The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow (23 page)

Now, she splashed her face with water again, and tried to breathe, tried to stop herself trembling. Behind her, she could hear footsteps approaching. She spun around to see Billy, baffled and indignant, with Joe hurrying behind him.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ Billy demanded.

‘W
e have to go to the police,’ Billy whispered.

‘I’ve already told you,’ hissed Sophie urgently, peering out from where the two of them were hiding behind the smooth white figures of the marble mermaids that adorned the fountain in the Entrance Hall. Around them the music of the orchestra swelled, and party guests glided to and fro. ‘We can’t trust them. And there isn’t enough time. The Baron said he would be here just after eleven – that’s
right now
.’

‘Someone else then – Mr McDermott. I’m sure I saw him here earlier.’

‘We
can’t
,’ Sophie whispered impatiently. ‘Remember, for all we know he’s working for the Baron too.’ She was gazing out across the Entrance Hall, trying desperately to find the Baron’s face somewhere amongst the blurring, shimmering crowd of guests.

Just being back here seemed unreal. She had forgotten how extraordinarily beautiful everything was: lamps glimmered everywhere, casting a smudgy warm glow over the party guests, who laughed and smiled within their golden bubble, utterly unaware of the danger they were in. Sophie felt her stomach clench. Should she even now be yelling at them all to clear the building? Would they listen if she did?

‘I don’t know about all this,’ said Billy. A horrible feeling of foreboding was washing over him. Part of him couldn’t stop thinking about how Uncle Sid was probably already wondering where he was, and if he didn’t go back soon, maybe he would make good on his threat to tell Mr Cooper. The other part was still reeling from the bombshell of what Sophie had told him about Mr Cooper himself.

He wiped a sweaty hand over his forehead. Of everything Sophie had said, that was the one thing he was still struggling to believe. It just didn’t seem possible that Mr Cooper –
Mr Cooper
, who ticked him off for his dirty hands or undone bootlaces, who strode about the store making sure everyone toed the line – could really be working for the Baron. And then there was the rest of it: spies and treason, kidnapping and secret tunnels. A bomb! It sounded completely bizarre, like one of his own Montgomery Baxter daydreams come vividly to life. He looked sideways at Sophie, who was scanning the crowd intently, and couldn’t help asking ‘Are you
sure
?’ for the dozenth time.

‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ she snapped back. ‘There’s no doubt about it. Mr Cooper has been working for the Baron all along. He set up the burglary. He took the jewels. He probably shot Bert too – and now Bert is dead. He made it look as though the thieves came in from the outside, but really it was him all the time. He took the jewels straight down that passage in the basement to the Baron’s strongroom, just like the message said.’

‘
Deliver sparrow underground by ten
,’ Billy murmured.

‘The sparrow is all the Baron really wanted. The other jewels and things didn’t really matter to him – they were just a bonus. He wanted the sparrow because he knew that by studying it, he could work out this system for creating codes that couldn’t be deciphered, not by anyone, even an expert code-breaker. The man’s a
spy
– he’s selling Britain’s secrets to other countries. He’s got plans of some submarines that he’s planning to pass on to someone from Germany at the party tonight.’

Billy blew out a long, slow breath of air. Every
Boys of Empire
he had ever read was crammed full of tales of espionage and treason, but it was simply too extraordinary to hear Sophie talking about it happening right here, at the party that was going on in front of them.

‘And then Cooper is going to activate his infernal machine and destroy Sinclair’s.’

‘But
why
?’

Sophie shook her head, a bewildered expression crossing her face. ‘I don’t know. He has something against Mr Sinclair, but it’s more than that. I think perhaps because there are so many important people here. He talked about making people feel afraid, about making everything unstable. I don’t understand it, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve just got to stop him.’

‘Sophie, if this is true, we simply have to tell someone
now
,’ he said urgently once again.

‘I know – but who? I can’t see Mr Sinclair anywhere, and we can’t go to anyone from the store – we can’t possibly know who is working with Cooper! Half the staff could be in on it for all we know.’

Half the staff could be in on it
. An image of Uncle Sid flashed suddenly and vividly into Billy’s mind. With a sinking heart, he thought again of his words in the staff cloakroom that afternoon.
Sometimes you’ve got to do things you might not want to do, but you’ve just got to knuckle down and do as you’re told.
Surely it couldn’t be that Uncle Sid was involved in Mr Cooper’s plans?

