Peril in Paris (Taylor and Rose Secret Agents)

by Katherine Woodfine

  Anna leaned forward, eager to see what was inside, but to her enormous annoyance, she could see only the back of Miss Carter’s head. The governess was taking something out of the case – a small object, which she dropped into her dressing-gown pocket. Then she locked the case, pushed it back underneath the bed, and made for the door.

  Almost tripping over her nightgown in her haste, Anna scrambled back down the passage. From a safe spot behind the rusting suit of armour, she watched breathlessly as Miss Carter padded out of her room and down the hallway. Where on earth was she going at this time of night? She hurried silently after her, feeling more thrilled than ever. To her astonishment, she saw the governess’s dark figure approach the door of the Count and Countess’s sitting room, and then go swiftly inside.

  Anna scampered quickly down the hall, creeping as close to the sitting-room door as she dared. The door had been left ajar: inside, the room was quite dark, but Miss Carter had lit a small lamp, and as Anna peered in, she saw that it had cast out a circle of light, illuminating her like an actress on a stage.

  As Anna watched, she saw Miss Carter open the Count’s desk, and begin rifling through his letters and papers. The governess’s lips were moving as though she was muttering to herself, though Anna couldn’t hear what she was saying. After a few moments she took out a single sheet of paper, and laid it flat on the desk under the light.

  Anna stared and stared as the governess took out the object she’d dropped into her dressing-gown pocket. It was small and round, and looked rather like a silver watch. But as Anna watched, she held it close to the paper. There was a loud, distinct click. Miss Carter wound the watch and held it out again.  Click went the watch, the mechanism loud in the night. Except it wasn’t a watch at all, Anna realised. It was a camera. The governess was photographing private papers from inside the Count’s desk!

  She let out a little gasp of surprise, and Miss Carter looked up sharply. She couldn’t see Anna standing in the dark of the hallway, but at once she turned out the lamp, plunging the room into blackness. Frightened now, Anna darted as quickly as she could back along the passageway. But before she could reach the safety of her room, she collided with someone coming the other way, someone tall and solid. She looked up in alarm to see that she’d slammed into a footman, a new one, whom she’d never spoken to before. He looked down at her with an unpleasant sneer on his face.

  ‘Why are you here, running about in the dark?’ he hissed. ‘You ought to be more careful by yourself at night, Princess.’

  Anna stepped back at once, alarmed. Footmen never spoke to her like that – they always bowed respectfully and addressed her as ‘Your Highness’. They certainly would never say ‘Princess’ in that contemptuous way. She was so surprised she couldn’t say a word: meanwhile, the footman only gave a mocking little snigger.

  Just then, to Anna’s enormous relief, Karl appeared around a corner. ‘Your Highness! What are you doing out of bed in the cold, and without any bedroom slippers? Whatever would Her Ladyship say?’ he clucked. He gave the new footman a doubtful look. ‘You can go – I’ll take care of Her Highness,’ he informed him. Then, more reassuringly to Anna: ‘Come along. Back into bed for you.’

  But even when Karl had brought Anna back to her own bedroom, and she was tucked up safely in her own bed again, sleep felt very far away. There was no doubt about it, she thought as she lay wide awake in the dark. There were strange things happening at Wilderstein Castle. Strangest of all, she was now quite sure that the new English governess was a spy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The London–Paris Express

  In the plush comfort of the first-class Pullman carriage, the coffee cups rattled gently as the train ran onwards through the countryside of northern France. Sophie sat back against the upholstered seat, gazing out at the landscape passing by outside the windows – French fields that were somehow a different colour from English ones, neat rows of pointed trees, a meadow strewn with red poppies, a white farmhouse. It was fascinating – but she tried not to stare too hard. All this might be new to her, but of course, Miss Blaxland would have seen it a dozen times before.

  In the same way, she tried not to look around at the sumptuous interior of the carriage, with its snowy tablecloth and gleaming silverware, its lamp with the crimson shade. Miss Blaxland was an experienced traveller and would be accustomed to such luxury. Although there was no one to see her but the white-gloved waiter, she tried to look as though all this was quite normal, even the unaccustomed weight of Miss Blaxland’s curls and combs and hair-pins, and the bones of her tight corset digging into her sides. She tried not to notice how the face-powder they had used to disguise the thin scar on her forehead was making her face itch.

