Villains in Venice (Taylor and Rose Secret Agents 3)

First published in Great Britain 2020

by Egmont UK Limited

2 Minster Court, London EC3R 7BB

www.egmontbooks.co.uk

Text copyright © 2020 Katherine Woodfine

Illustrations copyright © 2020 Karl James Mountford

The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

978 1 4052 9326 6

eBook ISBN 978 1 4052 9940 4

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available

from the British Library

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For The Clan

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

PART II

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PART III

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PART IV

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

PART V

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Back series promotional page

‘. . . And so we are back in London again. After all our adventures, I must confess the city seems drab and dull. Nothing is the same as it was before and I find myself eager to resume our travels once more.

Once Papa’s business here is complete, and before we return to Cairo, he has promised me a trip to one of the places I most long to see – Italy! So for the present I shall tolerate grey London, while dreaming of blue Italian skies . . .’

– From the diary of Alice Grayson

Charing Cross Road, London

It was sleeting in London as the young man slipped out of the office marked: CLARKE & SONS SHIPPING AGENTS, closing the door softly behind him. There was no one to see him and yet there was something furtive about the way he hurried down the stairs, tucking an envelope into his pocket as he did so.

Out in the street he looked swiftly around him before unfurling a black umbrella and walking purposefully in the direction of Charing Cross. It was a dingy February morning: motor-taxis and omnibuses swished through the grey slush on the road and a chilly, miserable-looking newsboy was selling copies of The Daily Picture from outside the brightly lit window of a hat shop while people well wrapped up in winter coats hurried past him towards the underground railway station.

The young man went by with the rest. He didn’t glance at the newsboy, nor at any of the bright shop windows he passed, but instead kept on walking, his head down, his face concealed by the black umbrella.

He did not slow his pace until he reached the Charing Cross Road, where he turned to duck inside the door of a bookshop, pausing first to shake the sleet off his umbrella.

The bell jingled as he stepped through the door. Inside the shop was warm and snug: the light from the gas-lamps fuzzy, the windows fogged, the air rich with the smell of leather bindings and beeswax. He glanced around rapidly, taking in half a dozen people browsing the shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. A lady in a fur-trimmed hat was flicking through the pages of a book by E. M. Forster, and an old man with a monocle was browsing the shelves of the poetry section. A cluster of schoolchildren was gathered around a stack of detective novels, while behind the counter, the bookseller was patiently listening to a gentleman explaining that he was looking for a book that he’d seen in the shop last year, although he couldn’t remember either the title or the name of the author.

The young man went past them all, towards the back of the shop. In the dark corner marked ‘Foreign Languages’, he frowned at the shelves before locating a Russian phrasebook and flipping it open.

Across the shop, the gentleman at the counter was saying: ‘I believe it had a green cover, although now I think about it, it may possibly have been blue,’ while the bookseller listened wearily.

Nearby, one of the schoolboys was brandishing a copy of a newly published Montgomery Baxter detective story. ‘You’ve simply got to read this,’ he was exclaiming to one of his companions. ‘The ending is awfully thrilling. I can’t wait for the next book to find out what happens.’

‘I bet I can guess,’ said another of the boys with an air of great authority. Then in a very different voice: ‘Oh, Jane, you can’t buy it. Papa wouldn’t like it!’

‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t,’ argued the girl beside him, tossing back her plaits. ‘I’ve got half a crown of my birthday money to spend.’

‘But look – why don’t you get a school story instead? Or one of those books of fairy tales?’ suggested the boy. He reached towards her and tried to take the copy of Montgomery Baxter and the Lost Treasure out of her hands, but she had no intention of handing it over and there was a scuffle. The Montgomery Baxter book fell to the floor with a thump, making the other customers look around disapprovingly and the bookseller frown over the top of his spectacles.

In that moment, unnoticed by anyone, the young man swiftly slid the envelope out of his pocket and inside the Russian phrasebook. A minute later the book was back in its place on the shelf and the young man had left the shop, pacing back along the street under his umbrella, the bell above the door dinging quietly behind him.

At the counter, the bookseller was trying to explain that they had rather a lot of books with green and blue covers, and could sir possibly remember anything else about the book, otherwise he was afraid he couldn’t do much to help.

