Free The Case of the Haunted Horrors by Anthony Read

anything to cook, but Murray had given her some money to buy pies for all of them as well as for himself, and they had taken theirs back to HQ to eat.
    When they had finished and Shiner still hadn’t returned, Queenie decided she would have to go and look for him.
    “I’ll come with you,” Beaver volunteered. “In case you need backup.”
    “Me too,” said Rosie, jumping up.
    “And me,” Gertie joined in. “I was with you when he went off after Blackbeard.”
    “Right,” said Queenie. “We can start at the tea room. That’s where we last saw him. You comin’, Wiggins?”
    Wiggins shook his head. “No, I got some thinking to do. ’Sides, somebody oughta stop here, case he comes back while you’re out.”
    Sparrow had already left for his job at the theatre, so once the others had rushed out, Wiggins was alone. He settled down in his special chair to do some hard thinking. He had a nagging feeling at the back of his mind about the strange message,
Spaniards Sat 3
. It was still a puzzle that he couldn’t solve, but there was something vaguely familiar about it – he simply couldn’t remember what it was. After a while, however, an idea came to him, and he hurried off to see Murray at the Bazaar.
    “I bin thinking about your brother,” he told him. “You said whoever murdered him did it ’cos they thought he was you.”
    Murray nodded sadly. “Yes,” he said. “It should have been me. It was my fault he was killed.”
    “No, it weren’t,” Wiggins said. “You can’t help looking like your twin. But the thing is, if the murderer mistook him for you, he must have seen him somewhere, right?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “So, if we knew where your brother had been …”
    “…we’d know where the murderer could have been, and that might give us a clue!”
    “Exac’ly.”
    “You’re a clever chap, Wiggins, but how do you think we’re going to find that out?”
    “Well, in Madame Dupont’s tableau in the waxworks, your brother is at his desk, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And what’s on that desk?”
    “Well, the gun, of course…”
    “And what else?”
    “Pens and … a book. His diary. By Jove, Wiggins – you could have something there! The diary should tell us what Alwyn had been doing and where he’d been.”
    “Exac’ly! The waxworks is shut for the night now, so if I get the key from Sarge, I could nip in there and borrow the diary. We could read it and put it back in the morning, afore they open, and nobody would know.”
    “Wiggins, my friend, you’re more than clever – you’re brilliant!”
    “Ta very much,” said Wiggins with a broad grin.
    Queenie, Beaver, Rosie and Gertie peered through the windows of Luba’s Russian Tea Room but could see nothing. The café was dark and deserted, with a closed sign hanging inside the door. They stepped back and looked at the upstairs windows, but there were no lights there either. For the next hour, the four Boys combed the streets of Soho, searching every alley and doorway, but they could find no sign of Shiner.
    “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Beaver said, trying to comfort Queenie. “You know your little brother. Remember how he turned up in the Limehouse laundry, when we thought we’d lost him?”
    “That’s right,” said Rosie, trying to sound cheerful. “He saved my bacon then, and no mistake.”
    “Sure and I’ll never forget the way he climbed up that crane,” added Gertie. “I couldn’t have done it better myself. He’s a brave lad, so he is.”
    “Yeah. Too brave sometimes,” Queenie replied. “Too brave for his own good. Always has been.”
    “Come on,” said Beaver. “Let’s get back to HQ. Wiggins’ll know what to do. And you never know – Shiner might be there waiting for us.”
    But of course Shiner was not waiting for them at HQ, and nor was Wiggins, who at that very moment was creeping into the Dungeon of Horrors to get the diary from Alwyn Murray’s desk.
    Even though Wiggins was getting