A Slip in Time Read online

  8

  The Butcher’s Tale

  The butcher’s shop was tiny, with sawdust strewn on the tiled floor for mopping up the blood, and festooned down either side with dead meat; like stepping into Bluebeard’s wardrobe. At the far end stood a thick, pine table scored over and over by the wickedlooking cleaver in the butcher’s hand. Jack and Fadge were quite happy to wait outside the open shop front, while the doctor went in and asked about the chicken sold to Mrs Hudson that afternoon.

  Nothing wrong with his chickens! declared the butcher. (Thunk! agreed the cleaver, slicing off a lamb chop and sinking itself in the table underneath.) Show him the customer who’d ever had a word to say against them! Mrs Hudson? (The cleaver pulled itself free. Dr Watson took a step back.) Been shopping with him these eight years – the cleaver drew a figure of eight in the air – had Mrs H, and never a word of complaint. So what if said chicken had spent a moment or two on the ground during the excitement? Hadn’t he dusted it off most carefully? And knocked sixpence off the asking price? (The cleaver was fairly dancing now, conducting an invisible orchestra.)

  What excitement? Ah! Pity they hadn’t been there to see it. Late afternoon, it was. Suddenly, at the top of the street – the cleaver became one arm of a signpost – a woman screams, ‘Stop! Thief!’ This big lad dressed in red comes running down the street – knocks over the outside table (swish! went the cleaver) – together with the chicken that had Mrs Hudson’s name on it. And the big lad – most polite, most thoughtful – picks the chicken up and dusts it down and puts it into the butcher’s own hands before running on (swash! went the cleaver). The hue and cry caught up with him not much further down the street, searched him – nothing! Seems they’d got the wrong boy. (The cleaver rested for a moment, balancing upright on the workbench.) Hue and cry? he says. What hue and cry? He was just running as fast as he could to fetch the doctor to his poor sick granny.

  ‘Granny Smith!’ muttered Jack.

  ‘Aye!’ said the butcher. ‘That’s right. That was the name. Do you know her? He must have thought that chicken was all right. He was back soon after, asking to buy it. Said a bowlful of chicken broth would be just the thing to set the old lady right.’

  ‘But by then you’d sold it?’ suggested Dr Watson.

  ‘Taken it out the back to put the stuffing in, ready for Mrs H to collect. I offered him another, but he’d set his heart on that one. Very cut up about it, he was.’

  ‘I bet he was,’ muttered Jack, as soon as they were out of sight and sound of the butcher and his cleaver. ‘He was the thief! That’s where he hid the loot when they were after him.’

  The doctor sighed. ‘I must say I’m disappointed in Mrs Hudson. I always thought… She let me go on thinking that she made that stuffing herself. An old family recipe. Ah, well!’

  Fadge patted him sympathetically on the elbow. (It would have been the shoulder, if he could have reached it.) ‘Life, eh?’

  ‘As you say, Fadge. Such is life!’ The doctor took out the locket and peered at it again in the dim light. ‘It seems all we have to do now is find the lady! Why would a woman wearing a valuable locket be wandering on foot in this part of London?’ he pondered. ‘Unless –’

  Fadge tugged at his sleeve, ‘Put it away!’ Glancing round, every shadow, every stray patch of mist, seemed to hold a promise of Rusty lurking in it. ‘Let’s get moving,’ he said. And without waiting to see if they followed, he set off the way the cleaver had pointed.

  ‘Good thinking!’ murmured the doctor. ‘Return to the scene of the crime, eh? See what that tells us!’

  At the top of the road, they found nothing but a T-junction, with another narrow, dark street running across.

  Behind them came a sudden yowl that might have been fighting alleycats, if you didn’t know Rusty. It sent a shiver down Fadge’s spine.

  ‘Which way now?’ pondered the doctor.

  ‘This way!’ Fadge said firmly, taking him by the arm, and heading for the bright lights and the people. The Masher wouldn’t try anything while there were plenty of people around.

  ‘Come on!’ begged Fadge, pulling at the doctor’s coat. ‘We can lose ’em now!’

  Jack, catching something of Fadge’s panic, took a grip on the doctor’s coat-tails and stuck close behind them.

