He grinned down at Corky and, to Dot’s immense relief, Corky grinned back. ‘Oh, mister, it’s grand to see you, and Emma was right; you won’t split on us. What did you say your name was?’
At this point, Emma introduced everyone and then they all took their places round the table. Corky was still marvelling over the strangeness, the coincidence, which had led himself and Nick Randall to choose the very same city and then to find themselves involved in the very same mystery. ‘Not that you’re involved in it yet,’ he added, grinning at Nick. ‘But I’m pretty sure you soon will be; what do you say, Emma? Dot?’
Emma looked round the table. ‘Are we all in favour of asking Nick to help us?’ she asked the two youngsters. ‘If either of you disagree, then the meeting must break up here and now. Otherwise, I think we should start by telling Nick the whole story. Those in favour?’ She raised her own hand in the time-honoured fashion but Dot and Corky were ahead of her and Dot could not help thinking how fortunate it was that Corky had already met Nick. She was sure there would have been trouble otherwise.
‘There you are, a unanimous decision,’ Emma said gravely. ‘Get out your notebook, Nick, because it’s quite a complicated story and it will help if you write things down. Dot, you’d better start because it’s more your story than anyone’s.’
‘Oh, oh, oh, but
where
shall I start?’ Dot said wildly. Her mind was still playing with various schemes for recapturing the necklace – a piece of bent wire, a fishing hook, a magnet on a string – and she felt that the story should really start with the burglary itself which, of course, she had not witnessed. She began to say as much when Emma interrupted her. ‘Nick knows about the burglary from the newspaper files,’ she said firmly. ‘But you’re the only one who knows what you overheard, queen, so just tell your story as it happened. Begin at the very beginning when you hopped into that dustbin. Corky can take over once you get to the bit where you and he met in the churchyard.’
Dot opened her mouth to start but Corky butted in. ‘But what about my story, Emma?’ he asked plaintively. ‘I bet Nick’s real interested in how I landed up here. Gee, I had some adventures on the way, Nick. I fell in with a right crooked crowd – they were antique dealers, only they were thieves really – and they used me to deliver stuff and take messages . . . oh, all sorts—’
‘Shut
up
, Corky,’ Emma and Dot said in unison and Emma added firmly: ‘I’m sure your adventures were very interesting, Corky, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the jewellery theft or my grandfather’s death, so just you pipe down and let Dot tell Nick how this whole business started.’
‘Well, I were playing relievio with me pals . . .’
Dot told her story quickly and well and finished at the point when she and Corky met in the churchyard, so Corky told the next bit, up to the moment when they had seen Emma crying in the shop and had gone in to ask if they could help. Then Emma told about the protection racket and how she had paid up without demur at first, believing that the weekly sum would save the shop from a second burglary. ‘Only now I’m beginning to wonder whether Butcher Rathbone said
anything
that wasn’t a lie,’ she admitted. ‘And he told me that the sum I would be asked to pay would not vary. Only, my grandfather specialised in very expensive hand-crafted jewellery – originals, you know – and of course he charged very high prices for such work. I mean to follow in his footsteps, but if I do so I’m afraid the protection people will realise what’s happening and demand bigger payments.’
Nick nodded. ‘Yes, of course they will,’ he agreed. ‘Extortion’s like that; the victim gets in deeper and deeper. But if we sort out Rathbone and his pal, the burglaries will stop and so, of course, will the protection racket. It’s a pity about the necklace but we’ll get that back, never fear. And I agree with young Corky here that the most important thing is to identify Rathbone’s partner in crime.’ He turned to Dot. ‘You believe they’ve already made one attempt to shut your mouth for good, don’t you?’ he enquired gently. ‘You think someone recognised you on the underground platform and tried to push you under the train. But don’t you think that’s a bit unlikely? You see, there were no attempts before and there have been none after that one incident, and I know from my own experiences on the London Underground that when a train comes into the station, people push forward.’ He looked questioningly at Dot. ‘Do you still believe it was an attempt on your life?’
