Inside, the pews were like the ones in railway carriages. ‘Let’s go up to the gallery,’ whispered Rose. ‘We’ll get a better look from there.’

They sat in the front of the gallery and looked down. A smell of unwashed poverty rose up from the well of the church and Rose held a scented handkerchief to her nose.

‘I wonder’, she murmured to Daisy, ‘why the rector ended up in a poor area, living like this. Perhaps there is something in his past which put him out of favour.’

They got to their feet for the opening hymn. As they sang, Rose saw the rector in his robes walking down the aisle. He climbed up the steps to the pulpit, grasped the wings of the golden eagle which decorated the pulpit and stared down at the congregation.

‘Look!’ hissed Rose when the hymn finished. Jeremy Tremaine was walking down to a lectern under the pulpit.

Jeremy began reading from the Revelation of Saint John the Divine.

‘And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.’

‘What’s a sardine stone?’ asked Daisy.

‘Shhh!’

Jeremy’s voice droned on soporifically. ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat upon him was Death.’

He cast his eyes up piously and then they suddenly sharpened and focused directly on Rose and Daisy. He slammed the Bible shut and strode off down the aisle. His father looked down in surprise at his son’s retreating figure and then looked at the gallery. When he saw them, for a brief moment his face was a mask of fury.

Then the next hymn began.

The lady’s maid, Turner, waited to be summoned by Rose. When no summons came, she went to Rose’s bedchamber. Finding it empty, she checked the sitting-room and then Daisy’s room.

Turner became very worried. Only the other day, Lady Polly had threatened her with dismissal if she tried to cover up what Rose was doing.

She went down to the breakfast room. ‘My lady,’ she said, ‘Lady Rose is not in her rooms. Neither is Miss Levine.’

The earl and countess stared at her in alarm.

Brum gave a discreet cough. ‘The coachman was saying this morning that the ladder that was left in the garden was now in the lane by the mews. Also there are footprints of ladies’ boots in the mud in the mews.’

‘Damn the girl!’ roared the earl. ‘Get Cathcart!’

* * *

As they both walked down from the gallery, Rose said, ‘This, I feel, is a dangerous mistake. I think we should leave.’

‘Me, too,’ said Daisy, heaving a sigh of relief.

They had to wait in line. The parishioners were shaking hands with the rector at the church door.

When it came their turn, Rose put out her hand and said, ‘We were in the neighbourhood and thought we would visit your charming church.’