‘Oh, thank you. I will call again.’

‘I hear a carriage coming back,’ said Rose. They both crouched down by the fireplace again.

The chimney must lead straight down to the parlour, thought Rose, because she could clearly hear Mrs Tremaine say, ‘The butler said she sneaked out this morning and nobody knows where she is.’

‘Good,’ came Jeremy’s voice. ‘We’d better wait until dark.’

Rose looked wildly round the attic room. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. They must be really mad. If anything happened to us, the captain would think immediately of Apton Magna and check all the cabbies at the station.’

Daisy went over and put her eye to the keyhole. ‘They’ve left the key on the other side. Maybe I can poke it out. We need a piece of paper or cardboard to slide under the door.’

‘There’s that old trunk over there. I’ll lift the lid and see if we can find anything useful.’ She threw back the lid. ‘Schoolbooks. Just the thing. She tore the cardboard cover off one of the books and gave it to Daisy.

Daisy slipped the cardboard under the door and then took a hat-pin out of her hat and poked at the lock. ‘It’s no good,’ she said at last, sitting back on her heels. ‘I need a straight piece of metal. I know, me stays.’

Daisy took off her coat and frock and Rose helped her out of her corset. Then Rose took a little pair of scissors out of her reticule and they unpicked stitches and slid out one of the steels. Daisy put her corset, frock and coat back on again and set to work on the lock. An hour passed while Rose fretted, until Daisy said, ‘Got it!’

She drew the cardboard from under the door with the key on it.

‘Quietly now,’ said Rose. ‘Let’s take our boots off.’

They slipped off their boots. Daisy gently unlocked the door and then locked it again behind them.

Holding their boots, they crept down the stairs. The house was silent. ‘Back door,’ murmured Daisy.’

They walked softly down to the basement, opened the back door and let themselves out into the garden. They put their boots on and went out through the garden gate and began to run across the fields.

Rose finally stopped running. ‘We’d better circle round to the main road or we’ll be lost.’

‘There’s a farmhouse over there,’ said Daisy. ‘Let’s go there and get someone to get the police.’

‘I don’t trust anyone,’ said Rose. ‘The farmer is probably a tenant of the Tremaines and would tell them first. If we bear left, we should meet the road to Moreton.’

They trudged on, always looking fearfully to the left and right.

At last they reached the road. ‘Now I feel free,’ said Rose as they both strode out in the direction of Moreton.

They rounded a bend in the road and Rose let out a scream of dismay. Jeremy and his father were just emerging from a copse.