Just a few months ago, the idea of working for a living had been daunting. Life as a shop girl had seemed so difficult – and she had felt so awfully alone. But then she had fallen headlong into a peculiar adventure, and together with three new friends, had saved Sinclair’s department store from disaster. She still felt a little shy of putting it that way, even to herself – after all, ‘saving Sinclair’s’ sounded rather grand and conceited. But it was the truth, just the same. Together, the four of them had prevented Sinclair’s from being destroyed by an infernal machine – an explosive device planted by the mysterious and sinister criminal who called himself ‘the Baron’. In the process they had also helped to recover Mr Sinclair’s priceless clockwork sparrow, which had been stolen from the store.
It had been a strange and rather frightening experience – but there was no doubt that it had changed her life for the better. She had been able to use some of the reward money that they had been given for finding Mr Sinclair’s stolen jewels to move out of her horrid old lodgings and into a far nicer room. Mrs Milton in the Millinery Department had been delighted to have her back to work at the store, and the other shop girls, who had not always been especially agreeable to her in the past, had become much more pleasant. Indeed, the youngest girls had become rather awestruck in her presence, treating her quite as if she were a heroine from a story in a twopenny paper. Even Edith, her old adversary, was carefully courteous; and as for the great Mr Sinclair himself, he always had a smile or a nod for her on the occasions he passed through the Millinery Department.
Best of all, though, she no longer felt so lonely. Papa and Orchard House were gone forever, but now she at least had her friends: Lil, Billy and Joe. Like Sophie herself, they all worked at Sinclair’s. Lil was one of the glamorous ‘Captain’s Girls’ – mannequins, whose job it was to display the latest gowns, hats and shoes to the most important customers in the daily dress shows. She combined being a mannequin with performing as a chorus girl at the Fortune Theatre, and always seemed to be rushing between dress parades and rehearsals and performances.
Meanwhile, Billy had been promoted from his old position as an apprentice porter to that of office boy in Mr Sinclair’s own office. Far from loitering around as he used to do, Sophie now regularly saw him hurrying busily through the shop on urgent business for Mr Sinclair’s private secretary, Miss Atwood. He always grinned at Sophie when he saw her, but rarely seemed to have time to stop and speak. He had grown taller since the spring, and stood much straighter now: already he seemed quite different from the nervous boy who had always been getting himself into scrapes and who had needed Sophie’s help.
Joe worked in the stable-yard. Sophie saw him most mornings on her way into the store, brushing down one of the horses with his sleeves rolled up, cheerfully whistling a music-hall tune. Joe had once been part of a gang working for the Baron, and when Sophie had first met him he had been injured and penniless, begging outside Sinclair’s. He looked quite different now – well-fed and happy. She knew that having a proper job and a place to live meant a very great deal to him. She could understand how he felt: she too had known what it was like to be alone, without any way to support herself. She knew they both felt very fortunate now.
But, she acknowledged, not everything about their adventure had changed things for the better. For one thing, it had brought a new sense of danger into her life. She could not forget that she alone had caught a glimpse of the Baron. He was renowned for the prodigious care he took to keep his identity a secret: no one but his closest associates knew what he looked like, but Sophie had seen him, and because of that, she knew she was in jeopardy. Indeed, in the first few weeks after their adventure, Mr McDermott – the private detective who worked for Mr Sinclair – had instructed a policeman to escort her to and from the store, to ensure her safety. Even once that had ceased, Mr McDermott himself had called in several times to check that all was well. She had welcomed his visits: in those first days she had found herself jumping at unexpected noises, starting at the sound of footfall behind her, and lying awake at night, staring into the dark, unable to help picturing the Baron’s face looming at her out of the shadows.
But as spring had stretched into summer, there had been not even the smallest sign of the Baron, nor the Baron’s Boys – the gang of East End ruffians who worked for him.
‘Do you suppose that perhaps he didn’t realise I had seen him, after all?’ Sophie had found herself asking Mr McDermott.
Mr McDermott had frowned. ‘Who can say?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The Baron is a hard man to second-guess.’ Then he gave Sophie a rare smile. ‘Either way, Miss Taylor, it looks as though he has forgotten about you – and I must say that I’m very relieved about that.’
Well, the Baron might have forgotten her, but she doubted she would ever forget about him. Perhaps, she thought now, as she unwrapped the hats, it was simply that he believed a mere shop girl could not possibly pose a threat to him. And in a way, he was right – he was one of the most powerful men in London, with the whole of the East End in his thrall, and she was here, spending her fifteenth birthday selling hats.
‘Here is the style with the rosettes you asked for, madam,’ she explained politely, showing the first of the hats to the three young ladies waiting by the counter. ‘And this one has a cluster of rosebuds, while this pink one is a brand new Paris model,’ she went on, with careful courtesy. At Sinclair’s, it was drummed into all staff that they must provide the very best service to customers at all times.
The smallest of the young ladies, who was dressed in an elaborately flounced gown, seized on the Paris hat at once. ‘I’ll try this one,’ she announced in a very self-confident tone, positioning herself in front of the mirror. ‘Lord Beaucastle says I look awfully pretty in pink, you know,’ she added to her companions.
The girl next to her – slender, dark-haired and rather more simply dressed than her companion – rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She picked up the hat with the rosettes and turned it over in her hands. Sophie thought she saw her eyes flick very quickly to the price, which was marked discreetly on a small ticket inside the hat-box.
‘Cynthia has one just like this,’ she said disdainfully, dropping the hat back into its box. ‘Goodness knows, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was copying her taste.’
‘What do you think of this one?’ the third of the debutantes, who had dimples and yellow curls, asked anxiously as she tried the hat with the rosebuds. ‘It would be rather lovely for a tea party, don’t you think, Emily? With my lace tea-gown?’
‘Well, get it if you like it, Phyllis, by all means,’ said Emily, the dark girl. ‘Though I must say it’s not to my taste.’
‘I suppose you would prefer this one,’ said the first young lady sharply, as she appraised the Paris hat in the mirror.
‘Oh no, I don’t think so,’ said Emily dismissively. ‘I don’t care for pink. I’d rather that blue with the spotted veil,’ she said, nodding at a hat on display on another of the glass-topped counters. ‘It’s more stylish.’
Phyllis’s face looked shocked under the wide brim of the hat she was trying. ‘But you couldn’t possibly wear something like that!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s so bold! We’re only just out, after all – we mustn’t look fast !’
‘Oh, Phyllis, don’t be such a prig,’ said Emily with a little laugh.
‘Why don’t you try it on then, if you’re so daring?’ suggested the first young lady, still not taking her eyes off her own perfect reflection in the mirror. Sophie thought it sounded like a challenge.
Emily yawned daintily behind a gloved hand, as if the whole situation was boring her. ‘No, I don’t