“Ask away,” the manservant smiled. “I’m pretty good with the answers. Sir Percy trusts me. ‘I’ll leave it to you, Jenkins,’ he says, ‘you’ll see to it.’ And then it’s left in my hands to get things a-rollin’.”

“What I want to know,” Carina said, “is did – Sir Percy win – another house recently – a house in London – number 89 Park Street?”

Jenkins leant against the table and scratched his head.

“Now, let me see,” he said. “There was one in Portman Square, a shop in Wardour Street, a house in Hamilton Terrace. Yes, now that you come to mention it, there was one in Park Street. 89, you say? I remember it. A big drawin’ room with white panellin’, is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Carina answered quietly.

“But, of course,” Jenkins exclaimed. “Now it’s all a-comin’ back to me. A bit of trouble, wasn’t there, with the owner? There, fool that I was, I never connected the two. Sir Hugo Claverly! I don’t know why it never struck me when I heard about him. Well, I’m sorry, miss, indeed I am – ”

He looked embarrassed and scratched his head again.

“ – But that’s life, so to speak. One goes up and the other goes down.”

He stopped, for Carina had sat down in a chair and, bending her head, had covered her face with her hands.

He stood looking for a moment and then edged awkwardly towards the door.

“Sorry, miss,” he said again. “Keep your pecker up. What can’t be cured must be endured, as me old mother used to say.”

He hesitated at the door, looked as if he was going to say something else, then changed his mind and went.

For a moment Carina could hardly feel or think. She was very still. Her eyes were closed behind the shielding darkness of her fingers.

At length she rose to her feet.

The room was empty, save for the bottle of champagne that stood flamboyantly in the centre of the table.

With a gesture of horror she turned away from it and put out her hand towards the bell-pull.

She was about to pull it, but stopped, feeling that she could not possibly trust her voice to make explanations or even give an order for it to be removed.

Instead she turned and ran towards her bedroom, fighting the tears that she knew at any moment would shake her like a tempest.

She shut her bedroom door and felt for the key. Then, with trembling fingers, searched again.

It could not be true!

She crossed the room and picked up the oil lamp and brought it to the door.

The key was not in the lock, it was not on the floor – it had gone!

Very slowly she put the oil lamp down where she had taken it from the table at the side of the bed.