Mrs Mott-Tyler said uneasily, ‘Your tongue again, Margery! Kleptomania isn’t the word in this case. Poor Miss Mayfield, you just picked them up and forgot all about it. Don’t look so distressed. I’ll go myself and see Blundell; he’ll understand.’

‘Don’t say that, either. I’d rather be a thief than a lunatic who didn’t know what I was doing! I’m absolutely, positively certain that I never touched those stockings. I can remember every word Miss Ellison spoke to the assistant. She showed you some called Riviera Tan, and Golden Rose, and Beech Blonde, and you bought two pairs of Beech Blonde, size ten and a half, and they cost eight and eleven a pair. She suggested your buying two identical pairs, because that made you eligible for a six weeks’ guarantee. She filled in a card, and you put it in your bag. If I can remember all that about a transaction that had nothing to do with me, surely I should remember what I did.’

She looked wildly from one face to the other. No help, no belief to be had from either. Mrs Mott-Tyler wore the look of one whose attention has been drawn to something vaguely unpleasant and who wishes it to be removed as soon as possible; Miss Ellison’s expression was gloating and self-satisfied.

‘Why you should want to make out that I am demented I don’t know,’ she cried; ‘but that’s what it is. All part of a plot!’

‘They all say that,’ said Miss Ellison.

Mrs Mott-Tyler said, ‘It’s a great deal of fuss about nothing. I blame myself. We should never have let her know. Come along, Miss Mayfield, think no more about it. Absolutely no blame can be attached to you. I’ll order some fresh tea.’

Miss Mayfield was conscious of a terrible desire to scream. To open her mouth and scream at the top of her voice, what a relief that would be. But that was lunatic behaviour. Controlling herself, she said:

‘I don’t want any tea. I want to be alone.’

15

THE WORDS ‘ALL PART OF A PLOT’ HAD JERKED OUT of her without premeditation; but later, the more she thought about the whole affair, the clearer it became that was what it was. A plot. Made to what end, to benefit whom, she could not even guess, but it reached back, she was certain, to Walwyk.