Well, was Jonathan not a detective? It would not take much for him to figure what was what with Nip and Tuck. When he went out and left Nip at the office, he must have been off finding the policemen to tail Nip when he left. And Nip led them right to the corner where he sold newspapers, and where Junko, Bobo, and Tweet found him. He knew he should have waited until night to go see Tuck, as Tuck wanted him to. But he had to see Tuck. He had to. So off he went, with the policemen on his tail the whole way!

  Poor Tuck! Nip knew from the look on his face exactly how he felt when he saw Jonathan Kirk walk into the room. Jonathan was his friend as well as someone he worked for. And Jonathan had betrayed him.

  “Well! Well! Well!” Hike said. He leaned back in his chair folded his arms in front of him. “So here you two are! And ain’t you a treat for sore eyes! Look at you, you two little sniveling thieves. You thought you’d get away from me, eh? That pretending to drown was some clever little trick you pulled. Didn’t fool me for a minute. But I knew I’d get you, and now I have, with the help of all these nice gentlemen.”

  Hike pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “And now if you’d like to wave bye bye to everyone, I think we’ll be leaving. Come along, boys. I ain’t got all day. You got some tall explaining to do when we get home.”

  Before he could even get around the table, though, Jonathan jumped up. “Now, slow down a minute, Mr. Raider. These boys aren’t going anywhere. At least, not with you, they’re not.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Hike snarled. He turned to one of the policemen. “What does he mean by that? They’re my boys, ain’t they? What does he mean they ain’t going with me?”

  “I’m afraid we can’t answer that,” the policeman said. “But I’m sure Mr. Kirk intends to.”

  “That I do,” Jonathan said. “Thank you, officer. What I mean is, Mr. Raider, is that these are not your boys. They never were, and never will be.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hike said. “If they ain’t mine, why was I called here?”

  “Only for purposes of identification, Mr. Raider, although I’m not sure we really needed you for that,” Jonathan said.

  Hike’s face slowly turned the blood-red so familiar to the twins when he became angry. “You can talk all day, Mr. Big Detective, but if I was married to their ma, then I became their pa. Ain’t that so?”

  “Well, it would be, Mr. Raider,” Jonathan said, cool as cool, “but the truth is you weren’t married to their ma at all. You weren’t anything to their ma but a boarder. She put up with you because she was to have a child and was left with little means of support when the boys’ father died. You had been his friend and I suppose she trusted you. She must have lived long enough to regret her decision, I’m sure. I saw the bruise on Tuck’s face when he applied for work with me.”

  “If you’re talking about one of the boys, that ain’t his name,” Hike growled.

  “Probably not,” Jonathan said, “But that’s not the point now, is it?”

  “No, it ain’t,” Hike said. “The point is what proof you got for what you’re saying. You ain’t got any. Right?”

  “Wrong, Mr. Raider,” Jonathan said. “In the first place, there are no records to be found anywhere that shows you and the boys’ mother were ever married. And as you know, I am a detective. Some of your friends at a place called The Bloody Cow were happy to tell me all they knew in exchange for a free drink or two. So now, that we’ve cleared all this up, I think you may feel free to leave, Mr. Raider.”

  Hike threw the boys furious looks and started for the door. Then he stopped. “So what about my money that they stole? What about my pin?”

  “The pin belonged to their mother,” Jonathan said, “and I now have proof of that. I’ll find out about the money, and if there’s any owed you, I’ll see that you get it, Mr. Raider.”

  “See that you do, Mr. Detective,” said Hike. He stood up, slammed his chair back against the wall, and stomped out.

  As soon as he had left, the two police officers stood up. “Think we’ve done all we need to here, Mr. Kirk. Don’t think he’ll be back, do you, Tom?” one of them said.

  “Not if he knows what’s good for him. So, all right if we leave you now?” the officer called Tom replied.

  “Absolutely!” Jonathan said. “And thank you, gentlemen, for all your excellent work!”

