To the growing pile of stolen goods Sybil added her own leather wallet, containing bank notes. Then, just after three in the afternoon (later than she had originally planned), she made her way to the room that Ronnie and Sally shared with their mother. Precious time was wasted as Sybil hid in the shadows under the stairs waiting for two residents to dawdle by – then she shot into the family’s bedroom, where, with her heart pounding, she had to take several deep breaths.

‘Keep cool, take it easy,’ she told herself.

Removing the stolen goods from her shopping bag, Sybil went around the room secreting them in Ronnie and Sally’s higgledy-piggledy chest of drawers, under the bed, at the back of the wardrobe, even behind the little sink unit in the corner of the room. Her wallet she slipped into a cardboard box containing some old rusty cars; then, when everything had been deposited, Sybil fled the room with barely ten minutes to spare before Ronnie and Sally returned home from school.

Lying exhausted on her narrow bed, Sybil wondered how long it would be before someone noticed something missing and raised the alarm. All she had to do now was wait for her plan to unfold.

As it turned out, she didn’t have long to wait, as during the course of that first evening and the following day various residents discovered that articles that belonged to them had disappeared.

As questions were raised, Sybil added hers to the list. ‘My wallet’s disappeared too.’

‘So’s my powder compact and lipstick,’ a girl chimed up. ‘I left them in my room, but they’re not there now.’

When Sister Mary Paul breathlessly reported that some silver cutlery had gone missing from the store cupboard, Matron looked at the mounting list of missing articles that had been reported throughout the day.

‘This is ridiculous!’ she exclaimed in sheer frustration. ‘I have no choice but to report this to the Reverend Mother immediately.’

After each resident with a claim to being robbed had been thoroughly questioned about their missing goods and their value, the Reverend Mother turned to Sister Mary Paul, who mournfully said, ‘The teaspoons were all silver-plated, but the little cream-and-sugar set was solid silver and worth quite a lot of money. We used them only on special occasions.’

Bridling with indignation, the Reverend Mother announced to a very flushed Sister Mary Paul, ‘We cannot allow a thief to live under our roof. I have absolutely no choice but to call in the police.’

Sometime later a young, rather self-conscious police constable, holding a notepad and the stub of a chewed pencil, questioned the residents who had had articles stolen. When it came to Sybil’s turn, sitting primly in an armchair with her ankles neatly crossed, she, like several others, mentioned that Ronnie and Sally had recently been discovered stealing food from the kitchen.