‘I’ll look,’ said Daisy. ‘If anything’s hidden, it’ll be on the little ledge above the hearth.’

‘These are Tudor chimneys,’ Rose pointed out. ‘They probably go straight up. Don’t take off your evening gloves, Daisy. If there’s anything there, we don’t want to leave fingerprints.’

Daisy crouched down on the hearth and reached up into the chimney. She felt around. ‘Nothing,’ she declared, sitting back on her heels. She tried the bedroom chimney, but there was nothing there either.

‘Let’s hurry and try Lord Alfred’s chimney.’

Another search along the old twisting corridors until they found Lord Alfred’s room.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ said Daisy. ‘I don’t want that manservant of his returning and finding us. He frightens me.’

Again, she knelt down to search up a chimney.

‘Nothing here either.’ She then searched the bedroom chimney. Nothing but soot.

‘It was a mad idea anyway,’ said Rose. ‘I know, let’s try Mr Jerry’s room, or rather, his wife’s bedroom. If the killer was in a hurry, he might have hidden it there.’

‘Hurry, hurry,’ urged Daisy. ‘Don’t want to get caught.’

Rose felt a frisson of fear as she opened the late Mrs Jerry’s bedroom door. Of course the body had been removed, but somehow the air still smelt of the patchouli that Mrs Jerry liked to spray on herself.

Daisy went quickly to the chimney. Again, her searching fingers couldn’t find anything. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she urged.

Back in their sitting-room, Daisy stripped off her sooty gloves. ‘Turner will wonder what I’ve been up to.’

‘Just tell her you dropped a brooch in the grate and you were looking for it.’

‘She’ll wonder why I didn’t just unbutton them at the wrist and peel them back like we do in the dining-room.’

‘Forget Turner. Let me think. Of course. The killer would hardly stand in front of her and inject whatever drug it was into the champagne bottle. He, or she, would take the bottle to their room. People don’t normally carry syringes around with them. So whoever it was must have come prepared. But why? Did Mrs Jerry threaten the murderer in London?’