“Mrs. Shackleton!”

I turned to see Milly. “Hello!”

She came hurrying towards me, with a great smile.

I introduced her to Sykes. “Milly was my maid when I was here.”

“Then I’ll leave you two to chat. I’ll look out for Alec, and keep an eye on the car.”

It was too cold to sit down. We walked towards the rose bed which was all bare stems, trimmed back. “So what news, Milly? You’re looking better.”

“The police came from Wakefield. They searched my room. They looked in the eaves as if they knew what they would find, and I could hardly breathe, but there was nothing there. I felt so relieved, and then Mrs. Brockman appeared, and she didn’t say anything but I could see she was shocked. They went along the corridor, and they were doing other searching. I was trailing after them as best I could, but they shooed me away. And you’ll never guess where that stuff was.”

“Where was it?”

“Mrs. Brockman’s maid told the housekeeper, and she told the cook and the cook told me. It was under Mrs. Brockman’s bed. And when they found it, Mrs. Brockman said, ‘The maid put it there’, and her maid said no she didn’t and Mrs. Brockman said, ‘the maid Milly’. And the police asked me and I said no I hadn’t touched it.”

Milly then told the police about my photograph of the items left in the eaves.

She seemed remarkably cheerful. The police officer had been nice to her.

I did not have the heart to tell her that his being nice did not mean that Stephen was out of the woods.

Alec was not long in joining us. With the restlessness of the young, he had parted quickly from Benjie.

I said goodbye to Milly.

We climbed into the car, ready for our next call.

“How did Mr. Brockman react when he heard you have a new job, Alec?”

“He didn’t say much at first, and then he was all right about it.” He then spoke slowly, to make every word count. “He gave me a five pound note. Have you ever seen one?”

“Yes, I have seen one.”

That did not stop him describing it. “It’s huge. It’s white. I’ve put it in my sock.”

‘Open a Post Office savings account.’

“They’ll ask me where I got it. They’ll think I stole it.”

“Just say who gave it to you, and that you worked for him and it was a gift when you left, a gift for being a good worker.”

This cheered him. I remembered how I sometimes used to be tongue-tied. There would be something inside that needed to be said, but what were the words, and how did you put them together?

“Did Mr. Brockman say anything else?”