The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow (15 page)

But she would not be looking for work in another shop, she thought soberly. No ordinary draper’s shop, nor even another of the big London department stores like Huntington’s could ever compare with Sinclair’s. She would have to find something else to do. Perhaps she could be a music teacher, she thought. Miss Pennyfeather had always said she had a good ear. But she hadn’t been near a piano for months, not since she left Orchard House, and surely she would need a good deal of practice before she could approach the standard that would be expected of a teacher. Drawing, perhaps? Her Papa had often praised her drawings, and unlike dear old Miss Pennyfeather, he wasn’t in the least given to exaggeration. But she would be expected to have references – or at least the names of other pupils she had taught. It was no good – she was just too young and inexperienced to teach anyone anything.

A nursery-maid then? That couldn’t be too bad? Or maybe she could become a paid companion to some wealthy elderly lady? She couldn’t possibly need any special experience to do that. There was bound to be something she could do, she said to herself as she put on her gloves, noticing as she did so that the finger-ends were wearing thin. She would place an advertisement in
The Lady
. ‘
Reliable young lady seeks respectable employment
.’ She concentrated on how she would word it as she went down the stairs and out into the early morning rain.

The truth was that she had not wanted to go out at all that morning. What she had wanted to do more than anything else was to stay inside, far away from everything and everyone that had anything to do with Sinclair’s. But Lil had turned up at her rooms the previous evening, running late for a rehearsal and in a tearing hurry, but so terribly insistent that Sophie must come and meet her first thing the next morning, that she simply hadn’t been able to refuse. She had been surprised and pleased that Lil had come at all. Anyway, she could call at the offices of
The Lady
and place her advertisement while she was out; and besides, surely anything was better than having to endure breakfast at the lodging house, putting up with the girls’ scandalised whispers.

She found Lil sheltering from the rain in the bandstand where they had agreed to meet in the park not far from Sinclair’s. Sitting beside her were Billy and a shabby-looking young man that she guessed must be Joe, the one who had seen the shooting. All three were tucking into what looked like a bag of buns and, in spite of everything, a smile crept on to Sophie’s face at the thought of what Miss Pennyfeather would make of her eating buns out of a bag in the park in the company of a chorus girl, a shop porter and a youth who, as far as she had been able to understand from Lil’s garbled explanations yesterday evening, was on the run from some sort of an East End gang.

‘Sophie!’ called Lil, grinning a welcome and waving a bun in her direction. ‘Come and meet Joe.’

‘I’m ever so sorry about what happened at the shop,’ Billy plunged in, before anyone else could say anything. ‘I never even thought – it’s all my fault –’ He broke off, looking upset.

Sophie took a seat beside Lil, accepted a bun from the bag. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she told Billy. ‘You were only trying to help.’

‘We’re
all
sorry about what happened,’ said Lil.

Sophie tried to smile, but she began to feel uncomfortable with all of their eyes on her, so full of sympathy. Even Joe looked as though he felt sorry for her. She remembered now that she had seen him at Sinclair’s just a few days ago – yes and given him her shilling, too! Then, she had been the one who had felt sorry for him: now she was suddenly the one that everyone pitied. ‘You need to hear about everything else we found out yesterday,’ Lil was saying. ‘You tell her, Billy.’

His anxiety seemingly forgotten now, Billy began to relate the story of the previous day, with Lil interrupting often, and Joe weighing in to explain about the Baron. ‘So,’ Billy wound up, ‘what we believe is that the Baron orchestrated the burglary. He’s paid off the police to help him cover it up, and they’ve used you to distract attention from what really happened.’

Sophie had been listening intently, still holding the bun, which she had quite forgotten to eat, her forehead scrunched into a frown. Could it possibly be that an East End gang and some corrupt policemen were trying to set her up? It sounded more like something from one of Billy’s story papers or one of Lil’s plays than the truth.

