“Unless you wanted it to be found,” he said, turning back to look at me. He opened a door at the far end of the courtyard and we stepped into an austere, white-painted hallway. There was no form of adornment on the walls, but the carpet underfoot was rich and thick and the place was delightfully warm.

“Through this way, if you don’t mind.” Major B-C opened a door and stood aside for me to enter first. I stepped into a small sitting room, definitely a man’s room with leather armchairs and the lingering smell of pipe tobacco. Two men had been sitting in the chairs facing the fire. Both rose to their feet as I came in. I hadn’t been expecting to face strangers and was horribly conscious that I was in my nightclothes under the overcoat, with my hair still tousled. This put me at an awful disadvantage.

“Lady Georgiana, I’m so sorry to have to disturb you at this hour,” one of the men said. He was dressed impeccably in a dark gray pin-striped suit and had silver gray hair smoothed back to perfection. What’s more, I recognized him at the same moment that he said, “We have met before. Jeremy Danville of the Home Office. We are forever grateful for the way you helped us with a difficult situation in Scotland a couple of years ago.”

“Sir Jeremy, of course.” I shook his hand. When I had last encountered him it had been on a case involving royal security and I suspected that his job was not that of the usual civil servant.

“I’m sorry we meet again under such difficult circumstances,” Sir Jeremy said. “A tricky situation indeed.”

I nodded as my gaze went to the other man. At first glance he seemed more nondescript and unassuming but he was examining me with a keen gaze and my brain said policeman at the same time that Sir Jeremy said, “And this is Detective Chief Inspector Pelham from the Special Branch, Scotland Yard. He has plenty of experience handling difficult situations like this.” I caught a flicker of annoyance and realized of course that if Sir Jeremy was really in some kind of secret service the last person he’d want to work with would be someone from Special Branch. It was rumored that both departments thought the other was superfluous.

“How do you do, Lady Georgiana.” Chief Inspector Pelham nodded to me but didn’t shake hands. His voice betrayed a trace of a northern accent and I noticed he didn’t smile. Special Branch, I thought. Usually handles matters of national security. The royal family was certainly taking every precaution to make sure this news did not leak out.