The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow (26 page)

The detective looked back at her keenly. ‘I can understand why you didn’t,’ he said. ‘You’d found out you couldn’t trust Cooper or Gregson – how would you know I was any different?’ He sat back down in a chair beside her and took out his pipe. ‘Actually, part of the reason I was there is because there had been some questions raised about Sergeant Gregson – well, that and the fact that Mr Sinclair does like to do things in his own way. But Scotland Yard have had their suspicions of Gregson for some time.’

‘What – you mean they knew all along that he was up to no good?’ Joe asked.

‘Well, not for certain, but they had an inkling. And they had asked me to watch him carefully. Although I am a private agent, I have been working closely with the Yard for a long time. We knew that there was more going on at Sinclair’s than merely a simple robbery, and we even had a few of our men stationed at the party, on the alert for anything else suspicious that might take place – but I must admit that none of our intelligence work prepared us for what happened.’

‘Can you tell us how the infernal machine worked?’ Billy asked curiously.

‘I’m far from being an expert in explosives – but as I understand it, the bomb was concealed within the body of the clock,’ McDermott explained. ‘A long electrical fuse was connected to the clock hands, which had previously been fitted with special copper contacts. Once the Baron’s business was done and his safety assured, Cooper’s job was to connect the fuse, so that when the two hands came together at midnight, and the contacts touched, the current would detonate the bomb. Happily for all of us, Miss Rose gave the warning in time, and so I was able to stop the clock hands and prevent the connection being made. And as you know, Scotland Yard at once sent some of their experts to disconnect the fuse and take apart the mechanism.’

Billy was listening in fascination, but Lil, uninterested in the workings of machinery, had other questions. ‘Tell us about Mr Cooper. Did you already know he was involved?’

‘Not exactly,’ said McDermott, a note of regret in his voice. ‘He was very smart about concealing his secrets. But I had been keeping an eye on him. We suspected all along that the robbery had been an inside job, and there was something about the way he cut Miss Taylor loose so fast, on so little real evidence, that struck me as peculiar. After that, I had a man tailing him, watching his movements when he left the store. But everything seemed perfectly above board. Of course, we had no idea then about the tunnels. He was doing the Baron’s business all along, right under our very noses.’ He shook his head, as if a little disgusted with himself.

‘Shocking business. Never would have believed it!’ Uncle Sid was heard to mutter, apparently to himself.

‘They must have been jolly pleased with themselves when they found those tunnels,’ said Lil.

McDermott nodded, leaning back in his chair and taking a puff of his pipe. ‘Though they’re not nearly as uncommon as you might think. We’ve known for some time that there are vast networks of tunnels under the whole of central London, many of them very old, which are being used by criminals as a way to travel the city in secret. Cooper may have already known about the tunnels when the store was being built. It may even have been him who instructed the workmen to fit the door that leads into them. It certainly wasn’t part of any of the official store plans.’

‘And I suppose the Baron bought that old house because of its proximity to the underground route,’ said Sophie, working it out. ‘He must have had that strongroom built himself.’

‘Very probably,’ said McDermott, nodding. ‘Anyway, for a while we thought we must have been wrong about Cooper. But as a matter of fact, I must confess I had a man following you too, Miss Taylor. We had our eye on all sorts of people – even Miss Rose here aroused my suspicions when I found her in Cooper’s office.’ Here, Billy gave Lil a very meaning look, and she smothered a laugh.

‘That’s the thing about the Baron – he has a habit of recruiting the most unlikely of people.’ McDermott went on. ‘But tonight the man watching Miss Taylor told me that he had seen someone fitting Cooper’s description and another fellow manhandling her into a carriage. That certainly set all the alarm bells ringing. But then just a short while later, he was seen at the store, so we thought it must have been somebody else. He knows how to cover his tracks, that’s for sure.’

‘So he was never really an ordinary store manager?’ Lil asked. ‘He was working for the Baron all along?’

‘So we believe. John Cooper was certainly a false name – an alias. We’ll probably never know who he really is, except for the fact that he’s known as “Freddie”. I only wish he hadn’t slipped through our fingers tonight.’

Uncle Sid nodded vehemently at this. ‘Playing us all for a set of fools,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘And all the time a snake in the grass!’