Feeling rather as though she were pouring cold water on their excitement, she said: ‘I can see that it perhaps makes sense that this man, the Baron, was involved in the burglary. After all, we have seen that message, and from what you say, Joe, it sounds like the sort of thing that he might do. But I can’t believe that Gregson could be working for him. I mean, I know he’s been awfully unfair – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s crooked. And what about Bert? Someone tried to
kill him
. Surely the police wouldn’t cover up an attempted murder?’

Joe rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, Lil took a paper from her pocket, with the air of a magician producing a white rabbit from a hat. ‘Look at this,’ she said, handing it over.

Sophie took the flimsy, creased piece of paper: a telegram addressed to Sergeant Gregson.

‘I found this yesterday in the office,’ Lil explained. ‘We went to have a look around to see if we could find anything that would point to them working with the Baron. It looked awfully funny to me, and I thought it might be another code. Billy took it home with him and worked out what it said.’

‘It’s from him,’ said Sophie slowly. She glanced keenly up at them. ‘How on earth did you work it out?’ she asked, shaking her head in astonishment.

Billy shrugged, his face growing rather pink. ‘I don’t know. When I started looking at it, playing around like last time, I realised that he’d used a method called the Caesar cipher – I read about it once in
Pluck
magazine. Julius Caesar used it in his letters to keep their contents secret, you know. It’s quite straightforward: you just replace each letter with one three letters further on in the alphabet. So an “A” becomes a “D”, you see?’

Sophie sat still, not saying anything for a moment, holding the telegram. Then she said: ‘So it’s true. The police really are involved in this.’ She sounded calm, but her eyes were blazing. ‘Gregson had me sacked on purpose. He’s used me as a scapegoat.’

‘That’s what it seems like,’ said Billy quietly.

‘But listen, Sophie,’ said Lil, leaning forward. ‘We aren’t going to let them get away with it. Lunch Marble Court Friday One? It’s Friday tomorrow. By the sounds of it, Gregson is going to be meeting the Baron in the Marble Court Restaurant at Sinclair’s for lunch at one o’clock. We have a real chance to actually go and find out who the Baron is – or at least what he looks like – and maybe to prove that Gregson is in his pay!’

Joe had been sitting silently for some time. Now he shifted uneasily and spoke up: ‘Hang on half a minute,’ he began. ‘Begging your pardon, miss – I don’t want to be rude, but you’re off your nut if you’re thinking of going after the Baron like that. It’s not that I don’t reckon you’re right – course it ain’t fair that you lost your job,’ he said, nodding to Sophie. ‘But I don’t think you’ve got a notion of who you’d be taking on. The Baron – he’s not one of your soft-handed shop fellers. He’s a villain: he’s dangerous and he’s clever. You’d never get near him – and if you did, you’d never be able to pin anything on him. Even if you could, it’d be more than your life’s worth. You want to prove that you had nothing to do with this robbery – or even that this copper is bent, you go ahead. But don’t go meddling with the Baron. You’d best steer well clear of him, else you’ll be up to your necks in it.’

‘In what?’ asked Lil.

‘Trouble, that’s what,’ said Joe, his face serious. ‘Look at that bloke that got shot, for starters.’

‘But you must see that we jolly well can’t just ignore this,’ said Lil more coaxingly. ‘The Baron is going to be at Sinclair’s tomorrow, and we have the chance to actually get a
look
at him. What harm could there be in just looking?’

‘It’s an intelligence mission,’ said Billy, grandly. ‘We aren’t going to actually do anything. We’re just going to go and see him and – and gather information,’ he finished.

‘No, Joe’s right,’ said Sophie. ‘Look what has happened to me, just through being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they know you’re watching them, it could be really dangerous. I won’t risk anyone else losing their job – or worse – because of this.’

Lil shook her head. ‘They won’t know that we’re watching them. We’ll be careful.’ She gazed at Sophie seriously, her dark eyes clear. ‘We can’t sit back and do nothing; you must see that. It just wouldn’t be right.’