Meanwhile, the girl with plaits had picked up the Montgomery Baxter book. ‘Murders and crimes and spies and all that sort of thing – they aren’t suitable for girls,’ her brother was blustering as the door opened again and another young man came in.

Properly speaking, he wasn’t really a young man at all. He was probably only about sixteen, not much older than the schoolboys clustered around the display of detective stories. He wore a dark blue coat and cap and had a striped woollen scarf around his neck. He might have been an office boy, or perhaps a junior clerk. As he came into the shop, he caught sight of the book in the girl’s hand and gave a little grin as he heard what her brother was saying, but then straightened his face almost at once as if remembering he was here on serious business. He went past the detective stories, past the fiction and poetry books, heading for the Foreign Languages section.

Once there, he ran a finger quickly along the spines until it settled on the Russian phrasebook. At the counter, the gentleman looking for the green or possibly blue book was tutting to himself and muttering that it was ‘all very unsatisfactory’ while the long-suffering bookseller wrapped Montgomery Baxter and the Lost Treasure for the girl with plaits. The young man fidgeted while he waited to be served, then handed over his money before tucking the Russian phrasebook into his pocket, now neatly wrapped in brown paper.

A minute or two later, he was following in the wake of the group of schoolchildren, out of the shop door and into the street, pulling his striped scarf more closely around him.

The sleet was falling faster and thicker now; a moment later, he had vanished into its blurry whiteness and disappeared.

Lyons Corner House, London

Not very far away from the Charing Cross Road, Sophie Taylor was sitting by herself at a table in the window of Lyons Corner House.

She did not notice the sleet outside the window. Neither was she paying any attention to the cup of tea that was rapidly cooling at her elbow, nor the bun waiting uneaten on a plate. Instead she leaned her forehead in her hands as she bent over the newspapers spread out on the table in front of her. She was frowning as she scrutinised the pages of the morning edition of The Daily Picture.

It did not make very reassuring reading. Threaded between the reports of an expedition to the South Pole and a review of a new play at the Fortune Theatre were several stories about conflict in Europe and beyond. There was unrest in the Balkans. Trouble in Morocco. Rumours of a rebellion in Albania. To someone else they might not have meant very much, but for Sophie they joined together to form a jagged pattern. She felt certain that they were all the doing of the Fraternitas Draconum, the sinister secret society who were working to try and start a terrible war.

Most people had never even heard of the Fraternitas. The other customers sitting in Lyons Corner House probably wouldn’t have believed that such a group existed. Sophie glanced around, taking in the shoppers with parcels, talking and laughing and drinking tea. They all looked so contented and peaceful. They were not aware of the danger that she could see everywhere, hovering over them like a dark cloud.

For Sophie, the Fraternitas and their schemes were all too real. For a while now she’d been battling against their devious plots to spark off a horrifying war in Europe from which they intended to profit. She’d grappled with everything from shocking murders to Royal assassination attempts, and following in the footsteps of her parents, who had given their lives to the fight against the Fraternitas, she had formed a group here in London called the Loyal Order of Lions, who had vowed to work against them. And yet in spite of all her efforts, here the Fraternitas were, reaching right across Europe, seemingly stronger and more powerful than ever before.

Sophie sighed as she flicked back to the front page. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there were the tensions growing between Britain and Germany. It was not news to her that there were German spies in Britain – after all, she’d encountered them herself more than once. But a hundred of them? That was just nonsense. She knew the Prime Minister was trying to reassure people, but the front-page headline would only fuel everyone’s fears and make things worse.

It had been three years since Sophie had found the missing Clockwork Sparrow and solved her first mystery. She’d been only fourteen then – a more-or-less-ordinary girl with a more-or-less ordinary job selling hats at Sinclair’s department store. Now, she was going on for eighteen and she didn’t think that anyone could describe her as ‘ordinary’ any longer. Nor was she a shopgirl: instead, she was one of the proprietors of Taylor & Rose, London’s first young ladies’ detective agency. What was more, she was also an agent of the government’s Secret Service Bureau.

Four years ago, Sophie had been alone with no friends, family or money. She knew she had been lucky to get a job in any shop, never mind an elegant department store like Sinclair’s. Now, she lived a life that most girls of her age couldn’t even dream of: running her own business; travelling across Europe by boat, train and even aeroplane; carrying out secret missions for her country in Paris and most recently, St Petersburg. She’d taken on the infamous crime lord known as ‘the Baron’ and won. And yet as she sat in the window, flicking through the newspaper, she felt smaller and more powerless than ever before.

