His brother scanned the pavements. ‘She could be anywhere. Why don’t you try the Edgware Road?’

Without a word Matt shot down a side road, turned round and headed back the way they’d come.

After another half an hour, Luke had clearly had enough. ‘Let’s go back. We’re never going to find her, and it’s nearly dark now.’

With great reluctance Matt had to admit that his brother was right. He’d been driving around aimlessly, without the faintest notion of where the girl might have gone. Concern sat like a heavy weight on him as he drove past Marble Arch Station and headed back home. God keep you safe, he prayed silently.

‘Did you find her?’ their mother asked as soon as they walked into the drawing room.

‘Sorry, Mother.’ Matt sat down and picked up one of the newspapers now littering the room. ‘Did you find anything?’

‘No,’ John said. Whatever frightened her on the train isn’t in any of these newspapers. At least we don’t think so, but really, we haven’t any idea what or who she’s running from.’

Luke poured himself a drink and shrugged. ‘It’s out of our hands now. We’ve done all we can.’

‘Yes!’ Louise glared at her husband. ‘We’ve thrown a young girl out to fend for herself. And I, for one, am very worried about her safety.’

‘Ah, my dear, don’t upset yourself so,’ her husband soothed. ‘We’ve dismissed servants before, and I’m sure this one was lying to us. We couldn’t keep her.’

‘Maybe not,’ she agreed, still looking concerned. ‘If she was masquerading as a servant, then we obviously couldn’t have kept her. But I would have preferred to know what this was all about, and to see that she had somewhere else to go.’

Matt watched his mother. He had never seen her so concerned, and he felt the same.

‘What do you think about all this, Matt?’ she asked her youngest son.

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But I wish I’d been able to bring her back here until we’d got to the bottom of the mystery.’

‘There’s no mystery,’ his father said with an air of exasperation. ‘The girl was untrustworthy. You must never take anyone on without proper references again, Louise. It only leads to trouble. Now let us have an end to this. I will not have a thief under my roof! And if those items had really belonged to her, she would have explained, and that would have saved all this unpleasantness.’

‘But she didn’t steal the snuffboxes, Gilbert, and you had no proof that the dress and pendant were stolen by her.’

‘Of course they were! Her silence condemned her.’

Matt glanced at his mother and frowned. They were very alike in temperament. And, it seemed, the only two who were worried about the girl.