Humphrey glared at Daisy and then went off, returning shortly with their coats.

‘That’s better,’ said Rose. ‘I think we should hear what the lecture is about and then talk to Mrs Stockton afterwards. We cannot ask her outright about the ten thousand pounds or she will ask how we came by our information. But we can get to know her and find out if there is anything about her, any weakness, that would cause her to be blackmailed.’

‘You could get close to that son of hers easily enough,’ said Daisy. ‘He’s leering at you across the room.’

‘I don’t think I could bear it.’ Rose speared a lettuce leaf and looked at it gloomily. ‘I am going to be quite hungry after this. Did you see any bread?’

‘Not a bit.’

‘Then it’s more nut cutlets, I’m afraid. Oh, look, they are serving coffee and tea at that other table.’

They helped themselves to more cutlets, but found that the tea was camomile and the coffee, dandelion.

‘I’m sure it’s all very healthy,’ mourned Daisy. ‘What I’d give for a pint of beer and a meat pie.’

At last they were summoned to the lecture, which was to take place in a drawing-room on the first floor.

‘Who is Rudolf Steiner anyway?’ asked Daisy as they took their seats.

‘I asked Jarvis this morning. Pa’s secretary is a fund of knowledge. He said that Steiner is an occult philosopher.’

‘Occult? Witches and warlocks?’

‘No, something to do with the world of the spirit.’

Mrs Stockton stood on a stage which had been erected at the end of the room. ‘My lord, ladies and gentlemen,’ she began. ‘As you know, like Mr Steiner, we are all dedicated vegetarians. Meat corrupts the body and banishes us from the world of the spirit.

‘As our great teacher said, “The soul which gives itself over to the inner illumination recognizes in itself not only what it was before the illumination; it also recognizes what it has become only through this illumination.”’

‘What does that mean?’ whispered Daisy.

‘Blessed if I know,’ said Rose, burrowing deeper into her furs.

Despite the warmth provided by the fur coat given to her by Rose, Daisy could feel the tip of her nose turning pink and her feet were like two blocks of ice.

Mrs Stockton’s words drifted in and out of her brain. ‘“No one is hindered from making fruitful in the natural and social realms that which is brought over from the wellspring of spiritual life by those who have the right to speak of the principle of initiation,” so speaks the master.’

Then Daisy began to become uneasily aware of gas building up under her stays. She realized she would need to get out of the room before she delivered herself of what her family in the East End would call a ‘real knicker ripper’.