The Painted Dragon

One lady nudged her friend, and nodded in the newcomer’s direction. Surely she was the young actress whose photograph they had seen in the Daily Picture? A young man who considered himself quite an expert on the theatre whispered to his companions: ‘That’s Lilian Rose! She plays Arabella in The Inheritance. Last week’s Theatrical News called her a rising star!’

The only one who did not look at all taken aback was the girl sipping tea by herself at the corner table. The other customers exchanged surprised glances as the young actress hurried straight over to Sophie.

‘Oh, Sophie – I’m so sorry that I didn’t make it to Mrs Long’s!’ exclaimed Lil, as she flopped down into the chair opposite her friend. ‘My dress fitting took an age!’

‘That’s the third appointment you’ve missed this week, you know,’ said Sophie, decidedly unimpressed.

‘I say – it isn’t really, is it?’ Lil looked stricken with guilt. ‘Gosh! I really am most awfully sorry. Let me buy you some cake to make it up to you. Excuse me, waitress!’

After ordering more tea and a quantity of cake that would have fed a large family, Lil turned back to her friend and looked so beseechingly at her across the table that Sophie couldn’t help smiling. It was impossible to be annoyed with Lil for long.

‘Tell me all about what happened at Mrs Long’s. Did you find the stolen cat?’ Lil took in Sophie’s appearance for the first time. ‘I say, you do look rather . . . er . . . damp.’

Sophie laughed. ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ she joked. ‘I found the cat all right. It hadn’t been stolen at all! It was stuck up a tree at the bottom of Mrs Long’s garden. I had a terrible job getting it down.’ She pushed up the sleeve of her blouse to reveal several long, angry-looking red scratches.

‘Golly!’ exclaimed Lil. ‘But I suppose Mrs Long was awfully grateful?’

‘For about two minutes. Then she gave me a long lecture about how, in her day, girls didn’t clamber about in trees like monkeys, and it wasn’t really ladylike behaviour.’

‘Oh, I say!’ exclaimed Lil. ‘That’s a bit much! I’m surprised you didn’t ask her if she’d rather you left her silly old cat up there for good!’

The cakes arrived just then, as well as a plate of hot buttered toast. The girls were both hungry and helped themselves before Sophie carried on: ‘Then there was the matter of the bill. Since it turned out that Snowy hadn’t actually been stolen after all, Mrs Long thought this would suffice.’ She drew a sixpence out of her pocket and put it on the table, where it made a sad clinking sound against the milk jug.

‘Sixpence!’ exploded Lil. ‘What awful cheek!’

‘Well, I suppose it will pay for the tea,’ said Sophie. ‘Though perhaps not my laundry bill.’

‘We certainly shan’t be taking on any more cases from her in future. We’re worth a whole lot more than sixpence,’ said Lil indignantly. Then she giggled too. ‘The Sixpenny Detectives. Gosh, that sounds rather like the title of a tale in one of Billy’s story-papers!’

It was true that since they had solved the mystery of the famous Mr Sinclair’s stolen jewels – and then exposed one of London’s most dangerous criminals in the strange affair of the Jewelled Moth – Sophie and Lil had gained something of a reputation for their detective skills. Barely a week now went by without someone turning up with a new ‘case’ for them to solve. At first, they had been rather astonished that so many people wanted their help – but they had soon grown used to these enquiries.

To begin with, it had been thrilling. Sophie had felt full of pride when they helped people, even when the mysteries they solved were as small and ordinary as helping to find an old watch that had been a family heirloom, or reuniting a young lady with a long-lost grandmama. The small fees they had earned had helped to supplement the slim wages she earned as a salesgirl at Sinclair’s, but more than that, there had been the fun of teaming up with Lil – and often with their friends, Billy and Joe, too – to pit their wits against each new puzzle.

Just recently though, she had begun to feel a little less excited by their ‘cases’. It had been a while since they had had a really interesting mystery to solve – getting lost cats out of trees didn’t pose the same kind of challenge. And since winning a role in a fashionable new play in a West End theatre, Lil had far less time for detective work. She was always very busy flitting from rehearsals to dress fittings to appointments with photographers, and Sophie missed her. Solving mysteries without Lil was harder work – but what mattered more, it wasn’t nearly as much fun.