  Across the table, Tilly grinned at her. ‘I must say, you look the part,’ she said. ‘You don’t look a bit like you at all.’

  Come to that, Tilly didn’t look much like her usual self either. The apron and goggles of the previous day were gone, replaced by a smart maid’s ensemble, complete with neat gloves and a lace collar. Her usually wild curls had been tamed into a prim bun. Dressed in this way, her tall figure looked somehow rather smaller than usual, and Sophie felt a stab of guilt for asking her to step back into her old role as a maid. Just the same, it was very reassuring to have her here, poring studiously over the newspaper and all the latest reports of the Paris air race.

  Sophie tried to read too. The thick documents the Chief had given her had been tucked discreetly into a secret pocket in an expensive leather writing folder of the type a young lady like Miss Blaxland might use to keep her letters. Now that the waiter had left them, she took it out, and began to read once more through the dossier about Professor Blaxland, recognising the lopsided typing and occasional angry flourish of blue-black ink that indicated Carruthers’ work:

  She had learned Professor Blaxland had no living relations except for his niece, and in any case, had long been estranged from his wealthy family.  Rather the black sheep Carruthers had scribbled in a margin. Blaxland had been unmarried and appeared well-off, living in an expensive apartment not far from the university, where he specialised in the study of ancient languages. There was a great deal of information about his career at the Sorbonne, his achievements and the books he had written, all of which Sophie thought sounded very impressive. For the past year he had been engaged in some work for the Secret Service Bureau: Carruthers did not give many specifics about his assignments, but he did note that the Professor was unusually clever in deciphering obscure codes and ciphers. Sophie read this section with particular interest: she’d had a little experience of cracking codes herself.

  Next she turned to the second dossier, marked MISS CELIA BLAXLAND. She had to admit Carruthers had done a very thorough job – it was a thick document, full of scribbled notes and annotations. She learned that Celia Blaxland was eighteen; her parents had both died some years ago, leaving her alone in the world, and she was the heiress to an unusually large fortune, currently held in trust until she came of age at twenty-one. She was now in Northumberland, taking care of a friend who was unwell, and Sophie guessed that the Bureau would make sure she stayed there, whilst Sophie was impersonating her in Paris.

  Carruthers had furnished her with lots of details about Miss Blaxland. Sophie learned that she preferred Earl Grey tea; she used rose-scented soap; she had distinctive loopy handwriting; and her dresses were generally made by the London modiste Henrietta Beauville. She had made her debut in society this summer; her particular friends amongst the debutantes were Diana and Violet; and she had been photographed for the society pages of The Daily Picture wearing what was described as ‘a ravishing pink silk evening gown’.

  Sophie stared at the photograph of Miss Blaxland, and Miss Blaxland stared back at her. There was certainly more than a passing resemblance between them, though it did not escape her notice that Miss Blaxland was a good deal prettier than she was. No doubt that had not escaped Carruthers, either, she thought with a bristle o
f irritation.

  Miss Blaxland had barely known her uncle, and had not seen him since she was a child, although Sophie saw with interest that they had exchanged one or two letters in the past year. In particular, Carruthers had noted that they had corresponded about Miss Blaxland’s aspiration to study at Cambridge – rather an unusual ambition for an heiress. Carruthers had scrawled something next to this in his spiky writing: Sophie had to squint to read it.  Miss Blaxland is a distinctly modern young woman. Independent and a supporter of ‘women’s suffrage’. She could almost hear him saying it, with a sneer.

  Sophie flicked through the pages again, frowning. Even if she did know what tea Miss Blaxland drank and what soap she liked, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to act like her. They might be a similar age, but their lives could not have been more different. Whilst Celia Blaxland had been at her expensive finishing school, Sophie had been working as a shopgirl and renting a shabby room in a cheap boarding house. Whilst Miss Blaxland had visited friends in London and travelled in Europe, Sophie had been suspected of committing a crime and had been kidnapped by her parents’ murderer. Whilst Miss Blaxland had been making plans to study at university, Sophie had discovered a talent for detective work that had taken her to London’s docks, rooftops and back-streets.