  Then he looked at the twins. His eyes began to twinkle. “All right, then, Nip and Tuck. Or if I now understand it correctly, Matt and Mickey, I’d like you to meet your grandfather!”

  THE TRUE EXPLANATION

  Grandfather? The grey-haired man standing beside Jonathan? Someone they had never seen before in their lives? They stood like two twin icicles, too frozen even to turn and look at one another.

  Jonathan was now grinning from ear to ear. “All right boys, you may put your eyes back in your twin heads, and allow me to introduce Mr. Hargrove, who is indeed your grandfather!”

  Jonathan then walked over and put an arm around each boy. “Sir, allow me to present to you your grandsons, Nip and Tuck. Or I should say rather, Matt and Mickey!”

  But Mr. Hargrove seemed unable to move or say any word. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.

  Now Jonathan dashed away a tear from his own eyes. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, sir, while you collect yourself, I’d like to say a word to these boys.”

  Still unable even to speak, Mr. Hargrove waved an arm, motioning him to go ahead.

  “Tuck, or I guess I should be calling you Mickey now,” Jonathan said, “I saw the look on your face when you came in and saw me. I guess you thought I’d betrayed you, didn’t you?”

  Tuck, now Mickey, nodded.

  “And I guess you know now that I didn’t. Isn’t that right?” he asked.

  Mickey nodded again. He did not trust himself to say anything, because he was feeling strange lump in his throat.

  “Well, I think I have some tall explaining to do,” Jonathan said, and then he turned to Nip. “Nip, or Matt, or should I still be calling you Tuck?”

  Now Jonathan was grinning again. And why, Mickey wondered, was Matt grinning right back at him? After all, he had been the one working for Jonathan. Matt and Jonathan did not even know each other. What was this all about?

  “I’ll answer either name, now,” Matt said.

  “Well,” said Jonathan, “I have a feeling each of you believes he was the one who tipped me off to your being half of a pair of the twins a few people were looking for. Am I right?”

  Both boys nodded. Then Mickey gave Matt a poke in the ribs. What was his twin doing nodding his head anyway? He had never even seen Jonathan before they walked into the police station, had he?

  But Jonathan went right on talking. “All right then, since you now know the happy outcome of all this, you will, I think, be pleased to know that you were both responsible for it! And Mickey, don’t go poking your twin in the ribs. He can nod his head just as much as you, which I will soon explain.

  “Mickey, when you first came into my office asking to work for me, you hesitated before you pulled the name of “Brown” out of a hat. But you spoke so well, and looked so clean and neat, I decided not to let that worry me. So I hired you, and have never regretted it.

  “I’d never thought about the twin factor until your grandfather came in. He’d been approached by Hike Raider, who told him about you, and tried to exact a handsome fee from him for that information and information about your baby sister. I’ll let your grandfather tell you all about that. I’ll just say that when he mentioned to me that you, Mickey, bore a strong family resemblance, I began wondering about it. I’d seen one of Hike Raider’s signs posted at the police station, but seeing the kind of sign it was, and thinking you boys, whoever you were, must have had good reason for escaping him and, as I believe, pretending to have drowned, I simply kept my thoughts on the matter to myself until I could get to the bottom of the whole matter. Now, are you both following me?”

  The boys nodded again. Their eyes were round, though it must be said that Mickey’s eyes were twice as round as Matt’s!

  “Then I’ll go on,” Jonathan said. “After your grandfather came in, I looked into Hike Raider’s claim of being truly related to you. When I learned what you boys heard about that today, I began giving serious though to the family resemblance your grandfather saw in you, Mickey. Much as I didn’t like the idea, I was preparing to follow you, or have you followed, to see where it might lead me.

  “Fortunately, I never had to do that. That’s because this morning, your twin came racing in, and pretending to be you. You apparently haven’t found that out yet, have you?”

  Mickey’s only answer to that was to grin himself, and give his twin an even harder poke in the ribs.

  “You’d come up missing, thanks to Mr. Rose,” Jonathan continued, and I believe Matt was trying to save your job with me. Isn’t that right, Matt?”