‘I’m just glad I didn’t see anyone from Sinclair’s while I was going down the street like this,’ she said now. ‘I was dreading bumping into Mrs Milton – I’m rather in her bad books at the moment,’ she went on, referring to the Head Buyer of the Millinery Department.

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lil. ‘I don’t believe that for a second. Mrs Milton thinks you’re wonderful.’

Sophie shrugged. Perhaps that had been true a few months ago, but recently she knew that she had been distracted, and her standards had slipped. The truth was that being a salesgirl wasn’t always very interesting, and there was rarely much chance for her to use her brain. She knew she ought to be grateful to have work at all, never mind a job somewhere as marvellous as Sinclair’s, but after everything that had happened to her over the past few months, it was difficult to go back to simply selling hats.

But it wasn’t as though she had any other options. Sophie was all alone in the world, and she had to work to support herself. She might sometimes have fanciful thoughts about becoming a professional detective, but she knew they were just that – fancies.

She opened her mouth to begin to try and explain some of this to Lil, but before she had said anything, she noticed that her friend was staring over her shoulder at someone who had just come through the door of the tea shop.

‘Lil? Are you all right?’

But Lil didn’t seem to hear her. Her mouth had fallen open as though she had seen a ghost.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

CHAPTER FOUR

Sophie turned around to see that a tall, dark-haired young man was striding energetically over to their table. To her surprise, she realised that he looked slightly familiar.

‘What do you think I’m doing here?’ asked the newcomer in a cheerful voice. ‘I’m looking for you, of course! I went to the theatre to find you and the fellow at the stage door said you’d be here.’

Lil’s expression shifted from shocked to delighted. ‘Well, I like that!’ she exclaimed, as the young man gave her a hearty hug – much to the interest of the people sitting around them, who all began whispering and nudging each other. ‘I hope he doesn’t go giving out my whereabouts to any old Stage Door Johnny!’

‘Ah, but I’m hardly any old Stage Door Johnny now, am I? Don’t pretend you aren’t pleased to see me!’ Releasing Lil, the young man turned to Sophie and held out a hand. ‘How do you do? Awfully sorry to barge in like this. I’m Lil’s brother – Jonathan Rose. Most people call me Jack.’

‘Jack, this is my dearest friend, Sophie Taylor!’ exclaimed Lil. ‘You remember – I’ve told you simply heaps about her.’

Jack grinned at her, and Sophie found herself smiling back. It would be hard not to, she thought. His resemblance to Lil was obvious – and it wasn’t only that they looked alike, but he had exactly the same kind of bouncy confidence. She found herself blushing as she shook his hand, and rather wishing she didn’t look so very muddy and bedraggled.

‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ he said heartily. ‘I say – do you mind if I join you?’

A moment later, he had conjured a chair for himself seemingly out of nowhere, and was sitting down beside them, while a waitress hurried over with an extra cup. ‘But whatever are you doing here?’ Lil was saying, pushing the plate of cakes towards her brother. ‘I thought you were back in Oxford. Isn’t term about to start?’

Jack leaned back in his chair. For the first time since his arrival, Sophie detected that he was suddenly a little less sure of himself. ‘Well . . .’ he began, in a rather-too-casual voice. ‘The thing is that I’ve given it up. Quite a lark, don’t you think?’

‘Given it up . . . ?’ Lil’s voice was incredulous. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I’m not going back.’

‘What? But . . . but . . . you can’t!’

Jack’s voice was impatient now. ‘Of course I can! You know that Oxford isn’t for me. Oh, I had a jolly enough time there last year – and I met some decent fellows – but it was just like school all over again. I don’t want to study law and spend all my days in a stuffy office, like Father – any more than you want to stay at home and go to tea parties with Mother. You know what I want to do.’

Lil nodded. ‘You want to go to art school and be a painter. But you know Father’s never going to agree to that He’s always talking about what a wonderful asset you’ll be to the firm. Jack, do be serious. You can’t leave Oxford – he’ll never allow it.’

‘Too late, I’m afraid. It’s already done.’

Lil looked astounded. ‘But . . . how? What will you do now?’ she demanded.