  But there were some things that they did have in common, Sophie thought now. They both knew what it was like to be all alone in the world, and how to be independent. The Chief evidently considered Celia Blaxland to be the sort of intrepid young lady who would undertake a journey to Paris with only a maid for company. She traced the shape of Carruthers’ words ‘a distinctly modern young woman ’. She thought suddenly that, in spite of their differences, if they were to meet, she and Miss Blaxland might get on rather well.

  The white-gloved waiter opened the door to their compartment, and Sophie closed the leather folder, hiding the dossier from sight.

  ‘More coffee, mesdemoiselles ?’

  ‘Earl Grey tea, if you please,’ said Sophie, as the train rattled onwards towards Paris.

  The Gare Du Nord was a chaos of noise and smoke, quite different from the orderly bustle of Victoria. The air seemed full of new smells – Sophie caught the scent of warm bread, the tang of garlic, a whiff of strange cigar smoke and something else, like the aroma of over-ripe fruit.

  Getting through customs was more difficult than Sophie expected. She’d thought she spoke reasonable French – she certainly ought to, after all the hours she’d spent with her old governess Miss Pennyfeather, practising her French verbs. But it turned out that French in the schoolroom was quite different from French in the clang and clamour of a Paris station, as first one official then another scrutinised her papers, barked questions, and then insisted on opening and searching her trunks. They found one of Tilly’s chemistry books, and there was a great deal of frowning and explaining and suspicious muttering over it. At one point it seemed that the officials would confiscate it altogether, and it had taken all of Sophie’s tact to persuade them to give it back, whilst at the same time trying to prevent Tilly from losing her temper. Thank goodness for the leather folder with its clever hidden compartments concealing the secret dossiers about Professor Blaxland and his niece, she thought, as they finally made their way out of the station, and settled back against the comfortable seats of the motor car that had been engaged to take them to their hotel.

  It was late, and dark was already falling, but as they drove, she caught a few tantalising glimpses of the city and remembered with a flutter of joy that they were really here, and this was Paris. Cobbled streets opening up into wide squares; shutters and chestnut trees; tall, narrow houses and ornate lamp-posts. Brightly coloured posters fluttering on a high wall; the embellished façades of grand shops – and then the motor rolled down a long, straight, tree-lined boulevard and rumbled to a halt outside the Grand Hotel Continental.

  As she was helped out of the motor by a uniformed doorman, Sophie took in flags flying and the shimmer of electric light. Inside, there was a soft carpet underfoot; a piano playing; the heady scent of flowers. Beside her, she knew that Tilly was gaping around at the immense foyer, but once again, she tried hard not to stare. Miss Blaxland would not goggle, she reminded herself sternly.

  Besides, there was no need to feel out of place here. Even though they were in faraway Paris, as a porter in a scarlet-and-gold uniform bowed low, and a waiter whisked by with a tray of glasses, Sophie felt on reassuringly firm ground. The Grand Hotel Continental was rather like Sinclair’s – it had the same rich glow of luxury, the same sense of stepping into a busy private world, full of its own bustling activity. She nodded graciously to the smart gentleman who had come forward to greet them, imagining herself as one of the elegant ladies she had served in the Sinclair’s Millinery Department not so very long ago.

  ‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Blaxland. We are delighted to welcome you to the Grand Hotel Continental. I trust you had a pleasant journey? I am Monsieur Martin, the manager here. Your suite is waiting for you – please allow me to escort you.  Serge, Henri – les baggages! ’ He clicked his fingers to two young porters in the red-and-gold livery and they sprang into action at once.

  Sophie was ushered up a grand staircase, and along a carpeted hallway. Behind herself and the hotel manager came a small procession headed by Tilly, still carrying the fur and wearing her primmest expression, followed by the two porters struggling under the weight of their luggage. They passed some other guests – a middle-aged gentleman in evening attire; a lady dressed all in lace who lifted her lorgnette to look at them; a young man of fashion who gave her an inquisitive glance, but Sophie kept her chin up and ignored them all.

