The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow (11 page)

With fine ostrich plumes and rosettes of tulle, this delightful chapeau in café au lait silk is graceful in shape, and fine enough to catch the eye at a dressy luncheon party . . .

I
t was the second day of business at Sinclair’s, and the store was busier than ever. On the ground floor, a group of ever-so-slightly scandalised customers were gathered round an elegant saleslady who was demonstrating some of the daring new cosmetics:
Blanc de Perles
,
Baton au Raisin Lip Rouge
and
Veloutine Powder.
Up in Sporting Goods, several gentlemen were admiring a new display of golf clubs; in the Pet Department, a little girl was choosing a white kitten with a green ribbon around its neck as her birthday present from a doting grandmama; and in the Marble Court Restaurant, none other than the Countess of Alconborough could be observed, drinking tea and daintily nibbling a scone. Upstairs in the office, the telephones shrilled and the typists’ fingers hammered at the keys; whilst below, Sidney Parker threw open the door with an especially theatrical flourish, to admit yet another crowd of excited shoppers who had heard talk all over London of the marvels they could find inside Edward Sinclair’s wonderful department store.

For the first time, Sophie felt overwhelmed by it all: the endless rush of the lifts going up and down, the constant hum of voices, the relentless tinkling of the grand piano. Even the rich, sweet scent that hung in the air seemed suddenly stifling.

It was true that she had been relieved to hear, on her arrival at the store that morning, that there was better news of Bert Jones. He was showing signs he would certainly recover from the gunshot wound, but he was not yet well enough to tell the police anything about what had happened. Store gossip excitedly reported that a police guard had been placed at his bedside night and day.

But any small comfort Sophie could take from knowing that Bert would soon be able to tell the truth about the burglary was quite spoilt by Edith’s return to work. Mrs Milton had been called to Mr Cooper’s office first thing, and Edith had taken advantage of her absence to sit in the storeroom at the centre of a cluster of sympathising shop girls, alternately dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief and throwing venomous looks in Sophie’s direction.

Sophie fought to remain calm and keep her head, but she could not stop the horrible sick feeling that swept over her as she struggled on alone on the shop floor. It was only her second day of serving customers, and the hustle and bustle of the busy store still felt very new, and now, she was obliged to deal with the growing crowds of customers all by herself.

‘Do you have this in pink?’ a customer was demanding.

‘One pound nine shillings!’ scoffed another. ‘Why I declare I saw the very same model at Huntington’s yesterday for only a guinea! This Sinclair fellow must think we’re all fools!’

‘Miss –
Miss
! I need some assistance at once!’

‘One moment, please, madam,’ said Sophie breathlessly, diving back into the storeroom to find the hat with the pink ribbons.

‘Look at you,’ spat out Edith as she entered. ‘Acting just as if nothing had happened! You’re as hard as nails.’

Sophie rifled through the hat-boxes. ‘Violet – could you come and help me on the counter please? There are customers waiting.’

Violet dropped the sewing she was doing. She had been listening wide-eyed to Edith for most of the morning. Now she looked up at Sophie with a half-afraid expression on her face.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ exploded Sophie. ‘Don’t tell me you actually believe all this nonsense?’

Violet gaped at her, and then glanced back at Edith. She looked as though she might be about to burst into tears.

‘I suppose you’ve been stuffing her head with rot,’ said Sophie, tartly. Exasperated, she pushed past them both out of the storeroom. She would rather deal with all the rude, bad-tempered customers in the world than her fellow shop girls, she thought angrily, if they were all so certain of her guilt.

Away from the bustle of the shop floor, the farthest reaches of the basement were peculiarly silent and still. Hoping that his absence would go unnoticed, Billy slipped down to the storeroom with the high windows, taking with him a large hunk of seed cake, and the morning’s newspaper tucked under his arm. He had been wondering whether Joe would still be there when morning came, and he felt relieved when the young man appeared, looking quite pleased to see him. Close at his heels trotted Blackie, the boiler-room cat.

Joe noticed Billy glancing in surprise at the cat, and gave a small, embarrassed shrug. ‘He just . . . turned up,’ he said. ‘I ain’t been encouraging him, honest – but he seems to like it down here.’ He sat down on a crate and the cat wound itself round his ankles, purring enthusiastically, before leaping into his lap.

Billy handed over the cake he had brought. ‘Sorry I couldn’t bring any more. Mum keeps a pretty sharp eye on her larder. But I’ll try and bring you something else later on.’

He took a seat on a crate opposite Joe, who was already tucking in with obvious appreciation. ‘Aren’t you bored down here?’ he asked, curiously, looking around at the empty room. ‘I could bring you some magazines, or something, if you like?’

‘No point, mate. Can’t read, remember?’ said Joe, through a mouthful of cake. ‘Anyway, I don’t mind telling you, I’d rather be bored out of my skull than worried about my skin.’ He gestured at the newspaper that Billy was holding. ‘What’s all this, then?’

