‘Not necessarily,’ said someone behind her. She looked round and saw that Captain Nakamura had strolled out from his hangar, and was surveying the chaos with interest. His dress-uniform had gone, to be replaced by a neat flying outfit, and his team of mechanics were even now bringing his plane into position.
‘Clear the airfield!’ called one of the officials. ‘Everyone out of the way!’
‘You wished to catch the Arnovian plane – is that right?’ asked Nakamura.
Sophie nodded desperately and gulped. ‘It sounds mad, I know, but the pilot has something vitally important. Top-secret information stolen from the British government which could be terribly dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. I wanted to get it back, but it’s too late now.’
‘It doesn’t have to be,’ said Nakamura. ‘I have a spare seat in my plane. We will be only minutes behind the Arnovian plane, and I am rather a good pilot – there is every chance we may catch him up. Tell me, have you ever flown before?’
Sophie gazed from him to the plane, and back again. ‘You mean, I could go with you?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Why not?
‘But … I couldn’t possibly!’
‘Of course you could. You’ll need this, though.’ The pilot picked up the leather coat the prince had worn, which was now lying abandoned on the ground. ‘Put it on, and then the scarf over your hair. Tuck in the ends – that’s right. And now the goggles.’
Almost as though she were in a dream, Sophie found herself doing as he told her. Although she could feel her heart racing, it was rather as if she were outside her own body, watching someone else as she shrugged into the heavy jacket. Nakamura put out a hand to help her into the passenger seat of the Japanese plane, and a moment later he had clambered into the seat in front of her.
‘See – quite easy. Now all you have to do is sit back and relax,’ the pilot said.
‘Clear the field! Clear the field!’ called the race official again, and Sophie saw the others fall back. Her stomach twisted horribly and her heart pumped harder, as Nakamura’s mechanics set the plane moving across the grass. What was she doing? She was afraid of heights; the thought of flying terrified her; she didn’t really know if she could trust Nakamura; she had no idea what she’d do when she found the Arnovian pilot, and what about Lil? She’d only just found her again. Tilly was right, she thought. She must be completely mad.
‘Sophie !’ Lil screamed out suddenly, seeing what was happening. ‘Sophie, what are you doing?’
But Lil herself wouldn’t think twice about doing something like this, Sophie realised suddenly. ‘I’m going after the plane,’ she shouted back. ‘I have to try and get the notebook back!’ But she didn’t know if Lil had any idea what the notebook was. ‘Tilly can explain everything,’ she shouted.
Lil was running alongside the plane now, her eyes fixed on Sophie. ‘Here – take this,’ she cried, and tossed something up to her – a heavy rectangular object which rattled. Sophie caught it awkwardly – a small, brown leather attaché case, stuck all over with luggage labels – and wedged it carefully in beside her.
‘Good luck!’ called Lil, her voice both heartening, and at once making Sophie long suddenly and powerfully for home. London: the striped deckchairs in the park; the hats in the windows of Sinclair’s; tea and buns at Lyons Corner House with Lil. ‘Goodbye. I’ll see you soon!’ she tried to shout back, but her voice rushed away in the wind, and she could only stretch out her hand towards Lil in a half-wave, half-reaching movement as the machine lurched away. Then the propeller was spinning and they were running over the grass, and Lil was left behind them.
She was vaguely aware that the announcer was speaking: ‘Ladies and gentleman, the next to take to the air is Captain Nakamura of Japan! Good luck, Captain Nakamura. Bonne chance !’
The ground was moving below her; the grass rushing past. The racket in her ears was terrible and the wind stung her cheeks. They rattled forward, faster and faster, and fear rose up in her throat. The plane felt so small, so flimsy, as though it would fall to pieces at any moment; the rattling grew louder; but then, almost as she felt she couldn’t bear it any more, the jarring and shuddering suddenly stopped.
