I considered this. “Yes, I think I heard the latch click behind me. I don’t know if Roderick Featherstonehaugh was still in the house when I left. He might have been the one to have left the door open. As my brother said, when one is used to servants in the house, one doesn’t think about locking doors.”

Burnall rose to his feet. “Sorry to have troubled you again, my lady. If you happen to remember seeing any of those items, do get in touch, won’t you? And the little Chinese figure—if you hurry up and get it repaired, I’ll take it back to Lady Featherstonehaugh and I’ll be suitably vague about where we located it.”

“Very kind of you, Chief Inspector.”

“The least I could do, my lady.”

My grandfather was waiting in the front hall with the inspector’s hat. He inclined his head to me and departed. I went upstairs again to finish Fig’s room. Having specks of dust pointed out to me would be the last thing I could stand at the moment. In fact I was so wound up I felt as if I might snap. More than anything I was furious with myself for being so naïve. Darcy had just been using me. Why else would he have sought out my company after he found out that I was as penniless as he? I wasn’t the sort of fun-loving, nightclubbing girl he liked. I ran downstairs and put on my coat.

“I’m going out,” I shouted to my grandfather and took a cab to Chelsea.

Darcy looked as if he had just got out of bed. He was barefoot, in a toweling robe, and he hadn’t shaved and his hair was tousled. I tried not to register how very attractive that looked. His eyes lit up when he saw me on the doorstep.

“Well, what a surprise this is. Good morning to you, my lovely. Have you come back to continue from where we left off the other night?”

“I’ve come back to tell you that you are a despicable rat and I never want to see you again and you’re very lucky that I didn’t give your name to the police.”

Those alarming blue eyes opened wide. “Whoa, now. What is it that I can possibly have done to produce such a tirade from those genteel lips?”

“You know perfectly well what you’ve done,” I said. “I have been a complete fool to think you might actually be interested in me. You were using me, weren’t you? You pretended you came to the Featherstonehaughs’ to see me, when you really wanted an excuse to get inside their house and help yourself to their valuables.”

He frowned. “Their valuables?”

“Oh, come on, I’m not that stupid, Darcy. You tiptoe into the house, pretend to flirt with me, and then, miraculously, several valuable items go missing.”