The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow Read Online Free Page B

a pattern of peacock feathers on the sweeping skirt and a closely fitted bodice elaborately beaded in blue, green and gold. The girl turned first one way and the other, the rustling skirts swinging, and then gave Sophie a wide grin.
    ‘I think this must be meant for you,’ said Sophie, removing a hat from one of the boxes she had brought – an exquisite creation in green velvet trimmed with peacock feathers.
    ‘Thanks awfully for your help. I’m Lil by the way – well, Lilian Rose, if you want to be proper.’
    ‘Sophie Taylor.’
    ‘Nice to meet you, Sophie Taylor,’ said Lil, breezing out of the room. Sophie followed her, the empty hat-box under one arm.
    ‘I say –’ Lil, who didn’t seem to be able to stop talking for more than a second at a time, was just beginning again, when they both stopped suddenly in the passageway at the sound of a voice. It was whispering from behind a clothes rail hung with evening dresses that had been left to one side: ‘
Pssst! Sophie!
’
    To Sophie’s astonishment, she saw the young porter from the cloakroom hovering behind the rack of gowns. His face was pink and alarmed.
    ‘What is it?’
    He motioned for her to come behind the rack and she did so, Lil following at once, looking intrigued.
    As soon as she saw him, Sophie realised why he looked so unhappy. His smart blue uniform jacket was smeared from neck to waist with what looked like mud, but which smelled distinctly worse.
    ‘Hullo,’ said Lil cheerfully. ‘Are you a friend of Sophie’s? I’m Lil. I say – you’re in rather a state aren’t you? Whatever have you been up to?’
    Billy gaped at her for a moment, evidently confused and horrified to have been discovered looking like this by an impossibly beautiful girl in an evening gown. Then he looked desperately at Sophie. ‘I’ve tried to get it off but it just won’t budge,’ he said urgently. ‘The girls will laugh their heads off if they see me like this – and Uncle Sid’ll give me a walloping. And Mr Cooper will sack me for sure. Do you know any way that I could clean it?’
    Sophie became serious. Mr Cooper had made it abundantly clear that everything – and everyone – would be expected to be quite perfect before Mr Sinclair carried out his inspection later in the day. She had already seen Cooper dismiss staff who did not come up to his exacting standards. She thought quickly. ‘It will come off easily enough, don’t worry. But it needs laundering properly. We need to let it dry, then brush it down and wash it.’
    The sound of voices passing by made her break off and for a moment they all crouched down behind the rack, hoping not to be seen. Billy tried his hardest not to brush mud against any of the gowns.
    ‘Gosh, this is rather a lark,’ murmured Lil.
    ‘
Sssshhh!
’ Billy and Sophie hissed together.
    Sophie turned back to Billy. ‘We need to find you a spare jacket to borrow, just for a day or two. Then I can take this away and wash it and no one will be any the wiser.’
    Billy’s face brightened. ‘There must be some spare ones somewhere,’ he said hopefully.
    ‘In the basement, I think,’ said Sophie, thinking quickly. ‘I’m not sure exactly where though.’
    Lil’s eyes lit up. ‘I do!’ she exclaimed. ‘I saw some uniforms in one of the little storerooms down there.’
    ‘Whatever were you doing there?’ Sophie asked, looking curiously at their new acquaintance. The labyrinth of twisting passages and storerooms in the basement was one place that even she had not much wanted to explore.
    ‘Oh, just taking a look around,’ said Lil, airily. She grinned. ‘One of those salesmen – Jim something-or-other – was rather insistent about giving me a tour.’
    Sophie laughed, but the sound of Sidney Parker’s voice rumbling somewhere not very far away from them made her hurry on. ‘Take that jacket off and I’ll deal with it,’ she said quickly to Billy. ‘Then you and Lil can go down the back stairs to the