‘I can’t see why anyone would pay her to look after their child, one look and you can see what she’s like.’

Simon said sadly: ‘When you don’t want a child you are glad of anybody you can shift them on to.’

Margaret felt her knees were wobbling for she had eaten nothing since breakfast, so she sank down beside Simon. If she had not felt so weak she would have got up again for the pile of rags smelt terrible. Then she made a move and felt something hard at the top of her right stocking leg. Even as she leaned forward to see what it was, she remembered the broken knife she had taken to use as a weapon.

‘If we could get the boards off this window, Simon, could we get out? How high up are we?’

‘Too high to jump,’ said Simon. ‘But the board has been there since I came, so I don’t properly know.’

‘But we could shout if the window was open.’ Margaret put the broken knife into his hands.

‘Do you think you could get the boarding off with this? I am not much good with my hands.’

Simon fingered the knife. He sounded quite excited. ‘I could try, but not yet. She’s got to let the other children in first.’

‘Will they come in here?’ Margaret asked.

‘Not likely,’ said Simon. ‘Not with you here. She’ll lock them up downstairs. I’ll have to be terrible quiet. Can’t be too careful, seeing she’s a witch.’

Margaret felt again a flutter of terror. Suppose Matron was a witch? She could be. She behaved like one. Then pride came to her rescue.

‘Of course she isn’t a witch. There aren’t such things as witches. She’s just a wicked old woman. Now go to sleep. I’ll wake you the moment she locks her door.’

Miss Grey was not easily frightened but she wished Liza lived in a more salubrious neighbourhood. It was such a crooked smelly lane into which she led her.

‘Is this where you live, dear? Now give me the key, I promised Mr Smith I’d see you into your house.’

Liza saw she could no longer fool Miss Grey. ‘It’s not my house. I live in the next street, it’s Simon who lives here and he was not at the theatre either and I think in some way they’re mixed up.’

Miss Grey was just about to ask in what way when she was distracted by the noise of splintering wood falling into the street from a window, and a triumphant voice which she would know anywhere said: ‘You’ve done it, Simon. You’ve done it.’

‘Margaret!’ Liza shouted. ‘We’re here, me and Miss Grey, and we don’t know how to get in.’

Margaret did not know either but Miss Grey had the answer. She put her police whistle in her mouth and blew.

Chapter Twenty-five

THE END

The Little Queen ran several weeks longer than was expected because so many people wanted to have a look at Margaret. Although of course the police pooh-poohed the idea, the story got around that Matron, or Ma Mud as the public called her, was a witch. Unless she had vanished on a broomstick how had she escaped from the house the exact moment Miss Grey blew her police whistle? But escape she had, though police all over the country were searching for her.