The Baker Street Boys - The Case of the Disappearing Detective Read Online Free Page A

went round your place, but you wasn’t there. So I thought I’d take another look at that funny door.”
    Mr Holmes smiled behind his false beard. “Your instincts are excellent, my young friend. It is indeed a funny door – and a very clever one at that. But I would prefer you not to go near it again for the moment.”
    “Oh.” Wiggins was disappointed, but accepted, as always, that Mr Holmes knew best. “Right, sir. I won’t.”
    “Good. All will be revealed in due course, I promise you. Now, what did you want to see me about?”
    “Oh, yes. I wanted to let you know that we’ve got that house staked out again.”
    “Good.”
    “And I’ve got Shiner keeping watch at Paddington Station.”
    “Excellent. We shall make a detective of you yet.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “And? Was there something else you wished to tell me?”
    “Yes, sir. There is. I don’t know if it means anything…”
    “I will be the judge of that. Just give me the facts.”
    So Wiggins told him about the sinister man he’d seen in the carriage the night before. “He was watching your windows, sir. I’m sure he was.”
    “Describe him to me.”
    Wiggins described the man. As he did so, he could sense a growing excitement in the great detective.
    Mr Holmes let out a long sigh. “Excellent. You have a good eye for detail, Wiggins. You have drawn a perfect picture of him.”
    “D’you know him, sir?”
    “I believe I do. Was there anything else?”
    “Just the one thing. There was something painted on the door of the carriage.”
    “A monogram, perhaps?”
    “An initial: the letter ‘M’.”
    “Moriarty,” said Mr Holmes. “So it
was
him.”
    “Moriarty?” Wiggins asked. “Who’s he when he’s at home?”
    “Professor James Moriarty is the Napoleon of crime, the most dangerous man in London and my deadliest adversary. I believed he had perished during our last encounter, in Switzerland. It would appear that I was mistaken.”
    Wiggins let out a low whistle. “What’s he up to, then?”
    “That, my dear Wiggins, is the question. Only when we have discovered what he and his accomplices are plotting can we hope to stop them.”
    “What d’you want me to do, sir?”
    “Go back to your Irregulars, and tell them to keep watching, but tell them to be especially careful. They are to take no risks. I couldn’t bear it if I were to cause the death of any of you. Do you understand?”
    Wiggins gulped and nodded. This was serious business.
    “If you have any new information,” Mr Holmes continued, “come back here and report it to me. Otherwise, keep well clear. Now, off you go.”
    Paddington Station, the London terminus of the Great Western Railway, was busy as usual. Travellers hurried to and fro – those departing anxious not to miss their trains, and those arriving looking out eagerly for friends and relatives meeting them at the platform gates. Porters trundled heavy suitcases and trunks on handcarts and trolleys. Locomotives that had recently arrived stood facing the station concourse, their dark green paintwork streaked with dirt. Smoke rose from their gleaming brass funnels, mingled with escaping steam and climbed lazily up towards the great glass roof. On platform number 1, the famous Cornish Riviera Express stood waiting to depart on its long journey to Penzance, near Land’s End – the very tip of the English mainland. The last passengers were climbing into its smart coaches, painted in the railway company’s chocolate and cream colours. The last doors slammed shut. The guard was unfurling his green flag, ready to signal the driver to start.
    Shiner loved working at the station. He loved the sounds and the smells, the hiss of steam and the shrill blasts of the guards’ whistles. He loved the hustle and bustle, and the fact that there was always something going on, and that he was part of it. But most of all, he loved the trains – the engines with their huge iron wheels and their powerful, gleaming