  9

  Tasting the Reward

  Seconds later, they were standing on a busy street, with horse-drawn cabs trotting by and chestnut sellers and ham-sandwich sellers and hot-potato men. The air was full of the smells of cooking, soot, stale fish, dog dirt and horse dung. The buildings were caked with grime and soot, the paint and plaster peeling off almost as fast as it was slapped on. Mud and slush were swept into swirling patterns by the ladies’ skirts.

  A tiny girl sang the first verse of ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, over and over. Nobody listened. Nobody gave her a farthing. So she launched into a wobbly tap-dance, to the tune of ‘Rule Britannia’, whistled by a blind man with a wooden leg and a sign saying ‘Old Sojer. Pleas help’ hung round his neck.

  The blind man gave her a sour look when the first coin chinked into her begging bowl, not his; but he kept whistling. And she kept dancing.

  A man in a top hat threw away the dog-end of a cigar, into the road. And a little kid was on it before it hit the ground, rescuing it from under the horses’ flailing hooves.

  Jack winced and watched till the kid made it safely back to the pavement.

  No one else seemed especially bothered. Not even kind Dr Watson. He was gazing up at the building opposite with a rapt expression on his face.

  Above the entrance ‘Prince George Theatre’ was painted in gold letters. Beside it stood a sandwich board, with a poster stuck to it:

  TONIGHT at 7.00 pm

  The Tragedy of HAMLET,

  Prince of Denmark.

  Mr BAILEY

  to appear as

  The Ghost of Hamlet’s Father.

  ‘I wonder!’ the doctor muttered to himself. ‘How does it go? Look thou upon this picture… Could that be the answer? No sense standing here wondering!’ He launched himself across the road without looking to the left or right. And made it safely to the other side, where he vanished between the theatre’s white-painted columns.

  Fadge and Jack followed more cautiously, dodging between the traffic. Which was why they fetched up a little way down the street and Jack’s eye was caught by the other poster, the one pasted onto the back of the sandwich board:

  LOST!!!

  One GOLDEN PENDANT (and chain),

  set with red and green stones.

  In order to receive his JUST REWARD

  the FINDER must apply (With All Speed!)

  to Wm Bailey Esq, Actor-Manager,

  at the Prince George Theatre.

  ‘Reward!’ breathed Fadge, after Jack had read it out loud for him – twice, in case he’d heard it wrong the first time. ‘Where does it say Reward?’

  Jack pointed.

  ‘That says re-ward? Come on, then!’ Fadge grabbed Jack by the sleeve. ‘Let’s go and collect it!’

  Off he went, up the steps, dragging Jack after him willy-nilly, through a foyer awash with red plush and gold leaf. To the first person he bumped into, ‘Mr Bailey!’ cried Fadge. ‘Where is he? Where can I find him?’

  Maybe it was his air of life-or-death urgency. Maybe the broom had something to do with it. A very large broom, bristles uppermost, jabbing at their chins. People gibbered and pointed and stood back out of Fadge’s way, while the tall boy following close behind muttered, ‘’Scuse us! Cheers! Sorry!’

  ‘What about Dr Watson?’ Jack managed to get through to Fadge at last.

  ‘He can catch up later.’

  ‘But he’s got the – Oh! No, he hasn’t.’

  Fadge twirled the pendant merrily round his head, then slipped it back inside his shirt.

  ‘But I thought – When did you –?’

  ‘Had to take it off him, didn’t I? For his own safety. He don’t know the Mas
her like I do.’

  Jack hadn’t got time to puzzle out how much safer Fadge thought the doctor would be without the pendant than with it, if the Masher thought he’d got it. Red plush and gold leaf had suddenly given way to bare boards and peeling plaster and a narrow winding staircase, leading upwards, with no hand-rail. Then a corridor, with plain wooden doors either side and names chalked on them.

  ‘Which one’s Bailey, then?’ demanded Fadge. ‘You can read, can’t you?’

  ‘Give me a chance. Some of them are smudged. This one looks like Mrs Bailey. We must be getting close. This is it! Wm Bailey, Esq, Actor and Manager,’ Jack read aloud.

  Fadge barged straight in without knocking.

  10

  Under Arrest

  Following close behind, Jack saw walls flyposted with theatre bills from floor to ceiling, a smouldering fire in an open grate, and a screen in one corner gaudily hung with clothes. A thin-lipped young man in a tight suit glanced up as they erupted into the room. He was clutching a sheaf of papers, standing beside a desk, where an older man sat, totting up figures.