  ‘I hope you will enjoy your stay at the Grand Hotel Continental, Mademoiselle Blaxland,’ said M. Martin as they went along a corridor. ‘We have many important guests here at the hotel. The King of Bergania himself stays when he is in Paris. And we have also hosted the Princess of Slavonia, and the Crown Prince of Belsornia – a most delightful gentleman! Just now we have the Countess von Stubenberg staying with us. Now, here is your suite, mademoiselle. ’ He ushered them into the room with a flourish. ‘All just as requested – a private sitting room avec balcon, and then, if you will permit me, the bed-chamber, with of course an adjoining room for your attendant, and the salle-de-bain.’

  Sophie eased off her gloves, trying to take in her surroundings without looking unduly impressed. It was a lavish suite, sumptuously decorated with a pale-blue-and-gold silk paper on the walls and elegant, gilt-edged furniture. Draped curtains framed a magnificent view of Paris rooftops and spires: she could even see the shapes of the Eiffel Tower and the great ferris wheel, Le Grand Roue silhouetted against the evening sky. But what pleased her more was that the bedroom had a balcony, from which a wrought-iron spiral staircase led down into a quiet courtyard garden. She saw at once that it would be simple work to slip out without anyone knowing she was gone.

  ‘Charming,’ said Sophie with a polite smile. ‘Thank you, Monsieur Martin.’

  ‘May I send anything up for you, mademoiselle ? You are no doubt fatigued from your so-long journey. Some chocolat, perhaps?’

  ‘That would be delightful.’

  When the door had closed upon M. Martin and his porters, Tilly blew out a long breath and then dropped down on to the elegant sofa. Very conscious of her tightly laced corset, Sophie eased herself carefully down beside her, and they grinned at each other. She felt a sudden fizz of excitement, like bubbles bursting. They had made it this far. They had convinced the customs officials and M. Martin that they really were Miss Celia Blaxland and her lady’s maid. Now they were here in a grand hotel suite in the heart of Paris.

  Downstairs, M. Martin instructed a waiter to take a pot of chocolat up to Miss Blaxland’s suite, paused to twitch a flower arrangement more correctly in position, and bowed low to the elderly lady with the lorgnette: ‘Guten Abend.’

  Back at the hotel reception desk, he picked up the telephone an
d requested a number. His voice was low but precise as he said: ‘Oui, c’est Martin. Elle est arrivée. ’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wilderstein Castle, Arnovia

  ‘Alex … Alex, do wake up!’

  Alex had always been a heavy sleeper. Now he moaned and tried to pull the pillow over his head. ‘What are you doing, Anna? Go away! It’s too early! Leave me alone!’

  ‘You have to wake up! It’s important! It’s about Miss Carter.’

  ‘What are you babbling about?’ Reluctantly, Alex struggled upright.

  ‘Last night I followed her … and I saw her go creeping secretly into the Count and Countess’s sitting room. She opened the Count’s desk and went through all his papers.’

  ‘Oh, well maybe she’d left something there – a book or something like that?’ Alex shrugged. He still looked half-asleep, and his dark hair was sticking up everywhere in tufts. ‘You didn’t really wake me up just to tell me that, did you?’

  He laughed, but Anna felt like she was going to explode. ‘Alex ! Don’t you understand? She was reading all the Count’s private letters and papers. She had a tiny camera – it looked like a silver watch, but it wasn’t. She used it to take photographs of them. She’s a spy !’

  Alex screwed up his face. ‘A tiny camera that looked like a silver watch?’ he repeated. ‘That sounds like something from a story. I think you must’ve been dreaming.’

  Anna felt her cheeks turn red. ‘I wasn’t dreaming! And I’m not making it up, either. Look – can’t you see that Miss Carter isn’t anything like a proper governess? She doesn’t teach us real lessons; she doesn’t really need to wear spectacles; and I’m pretty sure she can’t speak German or Italian.’ Alex’s face was disbelieving, and Anna snapped out: ‘She’s not what she’s pretending to be, and you’re completely taken in by her!’