  Matt nodded, and for that received another poke in the ribs from his twin.

  “Well, Matt,” Jonathan said, “I knew about the switch the moment you raced in. Mickey, you’ve worn the same shirt and trousers since you first walked in my office. I don’t know how you’ve managed to stay so tidy all this time. But when I saw what was supposed to be you coming in with a different set of clothes, a red flag immediately went up in my head. Matt, you slipped and called me Mr. Kirk instead of Jonathan, but I was already suspicious before that. Then, I’m afraid I tricked you. I invented the ‘attack’ and the ‘headaches’ Mickey’s aunty was supposed to have. And Mickey’s never made me a cup of tea for me in his life. It’s a nice idea, but I bring a thermos of tea into the office every day myself!

  “At any rate, I had the feeling something bad was afoot. I believed I had to act quickly. As you know I left you to wait for me in the office, Matt. You probably realize now that I lost no time getting to the police station. There I enlisted the aid of the two efficient police officers who waited outside for you to lead them to what I’d hoped would be our missing twin. So seems they found him locked up in the store of a shyster pawnbroker named Mr. Rose. I’m sure there’s a story there, too, which I’ll want to hear l from you later.

  “At any rate, I waited here at the police station, gambling that the officers would have luck in their search. They did, of course. I immediate sent for your grandfather, and Hike Raider, who, the police knew, works at the docks. This has been a great deal for you two boys to take in all at one swallow. But, I understand that you haven’t been given the chance to talk to one another. I thought you deserved to know all the pieces of the puzzle as soon as possible.

  “There are many things I would like to know from you two, however, but they’ll keep. I know your grandfather would like to talk to you as soon as possible himself. But there is on thing I’d really love to know, and that is, who is this “aunty” you both are supposed to be living with? I’m sure someone ought to be thanking her for taking care of you through all this.”

  Matt and Mickey exchanged glances. They grinned at each other, and then could not help snickering. Thank Aunty for taking care of them! Cripes, but that was a funny joke!

  “Aunty...Aunty,” Mickey finally managed to blurt out, “is someone who finds boys like us who run away because their pa’s beat them. She makes them go stealing for her.”

  “She says if they don’t, she’ll turn them back to their pa’s,” Matt said. “It’s what she did with us.”

  Jonathan’s jaw dropped. “You don’t mean Gold Tooth Aunty, do you? The creature who runs a den of young thieves and pickpockets?”

  Matt and Mickey nodded.

  “How...how did you know about her?” Mickey asked.

  “You forget, Mickey, I spend a lot of time at the police station, and hear a lot of interesting things. I’ve been told that she makes a boy touch her gold tooth because she thinks it gives her some kind of power over them. Could that be true? The police were told that by a couple of her boys that got caught. They weren’t sure if the boys had just made it up to get themselves a lighter punishment.”

  Matt and Mickey exchanged looks, and then shuddered.

  “It’s true,” Matt said.

  Mickey gave a firm nod in agreement.

  “That’s pretty horrible,” Jonathan said. “But, you’ll be happy to know that thanks to those boys telling their stories, Aunty’s been found out and her days are numbered. She’s going to be brought in very shortly, I understand. So is Mr. Rose for his great interest in buying and selling stolen goods, not to mention kidnapping.”

  “What’s going to happen to all Aunty’s boys?” Mickey asked. “They only do what they do because Aunty makes them.”

  “I’m sure that will be taken into account,” Jonathan said. “But what about you two? What about picking pockets and snatching handbags? The police may ask questions about that.”

  “But we never did it!” Matt cried.

  “No, we didn’t, Jonathan,” Mickey said. “Do you remember how you gave me a dollar the first day? And then I got a twenty-five cent tip at the police station? I gave some to Matt, so he had money to start his newspaper business.”

  “And the money we both got we bought wallets and handkerchiefs from peddlers,” Matt said. “Aunty thought we got them from picking pockets.”