Sophie looked back at Lil, seeing the resolve on her face. ‘No, I suppose not,’ she said at last, feeling acutely grateful for Lil’s friendship. The lump was threatening to rise in her throat again, and it was a moment or two before she felt able to say, in an ordinary voice: ‘Well, in that case you’ll just have to make sure you draw no attention to yourselves whatsoever.’

‘You’ll need a blooming good reason to be in this restaurant place, as well,’ added Joe, still looking doubtful.

‘Well, we shan’t be going there to have lunch, that’s for sure,’ muttered Billy, half to himself. He had recently seen the prices on the restaurant menu and was still faintly disgusted by the discovery that a single Dover sole cost almost as much as his full week’s wages. ‘Not unless one of you has recently come into a fortune, that is.’

‘That’s it!’ squealed Lil suddenly.

‘What?’

‘I’ve got the
perfect
reason to be there,’ she said, looking very pleased with herself. ‘I’m going to be a fortune hunter!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ demanded Sophie.

Lil gave a little wriggle of excitement. ‘There are lots of fellows who hang around the theatre after rehearsals, waiting for the chorus girls to come out. Stage Door Johnnies, they call them,’ she explained. ‘Some of the older girls love it – the ones who are looking for a rich husband who we call the fortune hunters. Anyway, there’s this one young fellow, Mr Pendleton, who has been pestering me ever since I started at the theatre, always wanting to take me out or some stuff and nonsense. The other girls told me he’s frightfully rich – the son of some factory owner, I think. Plenty of spare cash to splash around. So perhaps I might relent and let him take me to lunch tomorrow – but only if we dine at the Marble Court Restaurant, of course!’

Sophie laughed suddenly. ‘Lil, you can’t possibly ask a strange young man to take you to lunch so you can spy on someone,’ she said.

‘Why ever not? I was thinking that I might say yes anyway. He’s only a silly boy really – but just think of the food! It’s bound to be an awful lot better than that rotten old refectory.’

‘Wait a minute, though,’ said Billy, his mind moving quickly on to practical matters. ‘The restaurant is enormous. What if they seat you right on the other side from Gregson?’ He smoothed out the bag that had contained the buns, and sketched out a floorplan with the stub of a pencil. ‘Look. Two main entrances: one where the lifts come up, and one where the main staircase is.’

‘Three,’ said Sophie, leaning over. ‘There’s the smaller flight of stairs that comes up in that back left hand corner too.’

‘And there are four different sections,’ Billy went on. ‘You might not even be able to
see
Gregson from wherever you are. How could you possibly watch the whole place?’

‘Well it won’t just be me there, will it? You’ll be there too.’

‘And what possible reason would I have for being there?’ said Billy impatiently. ‘I can’t go there for luncheon!’

‘You’re a porter,’ said Sophie, thinking it out. ‘You’ve got reason to be almost anywhere. There are porters all over the place at Sinclair’s. No one will take a bit of notice of you, as long as you seem to be busy. If anyone questioned you, you could always say you’d been sent up with a parcel or a message.’

‘You could even say it was a message for me,’ added Lil, her eyes glinting at the thought of this new plan.

Sophie had crumbled her uneaten bun and was now feeding a couple of sparrows that had hopped on to the steps of the bandstand. ‘I just wish I could be there too,’ she said, sounding frustrated.

Joe shook his head. ‘You’re better off out of it,’ he said, shortly. ‘And the pair of you better make sure he doesn’t set eyes on you.’ He found himself unable to repress a slight shiver. The very idea of the Baron actually being in the same building as him – even if it was five floors above – seemed unreal, like one of his nightmares coming to life.
Rather them than me
, he thought grimly. He still couldn’t help thinking they were a set of fools.

They went their separate ways not long after that: Billy and Joe to go back to Sinclair’s, whilst Sophie and Lil strolled out of the park together sharing an umbrella.

‘I say – you are going to come to the first night of my show on Saturday, aren’t you?’ Lil asked suddenly. ‘I’ll get you a ticket, of course.’