The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth Page 2

  ‘It was a dark and terrible time. Many people were killed, and our village was destroyed. I knew that I had failed in my duty to watch over the Moonbeam Diamond, but Waiguo Ren had disappeared, and there was nothing to be done. Not long afterwards, your father, your uncle and I departed. The Emperor had ruined us: our home was gone, but we knew there was work to be found on the steamships. The long voyage across the sea was hard and full of danger, but at last we came to rest here, safe on these shores.’

  At this point, Granddad had a way of opening his hands, as if he were releasing the story into the air, like a bird taking flight. ‘And the rest of this tale, you know for yourself,’ he always concluded.

  ‘And what happened to the diamond?’ Mei would ask eagerly, when she was small.

  Granddad would smile, yet his eyes were cloudy with sadness. ‘That I do not know. But what I do know is that the Moonbeam Diamond has its own destiny.’

  Then his expression would change into a beaming grin, and he would sweep her into a hug and say: ‘You and your brothers are more precious to me than any diamond, my dear one. You are the only jewels that an old man like me could ever need.’

  But all the same, Mei knew that Granddad had often thought of the Moonbeam Diamond. Sometimes, after he had told her the story, he would sigh and say: ‘You know, often in my dreams, I see our temple. How I would love to see the diamond sparkling there again, where it belongs.’

  Mei had heard Dad and Uncle Huan saying that Granddad lived too much in the past. They were young men when they arrived in London, and had made lives for themselves here. Father had Lim’s shop, and Mum, and the children, whilst Uncle Huan had taken a liking to a sailor’s life and now worked as First Mate on one of the great steamships that came in and out of West India Dock. He came home every few months, his pockets stuffed with packets of cinnamon or curious ornaments carved from ivory, or long ostrich feathers that he used to tickle Mei’s cheeks. Whenever he returned, there would be a family celebration, and he would take up his old room in the attic opposite Granddad’s for a few happy weeks. But this time, when Uncle Huan came back, Granddad would not be there.

  Mei’s stomach felt hollow. She still missed him every day.

  She had almost reached the river now. The air here had its own peculiar tang: a part-sour, part-spicy odour of smoke and turpentine, flavoured with rum from the West India Docks, and always the distinctive smell of the water. Everything started with the river: it was here that Granddad and Dad and Uncle Huan had first arrived in London, all those years ago. Mei could see the dark lines of its myriad cranes and masts sketched against the sky, as she picked her way carefully down towards it.

  The streets were busier here: she had to weave her way between horses pulling carts stacked high with wooden crates; a boy selling papers for a ha’penny; clerks on their way to the Customs Office; a gaggle of barefoot children, chasing through the crowds; and men unloading cargo: sacks of grain, great coils of rope and lengths of timber. Everyone was far too busy to pay the least attention to a girl alone with a basket, and Mei began to relax and enjoy the spectacle of the docks at work. The river was usually grey, but today the June sunlight caught it and made it sparkle – here silver, there blue or green. Seagulls were calling above her head; smoke was curling from chimneys on the other side of the river; and boats were jostling their way across the water: steamboats and sailing ships, barges and coasters. She was almost disappointed when she came to the cobbler’s shop and had to turn away from the river to go inside.

  The cobbler was a jolly red-faced man, who spent much of his free time in the Star Inn. ‘Boots for your brother, Miss Mei? Here you are. Good as new,’ he said heartily, handing them over to her. But just as he was about to put them into her hands, he suddenly pulled them back. Mei gazed up at him, confused.

  ‘Will you give your father a message for me,’ he said, in a much lower voice, a grave look on his usually cheerful face.

  ‘Course,’ said Mei, surprised.

  ‘Only for your father, mind. Keep mum: not a word to anyone else. Not even those rascal little brothers of yours.’

  Mei nodded, increasingly puzzled.

  For a moment, the cobbler hesitated. Then, even more quietly, he said: ‘Tell him he’s in the soup.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Up to his neck in it. He’ll know what I mean. Now run along, my dear, and mind how you go .’

  He said the last words with a particular emphasis. It was not an ordinary run-of-the-mill farewell – he was warning her about something. She had not the faintest idea what the warning might mean, but in spite of the warm day, a sudden chill crept over her as she left the shop.

  The docks that had seemed so lively felt different now. Sailors and stevedores jostled past as she hurried back towards China Town. One man, already drunk, staggered out of an inn doorway into her path then dropped his bottle on the ground and began cursing angrily. She dodged away, but then a little gaggle of children crowded around her, the smallest pulling at her frock to distract her while another’s dirty hands snaked inside her basket. But Mei had not lived her whole life in the East End for nothing. She knew what to do: she pushed the thieving one away, scowled at them all and thundered, ‘Leave off ! Or I’ll set the constable after you!’ in her loudest voice, until they scattered into the crowd.

  Her heart bumping now, she walked as fast as she could back to China Town. She did not run. She knew that to run would be to appear frightened and to appear frightened was to be weak, but with every step, the words of the cobbler’s warning were ringing in her ears as loud as the bells of Bow Church. He’s up in his neck in it. In the soup. Mind how you go.

  She plunged through the shop door, making the bell clamour loudly, but then stopped dead in her tracks.

