Two Crafty Criminals! Read online

  “Hello, Dick,” she said sweetly.

  He gulped so hard he nearly swallowed his own head.

  “Hello, Daisy,” he croaked.

  Should he start flattering her straightaway? Or should they get inside first? Luckily, the queue was moving forward and he didn’t have time to say anything until he’d bought the tickets and they were sitting in the middle of the stalls. He helped her in and sat down beside her. The band was tuning up in the orchestra pit; the stage curtain was glowing crimson in the limelight; the gilt on the plasterwork was glittering; the boxes and the balcony were all full of jolly-looking people, laughing and chattering. Dick looked around desperately, but there was nothing for it; he’d have to talk to her.

  What on earth had the twins told him to say? It had gone right out of his head.

  “Er—” he began.

  “Yes, Dick?”

  “Er—you look like a bowl,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I mean a plate.”

  “A plate?”

  “Yeah. Or a dish. I mean—”

  What Daisy might have said in reply he never knew, because the band struck up with “Down at the Old Bull and Bush” and she turned away bewildered, to look at the stage as the curtain rose.

  During the first half of the bill, they watched Mr. Hosmer Simpkins, the Lyrical Tenor; Madame Taroczy’s Hungarian Spiral Bicycle Ascensionists; Mr. Paddy O’Flynne, the Jolly Wee Man from the Emerald Isle; and the Louisiana Banjo Playboys. In between each act, Dick turned to Daisy and began to speak, but the emcee always spoke louder, and the audience roared with laughter at his jokes, and Dick had to open and shut his mouth like a fish.

  At last there came the intermission.

  “I liked the Spiral Hungarians, Dick,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I did, yeah,” he agreed. “Cor. Here, Daisy …”

  “Yes, Dick?”

  “Um—” he began. He was trying to remember the other things the twins had told him to say. Wasn’t there something to do with the night and the sky? “Your face,” he said nervously.

  “Is there something on it?”

  “It’s like the—the moon.”

  “The moon?”

  “No, no—that wasn’t it. Um—”

  People in the row behind were listening, and enjoying it all immensely. Dick mopped his forehead with a redspotted handkerchief. Perhaps he should have gone back to saying she was like a bowl, only that hadn’t come out right either. But the word “bowl” made him think of cherries, and then he remembered.

  “Um—your eyes is like cherries, Daisy.”

  “What d’you mean, Dick? Are they bloodshot or something?”

  “No,” he said. “No. Not at all. No. What I mean is, your lips. That’s what I meant. Like—um—” This was awful, he thought. He’d forgotten it altogether, but he had to go on now he’d started. Fruit, some kind of fruit; come on … Oranges, was it? No, couldn’t have been. “Bananas,” he said desperately.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  He hadn’t the faintest idea.

  “Er—same shape,” he mumbled doubtfully.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “Honestly, Dick, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you was trying to upset me.”

  “Oh, Lor—no—I’m not, honest—”

  The people behind were laughing and nudging each other and telling the people in the next row back. More and more of the audience were trying to listen, craning over from the balcony above, peering at them through opera glasses.

  Someone up in the seats behind yelled, “Go it, Dick! I got five bob on yer!”

  Dick looked round, puzzled, because he hadn’t the faintest idea what the man meant, of course. Someone else took up the cry, and soon the whole audience was cheering like a racehorse crowd. As for Daisy, she was mortified, poor girl.

  “I can’t sit here and be laughed at, Dick, I really can’t!” she said. “It’s awful! It’s just too embarrassing for words! Everybody’s listening, and I’m sure you mean well, but—”

  And she stood up and struggled to get out along the crowded row of seats. A big groan of disappointment went up. Dick struggled after her, but he was too late; and then the band struck up for the second half of the bill, and the lights went down, and she was gone.

  Meanwhile, the twins were pestering their big brother Alfredo to look out for Swedish matches, as the gang were doing. Alf was a hokey-pokey man, an ice-cream vendor, and naturally, spending his time in commerce, he was bound to meet a lot of men who smoked and dropped the matches in the street. So the twins said, anyway.

