of the docks in the East End, just before he had made his escape. I daresay we’ll meet again, he had said. For now, adieu.
Lil and the others believed that the Baron was gone, and wouldn’t come back. Mr McDermott had told them that Scotland Yard believed he had fled the country. But Sophie knew that his photograph had been sent to police detectives across Europe, and as far afield as America – and as yet, no one had seen so much as a glimpse of him. She couldn’t feel so confident that they had really seen the last of the Baron, and that he was really gone from their lives for good. She knew he wouldn’t forget that they had been the ones to blow apart his false identity.
Now, she let herself into the lodging house, and trudged up the staircase to her room. Once inside, she took off her muddy boots and hung up her wet things, then settled down in the easy chair, spreading the newspaper across her lap.
Across from where she sat, on the wall above her dressing table, she had carefully pinned up the few pieces of information she had managed to gather so far about the Baron, including several newspaper cuttings from his time posing in the guise of Lord Beaucastle. In the very centre was the mysterious photograph that Mr McDermott had given to her after it had been taken from Beaucastle’s study. It showed Sophie’s parents standing either side of the Baron, with the words Cairo, 1890 inscribed on the back.
This had been her most unexpected – and disconcerting – discovery of all. She had learned that the Baron had known her parents, and that they had perhaps once even been friends.
Now, as usual, she carefully combed the evening paper for anything that might be relevant. A jeweller’s shop in Knightsbridge had been robbed, but only a few cheap trinkets had been taken, and the burglar’s methods were much too crude for the Baron. She flicked to the society pages where, for a brief moment, she paused to grin at a photograph of some friends who had helped them in their last adventure. Two smart young men and a young lady were sitting in an expensive new motor car, the picture captioned: Young gentlemen-about-town Mr Devereaux and Mr Pendleton take the Honourable Phyllis Woodhouse out for a spin! But there was no mention anywhere of Lord Beaucastle. The summer’s scandal was all but forgotten.
But if London society had moved on, Sophie had not. The photograph of her parents still niggled at her. She had to know the truth – how had her parents known the Baron? And worse still, could he really have had some part to play in her papa’s sudden death? She had spent hours searching through what little she had left that had belonged to her papa – a few letters and papers, a couple of postcards, but nothing that indicated even the smallest connection with the Baron, or with Cairo. If she hadn’t had the photograph, she would never have believed it could be true.
She had stopped talking to the others about the Baron. She knew that they were tired of hearing about him. ‘He’s gone, Sophie,’ Lil had said to her in frustration. ‘I understand why you keep coming back to him, I do. But not everything is always going to be about him. Besides, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m jolly well ready to forget all about the Baron. That horrible man wanted to blow up Sinclair’s with us in it – he would have killed us if he had had the chance – and he made life a misery for all those people in the East End. But the Baron’s Boys are safely under lock and key in prison, and the Baron is gone, and I’m grateful for that.’
Now, Sophie gazed for the hundredth time at her collection of cuttings and photographs, trying to make sense of them. As she did so, she twisted her necklace between her fingers. It was a string of green beads, one of the very few things she possessed that had belonged to her Mama. She might have stopped talking about the Baron to Lil and the others, but she knew she would never stop thinking about him. She was determined to find out the truth – even if that was a secret she would have to keep to herself.
She opened her drawer and took out a sheet of writing paper and her pen and ink. There was still one person she could try contacting who might just know something about her papa being stationed in Egypt – her old governess. She knew that Miss Pennyfeather had gone to India to work as a governess for an English family out there. A letter would take a long time to reach her, but it had to be worth a try. Dear Miss Pennyfeather . . . she began to write.
Leo stared at the paper in front of her, trying to concentrate on the whisper of soft pencil, the scratch of charcoal. Around her, the hum of voices began to blur and fade. Here in the Antiques Room there was always such a clamour of noise. It made her realise how accustomed she had become to quiet and stillness.
The students and their easels were ringed around the edge of the big airy space, scattered among the plaster casts of classical statues that gave the Antiques Room its name. The first years spent most of each day drawing here, and would continue to do so until they were considered to have mastered the basics of line and form.
Today, Leo had chosen to draw the figure of a nymph with a garland of evergreen: it reminded her a little of one of the statues in the Long Passage at Winter Hall that she had drawn many times before. The familiarity was comforting. The action of her pencil against the paper, outlining the figure’s shape in smooth strokes, felt soothing.
Nothing else felt familiar in the least. Everything here seemed so strange. The big room was stark and bare as a blank canvas: the white-painted walls, the white shapes of the plaster casts, the white shirtsleeves of the young man drawing next to her. She sensed her chest tightening as she looked around at the circle of strangers. After a week, she was beginning to recognise a few of their faces: the young man with the carefully waxed moustache; the tall girl with the habit of chewing the ends of her pencils; the red-haired, freckled boy with the Northern accent. While she drew, she stole glances at them under her eyelashes. She liked looking at their clothes: that young lady’s flowing Liberty-print smock; that young man’s paisley-patterned scarf.
Most often, her eyes were drawn to the girl who wore the most striking and unusual outfits, usually including brightly coloured stockings and odd shoes – today one was red and the other blue. She had a wild tangle of curls and a pouting mouth, and Leo had heard the boy next to her call her Connie. Leo would have liked to draw her. Now, as Leo glanced over at her again, Connie noticed her watching and frowned. Blushing, Leo let her eyes fall back to her work.
Behind her, she sensed the presence of the drawing master – the professor, she should call him. He paused, glancing over her shoulder, and she froze for a moment. Even she knew that Professor Jarvis was legendary here at the Spencer. She had already seen the way he spoke to some of the students – firing out sarcastic criticisms: ‘Is that the best you can do?’ ‘And you say you want to be an artist?’ Or sometimes, worst of all, merely a short snort of contempt. Now, he was standing right behind her, so close that she caught a whiff of his tobacco. Not knowing what to do, she kept on drawing, taking refuge in the familiarity of the pencil between her fingers. A moment later, she realised that he had moved on.
‘I say, you got off lightly!’ said the young man next to her. ‘Didn’t you hear what he said to me yesterday?’
She had – it had not been very complimentary – but the young man’s good humour did not appear to have been dented. ‘They say he’s like that all the time,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘He must think you’re good if you escaped a tongue-lashing.’
Leo kept on drawing, not knowing what to say. She had noticed the young man before: the way he drew, in bold, assertive strokes, pausing to stand back and survey his work every now and again. The way he swept back his dark hair and tossed a charming smile to the giggling girls across the room, before turning to make a friendly aside to his neighbour. She had never seen anyone so sure of himself in her life.
‘Gosh, you are good, aren’t you?’ he went on, coming closer to look at her drawing. ‘I wish I could draw half as well as you.’
Suddenly, she felt annoyed. ‘Well, maybe you should spend more time concentrating on your own work instead of looking at mine,’ she said. But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished them back again. This was exactly the sort of thing that made Mother