The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline Read Online Free

BIRD-BRAINED message. She was a bird who was to report to a Bird, then?
    Bizarre as it seemed, a pattern did appear to emerge. Otherwise, I might not have believed the ignorant girl-of-all-work still breathlessly babbling:
    “‘Wot you got fer the Bird,’ they kep’ yelling at ’er, an’ when she toll ’em an’ toll ’em she din ’ave nothing, they smacked ’er—”
    The blackguards! How could they strike a poor old woman?
    “—an’ then they smacked me fer interferin’—” Florrie had tried to intervene? My feelings for the girl warmed immediately.
    “—and they tied me up an’ commenced ’unting fer it.”
    “But—for what ?”
    “I dunno, miss, no more’n Mrs. Tupper did. That flummoxed she were, she cried.”
    “Villains,” I muttered, setting a cup of tea in front of the girl.
    “Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.”
    “There’s no sugar, I’m afraid. It’s all spilled.” I paced the ruined room, unable to sit down with her. “So did these dastardly men find what they were looking for?”
    The girl took a long sip of tea, which I could not begrudge her, then finally said, “’Ow wud I know, Miss Meshle?”
    Confound her! I wanted to snatch her tea away. Just because she had been tied up with her back to the door, so that she could not see, could she not have heard something? As calmly and civilly as I could I inquired, and she reported one of the villains saying they would “take the deaf old bat along an’ ’e could ask ’er ’imself.”
    Who on earth was “’e”?
    Evidently the thugs had not found “the message to the Bird.”
    Who in perdition were they ?
    Was there anything more to be got out of Florrie? Forcing myself to sit down so as to cease towering over the unfortunate girl, I began my interrogation of her all over again, but with no satisfactory results, other than the additional information that the older kidnapper was missing some teeth. (From this I could conclude that he was not of the very best class in society.) When Florrie—ridiculous but popular name; one seemed to run across Florries everywhere—when the obtuse wench began to cry again, I knew it was time to desist.
    “Very well, Florrie.” I gave her a shilling. “Run on home, now, tell your mother all about it, and have her spread the word.” Indeed I could not have hushed Florrie’s mother, a washerwoman, had I tried; her Irish tongue served as a megaphone for the neighbourhood. “Please let it be known”—I held up a pound note to indicate fiduciary inducement— “that anyone who saw those men take Mrs. Tupper or who knows anything about it should come here and inform me at once.”
    Still sniffling, Florrie nodded, then scuttled out the door.

CHAPTER THE THIRD
    AND DIRECTLY AFTER FLORRIE, I WENT OUT likewise, still in my striped-and-ruffled poplin dress, my silly little hat and green glass ear-bobs and false curls, for Miss Meshle was a familiar sight on that street, and its other inhabitants would not hesitate to talk with me. Amongst them I hoped to find witnesses to Mrs. Tupper’s abduction.
    And so I did, in plenty, for a horse-drawn conveyance was a rarity on that narrow stone-paved lane, and Mrs. Tupper’s unexpected visitors had arrived in a carriage, no less. Many of the neighbourhood loiterers had noticed it.
    The “blind” beggar on the corner divulged that the strangers had arrived in a shiny black brougham driven by a pursy, florid man, and the horse had been a bay.
    The corner chandler had seen a phaeton with the top up, a coat-of-arms on the door, with a nondescript narrow sort of driver and a black horse that “would’ve been good for a funeral.”
    His wife agreed that there was a picture of a white deer or unicorn or something on the vehicle’s door, but said it was a barouche with the top up, not a phaeton, and the horse was brown. The driver had been short and stocky, with a pronounced chin.
    The greengrocer had seen a black brougham with bright yellow wheels but no