‘Anyway, we don’t have any time,’ Sophie was saying. ‘The handover must be happening any moment now. If we can prevent that, we make sure the secret papers won’t fall into enemy hands.’ Billy opened his mouth to speak, but she drove onwards. ‘And if the handover doesn’t happen, if we can delay it, Cooper won’t be able to trigger the bomb because the Baron and his contact will
still be in the store
. It might just give us enough time to stop this.’ She looked desperately at Billy, who was tugging on her arm now in his eagerness to interrupt. ‘I know you think I’m mad, but I promise you it’s all true. We can’t let them do this, we just
can’t
.’

‘Just shut up a minute,’ Billy gasped out. ‘I think I can see him. The Baron. There he is –
look
!’

Joe sat and fidgeted in the darkened basement. He couldn’t seem to sit still. The words
Baron
and
bomb
were still ringing in his ears like alarm bells. All his instincts were telling him to get out of Sinclair’s. He wasn’t about to sit around waiting to get blown to bits. Yet somehow he found himself still here.

The Baron was in the store, or so Sophie had told them. He shook his head, struggling to believe that the prim young lady who had given him a shilling less than a week ago was the same filthy, mud-splattered girl who had appeared in the basement tonight.

None of her story made any sense. After all, people did not
escape
from the Baron. He simply could not fathom how she had managed it. Could it be that they hadn’t even expected a young lady like that, all lah-di-dah voice and dainty gloves, to even try to get away? After all, he himself wouldn’t have guessed she had it in her. But she was tougher than she looked – and she wasn’t daft, neither. If she said he should leave the shop, then he should listen.

The thought made him move forward. In her haste to get upstairs, Sophie had left behind the little bag she had been carrying. Not sure what to do with it, he scooped it up awkwardly under one arm. Putting one foot on a crate, he levered himself up and out of the window with the loose catch that he generally used as a route in and out of the basement. It opened on to the stable-yard, and once he was up and out into the dark, empty night, he felt better, suddenly more able to think things through.

The Baron was here, in the store
. The thought filled him with fear, then a sharp stab of frustration. This place was supposed to be his: safe and quiet and far away from the East End, but somehow the Baron had seeped in here too. Wherever Joe went, the Baron followed like he was his own shadow.

He was sick and tired of being afraid all the time. If he only had the chink, he thought, he’d walk out of here right now and leave London behind him. He’d go to the docks and buy passage on any old ship he could find. It didn’t matter where – America, perhaps. Somewhere he wouldn’t know anyone, and no one would know him.

The thing was that he didn’t have any money, nor was he likely to get any. Billy and the rest had been good to him, but he didn’t think that any of them had cash to spare. He looked at Sophie’s bag and weighed it in his hand: it felt heavy. A little guiltily, he opened it and peered inside. No money, only a few flimsy girls’ things: a fan, a handkerchief, and something small and heavy wrapped up in a soft white cloth. Curiously, he pulled the cloth away.

A gleam of light ran over the object inside, making it shimmer. His mouth fell open in astonishment as he realised what it must be.

It was a sparrow all right – there was no doubt about that. Small and solid, with a slightly cocked head and a cheeky glint in its jewelled eye, it seemed so lifelike he felt it might flutter its wings and fly out of his hands. Underneath the enamel and jewels, the golden filigree of the mechanism was visible, and he touched the tiny cogs with a trembling forefinger.

He felt dazed. How had the clockwork sparrow come to be here in Sophie’s bag? Had she got it back from the Baron somehow? Then it hit him – a fifty-pound reward had been offered for its safe return. He did have the chink after all; he was holding it right here in the palm of his hand.

Thoughts rushed through his head. He could go to the coppers right now, hand it in and claim the reward . . . But only an idiot would do something like that. They’d probably decide he’d nicked it himself. It would be so much easier to just go up to Drury Lane, where he knew there was a pawnbroker who didn’t ask questions. With money in his pocket, he could be on his way to the docks in no time, leaving the Baron behind for good.

