‘I must take it from you and get it to Aunt Rosamud, and then it’ll all stop I think, all will be back to normal, the city Iremongers will go back to the city and all will be well again, and I’ll come and see you every night, without fail. And you’ll be safe, quite safe. You’ll be safe just as soon as you give me the door handle, but if you don’t give it to me then they’ll keep searching for you and they’ll find you, and then, oh Lucy, if they find you with that door handle I’ve no notion what they’ll do with you, but it shall be awful dreadful, and whatever it is they do to you, it will mean one thing for certain, that if they find you with that in your bonnet then they’ll not forgive you, and then, for certain, for an absolute certainly, you shan’t be coming upstairs any more, and I shall never see you again. And the thought of that is so terrible to me. Give it to me, Lucy, give it to me now, Lucy Pennant, and let me help you!’

What a speech it was. I found my hands undoing my bonnet, but stopped a moment.

‘On one condition,’ I said.

‘Now, Lucy, you ought to hurry! You know you should!’

‘There’s something you must do.’

‘Anything! Only name it and give me the handle!’

‘I’m looking for a friend of mine, an Iremonger downstairs, she was out on the heaps, or in the ashroom, and she’s disappeared and they’re making such a fuss about it, and I want to know where she’s gone, I think she’s in danger, and I want you to help me.’

‘Anything, just give me the handle.’

‘You’ll find out what happened to her?’

‘Yes, I’ll try what I may, what was her name, how will I know her to talk of?’

‘That’s the easy part,’ I said, ‘she’s the Iremonger that’s gone missing.’

‘Right then!’ he said and held out his hand.

‘She lost her name, she scratched it somewhere here in Heap House, but she can’t remember where she put it.’

‘I’ve probably seen it. You should have asked earlier. People have written their names all over the shop.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Some have been burned with a magnifying glass like Jaime Brinkley, 1804, but that is on a window seat that was made before it got here.’

‘A female, Clod. Seen any female names?’

‘Helen Bullen, Form 2B.’

‘Where was that?’

‘It’s on a ruler in the schoolroom.’

‘I don’t think that’s her.’

‘This is the Property of Prunella Mason, Keep Off. That’s on a chest in the Long Gallery.’

‘No, no I don’t think so.’

‘Florence Balcombe, 1875.’

‘Where was that?’

‘Um, one of the back staircases. On a step scratched in.’