The Truth About Verity Sparks Read online

  Oh. Now I understood: it was so that Mr Plush would find the ruby, figure that it had come out of its setting, and use that as evidence.

  The pie turned to sawdust. They didn’t transport convicts any more, but I’d get prison. No question about it. Cook loved to read the news aloud to us of an evening, and I knew all about Holloway Gaol. No one would believe I hadn’t done it, especially with my precious Uncle Bill being so famous.

  I stared at it. Horrible thing, winking like a little bloodshot eye. Quickly, I unbuckled my carpetbag and thrust it in among my clothes. Then I wondered if I should even keep it. Maybe I should just throw it in the gutter, like I’d thrown Mr Plush’s card. I started to rummage in my bag, but just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him again – a young man in a stovepipe hat, clean-shaven, very tall and sort of spindly in the legs. I’d first spotted him a few streets back, and I realised what I should have known for the last half-mile. I was being followed.

  Who was he? What was he up to? I had the funny feeling that I’d seen him before, but I’d be blowed if I knew where. I walked on, and so did he. I stopped, pretending to tie my bootlace, and he stopped too. I crossed the road. He crossed the road. How was I going to get rid of him? I turned a corner quickly, then ran like the blazes to the next street, crossed it, and looked back. He was nowhere to be seen. Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I trotted along happily until I heard my name called. It was a girl’s voice. She was halfway down a lane, standing in the shadows, a small skinny creature with a cloud of yellow hair. I didn’t recognise her, but walking the streets of London delivering and picking up orders, I’d met all sorts. How could I remember every one?

  “Verity!”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Verity, do come quickly.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, starting forward. I was so intent on her pale face and trembling voice that I didn’t notice someone coming up behind me. The first I knew about it was when a hand was clapped over my mouth. For an instant I was too surprised to move, but then I jerked my head and bit down hard on the hand. My attacker yelled and I wrenched myself free just long enough to see it was a man. Then he gave me a clout to the head that made me see stars. Before I could run or shout or anything, he shoved a rag into my mouth and rammed me against the laneway wall with my hands twisted up behind my back.

  “Come on. What you waitin’ for? Check ’er pockets.”

  I felt the girl close to me, felt her hands on me. I tried to kick her but my skirt got in the way.

  “Cut it out, you bloody little fool,” he said, and then he pushed me face down in a puddle.

  I was more mad than scared. How dare they pull a trick like this in broad daylight? I lifted my head up, spat the rag out of my mouth and yelled, “Help, thief!” as loud as I could.

  “Get the bag. Quick, someone’s comin’.”

  “Hey, you!” A new voice. I tried to stand up but got a boot between my shoulderblades.

  “Run!”

  There were footsteps and then more footsteps coming from another direction and heavy breathing and a few confused yells and then a thwack as something hit something else. Flesh and bone, I guessed, ’cos there was a yelp of pain and a lot of swearing.

  “After him, Opie.”

  I could hear them running away now. Was it over? I lay there, winded, tasting blood and dirty water. Then two hands picked me up and set me on my feet. I blinked up at my rescuer.

  “Are you injured, Miss Sparks? Any bones broken?”

  It was the young gentleman in the stovepipe hat, the one who’d been following me. He bowed slightly, and handed me a grubby pasteboard card.

  “You dropped this, Miss Sparks.”

  I looked again. “Where’s yer moustache?”

  Everything was moving and swaying, just slightly, and creaking. There was a strong smell of leather and the sound of horses’ hooves. I stared at Mr Plush – for that was who it was, without the moustache – and he smiled. “You’re quite safe, Miss Sparks.”

  “Safe,” I repeated dozily, and then I sat up in alarm. I saw trees and tall fences and paved footpaths. Where was he taking me? “Never go with a member of the male sex in a carriage or a cab,” Cook had told us girls. Evil designs again. Was this a kidnapping?

