‘Did I? Oh, well, see to it Mr Jarvis.’

‘My lord . . .’ began Brum.

‘What now?’

‘If I may speak, my lord. It concerns Lady Rose and her dark secret.’

‘She doesn’t have a dark secret!’ howled the earl. ‘Oh, what is it?’

‘The Morning Bugle has picked up on the Daily Mail’s story and has a large feature on Lady Rose about her involvement in previous murders and the fact that her fiancé is the captain here. They have published a photograph of Lady Rose taken a year ago at a garden party in which she looks sad. They say she must break the bounds of loyalty and tell the police what she knows. I did not wish to distress you, but several newspapers were on the doorstep yesterday.’

Harry eyed Brum’s impassive face and was suddenly sure that the butler had taken money from the reporters and had supplied them with fantasies about Rose in return.

‘This is serious,’ said Harry. ‘I should have read the popular papers instead of the Times. I am afraid Lady Rose will need to be kept indoors until we are sure she is safe.’

Rose was summoned. She turned slightly pale when she realized Harry was taking the threat seriously. Daisy had just told her about the letter.

‘It may be just some crank,’ said Harry soothingly, ‘but it is as well to be safe.’

Rose and Daisy were kept indoors. Rose had books to read to pass the time but Daisy felt she would die of boredom and repeatedly said she could not understand why the ban on going out of doors applied to her as well.

One bright sunny day after they had been kept in for almost two weeks, even Rose began to feel she could not bear this form of genteel imprisonment any more.

She stood by the window looking down at the square. ‘If only we could go outside for a little walk,’ she mourned. ‘We could try,’ said Daisy eagerly. ‘Lord and Lady Hadshire have gone down to Stacey Court for the weekend.’

‘They might have told me. Why go into the country?’

‘Some boundary dispute.’

‘I do think my parents are a trifle odd. They might have said something to me at dinner last night.’

‘Maybe they didn’t want to tell you in case you thought it a good opportunity to get out of the house.’

‘Brum will stop us going. And what about Turner?’ Turner was Lady Rose’s recently hired lady’s maid.

‘I’ll tell them you have a headache and want to be left alone,’ said Daisy eagerly. ‘Then we can wait until they are taking their luncheon and slip out. With my lord and lady being away, they’ll be careless about guarding us. They’ll be sitting down for luncheon any minute now. You wait here and I’ll tell Turner to join the others for luncheon as she will not be needed for the rest of the day.’

Rose waited eagerly for Daisy’s return. Daisy was back after only a few minutes. ‘Let’s wear our plainest clothes,’ said Daisy. ‘We don’t want to attract any attention to ourselves, even though the press have given up watching the house.’