“I couldn’t tell you, my lady. He doesn’t confide in ordinary coppers. I’m told to go and fetch you, and I go. Now if you could hurry and get dressed, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

I tried to think of a crushing retort. He was, after all, speaking to the daughter of a duke and second cousin to the king. I opened my mouth to say that if Sir William Rollins wished to speak to me, he could present himself at Rannoch House. But I couldn’t make the words come out. In fact my legs were a trifle shaky as I went back upstairs. What could Scotland Yard possibly want with me? And not just Scotland Yard, but somebody frightfully high up there? In my past dealings with the Metropolitan Police I had had to contend with a truly obnoxious inspector and a rather smarmy chief inspector. Clearly this was something more serious, then, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what. . . . Unless . . . Surely they couldn’t have found out about last night? And even if they had, I had done nothing against the law—had I?

I grabbed the first dress I could find in my wardrobe that looked vaguely presentable, ran a brush through my hair, cleaned my teeth and splashed water on my face. Then I came downstairs again to face whatever I had coming to me. I found it hard to breathe as the squad car whisked me toward Whitehall and entered into the forecourt of Scotland Yard. The door was held open for me and I tried to enter with my head held high, only to trip over the doormat and come flying into the foyer at a full stagger. (That tendency to clumsiness in moments of stress again, I’m afraid.)

Even more humiliating for me, a young, fresh-faced bobby grabbed me and saved me from crashing into a glass partition. “Keen to be arrested, are you, miss?” he said, giving me a cheeky grin.

I tried to give him a look that would have done my great-grandmother credit when she pronounced the words “We are not amused,” but somehow I couldn’t make my face obey me either.

“This way, your ladyship,” my original escort said, and ushered me into a lift. It seemed to take an eternity to go up. I found I was holding my breath, but by the time we reached the fifth floor, I had to gasp. At last it juddered to a halt. The constable pulled back the concertina door and I stepped out into a deserted hallway. At the end of the hall he pressed a button. A door opened and we were admitted to an outer office where two young women were busy typing. This was different from my previous experience of Scotland Yard. The floor was carpeted, for one thing, and the rich, herby smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air.