It should have been terrifying—thinking about it, I saw that it might really have been terrifying, especially for Mummy. But for me, it was wonderful, a big adventure, helping them to fight our way home together.

So proud of my girl, Daddy had said. A real voyager, not a bit scared.

I turned back to the cold room. I stood there for a moment—not long, only two or three seconds—and thought about Felix Baer playing records in here for half the night. What was in his mind all that time? Was he a professional musician, like my mother, before the war? What was his family like? Did he have a sweetheart? What would happen to him if the Luftwaffe found out he’d sneaked off to Windyedge when he was supposed to be shooting down British planes?

And why had he pulled a key off his typewriter, an L for Louisa, and stuck it in the ceiling of the Limehouse?

I shook my head to clear it. Then, just before I went back to Jane, I checked to make sure the gas tap was off. The gas fires in Mrs. Campbell’s rooms were just like the one Mummy and I had in our London flat, and Mummy had dinned it into my head to make sure the gas was always off when I left the room.

Mrs. Campbell was right—one of the Victorian panels around the new fire was loose. I rattled the fixture under my hand, worrying. What if the pipes came disconnected? Town gas was deadly when it leaked. I looked more closely, and saw there were fresh dents on both the new fire and the old frame, as if someone had forced a wedge between them and tried to pry the fire out of its setting.

I stared at the gas fire, small and neat, not as secure as it should have been. In the old fireplace behind the Victorian panels, there would be a dark, hollow space where you could hide anything. Secret plans. Vials of poison. A bomb, perhaps.

Surely Felix Baer would have made noise getting the panels off.

But no one would have heard anything over the music.

I picked at that shaky cast iron panel with my fingernails. I couldn’t get enough grip on it to pry it loose.

I ran back to Room Five. Jane sat calmly drinking tea. She looked at me in surprise; I was fizzing with excitement.

“What in the world, Louisa?”

“I’ll be back in a moment, just a moment,” I panted. “I need—”

I opened my flute case and grabbed the thin steel rod for cleaning the flute.

“What’s Nancy want with you now, girl?” Jane inquired. “You’re not to run her errands; you’re here for me. You mustn’t let her order you about. I’ll have a word if you like.”