The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow Read Online Free

who had passed no examinations and who had no idea how to begin to set about cooking a dinner or scrubbing a floor wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with options when it came to finding a way to earn money. French conversation and dancing were all very well, but they would do nothing to help her now.
    It was as she was trailing miserably back from the agency, a few flakes of snow just beginning to fall, that she had first found Sinclair’s. Work on the building had still been going on, but the enormous hoarding around it was already plastered in advertisements, and in spite of the cold, people were lingering to read them. But what had made Sophie stop and stare was an enormous sign that read, in scarlet letters,
Staff Wanted
. Almost in a moment, she had known that sign was meant for her.
    The next day she had put up her hair and let down the skirts of her most grown-up gown. She had perched on the edge of a hard chair, carefully answering the questions put to her by Mr Cooper – a serious-looking man with a close-trimmed beard and a severe black suit. She had felt almost absurd relief when he had offered her a position as a salesgirl in the Millinery Department, starting at ten shillings a week – just enough to afford bed and board in a cheap lodging house for working ladies.
    It was what Papa would have wanted, she had reflected as she toiled back to her lodgings through the snow. She knew that he would have expected her to buck up and make the best of things, just as people always did in the military tales he loved to relate. Perhaps she might not be facing wild beasts or a native uprising in the jungle, but she could be brave and not make a fuss about embarking on this peculiar new life.
    Now, with the hat display almost complete, Sophie paused for a moment and gazed down at the street below her, thronged with Hansom cabs and motor taxis, cycles whizzing daringly between them, and omnibuses, bright with coloured advertisements for Pear’s Soap and Fry’s Chocolate Cream. The pavements were crowded with people and as she watched, Sophie felt a flutter of excitement to see how many of them were casting curious glances up at the huge facade of Sinclair’s.
    ‘Now, Sophie, there’s no time for dreaming today. That looks very nice but if you’ve finished I wish you’d run some errands for me,’ came Mrs Milton’s voice, and Sophie started guiltily back from the window. ‘These hats need to go down to the dressing rooms on the first floor. They’re for the mannequins to wear in the dress parade.’
    Edith, still busy polishing, looked pleased at the sight of Sophie being asked to do something so menial. ‘I’m sure Her Ladyship won’t care for that,’ she whispered loudly to Minnie.
    As a matter of fact, Edith was quite wrong, Sophie thought crossly as she went down the stairs, carefully balancing the stack of hat-boxes. The truth was that she was happy to have any chance to look around the store and felt proud that she already knew almost every corner. The mannequins’ dressing room was one place that she had not yet seen, and what was more, she was intrigued by the mannequins themselves – lovely young ladies who had been hired especially for the purpose of modelling frocks and furs and hats. Once the store was open, there would be a dress show once a day, where they would parade before the store’s most important customers in a specially decorated
salon
in the Ladies’ Fashions Department. The mannequins were called the ‘Captain’s Girls’ as rumour had it that Edward Sinclair had insisted on selecting every one himself. Sophie had heard it said that they were as glamorous as stars of the West End’s chorus lines.
    She soon found the dressing room in the maze of staff corridors on the first floor, and tapped politely at the door. Hearing no response, she went inside. Like every room at Sinclair’s, the dressing room was beautifully furnished, with soft chairs, looking-glasses, bright lamps and several