  “The other boys knew,” Mickey said, “but they never told on us. They all wished they could do the same thing. Matt and I promised each other after we’d saved enough to rescue our baby sister Molly from that Mrs. Peeby, we’d save money to give each one so they could do the same as us one day.”

  By now, the tears on Mr. Hargrove’s face had long since gone. He had his elbows on the table and his hands under his chin, listening with the greatest interest to all Jonathan and his newfound grandsons had to say.

  “Do you hear that, Mr. Hargrove?” Jonathan asked him. “I’d say you’ve just won yourself a pair of fine, and I must say resourceful, boys here!”

  “Nothing more needed to prove it!” Mr. Hargrove said. “But I have a few things to tell them myself. Would you like to come with us back to my home, Mr. Kirk, to hear them?”

  Jonathan said, though, he thought he ought to give them time alone now, and he would hear everything at another time.

  But he gave Matt and Mickey a big wink, and grinned at them as they were all leaving. “You may have thought, boys, I’d forgotten to say anything about that missing pin. Not at all! I simply have every confidence that you two still have it, and you’ve found a very good hiding place for it. You’ll be wanting to tell your grandfather, of course.”

  Jonathan stopped a moment and scratched his head. “You know, I can’t believe it yet. All this going on under my very nose and I never knew it. And to think I fancied myself a top-notch detective! But go along, you two. I believe your grandfather said he had a few things he wanted to tell you.”

  It was way more than a few, as they were soon to find out!

  AT LAST!

  Mr. Hargrove had a carriage and horses waiting outside the police station. It was his own carriage and horses. Mickey and Matt had never ridden in any carriage in their whole lives. But they never talked much on the way to his house. He just pointed things out to them along the way. One of the things was a big building he said was the Hargrove Building. It was his, he said. Neither Matt nor Mickey said a word. Nobody would have known they even heard Mr. Hargrove unless they had seen the twins poke each other in the ribs. Cripes! Who was there ever in the world who owned a whole building!

  The house their new grandfather lived in was big too. Inside, he told a butler named Porter, who had answered to a bell, that Matt and Mickey were his grandsons, and they had come to live there.

  “We will have sandwiches and cakes in the drawing room, Porter,” said Mr. Hargrove.

  If Mr. Hargrove noted Porter’s eyebrows rise a fraction, he never commented on it. But Mrs. Bunce, Mr. Hargrove’s cook, and Milly the parlor maid were treated to a broad smile when he arrived in the kitchen for the sandwiches and cake.

  Mr. Hargrove then took the twins into an enormous room with a high ceiling. The walls were covered with huge painting and mirrors in carved gold frames. The chairs in it were covered in velvet and silk brocades. The boys knew all about fancy materials from the beadwork they used to do with their mama.

  They sat down, perched gingerly together on a fancy little chair made for two people, and were very silent. They could not even think of anything to say to each other. The carriage ride and all the bigness belonging to a grandfather they did not know they had, had just about frozen their tonsils.

  Mr. Hargrove left them for a few moments, and when he came back and saw them, he said, “Well, this isn’t going to work. You’d better come along, boys!”

  They followed him next door to a much smaller room with books on shelves all over the walls. It had big leather chairs, but they looked like someone had sat in them, not like the ones in the drawing room. A desk in the middle of the room was covered in an untidy heap of books and papers.

  “Have a seat, Matt and Mickey,” he said. Then he went over and pulled a cord hanging down from the ceiling. A few moments later, Porter appeared.

  “We’ll have the sandwiches and cake in here, instead, Porter,” Mr. Hargrove told him. “And please tell cook to make some hot chocolate for the boys as well.”

  Mickey and Matt exchanged sideways glances. Sandwiches and cake and hot chocolate! They had considered themselves lucky to have sausage and bread at Aunty’s after the stale bread and rusty water from a spigot when they lived in the stairwell!

  “Well,” Mr. Hargrove said as he dropped into a chair himself. “Now I think we’re ready to talk. What I’d like to know is, did your mama ever say anything at all to you about her family?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11