I sat upright again. After today I could never go back to his villa. I had failed the queen in my task. Well, maybe not quite. I looked out the window. There was no sign of his yacht yet, which must mean he was still out at sea—and that the villa was temptingly vacant—except for Johnson. I knew he had been sent into town on an errand so he might well not have returned either. If there had been other servants they were not in evidence while I was there. Might it be possible to climb down the cliff and enter the house by the French doors by the pool and then take the queen’s snuffbox?

The thought of it made my heart lurch. Then I decided that if I bumped into a servant, all I needed was a good excuse for having come back. I had left my—what? I hadn’t come with the proverbial gloves or purse. I had come with nothing. An earring—that was it. Small enough to have rolled under something. I had lost a valuable pearl earring and I wanted to see if it fell out while I was at Sir Toby’s. Yes. That was satisfactory and should appease Johnson or anyone else I met. I went upstairs and took out one of my pearl earrings to use as evidence.

“Oh, I didn’t know you wanted yer pearls tonight, melady,” Queenie said, looking up from laying things out on my bed. I noticed she had put out my daytime lisle stockings to go with my evening wear. “I thought you said pearls were for daytime.”

“They are. I just needed this earring. Maybe the amethysts for tonight?”

I changed out of my white linen trousers and put on an ordinary skirt and blouse and sandals. Then I ran back downstairs, my heart still racing. It was a perfect time—the others weren’t home yet. Neither was Sir Toby. Nobody to see me climb down the cliff and sneak past his swimming pool. Out of the back of the house, across the terrace and down through the bushes to one side of the stone balustrade I went. It was no longer raining but the hillside was slick with reddish mud. I slithered and slipped my way down, clinging to pine trees and shrubs as I descended not at all gracefully.