Ten minutes later, she was back, quivering with information.

“Yes. It’s King’s. And Earwig would love to keep you company if you can get your hands on a ticket. She reminds you it’s Saturday week and tickets are most probably all sold. And she thinks she can identify your mysterious lady in purple! She guesses she could well be the most recent recruit to Madame Dorine’s stable. Light brown hair—short and fluffy? Medium height? Slim on the whole, if a bit busty? Neat feet?”

“Possibly. I know twenty girls who’d answer that description.”

“Now what else did Earwig say? Ah yes! It won’t mean anything to you, Johnny, but she said the girl she’s met is the spitting image of one of the fairies in Flower Fairies of the Spring—the children’s book that came out last year—the Heartsease Fairy. Page ten.”

“What on earth is ‘Heartsease,’ Aunt? And more pertinently, what on earth would Earwig be doing rootling about in a fairy book?”

“It’s the country name for wild pansy. You must have seen them every springtime in the Grantchester meadows. When I was a small thing, the village children used to call it ‘jump-up-and-kiss-me.’ You know, the little violet-coloured, pointy-chinned flower faces that always look as though they’re smiling up at you? Puckering up to give you a smacker?”

“We have the wrong girl, then.” Redfyre scowled. The sharp tongue, bad temper and clenched right fist put him more in mind of that other purple flower of the English countryside—the thistle—and he said so.

“Not at all prickly! She’s friendly when approached but reserved, according to Earwig. It must have been something you said, darling.”

“I assume our friend Earwig lost no time in approaching?”

“Of course. She moved in. And when she found out who the girl was, she must have been pleased she’d made the effort to get alongside. This could be quite a coup! A happy find!”

“Well? Are you going to tell us she’s a Pankhurst? Or a Fawcett?”

“Not quite that, I’m afraid, but intriguing all the same.” Henrietta announced, smugly: “Your mysterious dancer would appear to be a Miss Rosamund Wells. Twenty-two years old, unattached as far as anyone knows. Family home in London. Her mother having died last year, young Rosamund has gone to live with her father, Dr. Cornelius Wells, the newly appointed master of Jude’s. In his newly acquired fiefdom, just over the wall from Johnny.”

“God help the poor child!” said Gerald fervently. “To be installed in Jude’s! A cruel and undeserved punishment for any female. I don’t like to think of little Pansy-Face trapped behind that wall with two hundred reclusive, hair-shirted misanthropes! You must ride to her rescue, my boy!”

The telephone call that greeted Redfyre on his return to Cambridge was from Dr. Beaufort.