Under the table, Daisy whined and laid her head in Sophie’s lap. Dogs weren’t allowed in Lyons Corner House but the kind-hearted waitress always looked the other way as long as Daisy stayed out of sight. The big Alsatian kept close to them all these days – sleeping curled up under Sophie’s desk in the office, pattering after Billy every time he went over to the filing cabinet and, most heartbreaking of all, jumping up hopefully every time someone came to the door, wagging her tail as though this time it was certain to be Joe, coming back to them at last.

Sometimes Sophie let herself imagine it too. The soft sound of feet outside the door. Daisy bounding up and barking joyfully. The door swinging open and Joe strolling in, wearing his old jacket that smelled of the stables. He’d say ‘Hullo, Soph,’ just as though he’d seen her only yesterday. No one else ever called her ‘Soph’. The thought gave her a sharp pain – jagged, like broken glass.

It had been three months since Sophie and Lil had returned from St Petersburg. Three months since they’d come back to London, excited to tell Billy and Joe about their adventures, but they’d found only Billy waiting for them, anxious and alone.

Ever since they’d solved the mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow, the four of them had been a team. There were others who worked with them, first and foremost Mei Lim, who was their receptionist and handled much of the important office work, from booking appointments to arranging payments. Then there was Tilly Black, who was Taylor & Rose’s technical expert. But at the centre of it all were Lil and Sophie, Billy and Joe. Even when she and Lil had begun travelling abroad on missions for the Bureau, they’d always known that Joe and Billy were in London, keeping things going. Keeping the home fires burning, she thought. After all, Taylor & Rose was a kind of home for all of them, and for her most especially. Because while Billy had his mum and Uncle Sid, and Lil had her older brother Jack, Sophie was all alone in the world. Taylor & Rose was her family. And she knew without them ever having discussed it that Joe had felt exactly the same.

Now, Joe was gone. In St Petersburg, Sophie and Lil had learned that there was a double agent at the Bureau – someone passing top-secret inside information to the Fraternitas Draconum. While they had been away, Joe had discovered the same thing. He’d seen documents being smuggled out of the Bureau and passed to a woman whom he’d followed to the offices of The Daily Picture. He’d gone out in search of the mysterious woman to try and find out more, but he had never come back.

They’d set out to look for him straight away of course. Sophie and Lil were no strangers to finding missing persons and they’d put their detective skills to work, recruiting all the other members of the Loyal Order of Lions to help them, and consulting their friends at Scotland Yard. They’d gone up and down Fleet Street, talking to everyone from street cleaners to shopkeepers. They’d spent days freezing themselves in the Embankment Gardens, watching the statue where Joe had seen the handover of the confidential information take place. They’d quizzed the staff of Sinclair’s in case any of them might know something, and they’d talked to the people in the East End who knew Joe – not only Mei’s family, but Mr and Mrs Perks from the Seven Stars Inn, and old Samuel in Limehouse who’d once taught Sophie to crack a safe. But as day after day went by without a single clue, Sophie had begun to feel a rising sense of dread. The Fraternitas were utterly ruthless, and if Joe had crossed their path she knew he would have found himself in the very gravest danger.

Billy had been beside himself. ‘He told me he saw the double agent come out of the Bureau . . . he followed them . . . but he didn’t know for sure who they were!’ he’d fretted. ‘I ought to have asked him more questions! I ought to have gone with him to the offices . . . if only I’d been there, then maybe . . .’ His voice had trailed miserably away.

‘You couldn’t have known what was going to happen,’ Lil had said, refusing to think the worst. ‘Cheer up. I bet he’ll turn up at any moment. You know Joe – he’s so thorough. He’s probably off following a lead.’ But all the time Sophie’s feeling of dread had been growing worse and worse.

In the end, it had been their old friend, Detective Sergeant Thomas of Scotland Yard, who had brought the news she feared. He’d arrived at the Taylor & Rose offices carrying a navy-blue Sinclair’s cap stained with something dark. Sophie had recognised it at once, even before Billy’s horrified exclamation: ‘That’s Joe’s!’

The cap had been found down an alleyway in Whitechapel. There had been reports of an altercation and a gunshot fired. By the time the local constable had arrived, he’d found only the cap, lying in a pool of blood.