She felt them swoop upwards. They were in the air, rising higher and higher. The ground was falling away from her and the red-and-white Japanese flags that decorated the plane were fluttering wildly. She gripped the sides of the plane, a terrible sickness rising within her. The airfield and the spectators were growing smaller. She saw the flags and the balloons; she saw Sir Chester Norton on the platform; and the race officials with their watches and field-glasses; and Miss Roberta Russell with her notebook, receding away from her, as though something from a disturbing dream. She saw the grey man watching, shielding his eyes with his hand; she saw Tilly, hopping from one foot to another in excitement; she saw Dr Bernard, staring after them in confusion; and last of all, she saw Lil. She was standing with the prince and princess, a small dog barking at their feet. She was gazing up at the plane, waving her arm, her hat blown off and her skirts flying out. In spite of the goggles she was wearing, Sophie’s eyes burned, and she found herself blinking in the wind.
Captain Nakamura’s machine climbed up and away from them, neat and sure, into the open sky. They were so high now she hardly dared look down; for a while she made herself concentrate hard on the back of Nakamura’s head. But after a while, her stomach seemed to stop its terrible lurching, and she dared to peek down again. Now, Paris was spread like a map beneath her: she could see the shapes of buildings and roads, the green square of a park, the river slicing through everything. It was more beautiful than she could ever have imagined, and so still. There was no sound at all but the wind, rushing in her ears. She had never known such quiet.
Captain Nakamura glanced quickly over his shoulder, giving her a little nod, and she found herself nodding back. The air rushed against her face, clean and cold, and the sun glinted on the wires and strings of the plane, as they climbed upwards and away, towards the horizon.
PART VI
‘I suppose even adventurers have to go home again eventually.’
– From the diary of Alice Grayson
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Secret Service Bureau HQ, London
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said a sardonic voice. Captain Carruthers was lounging in his chair by the open window, his shirt collar slightly open, his feet resting on the desk.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ said Lil, bursting into the office with a theatrical flourish. She opened her eyes very wide and added dramatically: ‘Why, were you expecting someone else?’
Carruthers rolled his eyes. ‘Please. Spare me. It’s far too hot to play the fool. You want the Chief, I suppose?’
‘Oh no. I only come here to see you, Captain,’ she trilled. ‘Didn’t you know that?’
‘Ha ha, yes, very funny. He is waiting for you, you know, when you’ve quite finished your little comedy routine.’ But Lil had already strode past Carruthers towards the Chief ’s office.
As she tapped on the door, Lil made up her mind to ask him for news of Sophie. After all, she’d been back from Paris for more than a week, and she still hadn’t heard anything about what had happened after Sophie had climbed into the Japanese plane and soared off in pursuit of the Count.
Tilly had told her some of what had happened, and the Chief had filled in the rest of the gaps for her on her return to London. He’d shown her the blurry photograph that had been developed from the watch-camera: Princess Anna had managed to capture the Countess in the act of handing a notebook to the Count, sitting in the cockpit of the Arnovian plane. The notebook, the Chief had explained, contained highly dangerous and important information stolen from a murdered British agent, and that was what Sophie was trying so hard to get back.
‘There’s no doubt about it at all,’ the Chief had explained. ‘The Count and Countess von Wilderstein were working for the Fraterntias Draconum all along. Berlin have been very cl
ear that they had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot to kidnap the prince and princess. We now believe that the entire kidnap plot was orchestrated by the Fraternitas Draconum. Up to their old tricks again, it would seem!’
Lil knew that the secret society had long been trying to stir up tensions in Europe. The Arnovian kidnapping had probably been intended to create conflict that would flare into a war between Britain and Germany. But instead, in an unlikely turn of events, British and German agents – for she knew now that the man who had helped them stop the plane had been one of Ziegler’s spies – had ended up working together to rescue the prince. The German agent had disappeared from the airfield soon after the Japanese plane had taken off in pursuit of the Count, and no one had seen him again. How he’d ended up working with Sophie was anyone’s guess – even Tilly didn’t seem to understand that.
