The Case of the Haunted Horrors by Anthony Read

suspicion.
    “More of you, huh?” she asked. “What you want? Where my friend who like blini?”
    “That’s what we want to know,” Queenie told her. “He didn’t come home last night.”
    “He is lost?” She sounded dismayed.
    “What, Shiner? He couldn’t get lost round here,” Gertie said. “Not in a month of Sundays.”
    “Knows his way around, does our Shiner,” Sparrow added.
    “If he didn’t come home,” Beaver said, “it must have been ’cos he
couldn’t
. And if he couldn’t, he must’ve been locked up or somethin’. So if he—”
    “Wait,” said the woman, interrupting him. “One moment.” She unlocked the door of the café and ushered them inside.
    “Now,” she said as she closed the door behind them, “why you think Luba know where your Shiner is?”
    “Who’s Luba?” asked Queenie.
    “I am Luba. This my tea room.”
    “Oh, we thought you was just the waitress.”
    “Waitress, cook, bottle-washer, I am everything. Now tell me why you think I know about Shiner.”
    “’Cos he was followin’ one of your customers,” Gertie blurted out.
    “Why?”
    “We’re not allowed to tell you,” Beaver said.
    “Then I cannot help you.”
    Queenie thought hard. She did not want to put Murray in danger – but if Shiner already was, she had to do everything she could to rescue him. She took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “We might as well come clean. We’re the Baker Street Boys, and we’re tryin’ to help a friend of ours find out who murdered his brother.”
    Luba stared at her scornfully. “You think I have murderers in Russian tea room? Why?”
    “’Cos when we was followin’ one of the suspects yesterday, he come in here. Our friend’s just escaped from Russia, and if they spot him, they’ll kill him.”
    “Who will?”
    “The Russian secret police.” Beaver lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. “It’s all to do with spies and secret agents and stolen plans and stuff.”
    “Ha!” Luba let out a hollow laugh. “You think my customers work for Okhrana?”
    “What’s Oker … whatever you said?”
    “Okhrana is secret police of Tsar.”
    “What’s Tsar?”
    “Not what –
who
. Tsar is Emperor of Russia. He is tyrant. We hate him. But we hate Okhrana more. They spy on us, even in London.”
    Gertie suddenly had an awful thought. “What if,” she said, “Blackbeard thinks Shiner’s spyin’ on him for the Okarina thingy?”
    Queenie and the others were aghast.
    “Who is Blackbeard?” Luba asked.
    “The geezer what Shiner was trailin’,” said Gertie. “You know, him as was sittin’ in the corner over there when we was in yesterday.” She pointed to the table.
    “Ivan!” exclaimed Luba, narrowing her eyes. “I know him. He is wild man. Come!”
    She headed for the door, ushering the Boys before her.
    “Where we goin’?” Queenie asked.
    “Ivan’s house!” she replied. Then, as they opened the door, she stopped suddenly. “Wait!” she called, then dashed across to the counter, scooped up a handful of blini from a glass case and stuffed them into her coat pocket.
    “My little Shiner will have hunger,” she said. “These from yesterday, but he not mind.”
    Wiggins arrived just as Luba was locking the door behind them. “Where you lot off to?” he demanded.
    “Madam Luba knows where Shiner might be,” Beaver said.
    “Madam Luba?”
    “I am Luba.”
    “Pleased to meetcha.” He raised his hat as he had seen Mr Holmes and Dr Watson do when they met a lady. “I’m Wiggins, captain of the Baker Street Boys. What they been telling you?”
    “Enough to know we are on same side. Come. There is no time to lose. We talk while we walk.”
    Luba led the Boys through Soho and into the warren of little streets beyond Shaftesbury Avenue, telling Wiggins what had happened and listening to him as he explained about the Boys’ mission. At last she stopped outside a small old house with a battered front door that had once been