Gwen turned back and looked at him curiously.

‘Yes and your father too, of course.’ He swallowed. ‘Your happy home. Your family.’

Gwen gave the faintest of nods. ‘Thank you, Sir.’

He couldn’t stand this. ‘Please, no. Don’t call me “Sir”.’

She was slipping out of the door now, closing it gently behind her and by the time Joseph remembered to say thank you for the coffee, she’d gone.

Chapter 23

On Friday, a few minutes before morning break, Miss Sharp rapped her knuckles on her desk and looked particularly stern. Pam was standing next to her, unusually pale and fiddling with the locket around her neck.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Miss Sharp announced, ‘we have a situation.’

‘Oh blimey. Jerry’s invaded!’ Elsie cried, sitting bolt upright.

‘No, Miss Davenport. Calm yourself. This country is, for the time being at least, still at liberty. It’s nothing like that but I’m afraid it is rather serious.’ Miss Sharp took a deep breath. ‘Some money has gone missing.’

Elsie gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

‘Miss Barbour here,’ Miss Sharp gestured to Pam, ‘has lost a one-pound note from her handbag.’

Pam bit her lip. Nancy turned in her seat and nodded at everyone gravely, to show that she was in the know.

‘She can’t pinpoint exactly when the money … er, disappeared, but she definitely had it when she arrived at Snowden Hall.’

Everyone gazed at each other, wide-eyed.

‘But who would do such a thing?’ Elsie said, looking around the room. ‘We all know each other. We’re chums, aren’t we?’

There was silence. Maggie felt sick. Except me, she thought, I’m the new girl. She’d only known them for a short time. She wasn’t anyone’s chum. She wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had started pointing the finger at her there and then.

She clasped her hands tightly on her lap, not daring to look up. If she caught anyone’s eye, she’d blush. And that would be it; she’d look guilty.

It was ridiculous. She knew she hadn’t taken the money but she also knew she was bound to be the prime suspect.

All the women left their handbags lying around the Hall, either in their bedrooms or underneath their desks when they went for a break. Those that smoked tucked their cigarettes and matches in their pockets or simply held them.

‘First time anything like this has ever happened,’ one of the older chaps, Mr Richards, said from the back of the room.

And what was different, Maggie thought. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out.