Mrs. Bagot turned sharply towards the washstand. She half-filled the tooth-glass with brandy and, carrying it back to the bedside, seemed literally to tip it down the sick woman’s throat.

“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” she asked in a kindly tone. “All you wanted was a drink, luv. Now then get your money out, you knows you put it under your pillow.”

I took a second or two for the brandy to work, then a little life seemed to come back to the grey face and a shaking hand crept under the pillow and brought out a chain purse.

“She’ll want some notes too, dearie,” Mrs. Bagot prompted.

The hand slipped under the pillow again and, this time, came back with a leather wallet of the type fashioned in native bazaars. Carina could see that it was bulging with five pound notes.

“Give her t-twenty – pounds,” Lady Lynche said. The words came with difficulty.

Mrs. Bagot started, seemed about to expostulate that it was too much and then, as if she thought better of it, pulled the notes out of the wallet with her fat fingers and gave them to Carina.

“Now give her five guineas,” Lady Lynche said. “That’s for the journey.”

“Surely you are giving me too much?” Carina asked. “Except that you have not told me where we are going.”

“You let her give you what she wants to give,” Mrs. Bagot muttered good-humouredly. “She’s got enough of it at the moment and, if ’is Lordship refuses to take the child, you may need it.”

“Refuse – I had not thought of that,” Carina exclaimed.

“He won’t refuse,” the woman on the bed interrupted. “He can’t refuse. Give me that envelope off the dressing table.”

Carina fetched a big grey envelope and gave it into the thin quavering fingers. They felt about and drew out a long piece of paper.

“Dipa’s Birth Certificate. He won’t be able to deny that! You will see his own name is on it.”

Mrs. Bagot gave a little chuckle.

“You’ve thought of everythin’, ’aven’t you, dearie? I didn’t know you ’ad got ’is Birth Certificate.”

“Of course I’ve got it. Dipa is my child and his and here’s my Marriage Certificate. Take it too.”

Another long piece of paper was pressed into Carina’s hand.

“We were married in Paris. And the child was born in Java seven months after he’d left me.”

Carina looked down at the pieces of paper in her hand. She had a feeling that there was something frightening, something sinister, about them and then quickly she decided that she was imagining things.

Everything about this strange encounter was weird and something she never thought could happen when she climbed the stairs of Mrs. Macey’s Agency.

The woman on the bed gave a feeble cry.

“The newspaper cutting. I cannot find it!”