There were still an awful lot of questions to be answered. Who had broken into the British agent’s apartment and stolen the notebook for the Count and Countess? Who was their contact at the Fraternitas Draconum, and if not to Berlin and Ziegler, then where was the Count planning to take the notebook? Lil wondered whether the Countess herself might answer any of these questions, now that she was being sent back to Arnovia to face trial. The Chief said that the evidence that Lil had gathered while she was undercover at Wilderstein Castle, together with the photograph taken by Anna, and Alex’s testimony, would be quite enough to prove that the Countess had been working for the Fraternitas Draconum to plot against the King, and would doubtless see her sent to prison as a traitor to her country.
Meanwhile, the Count was still at large, though no one knew where. Lil had been following the air race closely, but ‘Herr Wild’ had vanished from the list of competitors. Some of the other pilots had left the race too, after accidents or technical problems; the Italian, Rossi had been disqualified after endangering the crowds with a particularly flamboyant display. But as the days went by, Captain Nakamura’s plane continued to be listed amongst those that had completed each stage of the race safely.
The race had been all over the news, of course. If Sir Chester Norton had hoped that the race would help him sell more papers, then the attempted abduction of the Crown Prince at the airfield had only improved matters. Everyone wanted to read Miss Roberta Russell’s breathless descriptions of the dramatic rescue of the young prince. Of course there was no mention of German spies, nor secret notebooks, nor the Fraternitas Draconum, but there was a description of ‘Miss Sophie Taylor of London’s Taylor & Rose Detective Agency’ who had played an important part in stopping the treacherous Count and Countess von Wilderstein’s second attempt to kidnap the Crown Prince of Arnovia, using the air race as a cover. Miss Russell’s account implied that the scheme had been prevented by the British, German and French detectives working together, and the young journalist had praised this example of European collaboration. She had also pointed to the unexpected help of the Crown Prince’s sister, Princess Anna, who had bravely helped to expose the plot, describing her as ‘the young Arnovian princess, as brave as a warrior queen’. It made Lil smile: she suspected that Anna might prefer to think of herself as the ‘Bravest Girl in the Fifth’.
But the newspapers weren’t the only thing that kept Lil’s European adventure at the front of her mind. Everything she saw seemed to remind her of what had happened: the flags flying on the roof of Sinclair’s made her think of Wilderstein Castle; that little dog she saw in the park looked a bit like Würstchen; a poster outside the Fortune Theatre informed her that they were about to open a new production of The Tempest. Even when she paused outside a bakery while she adjusted her hat to a more dashing angle, she couldn’t help feeling a little sad looking at the array of delicious-looking confections set out in the window – rows of gleaming strawberry tarts, chocolate éclairs and iced buns, arranged on delicate paper doilies. They made her think of Anna and Alex, and how delighted they’d looked when they’d first seen that breakfast in the hotel in Paris.
She’d had a letter from Anna, sent from the Royal Palace in Elffburg, where she and her brother were now living with their grandfather. After the scandalous kidnapping attempts, the Kaiser had ordered his troops to retreat from the Arnovian border. A new peace treaty had been signed, reinforcing Arnovia’s independence. Anna wrote that they would now live permanently in Elffburg:
The letter made Lil smile a great deal. She’d written straight back with the details of her old school for Anna, already imagining the uproar that the arrival of a princess would cause for the headmistress Miss Pinker and her girls. A Princess at Miss Pinker’s – it sounded exactly like the title of one of Anna’s school stories. And how very put out Forsyth would be to hear that he had missed out on being given a medal!
But the letter made her feel a little sad too. It was wonderful to be back in London with her brother Jack, and Billy and Joe and all their friends, but it was also strange. The city seemed both familiar and oddly different. The people still surged in and out of Sinclair’s department store; motors still passed by on Piccadilly; and the offices of Taylor & Rose were just the same as ever: Mei answering the telephone; clients arriving for appointments; Tilly working busily in her little workshop – after her discoveries in Paris she was now working on her own new and improved formula for a scentless invisible ink. Yet nothing seemed quite right without Sophie. Walking past Lyons Corner House gave Lil a pang; and somehow she couldn’t settle down to work in the office they shared. She’d felt relieved that afternoon when Mei had come in with the message that Mr Clarke wanted to see her at Clarke & Sons Shipping Agents.
