I made my way back to Kensington Palace. A maid greeted me in the front hall. “There have been some messages for you, my lady,” she said. “On the tray over there.”

My heart gave a little leap of joy. Darcy would have left me his telephone number. The first one was a telegram and I opened it with trepidation. It was from my grandfather. It said, Lightfingers don’t want to do it. Sorry. I looked at it and had to laugh, even though I was disappointed at not being able to crack Bobo’s safe. Still, the police would surely have their own contacts among safecrackers and could take it from here.

The second message was from Noel Coward. Have set up a little soiree on Sunday, if you and the charming princess are free. Chez moi. And he added his address. Shall we say cocktails at six? I read.

What a glamorous life I was leading these days. I thought back to the time of baked beans on toast and how easily one adapts to messages from luminaries like Noel Coward saying “Cocktails at six.”

But that was it. No message from Darcy. I had just gone upstairs to change my clothes, which were now rather rain-sodden, when I heard my name being called. Irmtraut came stomping out of her bedroom at the end of the hall.

“Where have you been? I do not see you all day.” It sounded more like an accusation than a friendly inquiry.

“I had to visit a sick friend,” I said. “She’s in a convalescent home on the south coast.” It is so much easier when one doesn’t have to lie.

“Ah so.” She nodded as if she couldn’t find anything to criticize in this behavior. “So you did not go to meet a man?” She glared.

“A man?”

“I saw you with a man last night,” she said. “You were in an embrace with him outside the front door.”

“That was my intended.”

“I do not wish to hear what you intended to do,” she said.

“No, I meant that I plan to marry him.”

“He is suitable? Of the right social class?”

“Quite unsuitable in most ways,” I said. “But yes, he’s of the right social class. Son of a peer.”

“A pair of what?”

“No, a peer. An aristocrat.”

“Ach so. This is good.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said. I had had enough of being polite to her. “And speaking of snooping, may I ask why you told the authorities that you had seen me in the courtyard when you know that wasn’t true?”