‘That’s the good part,’ Jack said, all at once looking more cheerful. ‘I’ve got myself a place at the Spencer Institute. It’s one of the top art schools in London. All the best painters have studied there. I met a couple of the professors in the spring and showed them some of my work – and the long and short of it is, they offered me a scholarship, so here I am! Classes there began this week.’

‘Well – that’s marvellous, of course, but you never said a word about any of this,’ said Lil, still staring at him, her cake quite forgotten now. ‘Where are you staying? What about Mother and Father? Have you told them?’

‘No, and I don’t plan to,’ said Jack, rather more stiffly. ‘There’s a fellow at my college in Oxford who is going to forward on my mail to my new digs – I’ve found a studio in Bloomsbury not too far from the art school that I can afford on my allowance. There’s no sense in telling the Aged Parents – it would only upset them. If I can get myself established and get my work noticed – then I’ll tell them. They’ll see I’m serious and that this is going to work.’

‘Oh golly,’ said Lil, her eyes round. ‘Father will have forty fits! He still hasn’t got over me leaving home to go on the stage – and now you’ll be throwing away all their plans for you too. And you know what they think of artists. Why, they’re practically worse than actresses!’

Jack gave a rueful grin. ‘I know. Awful bohemians who live in dirty attics and lead scandalous lives. Sounds rather fun to me. But that’s exactly why I’m not going to tell them. Do say you’ll keep the secret.’

‘You know I will,’ said Lil. ‘But I do think this is all a ghastly mess. Don’t blame me when it all blows up in your face.’

Jack relaxed in his chair. ‘Thank you,’ he said. Then he turned to Sophie. ‘I say, I’m sorry to have interrupted your tea with all this family business, Miss Taylor.’

‘Don’t be so prim and proper, Jack. Her name’s Sophie,’ said Lil.

‘And what do you do, Sophie?’ he asked. ‘Are you an actress too?’

‘Oh no,’ said Sophie hurriedly. ‘I work at Sinclair’s – I’m a salesgirl.’

‘Yes, but much more importantly than that, she solves mysteries,’ chimed in Lil. ‘We both do. But Sophie is an awfully good detective. Fearfully brainy. You know that. I wrote to you and told you all about our adventures.’

Jack laughed. ‘Oh yes, I remember. Stolen jewels – and criminal gangs – and being chased over rooftops. It all sounded awfully exciting!’ He sounded as if he hadn’t believed a word of it, Sophie thought; although she supposed she couldn’t really blame him. After all, some of the things that had happened to them over the last few months had seemed almost too extraordinary to be real.

‘I do hope you won’t mind if I tag along on a few of your adventures, now that I’m in town,’ Jack continued. ‘In fact, what are you both doing this evening? I’m heading to the Café Royal – why don’t you come too?’

‘The Café Royal? You mean that place on Regent Street?’ asked Lil.

‘That’s right – it’s where all the artists spend their evenings. It’s awfully good fun. You can spot all sorts of famous painters there. It’s exactly the sort of place that the Aged Parents would loathe and despise.’

‘Oh, I wish I could – but we’ve got a show tonight,’ said Lil, her eyes gleaming at this description.

‘Sophie? What about you?’

‘I can’t tonight,’ said Sophie hurriedly. ‘Maybe another time.’ Enticing as the idea of spending an evening with Lil’s charming – and she had to admit, rather handsome – older brother might be, staying up late was hardly an option. She was working at Sinclair’s first thing the next morning, and she knew she had to be there early if she was going to get back into Mrs Milton’s good graces.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ said Jack, flashing her a grin.

He and Lil left soon after that. Sophie watched them as they headed down the street arm in arm, their dark heads close together as they chattered. She turned away in the direction of her lodgings, pulling her coat close around her, feeling very cold and tired now. It had been fun to meet Lil’s brother, but she couldn’t help feeling disappointed that his appearance had meant that her rare tête-à-tête with her friend had been over almost before it had begun.

As she passed the newsboy on the corner, she handed him a penny in exchange for a copy of the evening paper. ‘Good evening to you, miss,’ he said, touching his cap just as he did every day. Reading the newspaper each morning and evening had become part of Sophie’s daily routine. She told the others that it was because it was useful for their detective work, but the real reason was that she was looking for news of the man called ‘the Baron’.

