“Jesus,” Lindsay gasped, “I’m even less fit than I thought I was. This is where you do your stuff. I don’t think I’m agile enough for this bit. You go along the scaffolding till you get to the end window. Then you use a knife blade to slip the catch and climb into the room through the window. Be careful not to damage the paintwork. Do you think you can do that?”

Chris grinned. “No bother at all. I’m a gymnast, you know, not just a lump of brawn. You’d need to be pretty sure-footed to do this by the way and pretty strong, given the fetching and carrying involved.”

At first she inched her way gingerly along, but soon she was moving with assurance along the lower bar. As she reached the window she pulled herself up and on to the upper bar. There she crouched, leaning against the window frame as she slipped out the knife Lindsay had given her. It took heart-stopping moments fiddling around with the blade before the catch slipped open, but once she had managed it, she unclipped her harness and was inside the music room in seconds.

A few moments later, she re-emerged on the window ledge. She leaned over and hooked her gear back on to the pole as a precaution. Then she slammed the window shut with surprisingly little noise and tested it to make sure the catch had dropped back into place.

Next she swung back on to the lower pole. She called to Lindsay, “I may as well dismantle as I go,” and came back crabwise for the necessary tools. It was only a matter of a few minutes before they were both staggering back through the grounds to the building site to replace the bits and pieces. It was still not long after eleven.

They returned to Paddy’s rooms to wait for Cordelia, and collapsed into armchairs. “There’s one thing,” she said. “Whoever did that was definitely on the strong side, and very fit. I feel quite tired and I didn’t even carry the scaffolding over. Unless whoever did it took more than one trip to get the stuff there.”

Lindsay agreed whole-heartedly. She knew just how heavy and how awkward the poles were. These were problems, however, that could be overcome by Chris’s suggestions of more than one trip, and of using rope to get them on to the roof. Not wanting to discuss the details further, Lindsay steered the conversation into other channels, and when Cordelia returned just after twelve, they were deep in discussion about the relative merits of Lindsay’s MG and other sports cars.

Chris broke off immediately to ask the score. “They won three-two,” Cordelia reported. “Sarah Cartwright played a fine game. She scored twice and laid on the third. Very impressive.”