Left alone, I lay on my bed, but couldn’t relax. I got up and paced around the room. From my window I spotted Whiffy Featherstonehaugh striding out away from the house. At one point he looked up at the house and then hurried on. I watched him, my thoughts churning. Someone I had known for most of my life—a Guards officer, a little stiff and stuffy, perhaps, but surely not a murderer. But he was also a frequent visitor at Crockford’s, at times when de Mauxville had been there. And . . . I remembered one thing more . . . the impression on the pad beside the telephone in de Mauxville’s room: R—10:30. Whiffy’s name was Roderick. Somehow I had to confront him this weekend. I had to find out the truth. I was fed up with living with danger.

I put such thoughts aside and applied myself to the task of getting dressed for dinner. For once I had to look respectable. I had brought a cream silk dress with burgundy sleeves that complemented my coloring rather well and had enough shape to it to prevent me from looking like a bean-pole. I ventured a little rouge to my cheeks, a dash of lipstick to my lips, and put my twenty-first birthday pearls around my neck. I was rather proud of doing the whole thing without help. Thus adorned, I went to meet and mingle. My end of the corridor was unlit and I descended the little spiral staircase with caution. One step. Two. Suddenly I lost my footing, pitched forward, and hurtled downward. There was no banister and my hands slid off smooth walls. I suppose it all happened quickly but it was almost as if I were flying downward in slow motion. I saw a suit of armor looming up ahead of me only an instant before I collided with it. I noticed that its ax was raised and I raised my own arms to defend myself. There was a crash, a clatter, and I found myself sitting with bits of armor raining down around me.

Instantly people came running up from below.

“Georgie, are you all right?”

Worried faces stared at me as I was helped to my feet. I brushed myself down and appeared not to have suffered any major damage, apart from some scrapes to my arms and a laddered stocking.

“I should have warned you about that staircase,” Lady Mountjoy was saying. “The lighting is poor. I’ve spoken to William about it.”

“Honestly, Georgie,” Belinda said, attempting to laugh it off, “I swear you’d find something to trip over in the middle of a large polished floor. Oh, your poor arm. Lucky you weren’t wearing long gloves or you would have ruined them. Let’s go back to your room and get it cleaned up. And you’ve laddered your stockings. Do you want another pair?”