  The older man did not look up. Jack felt he was making a point of not looking up.

  ‘You Mr Bailey?’ demanded Fadge.

  ‘Sixty-two, sixty-four, sixty-five. That’s three pounds, five shillings and fourpence for the gallery, Mr Musgrove,’ the man at the table said to the thin young man, as if there was no one else in the room. ‘Not bad, for a Saturday night. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘It’s good, Mr Bailey. Very good indeed.’ The young man gave an uneasy glance towards Fadge. ‘Er.’

  The man at the table looked up.

  Fadge gasped and drew back. The man’s face was a mask of white, tinged with a graveyard green, the frown-lines etched dark and deep in his forehead and round his eyes. ‘Yes?’ His mouth leered blood-red.

  Fadge got ready to run.

  ‘It’s just make-up,’ hissed Jack, grabbing him. ‘For the play. Remember the notice outside? Mr Bailey as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, right?’ Then, still keeping tight hold of Fadge, ‘Are you Wm Bailey Esq?’

  ‘William Bailey Esquire?’ boomed the actor-manager. ‘I am! And who,’ he paused, ‘are you?’

  ‘I’m Jack Farthing. And this is Fadge,’ said Jack, dragging him forward.

  ‘We found this,’ said Fadge, pulling out the pendant. ‘And we’ve come for the reward, like it said.’

  ‘Have you, indeed!’ Mr Bailey held out his hand.

  Fadge drew back out of reach. ‘What about the reward?’

  ‘You shall have it!’ The actor-manager picked up a little bell and rang it. ‘Your just reward!’

  Before Jack had quite made up his mind that he didn’t much like the way Mr Bailey said that, the costume-draped screen gave a wobble. And a large man – a very large man! – in navy blue sidled out from behind it.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Fadge.

  ‘Constable!’ commanded Mr Bailey. ‘Do your duty!’

  The policeman advanced.

  Fadge stood firm. He dropped the pendant back inside his shirt, gripped his broom in both hands, and prepared to sell his freedom dearly.

  ‘I never stole it!’ yelled Fadge. ‘And you’re no policeman!’

  ‘I arrest you –,’ began the man in navy blue.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ declared Fadge. ‘Your buttons are wrong, for a start.’

  The policeman – if policeman he was – still walking forward, looked down at his buttons to check, and met the end of the broom handle coming the other way.

  Young Mr Musgrove, caught up in the excitement, started towards Fadge, who dodged and fetched him a crack of the bristle end across the back of his knees that brought him down with a painful bump.

  ‘Run for it, Jack!’ cried Fadge. ‘I’ll hold ’em off! I never stole it!’ he screeched at Mr Bailey. ‘I found it! Like I said! I was bringing it back, like a good citizen! And this is all the thanks I get!’ The broom was twirling like a windmill.

  ‘Fadge!’ yelled Jack.

  ‘Haven’t you gone yet?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Dr Watson! He’s downstairs. He’ll tell them. He’ll tell them we found it. Found it inside the chicken. And we worked out how it got there. Listen to me, Fadge! Just listen!’

  All four of them were suddenly listening, caught in a game of ‘Statues’.

  Jack said, ‘Just put the broom down, Fadge, nice and slowly. Before you break it. You don’t want to break it, do you, Fadge?’

  Fadge bit his lip. ‘I did find it. I did! And I want my reward.’ It wasn’t going to happen, was it? He knew it in his bones. Just like he’d told the doctor: Life, eh! Life had a way of catching you a side-swipe, just when you thought you’d got it licked. But he put down the broom.

  ‘Now!’ Mr Bailey, safe behind his desk during all the excitement, took charge: ‘Sam!’ he said to the ‘policeman’, who was still nursing his bruised stomach, ‘go downstairs, will you, and see if you can find this Dr Watson. Ask him to join us?’ The navy-blue man grimaced, and left.

  Mr Bailey pulled out a watch from under his ghostly robes. ‘Act three, scene one. Queen Gertrude should have ten minutes to spare. Then there’s the interval.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Mr Musgrove!’

  The thin young man went scurrying from the room.

  11

  Meeting the Queen

  Mr Bailey, Jack and Fadge stood, or sat, eyeing each other. No one could think of anything to say. So they said nothing. Until the door was flung open. Queen Gertrude didn’t walk into the room; she entered.

