She knew that she must, as she put it, steal away like a thief in the night, and with this in view she had, on the night of the day when Washbrook took away her ring, tested the stealth with which she could open her bedroom door. She was genuinely surprised to find it locked on the outside. She had never, during her stay at Barnhurst, had reason to leave her room once she had retired to it, for she was one of the fortunate possessors of a bathroom opening from the bedroom. She had never heard the key being turned, either at night or in the morning, and finding the door locked filled her with alarm lest something in her demeanour had quickened suspicion in her guardians. Calmer thought assured her that it was probably a routine precaution; they knew she had no money, and though it pleased them to pretend that she was crazy, they must know that she was not so crazy as to walk away penniless.

On the evening after she had received the money, she sat, as usual, reading in her chair, a little apart from the bridge table. At her usual time – that is, the end of the first hand after half past ten – she rose and said goodnight, holding her finger in her book and saying:

‘I shall finish this before I go to sleep. Will you be going into town tomorrow, Mrs Mott-Tyler?’

‘Almost certainly,’ Mrs Mott-Tyler said affably, shuffling the cards expertly. Across the table her eyes met those of Miss Ellison, and they exchanged a glance which said that the good straight talk had been very effective, the shoplifting episode even more so. Miss Mayfield had settled down.

Upstairs Miss Mayfield walked about in her bedroom, used her bathroom, put the centre light out and the one by her bedside on, and then, very quietly, opened her bedroom door, closed it behind her and crept across the landing and along the passage which led to the back stairs. Her heart thumped unevenly, but she reassured herself that even if she were now discovered, she was doing nothing wrong. She was not dressed to go out; she was going to stand by the garden door for a last breath of air before retiring.