Dot hesitated. ‘I wasn’t even sure at the time,’ she admitted. ‘Like you said, no one’s tried anything since. Oh, one thing I didn’t say when I was telling you my bit of the story was that Mr Rathbone and a pal of his brought me Uncle Rupert home one night when he were drunk as a fish. I were pretendin’ to be asleep on the sofa – the sofa’s me bed now that I’m too old to share with my cousins – and if the feller with him was the one I ran into when I shot out of the jigger that night, you’d have thought he might have recognised me because I expect my hair was sticking out from under the blanket and people do notice red hair.’
Nick laughed. ‘It’s been five months since that feller saw you running out of the alley, so I think you’re safe enough from being recognised now,’ he said. ‘But we’re not going to take any chances. We’ll keep an eye on the butcher’s shop but, if you ask me, the two men won’t meet whilst the shop is open for business. Is there a Mrs Rathbone?’
‘I don’t think so. To tell you the truth, I doesn’t often go in there because Aunt Myrtle reckons she does better visiting old Rathbone herself. I told you my uncle helps there sometimes with the heavy work and ever since he started doing it, old Rathbone gives me aunt special prices, which he wouldn’t do if it were a kid, ’cos he don’t like kids.’
‘Hmmm,’ Nick said thoughtfully. ‘So he doesn’t really know you, then? As I said, there’s not much point in watching the shop during the day, but evenings are different. Is there a way up to the flat apart from through the shop?’
Dot nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, course there is. Old Rathbone were letting his pal out through the back door when I were in his dustbin. Oh, lumme, we’ve not thought of that. We ought to be watching the back of the shop after closing time, then, rather than the front?’
Nick nodded gloomily. ‘Yes, but we really ought to be watching both,’ he said. ‘And time is definitely not on our side because I reckon they’ll be planning another burglary any minute now. But first of all, from what you’ve told me, Corky, you have taken up residence in what sounds like a ruined potting shed; am I right?’
Corky nodded and Dot guessed that he was half ashamed and half proud of the home he had found for himself.
‘Well, the first thing we must do is regularise the situation,’ Nick said. ‘Is that all right by you, young man?’
Corky grinned across the table at him. ‘I dunno if it’s all right or not, because I dunno what you mean,’ he said frankly. ‘If you want me to get in touch with Redwood Grange to let them know I’m okay, I done that weeks ago. Just a postcard, you know, sayin’ I’d got a job and was lodging with friendly folk who were taking good care of me. I didn’t know then, of course, that Wilfred Perkin was a fence as well as an antique dealer. Still, even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have told them; working for a receiver of stolen goods ain’t exactly the sort of thing that the staff at Redwood Grange would think suitable for one of their boys.’
‘Wilfred Perkin . . . Wilfred Perkin . . .’ Nick said thoughtfully. ‘That name sounds familiar. Probably because he’s been up in court when I’ve been sitting in on another criminal case. But no, I wasn’t going to suggest that you got in touch with the orphanage. How old are you, Corky? Fourteen? Fifteen?’
‘I were fourteen in June,’ Corky said, secretly gratified to be taken for older than he was. He had heard a great many visitors to the orphanage say that the Redwood Grange boys were young for their age. He had also heard such visitors remarking that the orphans were underfed and that growing boys needed three good meals a day and not just weak tea, bread and marge, and tiny helpings of stew. ‘But what’s that got to do with regular – regularising, eh, Nick?’
‘Well, I’m in a fairly cheap lodging house, in a pretty horrid little room. There’s a small boxroom into which the landlady has squeezed a bed. Since you’re fourteen, I reckon you could easily get some sort of job which would help to pay whatever rent Mrs Cartwright charged. I’d see you were fed, and so on,’ he added quickly, ‘and living in the same house it would be a lot easier to arrange who would keep a watch on Rathbone’s place. What do you think?’