  “D’you mean every time I see some bloke light up a gasper, I got to get down on me hands and knees and pick up his dead Lucifer? Get out of it!”

  He was combing his thick black mustache and smoothing down his glossy black hair in the kitchen mirror, and he was dressed up to the nines.

  “Where you going, Alf?” said Zerlina.

  “I’m off to see my mate Orlando down the Music Hall. I got a special pass to go in the stage door.”

  “Orlando the Strong Man?” said Angela.

  “Yeah. He bought five pound of ice cream off me the other day and swallered it just like that. He’s a real gentleman. He’s the strongest man in the world, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Can we come with yer?”

  “Don’t see why not, as long as you come straight back.”

  So the twins set off with Alf, hoping they might be able to find out how Dick was getting on. They liked going about with their big brother; he was smart and handsome and all the young ladies liked his flashing eyes and his jet-black whiskers, and he was usually good for a lump of hokey-pokey on a hot day, especially if he’d won a bet. He once bet Stan Garside, the fishmonger, a whole guinea at a hundred to eight that the Archbishop of Canterbury would come and judge the Elephant and Castle Cat Show. Naturally, Stan thought he was on a winner, but sure enough, His Grace the Lord Archbishop did turn up, and he was as nice as pie. It was the twins who’d done it. They’d just gone to Lambeth Palace, knocked on the door, and asked. When they wanted to be, they were irresistible—or supernatural, one or the other. Anyway, they got a lot of hokey-pokey that day.

  They reached the stage door and Alf waved his pass at the old porter, who didn’t even look up from his copy of Wild West Yarns, and then they were inside the theatre itself.

  It was a dark, busy place, smelling of glue and greasepaint, with music and bursts of loud laughter coming from somewhere else in the building. Performers in costumes were waiting in the corridors or coming out of the dressing rooms, a group of stage carpenters were sitting around a packing case, playing cards, and they all greeted Alf like an old friend.

  In one corner of the wings, Orlando the Strong Man was warming up. He was wearing a leopard-skin costume that showed off his mighty muscles, and he had a gleaming bald head and a huge black mustache even bigger than Alf’s.

  “Wotcher, Alf,” he said, “and who’s these young ladies?”

  “Me sisters,” said Alf. “They come to say hello.”

  While Alf went to talk to some of the chorus girls nearby, Orlando bent down and very politely offered his forefinger to the twins to shake. His hands were too big to shake all at once. As Alf had said, he was a real gentleman.

  “Are you the strongest man in the world, Mr. Orlando?” said Angela.

  “Probably,” he said. “You seen the act, have yer?”

  “Yeah!” said Zerlina. “We liked the cannonball bit best.”

  “Ah,” he said. “That takes practice. You have to—”

  But he couldn’t say any more because, to everyone’s surprise, the curtain nearby swirled open and suddenly there was Daisy. She looked as if she’d been crying.

  “Daisy!” said Zerlina.

  “What’s the matter?” said Angela.

  “I—I got lost,” Daisy sniffed. “I was trying to find me way out and—and—”

  “Excuse me, miss,” said Orlan
do, “but you seem to be distressed. Can I help in any way?”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr.…”

  “This is Orlando,” said Angela. “He’s showing us his muscles.”

  “He’s got ever such a lot,” said Zerlina.

  “Cor,” said Orlando, “you ain’t wrong. Here—look at this.” He struck a pose and flexed his mighty arms. “You see that muscle there?” he went on, frowning at a spot behind his shoulder.

  “Which one?” said Daisy. “There’s hundreds.”

  “That one going in and out.”

  “There it is!” said Zerlina, pointing.

  “Oh yes! I see it now,” said Daisy.

  “Well,” said Orlando, “most people ain’t got one of them.”

  “Oh,” said Daisy, impressed. “What does it do?”

  “Well, it goes in and out,” said Orlando. “Here! Did you know I can lift a full-grown ox in my teeth?”

  “No! Really?”

  “Yeah. The trick is to get it right between the shoulder blades. You probably wouldn’t be able to do it at first. I should practice on a dog if I was you, and work up to a calf. You seen the act?”