  “And this is Mrs Cannister,” he continued, gesturing towards a plump middle-aged lady sitting next to the window, half asleep. She had a red wool scarf wrapped around her head, and her face was bruised. She nodded, smiled and said something like “Mumf, mumf, humf,” and I remembered how I’d been bundled into the carriage, and this lady had wrapped me in a shawl and given me a drink from a silver flask. Elderberry cordial, Mr Plush said it was, but there must have been more than elderberries in it. It put me straight into a doze.

  “Mrs Cannister is our invaluable housekeeper,” he explained. “When I took her into town today to the dentist, I thought I should also like to continue our conversation, and so I called at Madame Louisette’s. She told me you had left her employ that very morning, and that you were going to Mrs Bolivar’s boarding establishment. So I followed you.”

  “Lucky for me,” I said. “Thank you, sir.”

  “It was a pleasure, Miss Sparks. You are safe and sound. And here is your bag, as well.”

  “My bag …” Dirty and muddy, but safe. I fumbled around in it until I found the ruby.

  “Look,” I said, holding it out to him. “It must have been put there, sir.”

  “Planted,” he said. “And probably fake as well.” He solemnly wrapped it in his large white handkerchief. “Hmmm. Miss Sparks, you have been, as they say, set up. You realise that you’d most certainly be before the magistrate if that little gem was discovered in your possession?”

  I nearly lost my temper. “I ain’t stupid, sir.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting you were. I promise you that you are perfectly safe from prosecution, but I would like to ask you to assist us in our inquiries. Believe me, this Throttle affair interests us very much.” He paused. “Will you tell me now how you knew that the brooch was in Lady Throttle’s purse? Was it a form of mentalism?”

  I gawped at him.

  “What I mean is, did you notice any tiny clues in Lady Throttle’s behaviour? Did her eyes almost imperceptibly flicker towards the purse? Did she perhaps move her hands?”

  “My fingers started to itch,” I said.

  You should have seen the look on his face. “Your fingers started to itch?”

  “They itched something dreadful, and then I saw where the brooch was, like a picture in a book, but sort of inside my head. And my fingers … well, they sort of …” I stopped. It did sound silly.

  “Have you had itchy fingers before? I mean, when you were looking for something?”

  “No, sir.”

  “But you think that feeling the itch and finding the brooch were definitely connected?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, I don’t really know, sir.” Now I was confused. “I’m just good at finding things,” I said lamely.

  “I know. Madame Louisette told me. She’d already mislaid her spectacles and a packet of bugle beads when I called this morning.”

  “That’d be right, sir.” I laughed. “But you know, half the time I find what she’s lost before she’s even missed it. She says I’ve got the gift.”

  He was gazing at me with a funny expression, half pleased and half not.

  “A gift for finding things?” he said softly.

  “I s’pose so.”

  “And itchy fingers.” He shook his head, and went on in a different voice. “We are nearly at Mulberry Hill, my family residence.”

  I stared out of the window. The carriage turned through two high brick gateposts into a gravelled drive that led through trees and grass and more trees, but I couldn’t see a house yet.

  “Nearly there,” said Mr Plush.

  We rounded the last curve in the drive, and stopped in front of a white house with a verandah and a little tower and a climbing rose reach
ing almost to the third storey. It stood among garden beds, all by itself, with enough space around it to park a dozen omnibuses.

  “You live here? You must be–” I stopped myself from saying “rich as a platter o’ gravy,” for I knew that wasn’t manners. I’d seen grand houses before, of course, when I was out delivering hats, but never one with so much garden and so many trees and so much … well, space. It was like a palace.

  “Welcome to Mulberry Hill, Miss Sparks,” Mr Plush said as he helped me and Mrs Cannister out of the carriage.

  A black-and-white spaniel came tearing around the corner of the house and stopped in front of me, panting.

  “And Amy welcomes you too,” said Mr Plush.

  I wasn’t much used to dogs. When I kneeled to pat her, straightaway she licked her big pink tongue, sloppy as a wet washcloth, right across my face.

  “That’s enough, Amy! But it’s a good thought. Miss Sparks, when we get inside, I suggest you may like to freshen your attire before we partake of a little refreshment.”

