to work and went home. He ate lunch in a local chop house with three other men of equal probity and averageness. The servants seemed ordinary;
one of the maids had a follower, the boot boy was recognized as one who had run away from his previous post. Just tiny wrinkles in their perfect life, but enough to start a whole range of
speculation in our minds.

Of course there came the moment when the door to Mr Holmes’ rooms slammed open with extraordinary force, and Mr Holmes ran down the stairs shouting, ‘Come, Watson,
there’s not a moment to lose!’

Mary and I happened to be in the hall as John ran past and out of the door, glancing apologetically at Mary.

‘Go, go!’ Mary shouted happily after her husband. ‘Save the day, solve the riddle. Be sure to tell me every detail later!’ She never begrudged John a moment with Mr
Holmes, as long as he told her the entire story afterwards.