The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow (21 page)

Still lightheaded, she staggered to her feet. There was a door across the room, and somehow she made her way over to it and rattled at the handle. It was locked. Of course, she was locked in.

She crawled back to the sofa and dropped down, her head in her hands. The clock faces seemed to jostle and shudder before her eyes. She was such a fool! Even now, Mr Cooper and the Baron could be at Sinclair’s, about to activate the infernal machine – and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Her stomach twisted as she remembered that Billy and Joe would both be in the building, and that Lil would be going to the party after the show. They had already murdered Bert, and now they were going to harm her friends, and maybe hundreds of other innocent people – and she was trapped here, forced to watch the minutes counting down to midnight on the clocks that covered every wall around her. A sob rose in her throat.

But even as despair enveloped her, something else began to well up inside her. It was unstoppable, and as it rose, she realised it had been rising for a very long time, ever since the life she had known had crumbled away. Papa, Orchard House, her old life, even Sinclair’s itself, all had been wrested away from her until she was left here with nothing.

But she did have something left. It was anger, and as it flooded her, she shook her tears away and forced herself bolt upright. She’d had enough of keeping her head and keeping calm, and keeping a stiff upper lip. She’d had enough of taking it on the chin, and of all Papa’s moral lessons. For she was angry with him too, she realised: angry with him for leaving her
alone
most of all. But all that mattered now was that the Baron was planning to explode a bomb at Sinclair’s that night, and that she alone knew what he was planning. If anything was worth losing her head over, it was this.

She made herself stand up and walk back across the room, heaving a deep breath and rubbing her hands up and down her arms to stop herself shivering. She saw that the hands of the clocks all pointed to just after ten. That meant she hadn’t been unconscious for very long, so she couldn’t possibly be very far from the Fortune Theatre and the West End. There was still some time left.

Swiftly, she went over to the door and tried the handle again. Definitely locked. She knelt down to peer through the keyhole, but she could see nothing except an empty passageway. There didn’t seem to be anyone outside the door.

Next she tried the window at the opposite end of the room. Pushing back the curtains, she saw that the window was not only locked, but heavily barred too. Evidently the Baron was a man concerned with security, she thought grimly. Or perhaps she wasn’t the first person he had locked in this room. Standing on tiptoe, she struggled to peep through the foggy glass and get some sense of her location, but she could see nothing except for the hazy lights of some other windows in the distance.

The thing was not to panic. She smoothed her tangled hair and tried to think clearly. In front of the window was a huge desk, covered in a muddle of newspapers, letters and maps, and she began to sort through them rapidly. There were dozens of complex drawings of what looked like the workings of clocks, and page after page of figures and letters, all in the same heavy black handwriting. These must be more of the secret codes, she realised. If Billy were here, perhaps he would be able to read some meaning into them: to her, they meant nothing.

Lying amongst them was a crimson leather folder stamped in gold with the shape of a twisting serpent. There was nothing inside it, but she remembered the note that Joe had found: the black handwriting, the strange shape that they had thought looked like a snake. She traced the gilt with her fingertip – it was the same image. There was no doubt that the note had come from here – from the Baron.

And it had been
Mr Cooper
who had been his inside contact at Sinclair’s all along! The Baron must have been sending him his instructions in the form of coded messages, disguised as ordinary paperwork so that no one would think twice about them. Had Bert been in on it too, then – acting as Cooper’s lookout, perhaps? But if so, why had he been shot? It was no wonder that Mr Cooper had seemed so surprised to see her in the Exhibition Hall that night: she must have crossed his path only moments before he had begun to carry out the Baron’s instructions. And now she was here, and if the Baron had disposed of Bert as soon as he became troublesome, she knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same with her.

For a moment the room wavered again, but she clenched her fists, blew out a long breath and turned back to the table. The next thing she happened upon was an invitation card with a narrow gilt edging:

The invitation was unexpectedly plain and simple for Mr Sinclair, she thought, turning the card over to see Sinclair’s monogram printed in royal blue and gold. So if the Baron was one of the favoured guests at the opening gala, that meant that Mr Sinclair must know him, she reasoned. Of course, he could not possibly know him in his capacity as ‘the Baron’, but perhaps he had some other, more respectable identity amongst London society? But of course they knew each other, she remembered suddenly. Fragments of the conversation in the theatre were still coming back to her, and now she recalled the Baron saying
certain absences might be remarked upon
. Then there was the way he had talked about Mr Sinclair, calling him
an idiot . . . a troublemaker
. The Baron wanted to destroy Mr Sinclair, his shop and everyone around him. The Baron didn’t just know Mr Sinclair; he was out to ruin him. Sophie swallowed, and kept sorting through the papers, pushing them to one side until underneath them all she uncovered a small bunch of keys.

She hurried straight over to the door, but none of the keys fitted in the lock. She felt a sharp spear of disappointment pierce her, but of course, the Baron was scarcely going to leave her locked in a room with the keys to get out again. But one of the smaller keys did unlock the desk drawers, and she rifled through them, uncertain what she was looking for, but desperate to find anything that might help her escape. They were crammed with more papers, account books, letters – nothing that would be of any use – until all at once, there it was. The bright, jewelled eye glinted up at her more wickedly than ever.

There, lying by itself in the bottom drawer of the desk, nestling on a white velvet cloth, was the clockwork sparrow.