‘And what about the
Baron
?’ asked Lil. ‘Who is he? We know he wasn’t that fellow from the roof.’

‘Yes – from what you’ve told us, Scotland Yard have been able to identify “Fitz” as Mr Raymond Fitzwilliam, a former actor. We believe he has been acting as a front man for the Baron, at times actually impersonating his master. You can see how the Baron is adept at surrounding himself with a whole structure of people who do his work at different levels, keeping his own identity a carefully guarded secret.’

‘Did you already know that the Baron was the one behind the burglary?’ asked Billy curiously.

McDermott shook his head. ‘We didn’t – but we could have guessed he had a hand in it,’ he went on, taking a puff on his pipe. ‘You’d be surprised how much of the crime in this city can be traced back to him, one way or another.’

‘So who is he – really?’ Lil asked again, leaning forward.

McDermott shrugged. ‘We don’t know for sure. But what we do know is that there is someone very smart, with considerable resources, masterminding much of the large-scale criminal activity taking place in the East End. There’s been a shift in the past years away from petty crime – pickpocketing, protection rackets, smuggling around the docks – to something far more organised and comprehensive. We know there’s someone clever driving it forward, the man they call ‘the Baron’. But whoever he is, he is very skilled at concealing his tracks. We’ve certainly never set eyes on him.’

‘But I have,’ said Sophie. ‘I’ve seen him twice, I’m quite sure of it, though I didn’t know then that he was really the Baron. Once in the box at the theatre, and then at the party at Sinclair’s, I saw him in the crowd. It was only for a second, but I’m certain he was there, among the guests.’

‘And you’re probably right. We’ve long since speculated that the Baron has another, very different identity in London’s polite circles, and you may be sure we shall be taking a thorough look over the guest-list for Mr Sinclair’s party. We believe that’s why he is always so careful that those who work for him in the East End don’t see his face – and makes sure that they don’t know him by any other name.’

‘But now Sophie has seen him and she knows what he looks like!’ exclaimed Lil excitedly.

‘And I’m afraid that makes your position a rather dangerous one,’ said McDermott soberly, turning to Sophie. ‘We will be taking good care of you over the next few weeks while the investigations continue. But for now, is there anything else you can tell us about him? No matter how small.’

Sophie thought for a moment. ‘He was very smartly dressed,’ she said, trying to picture the man she remembered. ‘Much more elegant than the other man, Fitzwilliam – he made him look showy by contrast. And I believe – no, I’m sure of it – he was wearing a military medal with his evening dress.’

‘A medal? Do you remember what it looked like?’

‘It had a striped ribbon – green, white and orange, I think,’ said Sophie slowly. ‘I noticed it because Papa had one like it.’

‘Green, white and orange?’ repeated McDermott, looking at Sophie with bird-bright eyes. ‘Are you sure? That’s the King’s South Africa Medal. Not many of them were awarded.’

‘So that would mean . . .’

‘It would mean that the Baron – whoever he is – served in the Boer War. That’s very interesting. Anything else you can tell me?’

Sophie thought for a long moment, then shook her head. ‘I’ve already told you about all the clocks. The only other thing I remember is that when I was listening to Fitz, he kept talking about a society of some sort. He said something like “the people in the Society are not very forgiving”.’

‘A society?’ McDermott looked at her with interest. Then he gave her a rare smile. ‘You’ve done very well, Miss Taylor. What with the description you’ve given us, and that of the lady they called ‘the Berlin contact’, you’ve already provided us with a great deal of useful information.’ He contemplated her for a moment or two. ‘I must admit, it’s intriguing,’ he went on, almost to himself. ‘He’s usually so cautious . . .’

Sophie looked at him, uncertain of exactly what he meant, but Joe was nodding. ‘That’s what I thought. I mean – begging your pardon – but he’s not exactly a feller that’d baulk at, well, you know, doing away with anyone who got in his way. But he didn’t.’

McDermott nodded. ‘And he took you to his own private study, filled with his personal effects. Why?’

Sophie shook her head. She was thinking again of the strange room full of whirring instruments, and of the extraordinary way he had looked at her, in that moment in the box at the theatre. He hadn’t looked shocked or even angry, but only amused. It was as if he hadn’t been surprised to see her at all, as if she was someone he knew quite well. Thinking of it, she shivered.

