Spies in St. Petersburg. Katherine Woodfine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ workbenches, holding tiny paintbrushes or magnifiers in their hands – whilst behind them, polished wooden shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, each filled with miniature objects, glinting with precious stones or bright with enamel designs.

      Sophie slipped quietly past, towards the cloakroom. She found herself thinking, as she often did, of how strange it was that the Clockwork Sparrow had been made here in this very room. How peculiar it was that so much could have come from something so small – a tiny mechanical bird she could hold in the palm of her hand! For if the Clockwork Sparrow had never existed and been stolen, she might never have discovered her talent for detective work; Taylor & Rose might never have existed; she might never have known about the Baron and his secret society, the Fraternitas Draconum. And of course, if it were not for the Fraternitas she wouldn’t be in St Petersburg at all.

      She’d come here on the trail of a notebook which the Fraternitas had stolen: a most important notebook that contained research about the sinister society itself, but more significantly, information about a powerful secret weapon they had hidden away centuries ago. They had concealed clues to the weapon’s location in Benedetto Casselli’s dragon paintings, so that future members of the society could find it. The notebook contained information about how the clues in the paintings could be ‘decoded’ to locate the weapon: but if the Fraternitas were to get hold of it, Sophie knew they would use it to help spark off a terrible war in Europe. It was down to her to get the notebook – and prevent them.

      Somewhere, she mused, as she went into the cloakroom to hang up her coat and tidy her hair, in some other world, there was no Clockwork Sparrow. In that world, there was a Sophie who had never come here, who didn’t think at all about things like secret weapons, or wars, or shadowy societies. Perhaps that Sophie was still selling hats at Sinclair’s, gazing out of the window at Piccadilly Circus, and looking forward to going out to tea with Lil.

      It was a cosy thought, yet at the same time it made her feel strangely uncomfortable. Her old life seemed small and restricted – a little box into which she would no longer be able to contain herself. Now, she was a thousand miles from London and Piccadilly Circus. And yet at the same time, Rivière’s was oddly like Sinclair’s, she mused, as she went through into the shop, where sales assistants in white gloves moved quietly to and fro. There was the same sumptuously thick carpet; the same richly polished wood and velvet; the same aroma of beeswax, and perfume, and luxury. The Russian countesses admiring jewels could so easily be London ladies, excited about a new Paris hat.

      The shop manager gave her a quick nod, gesturing towards a group gathered around a display of diamond bracelets. Sophie went over to them at once: ‘Bonjour, mesdames,’ she began. ‘May I be of any help?’

      But even as she showed them the bracelets, Sophie kept a sharp eye out. There was someone she was looking for amidst the silk top hats and frothy ostrich feathers – one person she wanted to see, more than anyone else.

      He wasn’t the kind of person anyone else would have paid any attention to. He looked like an ordinary old man, with an unkempt beard. He wore a shabby overcoat with the collar turned up, and his hat pulled low. He wasn’t like the other gentlemen who came to Rivière’s: the haughty young aristocrats; the Tsar’s officers with their gleaming gold braid; the wealthy merchants in fur-lined coats. And yet he visited the shop almost every day. Once there, he would shuffle his way slowly around, before coming to rest, in silent contemplation, before a cabinet of enamelled opera glasses and jewelled lorgnettes. It was always the same display that held him transfixed – and as he looked at it, Sophie looked at him.

      The beard, the hat and the collar did not fool her in the least. She knew that this was no ordinary, shabby, harmless old man. In fact, the man who was gazing at the opera glasses was the reason she was here in St Petersburg – and he was someone very dangerous indeed.

      Rivière’s, The Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg

      ‘I don’t understand why you waste time on him,’ Irina muttered, as she and Sophie stood together behind the counter, some distance away from where the old man was peering at a gilded magnifying glass. ‘He’s never going to buy anything! He’s obviously got no money – just look at the state of his overcoat!’

      ‘I know,’ said Sophie, with a shrug. ‘I suppose I feel sorry for him.’

      Irina tutted disapprovingly. ‘Alice! I know you haven’t been here very long, but you have to understand! If you want to earn a commission, you can’t start feeling sorry for people. You have to choose your customers with care.’ She cast her eye around the shop. ‘Look – see him, for example? That young fellow, with the gold trim on his coat. He’s got money burning a hole in his pocket, I can tell. See how he wants to impress his lady friend? I recognise her – she’s a dancer from the Mariinsky. He’s the one you want to go for.’

      She raised her eyes at Sophie, encouraging her, but Sophie just smiled. ‘He’s all yours,’ she said sweetly.

      Irina shrugged. ‘Your loss. I bet you fifty kopeks I can get him to buy that gold bonbonnière.’

      She strolled off in the direction of the young man, and Sophie grinned after her. She was fond of Irina, whose easy confidence sometimes reminded her a little of Lil. But the truth was, she wasn’t concerned with earning a commission. The small attaché case, carefully hidden under her bed in her room at Vera’s, contained more money than Irina would earn in a year, courtesy of the Secret Service Bureau.

      Sophie wasn’t here to earn money. She was here for the old man in the shabby overcoat.

      ‘May I help you? Would you like to take a closer look at the opera glasses?’

      He looked up and smiled at her, a little embarrassed. ‘You must think I am mad,’ he said, in fluent French – though Sophie could detect the traces of a German accent. ‘Almost every day I come here, and every time you are kind enough to show these to me.’

      ‘Not at all. It’s my job,’ said Sophie pleasantly, as she unlocked the cabinet with one of the small keys that hung on her belt. ‘We have many customers who come back to look at their favourite items. There is one lady who likes to try on a particular diamond tiara every week!’ she added, with a smile.

      The old man smiled back, but his eyes were already fixed on the pearl and ruby opera glasses she was showing him. ‘Fascinating,’ he murmured, extending a careful fingertip to touch the gold filigree. ‘Such perfect craftsmanship!’

      ‘Is there anything else you would care to look at today, Herr Schmidt?’

      Sophie knew that the man’s name wasn’t ‘Herr Schmidt’, any more than her own was ‘Mademoiselle Alice Grayson’. She’d decided to use her mother’s name as her alias – her false name – while she was travelling undercover. It seemed rather appropriate, as she knew her mother had visited St Petersburg as a young girl: she’d read all about it in the old diaries that she had inherited.

      For a brief moment, she wondered why the man standing before her had chosen ‘Herr Schmidt’ as his own alias. Perhaps he simply thought that with such an ordinary German name, no one could possibly guess that he was no harmless old man, but in fact the Count Rudolf von Wilderstein – disgraced cousin of the King of Arnovia, and husband of the notorious Countess von Wilderstein, hiding under a false identity in St Petersburg.

      When СКАЧАТЬ