Ruby leaves Maggs on the street and takes a deep breath in the great hall of Debenham and Freebody. The light scent of fragrance is welcome. She wanders to the glass counter and asks, in her most charming voice, for a dab of perfume. Lily of the Valley. It is a simple smell, and not her usual, but it is innocent. She can walk around the second floor smelling like an English summer’s day, like a perfect, fragrant lady. No one will pay her any attention.

She drifts up the grand staircase, admiring the chandeliers, as she always does. The light catches them, and she imagines that each glass droplet is a diamond. The second floor is dull. Maggs has given her the gloves to remind her that she is just an ordinary thief, hoisting with the others. By Maggs’s reckoning, Ruby will get above herself, if she’s only ever lifting jewels. Gloves will keep her in her place.

Ruby sighs. Perhaps she’ll go to Soho later, after all. She can’t decide. Peter will treat her, he has said. She could have champagne and dancing and whatever else he decides, or she could share a quarter of aniseed balls and Rudolph Valentino with Maggs.

She picks up a buttoned glove to examine it. Maggs wanted fur. She puts it back down and circles the table, where they are all laid out for inspection. She lifts a blue pair, trimmed with rabbit fur. The fur is soft. Briefly, she remembers Harriet. She drops them into her inside coat pocket and moves further around the table to examine a second pair.

She might wear the red dress again. He liked that one. It is the most sensual of her outfits, and she loves the feel of the silk on her skin. But she also has the emerald-green one that will enhance her eyes. Or she could look for a new outfit later.

She drops the second pair of gloves into her pocket and shoves three further pairs deep into the lining as she muses. What else was she supposed to lift?

The scarves are located over on the other side of the floor. She flicks through them, taking off her own gloves and running a hand over the silk. She glances around to make sure that no one is looking and twists one quickly into a ball, and then a second, and a third, pushing them into her sleeve.

That should do. Maggs won’t mind that she’s only picked up a few items. She’ll be out with the Forties again in a day or two.

She trots down the stairs to the ground floor, to the main hall.