  The shop was ruined. Furniture was overturned and the shelves had been ransacked: bottles and jars were scattered in all directions, and tins of tea and coffee had been pushed to the floor, spilling their contents. For a moment, the chaos was all she saw: then she realised that in the centre of it all was a single crumpled figure, lying like a broken puppet in the middle of the floor.

  ‘Dad! ’ Mei screamed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  All the way across the smoky city of spires and slums, in the heart of the West End, was a shop of a very different kind. London’s most fashionable department store was crowded with people: the London Season was now in full swing, and anyone who was anyone simply had to be seen at Sinclair’s.

  Outside, it was a glorious June morning, and the skies above Piccadilly Circus were a perfect blue. Inside, all eight storeys of Sinclair’s department store were astir with activity. Elegant ladies were perusing gloves and parasols, whilst dapper gentlemen examined flannels and straw boaters. Giddy groups of young people were gathering around the ice-cream counter – Mr Edward Sinclair’s latest American innovation, fast becoming a favourite with London’s fashionable set. At the top of the store, stylish couples were strolling through the roof gardens, which, since Mr Frederick Whitman had chosen them as the setting for his marriage proposal to West End star Miss Kitty Shaw, were considered to be quite the most romantic place in the city. All the while, porters in smart uniforms hurried by with boxes, and the Head Doorman, Sid Parker, swung open the doors to admit more customers to the tune of a merry waltz drifting down from the gallery, where a pianist played a gleaming white grand piano.

  Out in the stable-yard, there was just as much going on. A procession of vans was streaming into the yard, each piled high with crates and boxes. Many of them had come directly from the docks of the East End, loaded with cargo from all over the world. There were crates of China tea, bolts of Indian silk, and the finest goods from every corner of the British Empire. It was here that everything arrived, and it was from here too that all the deliveries went out to the grand houses of West London. Even now, another group of porters were busily preparing the next batch, each item carefully wrapped and placed inside a Sinclair’s box. The boxes were l
oaded into the motor vans and delivery carts, and then they flowed out again in a long cavalcade into London’s streets.

  Meanwhile, above them in the store, the elevators swept up and down; the tables in the Marble Court restaurant were laid for luncheon; and in the Millinery Department, several groups of customers had gathered to admire exquisite displays of the latest summer hats – gorgeous creations all fluffy with ostrich feathers or wreathed in flowers. A stylish lady swept by, fanning herself and holding forth to her companion:

  ‘I do think that white is the only suitable colour for a debutante. Perhaps ivory or écru, or I could tolerate a pale mauve, but to wear anything else would be in very poor taste – don’t you agree?’

  The girl walking with them was clearly a debutante herself – a young lady making her first appearances in society. She was gazing around open-mouthed, as if she could hardly believe her eyes. But her amazement was not really so very unusual; after all, Sinclair’s was the most extraordinary store in London, with its lofty ceilings painted with clouds and cherubs, the fountains in its magnificent marble entrance hall, its beautiful golden clock. But it wasn’t just the celebrated decor of Sinclair’s that made it so special. Nor was it the magnificent entertainments that Mr Sinclair always seemed to be staging – one week an elegant thé dansant, the next an exhibition of some remarkable new invention. There was quite simply something magical about the place, from the way that the very air seemed always to be scented with rose and violet and caramel and melting chocolate, to the famous blue-and-gold Sinclair’s boxes, inside which any kind of delightful dreams might be discovered nestling amongst snowy folds of tissue paper and tied with a satin bow.

  Even Sophie Taylor, who had been working as a salesgirl at Sinclair’s ever since the store first opened, still sometimes found herself gazing around the store, enchanted by the beauty of her surroundings. Not, of course, that there was a great deal of time for standing around on such a busy morning as this one.

  ‘Deliveries for the Millinery Department, Miss Taylor!’ called a porter, whizzing by with a trolley stacked high with hat-boxes.

  ‘To the storeroom please, Alf,’ she replied, as she deftly whisked a hat decorated with bluebirds from the very top of an elaborate display and placed it into the eager hands of a waiting customer.

  It was strange to think that today was her fifteenth birthday. A year ago, she would never have believed she would be spending it working as a salesgirl at Sinclair’s department store. As she hurried into the storeroom to fetch more hats for a group of debutantes, she found herself marvelling at how much her life had changed since her last birthday. Papa had been home on leave, she remembered, full of tales about the recent adventures of his regiment. There had been a trip to the theatre and a special tea on the lawn at Orchard House. Cook had made a birthday cake decorated with strawberries, and they had drunk her health in ginger beer. Papa’s present had been a lovely new frock – her first grown-up evening dress – and her dear old governess, Miss Pennyfeather, had given her a pretty silk sash to match. She remembered Papa smiling at her as they had all sung ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ around the tea table . . .

  For a dangerous moment her eyes began to feel hot and prickly, but she shook the sensation away at once. This was not the time for blubbing – she was a professional young woman now. Being a shop girl was hard work, and sometimes rather boring – each day the same round of taking deliveries, tidying the storeroom, recording sales in the ledgers – but she did it well, and she was proud of it. As she swept back out of the storeroom with the stack of hat-boxes, she held her head high. Papa might be gone now, but it was a comfort to know that he would have been proud of her too.

  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.