  Daisy shook her head and dabbed her eyes with a little handkerchief.

  “I was going to,” she said, “but I had to leave.”

  “The best bit is where they bounce fifteen cannonballs off me head, one after the other. The trick is to get ’em right there,” he added, pointing at the middle of his gleaming forehead, “else it could be dangerous. Anyway, miss,” he said politely, “I got to go now, ’cause I’m on in a minute. I’m very glad to have made your acquaintance.”

  He held out his hand, but as she was about to shake it, he took it back.

  “No,” he said, “I better not shake your hand. Shall I tell you why?”

  Daisy nodded, surprised.

  “ ’Cause this hand can crush rocks,” he said. “I got to be careful what I do with it. Goodbye, miss, and cheer up, eh?”

  Then there was a roll of drums, and he sprang onto the stage to a great round of applause. The twins would have liked to watch, but there was Daisy to look after; things didn’t seem to be going very well for the great bet. They took her out and tried to find out what had happened.

  Oddly enough, Benny and Thunderbolt were doing the same thing at that very moment, with Dick. He had tried to follow Daisy out of the Music Hall, but had taken a different turning and run into the boys outside the foyer. They were hanging about, watching every smoker with grim suspicion. Every time a match fell to the ground they pounced, but so far they hadn’t had any luck.

  “You seen Daisy?” Dick said.

  “I thought she was with you,” said Benny. “Here! Thunderbolt! Geezer in the straw hat …”

  Thunderbolt darted across the road and practically snatched the match out of the hands of a stout man who’d just lit a cigar. He looked at the match closely and shook his head in disappointment. Benny sighed.

  “Woss going on?” said Dick.

  “We’re looking for Swedish matches,” said Benny.

  “Oh,” said Dick. Probably collecting them, he thought, like stamps or something. He sighed even more deeply than Benny.

  That reminded Benny of the bet, and with an effort he pulled his mind back to it.

  “Here,” he said, “I thought you was going to ask Daisy to the Ball?”

  “I was,” said Dick in tones of the deepest gloom. “But it seems to me that every time I open my mouth, I say the wrong thing. I told her her face was like a bowl of bananas. At least that’s what I think I said. I can’t remember. It’s all gone dark in me mind.”

  “Hmm,” said Benny. He didn’t know much about the language of love, but he didn’t think that sounded like a compliment.

  Thunderbolt darted back across the street.

  “No good,” he said. “It was a Bryant and May’s. What’s the matter with Dick?”

  Benny told him. Thunderbolt whistled. “A bowl of bananas?” he said, impressed. “Cor. She ought to be pleased, anyway. Anybody’d be flattered by that.”

  “You think so?” said Dick, cheering up a little. Maybe it hadn’t been such a mistake after all. “Here, them Swedish matches you’re looking for …”

  “Yeah?” said Benny eagerly.

  “Well, I know who’d probably have some. I mean, being as he went to the European Congress of Gas and Coke Industries in Stockholm last month to make a speech.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Whittle,” said Dick. “I dunno what’s bin up with him lately, neither. He’s bin acting most peculiar. Almost as if he had summing on his mind. Still, I can’t hang about here. I better go and look for Daisy.”

  He kicked at a gloomy bit of straw on the pavement and wandered away, sighing. The boys looked at each other with bright speculation in their eyes.

  “Mr. Whittle …,” said Benny. “I wonder.”

  “And—and Miss Honoria Whittle was unhappy when I went for me trigonometry lesson,” Thunderbolt said. “She kept sighing and gazing out the window. I thought she was sad about me not giving her that shilling I bet Snake-Eyes Melmott, but maybe she was worried about her pa. Same as I was about my pa over the snide coins business. So maybe he is up to summing. Cor!”

  “Well,” said Benny, “there’s only one way to find out. We’ll have to detect him good and proper. Come on! Let’s get going!”

  When the twins heard what Dick had said to Daisy, they thought it would be a good idea to keep out of his way for a day or so, in case he thought it was their fault. They knew that other people sometimes found it hard to believe in their good intentions.

