To tell the truth, I had my doubts, but Mr Plotkin was right after all.
“Thank goodness, miss,” one of the policemen said, after we walked in to the police station and I started to tell my story. “We’ve had five men out searching for you. Mr Plush is well known to the constabulary – I mean that in a good way – and as soon as we heard, we were onto it.”
“Inspector Grade is handling the case,” said another. “We’re to take you to your friends’ house, not keep you here, you being a young lady and all.” He looked me up and down. “You look dead beat, miss, and no wonder, running all that way. Since the cab’s still waiting, we’ll just pop you back in and Constable Griggs’ll go with you. And Mr Plotkin, I’ll find a cab for you, sir. A regular good Samaritan you’ve been tonight. We’ll have her back with her friends in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
It took a little longer than that, but by midnight Constable Griggs had delivered me to Miss Lillingsworth’s, and she had me clutched to her chest like she’d never let go.
“I’m all right, Miss Lillingsworth,” I said. “I’ve had a few adventures, but I’m right as rain, truly I am.”
When at last she believed me, she told me that she’d had a few adventures of her own. After the man ran off after me, she revived poor SP and helped him back into the carriage. As soon as she changed her calls of “Help!” to “Fire!”, a nightwatchman ran to her aid. He got the police, and the police got them home and sent word to the Professor. Then all she had to worry about was SP’s head and finding me.
“Miss Lillingsworth,” I said. “What a terrible time you’ve had.”
“Nonsense. I’ve been through worse, my dear – why, when I was teaching the Lampedusa children in Sicily, we were captured by bandits. No, the only terrible thing was the worry about you and SP.”
Miss Lillingsworth, I thought, was made of very tough stuff.
“Is SP badly hurt?” I asked.
“He got a nasty blow to the head, and the doctor’s with him now in the parlour,” she said. “I must get back to him. Millie will look after you, won’t you, Millie?”
Millie actually gave me a hug, and then she bustled me downstairs to the kitchen, where she bandaged my grazed hands, sponged the mud off my skirt and gave me a cup of hot cocoa and some buttered toast.
“Finish your supper, and don’t you fret about your friend, miss,” she said, seeing I was a mite twitchy and anxious to get upstairs. “He’s got Sir Barrington Topp with him, and as he’s the personal physician to the Duke of Cambridge, he ought to be good enough for Mr Saddington Plush.”
Eventually, she let me go into the front parlour where SP was lying on the sofa with cold compresses on his forehead. It seemed he was asleep.
Sir Barrington, looking like a toff in his evening suit and smelling of gardenias, was just about to leave.
“The young man has sustained a blow. The brain naturally resents being thrown around inside the skull and, as any injured tissue is liable to do, it swells,” he was saying. Even though he was trying to whisper, his voice was loud and plummy, and it was clear he liked the sound of it. “Our patient needs to be kept quite quiet, in a darkened room, on a bland diet, for at least a week. I have prescribed a sedative and a sleeping draught.” He scanned the room, as if half-expecting applause, and then his eye lit on me. “So this is our young friend. Another patient for me, Maria?” In spite of my saying I was perfectly fine, he insisted on taking my pulse, looking at my tongue and feeling my forehead before he was satisfied.
“My work is done,” he said, and with that he gathered up his top hat, cloak and cane, and said, in quite a different tone, “Goodnight, Maria dear, and let me know if you need me again, won’t you?”
“Yes, Barry, I will. Thank you for coming.”
“Any time,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.
Miss Lillingsworth watched him leave the room. “He’s so good to his old governess,” she said fondly. “He was such a shy little boy too. He’s come out of himself wonderfully. Now, Saddington.” She tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Here is Verity, as I told you, quite safe.” She turned to me and whispered, “He’s been in agonies of worry about you.”
SP spoke like he was still dreaming. “It’s really you, Verity?”
“It is, SP, and I’m safe and sound so there’s no need to worry yourself.”
“Really, Verity?” SP sounded weak as a kitten.
“Really,” I said, kneeling next to him. “A few scrapes, but no harm done.”
“Tell … tell Inspector Grade …”
For the first time I noticed someone sitting in the shadows near the fireplace. He was a small balding man, wearing a baggy tweed suit. He stood up and offered his hand, and I noticed that under his bristly ginger moustache he had bad teeth and a very kind smile.
