Miss Dante may have been the darling of the Halls and hot favourite to win the contest, but her manor was a right dump. We took our own cab, clopping round to the address what I’d got from the door keeper, and shortly after we found ourselves outside a very unprepossessing tenement – what had obviously been built in a spirit of public philanthropy then abandoned in a spirit of private indifference.

I was driving the vehicle and glanced down at the address, which I held clutched in my hand. The hatch on top of the cab opened and Madam popped her head through. ‘You’re sure this is the place?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, looking up at the grimy pile. ‘Top floor.’

And the address was evidently well known locally, for quite a crowd was gathered outside.

We had all sorts of schemes and back-ups planned: posing as Christian Scientists bringing the Good News of Christ’s resurrection might get us over the threshold; travelling brush saleswomen bringing the latest in sweep and clean hardware might not. A fainting fit on the doorstep was always a good dodge. But in the end we was spared any such subterfuge when the lady herself suddenly appeared on the stairway, gliding down to ground level, her head held high and her hands daintily encased in a fur muffler.

The crowd surged around Anne, high as kites and a bit too close. Amid cries of ‘Anne! We love you!’ and ‘Anne, give us a kiss!’ poor Miss Dante began to look a bit scared. Gawping faces pressed in around her.

I was about to climb down to help her out when suddenly the door of the carriage swung open and Madam’s gloved hand emerged. ‘May I have the pleasure of escorting you out of here?’ Madam asked. ‘Sharpish?’

Anne smiled graciously again, took Madam’s hand and found herself pulled into the carriage.

There came a knock on the roof – my signal to get the hell out of there – and I whipped up the nag. To the crowd’s dismay, the carriage rattled rapidly away.

Now I couldn’t hear much from my station in the driver’s seat so I arched over and opened the hatch on the roof a crack so as to listen in.

The exquisite Anne sat opposite the veiled Mistress looking luminous and wonderfully composed. For a while, neither spoke.

‘I don’t make a habit of this,’ said Madam at last. Anne said nothing.

‘Plucking beautiful women from mobs, I mean.’

Still nothing.

‘Perhaps I should try it more often. I’m Madam Vastra, by the way.’

Still, reply came there none. Madam glanced out of the window. ‘Lovely evening.’

Anne just nodded.

‘You are protecting your voice, am I right? That’s why you don’t speak?’

A shy grin from the gal and downcast eyes, lashes a-flutter.