Corky thought it was a very good idea. He had already realised that he could not stay in the ruined potting shed for very much longer because last night, when it had rained heavily, he and his possessions had got well and truly soaked. Fortunately, the morning had been sunny and he had hung his clothes and bedding on some of the bushes surrounding his hiding place, but he had felt uneasy; such a blatant display would make it obvious to anyone peering through the churchyard gates that someone, perhaps a tramp, was sleeping there. He felt it was only a matter of time before he had to move on and Nick’s proposal was a happy one. He had slept in a confined space whilst he was with Mrs Perkin, and had no objection to the arrangement Nick was suggesting; in fact he realised that having a proper address would make getting a job very much easier. He had cruised up and down the area, asking various shopkeepers if they needed a delivery boy, or someone to assist them in their work, but guessed that his unwashed and crumpled appearance had been against him. Now, looking respectable, he might easily land himself an equally respectable job. But Nick was still looking at him enquiringly and he realised he had not yet answered his question. ‘It’s a grand idea and I’ll do my very best to get a job so’s I can pay my own way,’ Corky said earnestly. ‘I’ve been wondering if I could find myself another place to roost ever since I got soaked last night when it rained so hard, but you don’t want to go letting your landlady know we’s pals, do you? It might set someone thinking and that might set them talking.’
‘You’re a bright lad, you are,’ Nick said admiringly. ‘I’d not thought of that, but you’re quite right. I got lodgings because Mr Cartwright is a stringer for the
News Chronicle
so my editor booked me in, thinking to do both of us a good turn. Now I wonder how we can get you into that boxroom without arousing suspicion.’
A silence fell while everyone thought furiously, and finally it was Dot who gave tongue. ‘Corky can just say he’s hunting for a room. He can say he’s only just arrived in Liverpool and went into a corner shop to ask if they knew of a vacant room and they told him to try Virgil Street because a good few folk let rooms along there.’
Emma began to say that she felt really ashamed for not having offered him her spare room when Nick interrupted, clapping a hand to his forehead and then rolling his eyes. ‘What a fool I am, and Dot, you’re a genius! I nipped into the corner shop for a packet of Players yesterday, and I actually saw a notice in the window advertising my room at the Cartwrights’. I suppose they leave the advert in permanently because I guess no one stays there longer than they have to. So all you’ve got to do, Corky, is tell Mrs C. you’re interested in the room they’ve got to let. And, sure as eggs is eggs, she’ll take you straight up to the boxroom and probably let you have it cheap. Well, that’ll regularise the situation all right, and if you can get a job somewhere fairly near Rathbone’s, then I reckon we’re almost home and dry. You’ll be able to keep a bit of an eye on the place during opening hours; we’ll get young Dot here to watch the jigger in the evenings between closing time and say, ten o’clock, and Emma and myself will take it in turns to make sure we see anyone who goes in or out through the shop. Meanwhile, I shall bend my powerful brain to thinking of a way to reach that perishin’ necklace.’
‘I want to try a piece of bent wire,’ Dot said eagerly. ‘I thought of a magnet, but I don’t think that would work, would it? But a piece of bent wire . . .’
‘No, that wouldn’t work,’ Corky said, decidedly. ‘Think about it. If you tried to push a piece of wire into that cavity, it would hit the outer wall and stop short. It would have to be a long piece of wire . . . oh, I’m no good at explaining, but you see what I mean?’ He turned to Nick. ‘Why wouldn’t a magnet work, though.’
‘Magnets work on ferrous metals, not on noble ones,’ Nick said. ‘I wonder about tunnelling from the outside, under the outer wall? I know you said if we tried to remove one of the stone blocks, the whole wall might come down on top of us, but if we tunnelled underneath . . .’
‘We’ll think of a way,’ Emma said reassuringly. ‘But for the time being, let’s concentrate on finding out who Rathbone’s partner is and when they plan the next burglary. After all, as Nick says, to catch them red-handed is the best way to prove that Dot’s story is true. Now, Corky will have to spend another night in the churchyard because he’s got to clear the place of all his stuff and, of course, he’ll have to visit this Mrs Cartwright and make sure she will let him have the boxroom.’ She walked over to the kitchen dresser and pulled open one of the drawers, fishing a shabby old leather purse from out of its depths. She returned to the table and placed a one pound note before Corky. ‘There you are; you’ll need to show Mrs Cartwright that you’ve got money because I expect she’ll ask for a week’s rent in advance; most landladies do. Tell you what, Corky, why don’t you nip into my bathroom and run yourself a hot bath? If you push your clothes out into the hallway, I’ll give everything a good brush and iron them, so you look presentable when you call on the Cartwrights.’