The Case of the Haunted Horrors Read Online Free Page B

it’s took you so long to do anything about it?”
    “I have only just found out. I’ve been away – far away – and out of touch.”
    “Why? Where’ve you been?”
    Murray hesitated, a troubled expression on his face. “I can’t tell you that,” he said.
    Wiggins looked steadily at him, then slowly shook his head. “Well, if you don’t trust us,” he said, “I don’t see how we can help you.”
    “It’s not that I don’t trust you. But if I told you, it might put your lives in danger. I don’t know if I’m prepared to take that responsibility.”
    “We don’t mind a bit of danger, do we Beav?”
    “Er, no,” said Beaver, sounding a bit less sure, but ready as always to follow wherever Wiggins led. “We’re used to it.”
    “Very well. I have been in a Russian prison camp.”
    “Cor!” exclaimed Beaver. “What was you doin’ in Russia? You a spy or somethin’?”
    “Something like that,” Murray admitted. “I was trying to recover some secret plans that had been stolen from the British Admiralty.”
    “And the Russkis caught you?”
    “Yes. Someone betrayed me.”
    “You was lucky they didn’t shoot you,” said Sarge. “That’s what they usually do to spies, ain’t it?”
    “I suppose they thought I might be of more use to them alive than dead. So they locked me away in the frozen wastes of Siberia. I managed to escape, but I was a thousand miles from anywhere and being hunted by the secret police. It’s taken me months to make my way home.”
    “And when you got here, you discovered that your brother was dead,” said Beaver. “That must have been terrible.”
    “Yes, it was,” said Murray, biting his lip at the memory. “It was a terrible blow, made even worse by knowing that it should have been me.”
    “But if you was working for the government, why don’t you go to the police?” Wiggins asked.
    Murray gave a bitter laugh. “Because that would let them know that I am alive and back in this country. It was someone from our government who betrayed me to the Russians.”
    “A traitor!” Wiggins exclaimed.
    “That’s what I discovered in Russia – that there is a traitor high up in the British Admiralty. And I know that he and his associates want me dead before I can unmask him. They will stop at nothing to prevent me from doing so.”
    “Do you know who the traitor is?” asked Beaver.
    “Not for sure. I suspect two or three people, but until I have proof, I daren’t show myself. If I were wrong, I would have alerted the real villain – and then I’d be done for.”
    “There must be somebody you can trust,” said Sarge.
    “No,” said Murray despondently, his shoulders sagging. “Whoever I go to may turn out to be the traitor, or somebody in league with him. There is no one.”
    “Hang on,” Wiggins said, “there
is
somebody. You got the Baker Street Boys.”
    Murray lifted his head and smiled. “So I have,” he agreed.
    “I told you we’ll help you. Now, first things first – where are you staying?”
    “I’ve taken a room in a cheap lodging house not far from here, somewhere they wouldn’t think of looking.”
    “But they might – and somebody might spot you coming and going. That won’t do. We gotta keep you out of sight while we get to work. And it’s gotta be somewhere where we can report back to you without nobody noticing us.”
    “What about HQ?” suggested Beaver. “He could have my bed. I don’t mind.”
    “You’re a good lad, Beav,” Wiggins told him, “but I don’t think he’d be very comfortable. I got a better idea.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You got an empty shop at the far end of the Bazaar, ain’t you, Sarge?”
    The commissionaire nodded enthusiastically – he was starting to enjoy this real-life spy adventure.
    “That’s right,” he said. “We haven’t been able to find a new tenant since old Mrs Pettigrew died. She used to sell ribbons and embroidery threads and such. The windows are boarded up, so nobody