‘Ah, Miss Rose,’ he said now as she came into the office, hearing the strains of Tchaikovsky emanating from the gramophone. ‘Delightful to see you. Do come in and sit down. Terribly hot, isn’t it?’ he added, as Lil sat down and took off her hat. ‘Now, I suppose you’ll be keen for news of Miss Taylor.’
She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Is there any?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Where is she? Is she still trailing the Count? Has she got the notebook? Has she found out anything more about the Fraternitas Draconum ?’
The Chief smiled at her. ‘All I can tell you at present is that she is quite well, although she’s unlikely to be back here with us any time soon. But you must not worry, Miss Rose. Your friend is a very resourceful young lady. This particular assignment has evolved in ways I had not expected, but I have every confidence in her.’
Lil nodded. She did too. She hoped they’d soon be back together, having tea and buns at Lyons and talking over everything, but for now she was happy just to know that Sophie was safe and well – wherever she was.
‘And, of course, there is plenty we can do to help Miss Taylor,’ said the Chief. ‘There is a great deal about this business still to be investigated. Starting with this.’ He pulled out a fat dossier and pushed it across the table towards her. ‘Miss Rose, I believe I have a rather interesting new assignment for you …’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This story is fictional – but just like the Sinclair’s Mysteries, Taylor & Rose: Secret Agents takes inspiration from history. In particular, the Secret Service Bureau which appears in this story is inspired by the real-life Secret Service Bureau, which really was set up by the British government towards the end of 1909. Although it was initially very small, the organisation soon grew, and was later divided into two separate divisions, one dealing with counter-espionage at home, another gathering intelligence abroad. Today we know these two divisions as ‘MI5’ and ‘MI6’.
The Grand Aerial Tour of Europe is based on the real-life air-races of the 1910s, such as the 1911 Circuit of Europe Race, which covered a distance of almost 1,000 miles and was sponsored by the newspaper Le Journal. 43 pilots took part in the race, but only nine of them managed to complete the course.
The country of Arnovia, and the Arnovian Royal Family are of course, completely imaginary. However, the adventures of Princess Anna and Crown Prince Alex were inspired by a grand tradition of storie
s set in fictional European countries – from the The Prisoner of Zenda to The Princess of the Chalet School, and many more.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am so grateful to Ali Dougal and to the fantastic team at Egmont for all their support – and for helping Sophie and Lil to set out on this exciting new adventure. Special thanks to Laura Bird for the gorgeous design, and to Karl James Mountford, whose illustrations are so glorious that I simply had to name a character in this story after him.
Merci beaucoup, as always, to my agent and friend Louise Lamont for her wise advice (and the spoon of salt in Forsyth’s tea). Enormous thanks to my parents, my friends, and particularly to my husband Duncan, who kept me company as I wandered about Paris imagining Sophie and Lil’s adventures there.
Many thanks to the brilliant readers I met in schools in November and December 2017, who helped me to come up with the title for this new series. Thank you to all the wonderful booksellers, librarians and teachers who have supported the books; and to the readers (of all ages) who have enjoyed the Sinclair’s Mysteries and who were so enthusiastic about wanting to know ‘what happens next’.
Finally, very special thanks to my mum, for all the Paris memories.
See how it all began with Sophie and Lil’s original adventures in
CHAPTER ONE
Sophie hung on tightly to the leather strap as the omnibus rattled forwards. Another Monday morning and, all about her, London was whirring into life: damp and steamy with last night’s rain and this morning’s smoke. As she stood wedged between a couple of clerks wearing bowler hats and carrying newspapers, she gazed out of the window at the grey street, wondering whether that faint fragrance of spring she’d caught on the wind had been just her imagination. She found herself thinking about the garden of Orchard House: the daffodils that must be blooming there now, the damp earth and the smell of rain in the grass.
Peril in Paris (Taylor and Rose Secret Agents) Page 19