‘But what about that Sergeant Gregson fellow?’ interjected Uncle Sid unexpectedly. ‘That crooked police chap, the one who did for poor young Jones. Couldn’t he spill the beans?’

‘If he’s got any sense, he‘ll be very far away by now,’ said McDermott, turning to Uncle Sid. ‘I haven’t seen him since before the party. He must have realised that he’d been discovered. But in any case, he may never have come face-to-face with the Baron himself. In the past, even when we have been able to get hold of one of the Baron’s men, they’ve never been willing to tell us much.’

‘None of them are going to peach on the Baron,’ said Joe. ‘They’d know what to say, all right.
I ain’t seen nothing, I ain’t done nothing, I don’t know nothing
. That’s how they tell you to deal with the rozzers – I mean, the police,’ he corrected himself awkwardly.

‘So, you mean that we still have no idea who the Baron is?’ asked Billy, rather sadly. The detective stories he read always ended with the dramatic unmasking of the villain, and he couldn’t help feeling disappointed that after everything, Mr Cooper, Sergeant Gregson and Fitz had all managed to escape scot-free – and the Baron’s true identity was just as mysterious as ever.

‘No, but we’re creeping nearer,’ said McDermott. ‘With the information Miss Taylor has given us tonight, and what Joe here has been able to tell us about the Baron’s Boys, we’re a good deal closer to understanding his operations. And thankfully we have the clockwork sparrow safely back.’ He gestured to the bird, which was now sitting on his desk, resting on its white velvet cloth. ‘It’s going to prove extremely useful to Scotland Yard. What’s more, I’ve just heard that they’ve made a thorough exploration of the tunnels and found the strongroom you spoke of, Miss Taylor – and the rest of the jewels will soon be restored to their rightful owner.’

‘But I’d have thought the Baron would’ve had them well away by now!’ said Joe in surprise.

‘I don’t think he would have considered it worth the risk,’ said McDermott. ‘Remember he is a ruthlessly pragmatic fellow, and those jewels were just a means to an end. What he was really interested in was the sparrow – he only took the other treasures to make it look like a more straightforward robbery, and throw us off track.’

‘If only we had been able to stop them handing over those secret documents,’ said Sophie. ‘I know we ought to just be thankful that everyone is safe – but I do wish they hadn’t got away with those.’

Billy glanced quickly up at McDermott, and McDermott gave him a quick nod in return. Then, Billy took a deep breath and grinned around at the others. ‘Actually,’ he said, in a voice that was trying very hard to be casual, but couldn’t quite conceal its jubilation. ‘They didn’t get away with those documents, you know.’

‘What do you mean? Sophie handed them over when that hateful man came at me with his beastly revolver,’ said Lil, puzzled.

‘Except she didn’t. I mean, she did hand over the envelope of course, but the papers weren’t inside it. I took them out and stuffed them in my pocket. I don’t really know
why
, it just seemed the thing to do. But then it felt too empty, so I put in the only other thing I had to hand, just so they wouldn’t know the papers were gone.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Sophie, her eyes beginning to shine. She thought she might already know the answer.

‘My
Boys of Empire
,’ said Billy, grinning back at her. ‘I s’pose I’ll never finish that Montgomery Baxter story now.’

The others exploded with exclamations of surprise and delight. ‘But Billy – that’s
marvellous
!’ exclaimed Lil.

Joe struck the arm of the chair with his fist. ‘By gum! Just imagine their faces when they open that envelope and find your story paper in there instead!’

‘These are the real documents,’ McDermott said, tapping a pile of sheets covered in diagrams and numbers, which were on the desk at his side. ‘Top secret and incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. We may not have been able to prevent the Baron learning how to create these coded messages, but we’re delighted that you managed to stop these papers leaving the country. Scotland Yard will be taking them straight back to where they belong tonight.’

‘Montgomery Baxter himself couldn’t have done it better,’ said Sophie, giving Billy such a delighted smile that he felt his face turning a brilliant crimson. Uncle Sid was gazing at him in speechless astonishment. Billy had to look swiftly down at his boots, mumbling something about it being nothing that any of the others wouldn’t have done, as Lil thumped him on the back so vigorously that he would surely end up black and blue tomorrow.