‘We saw the label marked Sinclair’s, so we came straight here,’ Sergeant Thomas had said, his voice quiet and grave. ‘Betteredge said he believed this cap belonged to Joe. I’m very, very sorry.’

Sophie had had to grip the back of a chair to steady herself. They had been in danger so many times – in Paris, St Petersburg and here in London. And yet however frightening things had been, somehow they had always made it back to Sinclair’s to talk about their adventures over tea and buns. Somehow she had believed they always would.

Dimly, she’d become aware that Mei was crying and Lil was saying in a loud voice that there had obviously been a mistake. The cap couldn’t possibly be Joe’s. He’d been investigating on Fleet Street, so what would he be doing in Whitechapel? Yes, he was missing, but he was probably just busy with an investigation. Perhaps he was following a suspect undercover? He was certain to be back soon, probably with some important information for them all.

‘Miss Rose – er – in the circumstances . . .’ Sergeant Thomas had begun awkwardly. But Lil had cut him off before he could finish his sentence:

‘Of course he isn’t dead!’ she’d exploded. ‘That’s ridiculous! You haven’t found a body – all you’ve got is that stupid old cap!’

Billy had glanced at Sophie. His face had been very white and Sophie knew that he had been thinking the same thing she was. When people were murdered in the East End, they weren’t left for the police to find. They’d found a body washed up in the river themselves once. It had been Joe who’d helped pull it out. A summer day – white frocks and straw hats and strawberries and cream – and then the horror of the body being dragged out of the water. It had all flashed back to her in that dreadful moment.

‘Anyway, even if the cap is his, it doesn’t prove anything!’ Lil had argued. ‘He might be injured! He might be hiding – lying low somewhere out of danger. But he isn’t dead. He can’t be.’

She had repeated the same thing again and again over the next few days. She’d refused to accept the official verdict: missing, believed killed. One cap didn’t prove anything. Joe would come back, she’d insisted: she was certain of it. Sergeant Thomas was an idiot. Scotland Yard didn’t know what they were talking about. But the days and then the weeks had limped by with no more news.

Somehow, they had to carry on. There were clients waiting for them: long-lost relatives to seek out, missing jewels to be located, blackmailers to catch in the act, stolen letters to be retrieved. There were accounts to balance and bills to pay, rather more of these than Sophie would have liked. Between all the travelling for the Bureau and the search for Joe, they were behind on their ordinary casework, and Taylor & Rose was beginning to struggle financially. Lil was too preoccupied with looking for Joe to notice or care, but Sophie knew that she must not let their business fail. One way or another, they’d stumbled through December. Christmas had come and gone, and now it was 1912 – a brand-new year.

Sitting at her table in Lyons Corner House, Sophie suddenly wished none of it had ever happened. She wished she’d never heard of the Fraternitas Draconum, the Secret Service Bureau, double agents or spies. She wished she was only a more-or-less-ordinary shopgirl, with nothing to think about except selling hats. But she knew she could never be that girl again.

Just then, the door opened and a young man in a striped scarf came in, bringing with him a gust of cold air. Billy Parker looked a great deal older and more serious than he used to as he came over to Sophie’s table and dropped down in the chair opposite her.

‘Did you get it?’

‘Of course,’ frowned Billy, looking a little insulted she’d even asked the question. ‘Here.’

He handed over a small square package wrapped in brown paper, before reaching under the table to make a fuss of Daisy.

Sophie tore off the wrapping to reveal a Russian phrasebook. Tilting it so that there was no chance any of the other customers could see inside, she flipped it open to reveal a note in familiar inky scribble:

She closed the book with a snap, tucking it safely into her pocket. ‘Thanks, Billy. Have some tea?’

‘Yes please. Are you going to eat that bun?’

‘You can have it.’ She pushed it in his direction and he broke it in half, taking one piece and pushing the other half back towards her. For a few moments they sat in silence, chewing, trying not to look at the two empty chairs at the table.

After a while, Billy said: ‘I s’pose I’d better go back to the office. I’ve got to write up that report on the Mountville case.’

‘I’m going to the Bureau,’ said Sophie. In spite of everything, she was glad of it. After all that had happened, her work for the Secret Service Bureau now felt more important than ever. What had happened to Joe made her all the more determined to do everything in her power to stop the Fraternitas for good.