Bill Todd had been told that Margaret was missing and that it was to be kept a secret for the present. ‘That for a tale,’ he had said to himself. ‘Someone will talk and then we’ll have all the newspapers here.’ To prepare for the invasion he fastened a chain on the stage door. This meant he could see if anybody who belonged wanted to come in, but he could also keep out those who had no right of entry. When the Press did arrive he was thankful for his chain. Describing the scene later he said it was like an election night. ‘Seemed as if there were hundreds all shouting outside my stage door.’ Of course the Press paid no attention to chains. There were other ways into the theatre and they found them all, and soon Tommy Smith’s office was crowded with men clamouring for information.

Because, in Tommy’s opinion, honesty was the best policy, he told the newspaper men the truth. How Margaret had been kidnapped in a growler. How it was believed she had been taken to an orphanage where she had once lived. How she had begun her life in a basket with three of everything though all of the very best quality. How she had called herself Thursday because that was the day when she was found.

It was a wonderful story and the newspaper men were delighted and rushed off to get their versions of it into the midday papers. Some of them lingered, hoping to get a statement from Sir John, but Tommy refused.

‘He is upset enough as it is,’ he said, ‘and I have told you the whole truth as I know it. We must now leave matters to the police.’

There were other who did not agree with Tommy Smith, and Lou was one of them. In spite of her great size she got about and had often said: ‘London may be a big place but, like any other town, it ’as its ways. Bad things goes on, no saying they don’t, but that doesn’t say there is not sharp eyes about to notice the peculiar. If I know young Margaret – and I reckon I do – she wasn’t taken nowhere not without creatin’ she wasn’t.’

Even Lou, who knew London well, could not know more than a limited number of people, but that number knew a number more and so, like a river swollen by storms, the people enquiring for Margaret grew. By midday information was coming in. Most of it was irrelevant but there was a small thread of news here and there to be looked into. One came from a disreputable lane.

‘My sister ’as a friend who ’as a friend who says Ma Mud ’ad a new kiddie taken there this morning.’

Lou put this piece of news to the back of her mind. The dreadful old Ma Mud was a well-known figure in the market and that she dealt in orphans was common knowledge. That the information had anything to do with Margaret was unlikely.