The Baron was never very far from Sophie’s thoughts. She and Lil and the others had tangled with him twice now, and she found herself thinking back, as she often did, to the last moments she had seen him, on the edge of the docks in the East End, just before he had made his escape. I daresay we’ll meet again, he had said. For now, adieu.

Lil and the others believed that the Baron was gone, and wouldn’t come back. Mr McDermott had told them that Scotland Yard believed he had fled the country. But Sophie knew that his photograph had been sent to police detectives across Europe, and as far afield as America – and as yet, no one had seen so much as a glimpse of him. She couldn’t feel so confident that they had really seen the last of the Baron, and that he was really gone from their lives for good. She knew he wouldn’t forget that they had been the ones to blow apart his false identity.

Now, she let herself into the lodging house, and trudged up the staircase to her room. Once inside, she took off her muddy boots and hung up her wet things, then settled down in the easy chair, spreading the newspaper across her lap.

Across from where she sat, on the wall above her dressing table, she had carefully pinned up the few pieces of information she had managed to gather so far about the Baron, including several newspaper cuttings from his time posing in the guise of Lord Beaucastle. In the very centre was the mysterious photograph that Mr McDermott had given to her after it had been taken from Beaucastle’s study. It showed Sophie’s parents standing either side of the Baron, with the words Cairo, 1890 inscribed on the back.

This had been her most unexpected – and disconcerting – discovery of all. She had learned that the Baron had known her parents, and that they had perhaps once even been friends.

Now, as usual, she carefully combed the evening paper for anything that might be relevant. A jeweller’s shop in Knightsbridge had been robbed, but only a few cheap trinkets had been taken, and the burglar’s methods were much too crude for the Baron. She flicked to the society pages where, for a brief moment, she paused to grin at a photograph of some friends who had helped them in their last adventure. Two smart young men and a young lady were sitting in an expensive new motor car, the picture captioned: Young gentlemen-about-town Mr Devereaux and Mr Pendleton take the Honourable Phyllis Woodhouse out for a spin! But there was no mention anywhere of Lord Beaucastle. The summer’s scandal was all but forgotten.

But if London society had moved on, Sophie had not. The photograph of her parents still niggled at her. She had to know the truth – how had her parents known the Baron? And worse still, could he really have had some part to play in her papa’s sudden death? She had spent hours searching through what little she had left that had belonged to her papa – a few letters and papers, a couple of postcards, but nothing that indicated even the smallest connection with the Baron, or with Cairo. If she hadn’t had the photograph, she would never have believed it could be true.

She had stopped talking to the others about the Baron. She knew that they were tired of hearing about him. ‘He’s gone, Sophie,’ Lil had said to her in frustration. ‘I understand why you keep coming back to him, I do. But not everything is always going to be about him. Besides, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m jolly well ready to forget all about the Baron. That horrible man wanted to blow up Sinclair’s with us in it – he would have killed us if he had had the chance – and he made life a misery for all those people in the East End. But the Baron’s Boys are safely under lock and key in prison, and the Baron is gone, and I’m grateful for that.’

Now, Sophie gazed for the hundredth time at her collection of cuttings and photographs, trying to make sense of them. As she did so, she twisted her necklace between her fingers. It was a string of green beads, one of the very few things she possessed that had belonged to her Mama. She might have stopped talking about the Baron to Lil and the others, but she knew she would never stop thinking about him. She was determined to find out the truth – even if that was a secret she would have to keep to herself.

She opened her drawer and took out a sheet of writing paper and her pen and ink. There was still one person she could try contacting who might just know something about her papa being stationed in Egypt – her old governess. She knew that Miss Pennyfeather had gone to India to work as a governess for an English family out there. A letter would take a long time to reach her, but it had to be worth a try. Dear Miss Pennyfeather . . . she began to write.

CHAPTER FIVE

Leo stared at the paper in front of her, trying to concentrate on the whisper of soft pencil, the scratch of charcoal. Around her, the hum of voices began to blur and fade. Here in the Antiques Room there was always such a clamour of noise. It made her realise how accustomed she had become to quiet and stillness.

The students and their easels were ringed around the edge of the big airy space, scattered among the plaster casts of classical statues that gave the Antiques Room its name. The first years spent most of each day drawing here, and would continue to do so until they were considered to have mastered the basics of line and form.