  I stared at him. I think my mouth was open.

  “What is it, Miss Sparks?”

  “You talk like a book, sir.”

  “I read a lot of books, Miss Sparks.” He grinned. “But I don’t have to talk like this, you know. It’s a kind of habit, caught from my father. You’ll see when you meet him. I’ll rephrase. Would you like to have something to eat?”

  I nodded.

  “And have a wash and change of clothes?”

  “What for?”

  “Because, Miss Sparks, to speak plainly, you smell.”

  4

  MULBERRY HILL

  The maid’s name was Etty, and she showed no surprise at having a muddy apprentice milliner come in through the front door. She led me up the stairs with a friendly, “This way, miss.”

  “What’s that?” I said, staring, when she opened the door for me. I’d never seen anything like it.

  “It’s the bathroom, dear,” she said (no more “miss” now we were alone, but she spoke kindly for all that). “The hot water gets heated up in this here gas geyser – ” she pointed to a big cylindrical tin drum sort of contraption “ – and goes down a drain once the bath is finished with. No carrying cans of hot water up and down stairs in this household,” she added proudly. She turned a tap and, just as she said, steaming water gushed out.

  “Strip off then, dear.”

  “What?”

  “So you can have your bath. Pooh! These do smell. Soaked through, they are.”

  I hesitated. The truth was, I’d never had a bath in my life. A jug and basin and a washcloth was all I’d ever known.

  “I’ll leave you to it then, shall I?”

  I had my bath. The geyser burped and belched, and I was scared the ruddy thing might explode, but mostly I enjoyed it. I never knew you could feel so clean. Halfway through, Etty bustled in with my carpetbag.

  “D’you want me to lay your clothes out?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t need no one to wait on me,” I said. “Thanks all the same,” I added, in case she thought I was rude.

  “Suit yourself, dear.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled as she shut the door. “I’ll come back in a tick.”

  There was a mirror in the room, and after I dressed, I looked at my reflection. I sighed. My dress was a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down, and you could tell. In this house, with everything so clean and neat and even the housemaid done up like a lady, I felt very shabby. Never mind, I told myself, you won’t be here long.

  There was a knock and Etty walked in. “You finished? Good girl. Give us your bag then, and I’ll take it to your room.”

  “My room?” I grabbed the bag out of her hand. This was what Cook had told me about – respectable-seeming men and women who lured young girls just like me into their clutches. I held the bag to my chest.

  “Have it your own way,” said Etty, and then a smile twitched the corners of her mouth. “You know, dear, you’re safe as houses.”

  “We’ll see,” I muttered.

  “Come on, then. Come with me. They’re waiting for you in the library.”

  Library? I didn’t want to seem ignorant so I didn’t ask.

  It turned out to be a big room full of books. I never knew there were so many books. Books from floor to ceiling, and ladders so you could reach up to the highest shelves. Books the size of suitcases and tiny books in glass-fronted cases. Neat rows of books all matching in red and gold, and then shelves all mixed with fat books and skinny books and books of different colours. In the middle of the room there was a round table, piled high with newspapers and letters and, yes, more books. At the table sat Mr Saddington Plush and another gentleman. They both stood up when Etty, with a friendly nudge, sent me into the room.

  “Miss Sparks,” said Mr Plush, smiling. “Allow me to present my father, Mr Saddington Plush, senior.”

  I knew before he told me that it must have been his pa, for he was the spit and image of him, only a little bit stooped and the brown hair turned to grey. His moustache was real.

  “Good day, Miss Sparks,” he said, taking my hand and bowing over it in an old-fashioned way. “I must thank you for giving up your valuable time to assist us in our inquiries. Won’t you have a seat? And I shall ring for tea.”

  He beamed a smile at me, but all I could do was stare. Tea? He was asking me to have a cup of tea with them? At the same table and all? Didn’t he know I was just an apprentice milliner?

  Young Mr Plush shoved a gluepot and some scissors and a pile of newspaper clippings out of the way. “Here we are,” he said kindly, and then whispered, “It will be all right, Miss Sparks. Don’t worry.”

