“Can’t tell you, sir. However, give me until this afternoon, and I will make some enquiries.”

“And then?”

“And then we shall see. There is something you must do in exchange.”

“What?”

“Remove the wiretaps on our homes and office.”

“What makes you think there are any?”

“Because I know how you work. Just as I know that you have a man following me even as we speak. I am about to lose him, by the way. Goodbye, sir.”

“Sparks, I will not—”

There was a click as the connection was severed.

He sighed, then dialed another number.

“Remove the taps on Sparks and Bainbridge,” he said. “For now.”

His telephone rang again a few minutes later. He answered it.

“Sir, it’s Williams,” came a voice. “I’m afraid she’s given me the slip. I have no idea how.”

“Never mind, Williams,” he said. “Go back and watch the building.”

Iris was back at the office by noon, carrying a large, flat object.

“What’s that?” asked Gwen.

“New blotter,” said Iris, removing it. “Oh!”

Her sling-backs sat on top of her desk, next to a vase holding an arrangement of summer blooms. Gwen held up a small envelope.

“The note says, ‘I await your call.’”

“Very good,” said Iris. “Classy of him to send flowers.”

“Everything go well?”

“The invitation has been delivered. Shall we treat our watchers to the riveting sight of us eating lunch?”

“Why not?”

Millie had just finished straightening Gwen’s room when Prudence knocked on the doorway.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Prudence said. “There’s a … man at the back door.”

“What kind of man?” asked Millie. “What’s he want with me?”

“He said he was a delivery boy. He doesn’t look like a delivery boy.”

“Oh yes. I’ve been expecting him. I’ll be right down.”

She went up to her room and collected the parcel with which Mrs. Bainbridge had entrusted her. It had turned out to be three shoeboxes, tied securely with string. She brought them down from the servants’ quarters to the kitchen, opened the door, then started.

“You’re a tall one, then,” she observed, looking up at Sally.

“Am I?” he replied. “I had no idea. I thought everyone else was short.”

“I am that, no matter what the occasion,” said Millie. “You’re the gentleman I’m supposed to give the parcel to?”

“I am,” he said. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Bainbridge.”

“She said I was supposed to say something to you, and you were supposed to say something back,” said Millie.

“Go ahead,” said Sally.

Millie screwed up her face in concentration.

“He’ll find us,” she said dramatically. “There are no more hiding places.”

“They’ve lit up Dreamland with carbon arc searchlights and surrounded it with barbed wire, and no dreams can escape it anymore,” he replied, even more dramatically.

“She said you wrote that.”

“I did.”

“I like it,” she said, turning over the parcel. “This is very exciting, exchanging secret passwords and handing over parcels holding I don’t know what. Do you know what’s in them?”