‘Wait!’ Kerridge held up a hand for silence. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

Rose and Harry waited patiently while the superintendent sat lost in thought. He was a grey man with grey hair and bushy grey eyebrows. ‘I correspond still with a policeman in a village called Drifton, near Scarborough in Yorkshire. I met him once when I was up there on a case. Regular chap with a delightful family. Lovely village which no outsider visits. What if Lady Rose and Miss Levine here were billeted with him for a bit? He could do with a bit of extra money.’

‘I cannot see my parents accepting that idea,’ said Rose stiffly. ‘Furthermore, I have no desire to live with a policeman in some Yorkshire village.’

There was a commotion downstairs. The earl and countess had arrived home. They could hear the earl shouting, ‘Where is she? And get those damned reporters off my front step.’

He entered the drawing-room, shrugging off his sealskin coat and dropping it to the floor. A footman picked it up and handed it to the earl’s valet.

Kerridge thought it odd that Lady Polly did not hug her daughter. She simply sat down, unpinning her hat and handing it to her maid, before haranguing Rose for having dared to leave the house.

‘I have an idea, my lady,’ said Kerridge. He told them about his policeman friend in the Yorkshire village.

The earl and countess stared at him in silence. Rose waited for her parents to tell the superintendent he was talking rubbish.

To her dismay, her mother said slowly, ‘How long would Lady Rose be away?’

‘Several months, I’m afraid. Give us a chance to catch this fellow.’

Rose’s parents fell silent again. Lady Polly thought of months without having to worry and worry about her troublesome daughter. She and her husband enjoyed society but they had had little enjoyment recently because of fretting about Rose’s odd engagement.

The earl was thinking that several months away from Cathcart and she might change her mind about this ridiculous engagement.

‘Is this policeman respectable?’ he asked.

‘Oh, very,’ said Kerridge. ‘Good church-goer.’

‘And does he have children?’

‘Got five young ’uns.’

‘Would the police station have enough room to house my daughter and Daisy?’

‘Big old rabbit warren of a place. I’m sure he’d find room. I’ll telephone him now, if you like.’

‘He has a telephone?’ asked the earl, who thought that magic instrument was only confined to the upper reaches of society.

‘Yes, he has, my lord.’

‘Why can’t I stay with Aunt Dizzy in Scotland, or Aunt Matilda in Dover?’ asked Rose.

‘Because this murderer can find out who your relatives are and I don’t want you anywhere where there are servants who might talk. Would you like me to telephone this man? He is PC Bert Shufflebottom.’

Daisy giggled. ‘What a name!’

‘I’ll have you know, my girl, that Shufflebottom is a good old Yorkshire name.’

The earl made up his mind. He rang the bell. ‘Get Mr Jarvis here.’ When the secretary entered, he told him to take the superintendent to the telephone.