  Worry? Worry? I was beside myself. What were they up to, bringing me all the way out here? And as to staying the night – well, the idea! But how was I going to get back to Ma Bolivar’s? Would Mr Plush send me back in the carriage, or put me on a train? He’d have to pay my fare, I reasoned, since he’d taken me to wherever this was. I shoved my bag under the chair and sat down, very stiff and awkward, just as Etty and a younger girl came into the room carrying trays.

  “Ah, tea!” said Mr Plush senior, as if it was a surprise. After all, it was him that had rung the bell. He lifted the lid of one silver dish. “Anchovy toast.” And then the other. “Teacakes.” He rubbed his hands together. “Bon appétit, Miss Sparks.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “He hopes you’re hungry,” said young Mr Plush.

  Well, I was, and they were as well – those gentlemen really could tuck it away – but after we’d taken the edge off with toast, cakes and tea, Mr Plush senior got down to business. Very serious, he was.

  “Miss Sparks, on Saturday we thought that Lady Throttle had made a silly mistake. Today, we realise that she has attempted to use us for her own purposes, and we don’t like being used. We don’t like being treated as fools. And we most especially don’t like seeing an innocent person hurt by the selfish machinations of others. Is that not right, SP?” Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “Lady Throttle has made a grave mistake, my dear. She mistook my son’s youth for naivety and thought she could use him to blame you for the theft of the brooch. When her plan went awry, she sought revenge by getting you dismissed. Perhaps she thought that no one would care what happened to a milliner’s apprentice, but we do, and we would like to see justice done. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. It was a lot of words, but I got the sense of it.

  “Miss Sparks, since we feel in some way responsible for your regrettable predicament, we would be honoured if you would stay with us until we have – what is your term for it, SP?”

  “Cracked the case,” he said, grinning. “You see, Miss Sparks, I don’t always talk like a book.”

  “Mrs Cannister you have already met, but my daughter Judith and my sister Mrs Morcom reside here at Mulberry Hill as well, so you will have no lack of female chaperones.” He twiddled with the ends of his moustache. “And there’s Etty a
nd Cook and Sarah and little Jemima, the scullery maid. Females galore, in fact.”

  I added them up in my head. A housekeeper, a cook, two maids and two ladies made six in all. It seemed Etty was right. I would be as safe as houses.

  I bobbed a curtsey. “I would be very happy to stay, sirs. Thank you very much.”

  “And I believe, Miss Sparks, that you may be able to help me.” Mr Plush senior beamed that lovely smile at me again.

  “Help you, Mr Plush?”

  “SP tells me you are very good at finding things. Your employer, Madame Louisette, swears by you. My son tells me that you attribute your discovery of the brooch to itchy fingers.” I could feel myself blushing. I searched Mr Plush senior’s face for signs that he was laughing at me, but he seemed perfectly serious. “May I ask you to put your powers to the test?”

  “Do you mean you’ve lost something, sir?”

  “My meerschaum.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My favourite pipe. Meerschaum is a clay mineral, hydrous magnesium silicate, and often used to make ornamental pipe bowls.”

  “I see.” I didn’t quite.

  “Meerschaum is German for sea foam.”

  My fingertips began to tingle, ever so faintly. And then I did see. I had a kind of picture inside my head, but not of sea foam or clay or even of a pipe.

  “Is there a purple silk cushion in the house?” I asked. “With tassels?” My fingers were really itching now, and I found myself heading for the door.

  “With or without tassels, I have no idea,” said Mr Plush senior. He gave me a curious look. “Why do you ask?”

  With the two of them following, I went down a corridor, through a set of doors and down another corridor. More doors. “I think it’s in here,” I said.

  “But I never smoke in there. Almeria would have my hide. Ah well, Miss Sparks, if you say so.” He opened the door for me.

  Once again I didn’t know what kind of a room to expect, but I tell you now what I wasn’t expecting. A snake! Thick as a drainpipe and so long that it was wound twice round the potted tree in front of us and draped three feet on either side.