Today, Leo had chosen to draw the figure of a nymph with a garland of evergreen: it reminded her a little of one of the statues in the Long Passage at Winter Hall that she had drawn many times before. The familiarity was comforting. The action of her pencil against the paper, outlining the figure’s shape in smooth strokes, felt soothing.

Nothing else felt familiar in the least. Everything here seemed so strange. The big room was stark and bare as a blank canvas: the white-painted walls, the white shapes of the plaster casts, the white shirtsleeves of the young man drawing next to her. She sensed her chest tightening as she looked around at the circle of strangers. After a week, she was beginning to recognise a few of their faces: the young man with the carefully waxed moustache; the tall girl with the habit of chewing the ends of her pencils; the red-haired, freckled boy with the Northern accent. While she drew, she stole glances at them under her eyelashes. She liked looking at their clothes: that young lady’s flowing Liberty-print smock; that young man’s paisley-patterned scarf.

Most often, her eyes were drawn to the girl who wore the most striking and unusual outfits, usually including brightly coloured stockings and odd shoes – today one was red and the other blue. She had a wild tangle of curls and a pouting mouth, and Leo had heard the boy next to her call her Connie. Leo would have liked to draw her. Now, as Leo glanced over at her again, Connie noticed her watching and frowned. Blushing, Leo let her eyes fall back to her work.

Behind her, she sensed the presence of the drawing master – the professor, she should call him. He paused, glancing over her shoulder, and she froze for a moment. Even she knew that Professor Jarvis was legendary here at the Spencer. She had already seen the way he spoke to some of the students – firing out sarcastic criticisms: ‘Is that the best you can do?’ ‘And you say you want to be an artist?’ Or sometimes, worst of all, merely a short snort of contempt. Now, he was standing right behind her, so close that she caught a whiff of his tobacco. Not knowing what to do, she kept on drawing, taking refuge in the familiarity of the pencil between her fingers. A moment later, she realised that he had moved on.

‘I say, you got off lightly!’ said the young man next to her. ‘Didn’t you hear what he said to me yesterday?’

She had – it had not been very complimentary – but the young man’s good humour did not appear to have been dented. ‘They say he’s like that all the time,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘He must think you’re good if you escaped a tongue-lashing.’

Leo kept on drawing, not knowing what to say. She had noticed the young man before: the way he drew, in bold, assertive strokes, pausing to stand back and survey his work every now and again. The way he swept back his dark hair and tossed a charming smile to the giggling girls across the room, before turning to make a friendly aside to his neighbour. She had never seen anyone so sure of himself in her life.

‘Gosh, you are good, aren’t you?’ he went on, coming closer to look at her drawing. ‘I wish I could draw half as well as you.’

Suddenly, she felt annoyed. ‘Well, maybe you should spend more time concentrating on your own work instead of looking at mine,’ she said. But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished them back again. This was exactly the sort of thing that made Mother say that she was awkward and difficult. Why couldn’t she just be friendly, like everyone else?

To her surprise, the young man didn’t seem at all offended. Instead he laughed – a cheerful, hooting laugh, as though she had made a particularly good joke. ‘Yes I suppose you’re right there!’ he exclaimed. ‘Probably if I did, old Jarvis wouldn’t have told me yesterday that my fellow’s arms looked more like strings of sausages. I can see you’re going to be a good influence on me.’ He stuck out a hand, and Leo stared at it in surprise. ‘I’m Jonathan Rose, but everyone calls me Jack. What’s your name?’

She managed to shake his hand, and mumble her own name, her face still burning with embarrassment at her own rudeness.

‘Leo – I say, that’s quite a name. Short for Leonora? Oh, I see. Well, Leo it is. You’re new too, aren’t you?’

She nodded, surprised to discover that he was one of the first-year students. He seemed so comfortable, it was like he’d been at the Spencer for years.

‘Seen him?’ asked Jack, gesturing over to the corner of the room with his pencil, where Leo now noticed an older gentleman, with a sweep of iron-grey hair, deep in conversation with Professor Jarvis. He was elegantly dressed in a smart, tailored suit, in contrast to the professor, who was rather shabby in tweeds. Leo noticed that the gentleman’s silk waistcoat was finely patterned, his shoes were polished to a gleaming shine and he wore a gold lapel pin and an elaborate fob watch and chain.