  Every inch a queen, she looked, to Fadge’s eyes anyway. Lips red as cherries, skin white as snow. Hair like a solid-gold crown, threaded with pearls. Dressed all in velvet and gold trimmings and lace coming out of her ears, almost.

  ‘My dear!’ Mr Bailey bowed low. ‘My Queen!’ (Mrs Bailey always liked to keep in character during a performance, or there was hell to pay after.) ‘Good news!’

  ‘Good news?’ The Queen echoed, striking a pose, one hand behind her ear, the other on her heart.

  ‘This child! This child of the gutter…’ Mr Bailey, overcome with emotion, flapped a hand towards Fadge.

  Fadge couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. He dragged out the locket again and dangled it in front of her.

  Queen Gertrude threw up her hands in a pantomime of surprise and delight. ‘It is found!’

  ‘Found!’ Mr Bailey echoed. ‘And is this the boy?’

  Queen Gertrude peered short-sightedly. ‘Which boy? I can see two of them.’

  ‘Either of them! Is either of these two boys… the thief?’ demanded Mr Bailey.

  Faced with Mr Bailey’s accusing finger, the Masher would have fallen on his knees, confessed and begged for mercy on the spot.

  Queen Gertrude peered from Jack to Fadge. ‘No! A great lummox, I said, in a red velvet coat.’

  ‘He might have changed his coat.’

  The Queen pressed one hand to her heart. ‘I still say no! I’ll take my oath on it!’

  ‘Then how –?’ Mr Bailey looked from Fadge to Jack, who both stood lost for words.

  Luckily at that moment, Dr Watson arrived, escorted by Sam in his navy blue, who took one look at Fadge still within arm’s reach of his broom and beat a hasty retreat.

  And Dr Watson told the story, from the beginning. ‘Earlier this evening,’ he began, ‘this boy’ – pointing at Jack – ‘came knocking at my door…’ The Baileys didn’t just listen. They reacted. They had a pose for everything: mild interest, alarm, astonishment. An errand of mercy! A life-or-death race through dark, fog-bound streets! ‘Meanwhile, back at the house…’ said the doctor. And the Baileys turned to one another and nodded as if to say they’d suspected it all along.

  Did they ever stop acting? Jack wondered. Did they wake up in the morning with loud yawns and stretchings and looking wideeyed at one another, as if they’d never seen daylight before?

  When they came to the crime and the hue
and cry that followed, Queen Gertrude relived the moment. ‘Gone! Gone for ever!’ She whipped out a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and started dabbing at her blue-painted eyelids. ‘My fault! I never should have worn it in the street!’ she sobbed. ‘Vanity! All is…’

  ‘Vanity, thy name is woman!’ Mr Bailey interrupted.

  ‘Frailty, thy name is woman,’ the Queen corrected, looking daggers.

  ‘There, there!’ cooed Mr Bailey. ‘There’s no harm done. It is found again!’

  ‘Found.’ She gave a brave, watery smile.

  12

  Fadge Finds His Role

  There was a knock at the door. Mr Musgrove stuck his head round, ‘Two minutes to the second half?’

  ‘Give us five,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘Send on the clowns to fill in.’ The door closed again. ‘Dry your pretty eyes, my love. The locket is found, just in time for your big scene.’ He whisked the necklace out of Fadge’s fingers and slipped it over her head. ‘Look thou upon this picture… and on this?’

  Fadge tugged at Dr Watson’s sleeve. ‘What’s he talking about?’

  ‘It’s a line from the play,’ whispered Dr Watson.

  ‘Hamlet, Prince of Denmark?’ said Jack.

  ‘The greatest play ever written!’ beamed Mr Bailey. ‘This – that’s the second “this”, of course – being the locket that Hamlet wears, with the picture of his dead father, the Queen’s first husband –’

  ‘So noble, so brave, and so handsome!’ The Queen was dabbing at her eyes again.

  ‘That’s me,’ beamed Mr Bailey.

  ‘Dead!’ sighed the Queen. ‘And my second husband, whose portrait I now wear … that’s this one here…’

  ‘A villain!’ growled Mr Bailey.

  ‘His murderer!’ The queen mimed shockhorror.

  Fadge’s head was starting to spin. He didn’t want explanations. He wanted his reward.

  ‘But if there ain’t two lockets identical, where’s the dramatic effect?’ Mr Bailey spread his hands wide. ‘I ask you!’