Spies in St. Petersburg - Katherine Woodfine Taylor and Rose Secret Agents

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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 Sophie had left Paris in Captain Nakamura’s aeroplane, she’d never expected she’d end up following the Count all the way to Russia. She’d hoped she would be able to catch up with him at the next stage of the air race, and seize back the stolen notebook he was carrying: the notebook containing the all-important information about the secret weapon. But catching up with the Count had not been as easy as she’d hoped. After the dramatic arrest of the Countess in Paris, he and his plane had disappeared from the race, as though they had vanished into thin air.

      It had been Nakamura who had explained that it would not be possible for the Count to disappear altogether – not if he continued to travel by plane, at any rate. After all, there were not very many airfields where a pilot could stop to refuel, or to fix the endless problems which Sophie had learned affected aeroplanes at every stage of a journey. And so, at each stage of the air race, while Nakamura had traded stories with the other pilots, or made essential repairs to his plane, Sophie had talked to the mechanics to learn what she could of the Count’s whereabouts. As the weeks passed and they made their way across Europe, telegrams had zigzagged back and forth to the Bureau in London, and with their help, she’d pieced together the Count’s route. At first he’d roughly followed the path of the air race, taking advantage of the free passage across borders offered to the pilots. He’d travelled out of France to Belgium, and then to the Netherlands, where they’d almost caught up with him, missing him at the airfield by barely an hour. After that they’d lost him for a while, before getting a tip-off that he had landed at an airfield in Sweden.

      ‘He must be in a great hurry,’ Nakamura had said, as they studied the route that Sophie had pencilled on the map. ‘He’s barely stopped to rest for more than an hour at a time – and flying is tiring. I would think it dangerous to fly so long without a proper break.’

      ‘I think he’s trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Arnovia,’ Sophie had observed. ‘He must know he’s wanted by the authorities, for plotting against the King.’

      ‘So what will we do now?’ Nakamura had asked. ‘There are only two more stops: Milan, and then Zurich. The air race will be finished in a few days. After that, would you like to go in pursuit of the Count and the notebook?’

      Sophie had looked up at him, pleased and surprised. She’d assumed that Nakamura would go back to Japan as soon as the air race was over – but now here he was, proposing that they keep following the Count.

      ‘I’d like that very much, if you really would be willing. But I just wish I knew for sure that he still has the notebook.’ It was far too precious to be sent by post, but there was always the risk that the Count had handed it to some fellow on an airfield somewhere, who’d been entrusted with seeing it safely into the hands of the Fraternitas. ‘If he hasn’t, then all I’ve done will be for nothing.’

      Nakamura had been looking down at the map, as though already working out their route. He’d glanced up and raised his eyebrows at Sophie. ‘Well . . . there’s only one way to find out,’ he’d said simply.

      And Nakamura had been right. She’d come so far already: there was no sense in giving up. By the time they’d arrived in Milan, her sources were reporting that the Count had left Sweden for St Petersburg, in Russia, where he’d made arrangements to store his plane – suggesting he planned to stay there for a little while at least. A telegram to the Chief had ensured papers were ready for them to collect in Zurich, which would eventually allow them to travel over the border to Russia.

      Once they’d arrived in St Petersburg, Sophie had put her detective skills to work, eventually tracking down the Count’s aeroplane, stored in a farm shed not far from the airfield. From there she’d worked hard to locate the man himself, who she learned had taken a room in one of the city’s dingier hotels, under the name of ‘Herr Schmidt’.

      ‘I bet he’s meeting someone from the Fraternitas here to hand over the notebook,’ she’d said to Nakamura that evening, over a Russian dinner of unfamiliar, strangely fragranced dishes. ‘He can’t have given it to them yet.’

      ‘How can you be sure?’ Nakamura had asked.

      ‘If he had, they’d have paid him well for it – and that hotel doesn’t look like the sort of place that a member of a Royal family would stay, if they had money.’

      For the next two days, she’d watched the Count’s hotel but there had been no sign of him. She’d barely been able to bring herself to stay away for a few hours’ sleep, she’d been so determined not to miss her chance. At last, her persistence had been rewarded: she’d glimpsed the Count slipping out of the hotel, and hurrying along the street. Was he going to meet his Fraternitas contact at last?

      But no meeting had taken place. Instead, Sophie had tracked him to a bank on the Nevsky, where after a short conversation with a clerk, he’d passed a small parcel wrapped in brown paper over the counter. Afterwards, she’d followed him to Wolff’s, where he’d bought an Arnovian newspaper; to a café where he’d sat at a table in the darkest corner, and furtively eaten a large pastry, topped with chocolate and cream; and finally, strangest of all, to Rivière’s, the city’s most magnificent jeweller, where he’d lingered outside for a while, as if trying to pluck up the courage to venture in.

      He’d spoken to no one but the cake-shop waitress and the bank clerk. He’d walked with his head down and his collar turned up against the wind. Sophie knew he’d been a military man, who had won medals for his bravery, but he hadn’t looked brave, nor in the least like someone who until recently had hoped to rule a country. Instead, he’d looked only lonely, tired – and afraid.

      ‘He’s hiding,’ she’d said to Nakamura. ‘He’s worried about being caught, even here.’

      ‘What about the notebook?’

      Sophie

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