Hardly daring to breathe, she drew it out and gazed at it. It felt very small and delicate and oddly cold in her palm. It was so richly jewelled, so perfect. Almost without meaning to, her fingers found the delicate key, and gently twisted it. At once the room was filled with a tinkling discordant melody. She gave a breathless laugh and sat down heavily in the chair behind the desk, still holding the bird in her hand.

It was only as she sat there, watching the key slowly unwind itself and listening as the strange tune came to a wavering halt, that she became aware that there was a second door in the room. It was a bookcase door, and she probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, except that there had been one just like it in Papa’s study at Orchard House.

A small flame of hope ignited somewhere in her chest. Could it be possible that the Baron had forgotten about this other door, and maybe left it unlocked? Still holding the sparrow carefully, she went over and gave the bookcase a push, and then sank back again in disappointment. It was stuck fast. She tried the keys she had found in the desk, but it was obvious they would not fit in the lock.

She peered through the keyhole, only this time she could see nothing but blackness: probably the key had been left in the lock on the other side. She manoeuvred herself down on to the floor to put an eye to the gap at the bottom of the door. There was nothing to see, only that the parquet floor appeared to continue. There was no way out. For a moment, she found herself thinking of the day Edith had locked her in the millinery storeroom with Lil. If only the worst thing she had to worry about now was getting into Mrs Milton’s bad books.

Locked in the millinery storeroom with Lil
. . . It came all at once, in a burst of inspiration. Lil had been talking about that play she had seen, the one with the fearfully handsome hero who had managed to
escape from a locked room.
The trick he had used to escape wouldn’t work in the storeroom because there were carpets on the floor. She looked down at the parquet: there were no carpets here. She almost laughed aloud.

Moving quickly now, she put an eye to the keyhole again. Darkness. There was no doubt that the key was on the other side of the lock, but the success of her scheme depended on there being no one in the passage outside, which she couldn’t be sure of. She listened carefully: all seemed still and quiet. She would have to take a risk.

She went back to the desk and grabbed a newspaper and a silver letter-opener. She carefully placed the sparrow into the little beaded evening bag, wrapped in its white velvet cloth. Then she listened at the door again. Still nothing.

Holding her breath, Sophie unfolded the newspaper, smoothed it flat and slid it slowly through the gap at the bottom of the door. Then, clenching her teeth, she took the letter opener and prodded the narrow end into the keyhole, twisting and turning in an effort to dislodge the key. It didn’t move at all, and she prodded again, more desperately. She was just beginning to feel that she would never be able to make it come loose when it fell to the floor with a horrible heavy clang that she felt sure must have alerted the whole house. Well, it was too late to stop now, she thought grimly. She slid the newspaper slowly, carefully back towards her under the door. Would the key come with it? Would it be small enough to fit through the gap?

It did – and it was! The trick had worked! Giddy with relief, Sophie grasped the key and pushed it into the lock. It turned. She had done it – she had actually done it. She was going to get out!

But first she would have to make her way alone through this strange building and find an exit. Steeling herself, Sophie grasped her bag and slowly opened the door, with no idea what she might find on the other side.

P
iccadilly was thronged with carriages, horses and hooting motor cars. Outside Sinclair’s was an excitable crowd, gathered to watch the guests arriving for Mr Sinclair’s grand opening party. The watchers looked on enviously at those who were lucky enough to have one of the coveted invitations as they surged up the steps to the entrance in a flurry of sparkling evening gowns and smart dress suits.

The onlookers nudged each other at the sight of West End darling Kitty Shaw, arriving on the arm of Mr Gilbert Lloyd, fresh from the opening of a new show; and admired the sight of much-photographed society bride Mrs Isabel Whiteley, ascending the steps in a stunning turquoise-satin Worth gown. As the great doors swung open, music and light seemed to envelop these select few: the watchers outside caught only tantalising glimpses of the radiance within.

Inside, the guests were exclaiming at the beauty of the Entrance Hall, transformed with the light of dozens of lamps and garlanded with exotic flowers. Anyone who was anyone was there: haughty matriarchs; wide-eyed debutantes in gossamer-light dresses; smartly dressed young gentlemen; society belles posing for the benefit of the photographer. Here and there could be glimpsed a statuesque figure, clad in an extraordinary gown, but with so many celebrated beauties in attendance, it was almost impossible to tell who were the guests and who the Captain’s Girls, displaying the store’s most spectacular evening dresses. The cameras flashed; the ladies’ jewels glittered; the light shimmered on the gleaming trumpets of the orchestra and glistened on the ornamental flourishes of the golden clock. Even the champagne glasses seemed to catch little scintillating shards of gold light and scatter them everywhere. It was a dazzling spectacle, and in the height of the excitement, more than one debutante swooned.

The room was humming with chatter about the well-known faces amongst the guests. The painter, Max Kamensky, had been seen squiring the fashionable
modiste
Miss Henrietta Beauville; and the handsome American Broadway star, Frederick Whitman, was dancing with the eldest daughter of the Duke of Beaufort; and most of the cabinet ministers seemed to be in attendance. Indeed, the only person missing was Mr Sinclair himself. Claudine had whispered to Monsieur Pascal that he was still entertaining the most important guests to drinks in his luxurious private apartments. But even without its host, there was no doubt that the Sinclair’s opening gala was
a glittering occasion like no other
, as the society columnist for
The Post
jotted in his notebook with the small silver pencil he carried for such a purpose, before being swept away into the crowd once more.