‘Oh,’ said Sybil with exasperation. ‘Then I suppose the doll took them and was hiding them from you!’

‘Really, you know,’ said Alicia, looking thoughtfully at the doll, ‘I wouldn’t put it past her. She looks very intelligent, don’t you think, Sybil?’

‘I don’t think I like her face,’ said Sybil. ‘She looks as though she knew something that we didn’t.’

‘You don’t think she looks sort of sad and sweet?’ said Alicia Coombe pleadingly, but without conviction.

‘I don’t think she’s in the least sweet,’ said Sybil.

‘No . . . perhaps you’re right . . . Oh, well, let’s get on with things. Lady Lee will be here in another ten minutes. I just want to get these invoices done and posted.’

‘Mrs Fox. Mrs Fox?’

‘Yes, Margaret?’ said Sybil. ‘What is it?’

Sybil was busy leaning over a table, cutting a piece of satin material.

‘Oh, Mrs Fox, it’s that doll again. I took down the brown dress like you said, and there’s that doll sitting up at the desk again. And it wasn’t me—it wasn’t any of us. Please, Mrs Fox, we really wouldn’t do such a thing.’

Sybil’s scissors slid a little.

‘There,’ she said angrily, ‘look what you’ve made me do. Oh, well, it’ll be all right, I suppose. Now, what’s this about the doll?’

‘She’s sitting at the desk again.’

Sybil went down and walked into the fitting-room. The doll was sitting at the desk exactly as she had sat there before.

‘You’re very determined, aren’t you?’ said Sybil, speaking to the doll.

She picked her up unceremoniously and put her back on the sofa.

‘That’s your place, my girl,’ she said. ‘You stay there.’

She walked across to the other room.

‘Miss Coombe.’

‘Yes, Sybil?’

‘Somebody is having a game with us, you know. That doll was sitting at the desk again.’

‘Who do you think it is?’

‘It must be one of those three upstairs,’ said Sybil. ‘Thinks it’s funny, I suppose. Of course they all swear to high heaven it wasn’t them.’

‘Who do you think it is—Margaret?’

‘No, I don’t think it’s Margaret. She looked quite queer when she came in and told me. I expect it’s that giggling Marlene.’

‘Anyway, it’s a very silly thing to do.’

‘Of course it is—idiotic,’ said Sybil. ‘However,’ she added grimly, ‘I’m going to put a stop to it.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘You’ll see,’ said Sybil.

That night when she left, she locked the fitting-room from the outside.

‘I’m locking this door,’ she said, ‘and I’m taking the key with me.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Alicia Coombe, with a faint air of amusement. ‘You’re beginning to think it’s me, are you? You think I’m so absent-minded that I go in there and think I’ll write at the desk, but instead I pick the doll up and put her there to write for me. Is that the idea? And then I forget all about it?’

‘Well, it’s a possibility,’ Sybil admitted. ‘Anyway, I’m going to be quite sure that no silly practical joke is played tonight.’