“I’m Inspector Grade, and I’m glad to see you, miss,” he said. “And I’m very glad you’re unharmed. A nasty thing for a young lady like yourself to be running at night through those streets. But here you are, and that’s one less of Her Majesty’s subjects in harm’s way, for which I’m grateful. Are you up to giving me a statement?” He flipped the pages of his notebook.
“Statement?”
“If you’ll just tell me what happened, that’ll be good enough for Her Majesty.”
There wasn’t really much to tell. All I could say for certain was that the man who chased me was tall and well-spoken.
“And his voice was quite unusual.”
“Can you elaborate on that?”
“Very deep and sort of smooth, if you know what I mean. He had a way of talking that wasn’t foreign, like Mr Savinov or Mr Plotkin, but somehow different. Like a gentleman, but … but not quite.”
Inspector Grade’s pen was poised in midair. But I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“He was a good runner too,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“Could be a young man. Could be an active older man.”
“Young, I think, sir.” But when he asked me why I thought that, I couldn’t tell him. Dookie, Sam, Polly and the rest of the urchins might have had a better look at him, but I didn’t want to send the police round to Flash Harry’s, for they’d move them on, or worse – round them up and put them in some poorhouse where they’d be separated. It was no way to thank them, so I said nothing.
I was giving Inspector Grade more useless answers when the knocker banged loudly. We heard voices and footsteps in the hall, and Mr Opie burst into the room.
“SP, old chap.”
“Shhh,” said Miss Lillingworth.
“Sorry, Maria,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “SP, I was with the Professor when the message came. I just had to let you know. We found John. He was in the mews behind Lady Skewe’s house, wrists and ankles tied with rope, and doped with chloroform.”
“Is he all right?” asked SP.
“A thumping headache, but no worse than that, thank God. He says that he was having a stroll when a cloth was put over his face. He saw no one, and heard nothing.”
“Chloroform, eh?” said Inspector Grade. “Then it was all well planned and executed. Not a robbery, that’s plain. What was he after?” He chewed the end of his pencil and then looked at me sharply. “The answer seems to be you, miss, seeing as how he ran in pursuit. He called your name too. Anything else unusual happened to you recently? Anything at all?”
“I had a letter,” I said. “A letter warning me away from the Plushes.”
“Do you still have it?” asked the Inspector.
“No, I threw it in the rubbish.”
“Pity. Anything else?”
“I had a note from a friend, asking me to meet her. She wasn’t there, and when I saw her later, she knew nothing about it.”
“You mean she didn’t write to you at all? Aha.” He scribbled busily. “So what’s the motive?” Inspector Grade went on, half to himself.
I started to tell the Inspector about Lady Throttle, Miss Charlotte and Mic-Mac Pinner, but Mr Opie interrupted.
“They’re almost certainly out of the picture, Verity. Mic-Mac is in gaol, and Miss Charlotte has run off with the strongman from Leopoldi’s Circus. She’d be in Brussels by now. Without them, Lady Throttle has no accomplices. And more importantly, she has no money.”
SP groaned. Then he groaned again, louder.
“I think our patient has had enough now, Inspector,” said Miss Lillingsworth.
SP nodded slowly and said, “Thank you, Inspector,” in a thread of a voice.
“It’s simply my duty, sir; I do my best for Her Majesty.” He snapped his notebook shut. “But I will need to speak to you again, sir.” He turned to me. “And you too, miss. Will you be staying here, or–”
“I will give you the Plushes’ address on your way out,” said Miss Lillingsworth, and she practically chased him out of the room.
SP sat up so abruptly that the cold compress went flying. “Verity,” he said. “This can’t go on. You’re in danger; perhaps we’re all in danger, and we won’t know why until we’ve solved this mystery.”
“I agree,” said Mr Opie. “We mustn’t delay.”
“What mystery?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
SP answered. “The truth about Verity Sparks.”
The truth about Verity Sparks! Finding it was going to be easier said than done, for we had only scraps and shadows to go on. Somewhere, if Miss Lillingsworth was right about the lucky piece, I had six aunts and six sisters, maybe even a mother still alive. I could be French, but if so, why was I left with the Sparkses of Seacoal Lane? Where did the Russian wedding ring fit in? And what was the meaning of la Belle Sauvage?
But SP was right. I had to find out who I was. Someone was after me, and next time I might not be so lucky.