The Painted Dragon. Katherine Woodfine

in the Book Department, flicking through the latest novels, or dallying in Ladies’ Fashions, taking their time to choose exactly the right fur tippet, or silk umbrella. Meanwhile, others simply luxuriated in the thick softness of the carpets and the glitter of the chandeliers, watching the people go by. There was always something – or someone – to watch, at Sinclair’s.

      No one knew that better than Sophie Taylor. But that afternoon, she was walking swiftly past the store windows, without even a glance at the brightness within. Today, she was quite unrecognisable as a smart salesgirl from the Millinery Department. Her fair hair was windblown; her frock was streaked with mud; her buttoned boots were dirty; and her thin coat did little to keep off the rain. In fact, she was so bedraggled that one or two people looked askance as she came through the door of Lyons Corner House. Holding her head high, and ignoring their curious glances, she dripped over to a corner table for two, spread with a white cloth and laid for tea. She dropped down into a chair with relief.

      ‘Tea, miss?’ asked the waitress hovering at her elbow.

      Sophie looked up at her with a rueful smile as she peeled off her sodden gloves. ‘Yes please,’ she said. ‘Tea would be heavenly.’

      The pot was almost empty when the door opened again, and a young lady hurried in. She was tall and striking, snug in a smart blue coat with a velvet trim. A matching hat with a crest of feathers was pinned at a dashing angle upon her shiny dark hair. She was not dressed expensively, nor in the very latest fashion, yet there was something about her appearance that made the tea-shop customers sit up straighter in their chairs. Suddenly, an ordinary wet afternoon seemed tinged with a sparkle of glamour.

      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