  “We oughter wrote it down for the great clot to read,” said Angela.

  “That’d look good, wouldn’t it?” said Zerlina. “Fishing out a bit of paper and reading to her. I dunno what we can do.”

  “You can’t help some people,” said Angela.

  Shaking their heads over the futility of human endeavor, they went home. They were so preoccupied that they didn’t see Daisy, at her front door, being stopped by a handsome young man with fair curly hair, who lifted his hat very politely and told her how pretty she was looking. The young man was Mr. Horspath, the Deputy Gasworks Manager, Daisy’s other admirer. It was lucky for him the twins weren’t watching, or they’d have been there in a second, to get him away from Daisy at all costs. Snake-Eyes Melmott was taking a lot of money in bets on him, and Daisy’s mother strongly approved of Mr. Horspath, because he had nice soft hands, she said, like a proper gentleman, not great rough oily shovels like Dick’s. There was no doubt about it, Mr. Horspath was a serious threat.

  There were some things that Benny had to do alone. He trusted Thunderbolt completely, but trying to make Thunderbolt less clumsy was like teaching a horse to knit, and this job needed care. As for the twins—he shuddered at the thought.

  Anyway, the great detective Sexton Blake didn’t always take Tinker, his boy assistant, everywhere he went. Benny read about Sexton Blake’s adventures every week in the Halfpenny Marvel, and he didn’t have a high opinion of Tinker. Tinker’s main duties seemed to consist of running about with messages, of handing Sexton Blake his magnifying glass, and of getting hit over the head by crooks, and Benny regarded him with patronizing scorn. Tinker couldn’t have solved the snide coin mystery, could he? The New Cut Gang had wrapped that up triumphantly.

  No, in Benny’s eyes, he was the boss, and the rest of the gang went where he led and did as he told them, though he kept his fingers crossed superstitiously in the case of the twins. There had been many occasions on which Benny had been tempted to jump on an omnibus and travel across the river to Baker Street, knock on the great detective’s door, and ask his opinion, as one professional to another. And this was one. Unfortunately, according to the current edition of the Halfpenny Marvel, Mr. Blake was at the moment chained up in the cellar of an evil slave trader in Constantinople, with a bottle of acid eating its way through the rope holding shut a cage of half-starved pla
gue-bearing rats. Benny reckoned the great detective had his hands full for the moment, though no doubt he’d be free next week.

  So he sat through supper that evening fuming with impatience. Cousin Morris had looked in, as he often did, and he and Benny’s father sat at the table as the late evening sunlight slanted through the parlor window, arguing at enormous length about whether or not the late Duke of Clarence had been a good or a bad influence on gentlemen’s fashion. They could never agree on anything. Pa and Cousin Morris. Then Mr. Schneider from next door came to join in the discussion, and Benny’s mother and his elder sister Leah made sarcastic remarks about the vanity and fussiness of men compared to the restraint and modesty of women.

  Benny got up at one point and said, “Excuse me, but I got summing important to do—” and his father said, “No! No! Sit down! It’ll do you good to hear a proper intelligent debate!”

  And Cousin Morris said, “Benny, Benny! This is golden wisdom we’re talking here! There’s people as would pay money to hear the quality of argument you get at your father’s table! Isn’t that right, Mr. Schneider?”

  “There’s plenty in Parliament as could wish for the eloquence and fluency what runs as freely and nourishingly here as Mrs. Kaminsky’s chicken soup,” said Mr. Schneider gallantly.

  Benny’s mother, clearing the table, rolled her eyes at Leah and said nothing. Benny sat where he was until they allowed him to go, and then raced up to his room in the attic, where he got down to some proper detecting.

  He thought that Sexton Blake would want another look at the match first, so he fished it out of the folded bit of paper in which he kept it for safety and scrutinized it fiercely through his grubby magnifying glass.

  The head was only just burned, which meant that the match had been struck to light it and blown out almost at once. You could light a cigarette like that, or a lantern, but not a cigar; they took longer. Some of the wood below the head would have been burned away as well. That was worth knowing, thought Benny.