‘We must organize a search at once. You should go to the Post Office – no, the Rectory is nearer now – and telephone the police.’

‘The police!’ Mrs Rigby’s grey pallor deepened. ‘But, Miss, they’d hev her in the “Missing Persons” in the News of the World. We can’t go putting Ethel in there! She’ll turn up.’ Something was reasserting itself. ‘Oh yes, she’ll turn up. We would look silly calling in the police just over a bit of bad temper.’

‘We’d look sillier if something happened to her and they hadn’t been informed. She’s only fourteen, you know.’

The shock of finding that Ethel was not in school was beginning to wear off, and it was clear that Mrs Rigby was regretting the impulse that had brought her there.

‘I’ll go and see what Canon Thorby advises,’ she said, with a reversal to her prim manner.

‘That would be wise,’ Miss Mayfield said. ‘Let me know as soon as you hear anything.’

‘I will, Miss. I will.’

Within ten minutes Miss Benson came through from the Junior room with some obvious excuse.

‘Did I just see Granny Rigby on the premises?’

Miss Mayfield nodded. ‘She came to see if Ethel had come to school. She walked out last evening.’

‘That’s exactly how her mother went. It’s a bit early for Ethel to be starting that game.’

‘There could be other explanations,’ Miss Mayfield said in a cool voice.

‘Such as?’

‘From what Mrs Rigby said, a fit of temper.’

‘Was the old girl much upset?’

Miss Mayfield almost said, Yes, particularly when I suggested asking aid from the police! But she remembered her new rule, Trust nobody.

‘She seemed very much upset.’

‘I told you she was a devoted old thing, didn’t I?’

‘You did. The point is that in Alchester I’d had one or two experiences with parents who were not devoted. And that made me so suspicious. I know better now.’

She told herself that she was becoming as unscrupulous a liar as Granny Rigby herself.

At twelve o’clock Canon Thorby came into school; he carried several letters in his hand.