Billy’s eyes lit up. ‘I wanted you to hear this,’ he said, and he read aloud:

‘A hundred quid! You’re having a laugh!’ Joe’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

‘That’s what it says, right here in black and white.’

‘But that’s a fortune, that is!’

Billy nodded eagerly. Ever since he had seen the advertisement, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how marvellous it would feel if he could be the one to discover the stolen goods – and win the reward. He imagined coolly strolling into the Captain’s office, and placing the missing jewels casually on his desk. He would be able to prove that Sophie didn’t have anything to do with the burglary; the Captain would be delighted; Uncle Sid and Mr Cooper wouldn’t be able to treat him like a useless kid any longer; and everyone would admire him – Sophie, most of all.

‘What is this clockwork thing anyway?’ asked Joe, stroking Blackie absently.

Billy screwed up his face, trying to explain: ‘It’s like a little musical box in the shape of a bird. Like a toy, but stuck all over with jewels and stuff. It has some special workings inside it that make it play a completely different set of notes each time you wind it – it’s the only one like it in the world that can do that. That’s part of what makes it so special. I think it must have been one of the most valuable things on display.’

Joe let out a long, slow whistle.

‘We’ll have to act fast, though, if we want to be the ones to find out what happened,’ Billy went on. ‘Now this reward has been offered, I expect every fathead in the store will be trying to get it. But we’ve got the message you found. That’s one thing.’

‘Did you figure out what it says?’ asked Joe.

‘I’m working on it,’ said Billy, a little evasively. ‘But I’ve thought of something else too. Something Montgomery Baxter always does in his cases.’

Joe listened, his brow furrowed. He still wasn’t completely clear on who this Baxter fellow actually was.

‘He
examines the scene of the crime
,’ Billy went on triumphantly. ‘Of course, the police have already done that. But it’s just possible there could be some clue there that might help us. As soon as I get the chance, I’m going to scout around the Exhibition Hall and see what I can find – before anyone else starts sniffing about.’

‘The police turned your room upside down?’ Billy repeated, in astonishment. ‘But why would they do that? Do you think they were looking for the jewels?’

‘I suppose they must have been,’ said Sophie. It was just after the midday meal, and she and Lil had come to find Billy in the stable-yard to tell him about what had happened the previous evening. She leaned back against the wall, taking in a deep breath of the cold, fresh air, rich with the scent of horses and hay.

It was a relief to be here, out of the suffocating atmosphere of the store – and especially to be away from the other staff. Sophie couldn’t help but notice that the staring and whispering was growing worse and worse. Even Claudine, who had always been quite cordial, had hurried away without meeting her eyes when they passed each other on the stairs. For a moment, she found herself thinking almost nostalgically of the days when all she had to worry about was the girls calling her ‘Sour-milk Sophie’. Now, she had Sergeant Gregson to think about too. All morning, he had seemed to be lurking close by, and after what had happened last night, she found his presence oddly sinister.

‘It was perfectly horrid,’ Lil was saying, with a sympathetic shiver. ‘But tell us more about this young man you met, Billy. Did he really witness the shooting? Let’s see this note he found.’

Billy had been eager to tell the two girls about meeting Joe, and what he had seen, but he had decided to skate quickly over the part of the story where he had agreed to help Joe hide. He wasn’t at all sure whether the girls would approve of him helping a strange young man who was, after all, not merely a vagrant but apparently a sort of criminal himself. Now, he carefully took the piece of paper from where he had been keeping it folded safely in his jacket pocket. He handed it to Sophie. ‘Here it is. It had got all wet, so it wasn’t easy to read, but I worked out what it says, and I’ve copied it out here.’ Sophie read the list aloud.

‘Why, it’s just a list of clothing!’ she said, with a laugh. ‘A page from a ledger from the shop, probably.’

‘Was he sure that it was the man with the gun who dropped this?’ asked Lil, reaching over to take it from Sophie and scrutinise it herself.

‘Maybe Mr Cooper or someone else – even Bert himself – dropped it in the yard, and he just assumed the thief dropped it,’ suggested Sophie.

Billy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Joe was quite certain that it belonged to the man who shot Bert.’

‘So maybe he
was
someone from the store,’ said Lil, and they looked at each other uncomfortably.

‘It’s a strange kind of list though, isn’t it?’ Sophie went on. ‘It doesn’t seem like an order, or an inventory of stock, or anything like that. It’s just a jumble of all sorts of things, from all sorts of different departments. I mean,
handkerchiefs
– which handkerchiefs? Sinclair’s must stock dozens of different kinds. And some of the prices look odd too.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Billy. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

Lil was squinting at the original note, wrinkling up her nose. ‘What’s this, here?’ she said curiously, pointing to a dark squiggle at the top right-hand corner of the page. ‘It’s a bit like a snake. Or then again, I suppose it could just be a funny ink blot.’