‘No, thank you. I decided to work this morning because I planned to visit my mother in the country tomorrow. I was going through Saturday’s post and found this. It had been delivered by hand.

Harry took the cheap envelope and extracted a piece of lined paper. He read: ‘If you want to see your daughter again, bring five thousand guineas to Jack Straw’s Castle in Hampstead on Monday at two in the afternoon. Don’t tell no one or she’s dead.’

‘Jack Straw’s Castle – that’s that pub on Hampstead Heath, isn’t it?’ asked Harry.

‘Yes. Oh, what are we to do?’ wailed Matthew. ‘If the police are informed, it will all come out that Lady Rose was working for a living and she will be socially damned for the rest of her life!’

‘Leave it with me,’ said Harry. ‘Becket, get my hat and coat and come with me.’

‘So,’ said Harry, when he and Becket were confronting Miss Harringey half an hour later, ‘you will understand that as Miss Rose’s brother, I am anxious to find her. I have but recently returned from Australia.’

‘Some vulgar man called on her. Miss Summer took him into the hall and closed the door on me. As I am a lady, I do not listen at doors.’

‘It must be very hard for you, taking care of these young ladies who lodge here,’ said Harry.

‘I do my best, sir.’

Harry slowly pulled out a rouleau of guineas and extracted five. He then let the gold coins slide slowly from hand to hand. ‘I am prepared to pay for information. Perhaps one of the other ladies . . .?’

Staring at the gold, Miss Harringey said, ‘I did manage to hear a few words.’

‘Which were?’

‘I wasn’t really listening, but they had left my door open a crack. He said he was Billy Gardon. He said Daisy had been taken ill at the theatre. He said he had a flat at the top of the theatre.’

What a lot of information for someone who wasn’t really listening, thought Harry cynically. He placed the five guineas on the edge of a lace-covered bamboo table. It must be Butler’s Music Hall. Daisy used to work there.

Rose and Daisy were lying side by side on the narrow bed, bound and gagged. Tears of weakness spilled down Rose’s cheeks. Her thoughts had only been for Daisy when she had entered the room ahead of Billy and had seen the still figure of Daisy lying on the bed. As she bent over her, Billy had charged and knocked her flat on the bed over Daisy’s body and, pinning her down with his great bulk, had tied her wrists. Then he had gagged her and tied her ankles as well and shoved her on the bed after he had bound and gagged the drugged lady’s maid as well.