The idea surged through him, a fire of excitement. For a moment he thought guiltily of Billy and Sophie, trying to stop – what had she called it? – the infernal machine? But what help could he give them, really? They hadn’t asked for his help after all: they’d just told him to get out, assuming he wouldn’t be any use. And they were right, weren’t they? You wouldn’t catch him sticking his neck out to save a bunch of toffs.

As he stood there hesitating, Blackie lounged out of the shadows and bumped his head affectionately against Joe’s ankles. He leaned down, but Blackie didn’t seem interested in being stroked tonight, and strolled off, waving his tail. That was the way with cats, Joe thought. They were independent, solitary. They didn’t get involved.

In a way, he was doing them all a favour. They wouldn’t have to hide him any more. He shook away the uncomfortable thought of what Sophie would think when she found the sparrow gone, then the worse one of what Billy would say when he realised Joe had deserted them. And then there was Lil . . . he knew for sure that wherever he went and whatever happened to him, he’d never meet another girl like her. For an instant, he wavered, but then he pulled himself together. No wonder Jem and the others had always said he was soft! Did he really think that a young lady like Lil would want anything to do with a scoundrel like him? The truth was that Lil and the others could never be his friends – not really. They lived in another world, with totally different rules: rules that made a lad like Billy risk trouble to help someone like Joe, or that sent them scurrying off, risking their own necks to try and save everyone else’s. He would never be like that. Like Blackie, he had to look after himself – no one else would do it for him. It would have been nice to say thanks, but maybe it was best this way.

Resolved, he folded the sparrow back up in its cloth and pushed it into his pocket. The rest of the bag and its contents he dropped in the shadows by the staff entrance. He began walking quickly towards the entrance of the stable-yard, glancing back once at Sinclair’s, and then stepping out into the side street.

Then all at once, just if she was standing beside him, he heard Lil’s voice, clear as a bell in his ears, repeating the words she had said to Sophie in the park.
We can’t sit back and do nothing . . . It just wouldn’t be right
. He stopped, and muttered a curse under his breath. What he was just about to do was far from being right, wasn’t it?

He hesitated, his instincts pulling him in opposite directions. But even as he stood there, he saw something that made his heart seem to stop in his chest. Just beside the entrance, leaning up against a smart, glossy black motor, smoking cigarettes, were three figures that he would have known anywhere. They were dressed differently now, in dark uniforms, like gentlemen’s chauffeurs, but there was no mistaking them. He made a dart back towards the safety of the stable-yard, but it was too late. One of them had turned and was already looking right at him.

‘Well, well, well . . . See who’s here, lads. It’s our long-lost pal Joey Boy. Where you been, Joey? We’ve been looking all over for you . . .’

S
ophie swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Across the crowded room she could see exactly what Billy was talking about. A tall distinctive figure, wearing a violet silk scarf and smoking a cigar, was standing not far from the orchestra.

‘It’s him,’ she said in a low voice.

‘What now?’ asked Billy.

A couple passed in front of them, arm-in-arm, laughing, obscuring the Baron briefly. When they had gone, they saw to their surprise that a young woman had appeared beside him. She was beautifully dressed in a green silk-taffeta gown, her hair arranged in perfect curls. It looked as though she had only just entered the store, for she was still wearing an exquisite little white fur, slung casually around her shoulders, and she carried a white fur muff.

‘Who’s
that
?’ demanded Billy.

Sophie shook her head wonderingly. It was only as the lady turned to the Baron, as if making some passing remark to a vague acquaintance, that she realised what was happening.

‘Oh no!
That’s
the Berlin contact,’ she murmured.

‘Her?’ demanded Billy, perplexed. ‘But –’

But Sophie had already moved. She had no idea what she was planning to do. Even as she hurried across the room – darting past waiters with trays, stepping on ladies’ trains – she didn’t have a thought in her head except that she could see the Baron swiftly taking an envelope out of his jacket and reach out to hand it to the lady in the furs. Faces turned to look at Sophie in astonishment. One man’s face stood out in the crowd, and his eyes flashed to hers, but there was no time to pause, or to remember who he was; she simply raced forwards, instinctively grabbing a glass of champagne from a startled waiter’s tray. The lady had taken hold of the envelope. Her hand was moving – she was going to put it inside her muff – but then Sophie reached her, and threw the glass of champagne over her.