She was not seated next to him at table and so talked a little to the gentleman on her right – of the weather – and the gentleman on her left – on the state of the nation – picked at her food and thought the wretched meal with its eight courses would never end. How wonderful it would be, she thought, if I were to pick up the table-cloth and bundle all this food and take it down to the East End.

At last the hostess signalled to the ladies to join her in the drawing-room and leave the gentlemen to their port.

‘Why are you looking so nervous?’ whispered Daisy.

‘Nothing.’ Rose wanted to tell Harry about her discovery first. A little twinge of guilt warned her that she should have confided in Daisy first, but Rose wanted to impress Harry, to show him she could detect as well.

At last the gentlemen came in. Bridge tables were being set up and Daisy’s green eyes gleamed like a cat’s. She was a killing bridge player.

Harry joined Rose. She whispered urgently, ‘I must talk to you in private.’

‘There’s a conservatory at the back of the house. Let’s walk there.’

In the steamy warmth of the conservatory, they sat down on a bench in front of a marble statue of Niobe.

Harry was the first to speak. Rose listened in amazement when he told her how Berrow and Banks had hired Finch and how his secretary had nearly been killed. ‘The police commissioner in York is going to arrest them. Don’t you see? You are safe now. They must have been the ones behind the murder of Dolly.’

Rose’s splendid deduction was losing its glow, but she said, ‘I have discovered something as well. I am sure it was Jeremy Tremaine who hired Reg Bolton.’

‘Why?’

‘There is this Cockney who comes to the soup kitchen. He found God in prison. Don’t you see? Jeremy is a divinity student. He could have been visiting prisoners and found a useful one.’

‘I really do think we’ll find out it was Berrow and Banks.’

Rose looked so disappointed that he said hurriedly, ‘To put your mind at rest, I can leave now and go to Wormwood Scrubs and check the book for visiting clerics.’

‘Take me with you. Please!’

‘Very well. Tell Daisy to take Turner home in a cab.’

Normally Daisy would have been curious, but she was so addicted to cards that she only nodded.

At the prison, the governor protested that he was too busy a man to keep dealing with Captain Cathcart’s requests.

Rose gave him a blinding smile and the governor thawed. He not only produced the required books but suggested that he take Rose on a tour of the prison.

Wormwood Scrubs proved to be even larger than Rose had imagined. It generally contained a thousand male and two hundred female convicts. They walked round the laundries where the women worked and then to the bakeries where the prisoners in their ugly uniforms were baking bread. There was also shoemaking and tailoring going on.