“My dear, I shall be the soul of discretion, as always,” she said. “See you in a jiffy.”

Reluctantly I left her to her task—as I now remembered that she hadn’t always been the soul of discretion at school—and went back to wait nervously at her mews cottage. Time ticked by and finally she arrived back at one thirty, looking smug. “I was only accosted by one reporter. I pretended I had just heard the news and come to hold your hand through the crisis. I was absolutely devastated to find you weren’t there. I was awfully good.”

“But did you find out anything?”

“One of the gardeners in the square saw your brother arrive on foot and then depart in a taxi. He couldn’t tell what time but around the lunch hour, as he was sitting down with his cheese and pickle sandwiches at the time. A chauffeur at the corner house saw a dark-haired man in an overcoat going up the steps of Rannoch House.”

“That would be de Mauxville. So he was alone?”

“One gathers so.”

“So we now know that my brother and de Mauxville did not arrive together, also that de Mauxville didn’t arrive at the same time as anyone else. That must mean that someone was there to let him into the house. Anything else?”

“The only other people the chauffeur remembered seeing were the window cleaners, working their way around the square.”

“Window cleaners!” I said excitedly. “Absolutely perfect. A window cleaner could slip into the house through an open window, slip out again, and it wouldn’t matter if he looked wet and bedraggled.”

Belinda nodded. “You don’t happen to know what firm of window cleaners is employed on the square, do you?”

“I don’t. One doesn’t notice window cleaners, unless they peer in one’s bedroom when one is still in bed.”

“I’ll slip back to the square on our way to my salon. I’m sure to encounter a servant who will know. Then we can ring them up and find out who was working this morning.”

“Good idea.” I was feeling positively hopeful.

But by the time we reached the square, more press had arrived and there was not a servant to be seen. Reluctantly we had to continue to Belinda’s salon. She glanced at her watch as we came to Hyde Park Corner.

“Damn, we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.”

“Should we hail a cab?” I asked.

“No need. It’s just off Curzon Street.”

“Mayfair? You pay to have your workshop in Mayfair?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a workshop,” Belinda threw back at me as she dodged between a bus, a taxi, and an elderly Rolls. “I have a little woman in Whitechapel who does the actual sewing for me, but Mayfair is where I meet my clients.”

“Isn’t the rent frightfully expensive?”