‘The information was correct.’ Miss Mayfield tried to match the girl’s manner. ‘Following instructions, I proceeded along Curlew Lane and reached the Rigby cottage at approximately five fifty-five. All the evidence of my eyes and ears convinced me that your estimate of the relationship between Mrs Rigby and her granddaughter was right.’

‘Well, I told you it was a joke. Your rushing off there must have given the joker great pleasure. Humour is a bit crude in these parts.’

‘So long as somebody is pleased,’ Miss Mayfield said a trifle sourly. She had had a bad night, going over and over again every word, every change of expression, seeking for some explanation, and finding none. She’d have another little talk with Sydney presently, she promised herself.

‘Oh, you mustn’t mind,’ Miss Benson said quickly and kindly. ‘They’re all simply staggered that you took so much trouble. Mrs Westleton wouldn’t have done it. That’s what they’re saying, and, by Jove, for once they’re right. She damn well wouldn’t!’

‘Did you . . . tell anyone why I went?’

‘No fear. I never tell tales out of school. And I don’t approve of jokes on teachers. Esprit de corps. By the way, did you find out who wrote it?’

She was saved from being obliged to answer that by the hurried, self-important arrival of a boy named David Fletcher, who held out to her a white envelope, marked with several of his thumbprints.

‘Miss, from Mrs Baines. Sydney ain’t well.’

‘Sydney isn’t . . .’ Miss Mayfield began in her correcting voice. Then she heard again Ethel’s quiet urgent question ‘Is Sydney all right?’ Nonsense!

She broke the envelope with a roughness alien to her and pulled out a sheet of paper covered with small neat handwriting, completely without character, just the hand in which to fill in charts.

Dear Miss Mayfield,

Sydney will be unable to attend school today. He has a slight temperature and complains of headache and lassitude. I should be greatly obliged if you could spare me a few minutes after school this afternoon; there is a matter upon which I should like your advice. It is a school matter.

Yours faithfully,
Emily Baines

She could only have been a nurse, Miss Mayfield thought, brought face to face with Sydney’s mother at four o’clock that afternoon; you’d have guessed her profession if you had met her in the desert. She had the look, crisp, sensible, reliable, slightly antiseptic; and her clothes had the restrained gaudiness which is the natural reaction to uniform.

‘How is Sydney?’ Miss Mayfield asked.