Ellen smiled. ‘I was not flirting, as well you know. It’s back to the main street and along a bit, then turn off,’ she said, consulting the directions she’d written down.

They soon found the premises of Sidney Simmonds. Like Mr Barker’s, it had the three golden spheres sign above the door, and also a window full of a muddle of items of many kinds.

‘Feels like the same place,’ said Ellen. ‘I hope we have more luck here.’

‘Me, too.’ Edward opened the door and they both went in.

There was a young woman a little older than Ellen behind the counter to the side of the shop. She was wearing a strange combination of clothes that looked as if they might have come from the stock: a tea dress with a gaudy brooch pinned on it; a short navy-blue jacket that might have been worn by a very small sailor in a different life; a little straw hat with a bunch of artificial cherries attached to one side of the brim.

‘Good afternoon,’ she smiled. ‘How may I help you?’

‘Is Mr Simmonds in, please?’ Ellen asked.

‘No, I’m afraid he isn’t today. I’m his daughter. Can I help at all?’

Ellen didn’t want to repeat the encounter she’d had with Mr Barker, and she’d already made up her mind to just ask outright about Gina.

‘I’m not here to buy owt or raise a loan,’ she said. ‘I think my sister may have come here in February and brought a pair of pearl earrings. If she gave her name she mebbe said it was Mrs Travers.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid I don’t remember that name. Now, let me have a look if I’ve got the earrings … Would you recognise them, love?’

‘No, but I’m hoping you might recognise my sister. She looks almost exactly like me,’ said Ellen, offering a straight-on view of her face. ‘She’s bit younger but we look the same.’

Miss Simmonds gave Ellen’s face proper scrutiny. She frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m not sure I do. It might have been my father who dealt with her, of course. But pearl earrings, you say … and in February?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I’ll look ’em up,’ she said, and pulled a huge ledger out from under the counter. ‘All right … when in February, do you know?’

‘The twentieth, a Wednesday,’ said Ellen.

‘Mm … yes, here we are, just as you say. My father bought them from Mrs Travers, and it was a pair of earrings, but we sold them on after Easter.’

‘Well, at least we know she came here,’ said Edward, when they had thanked the woman and left the place. ‘Now we know her mission was to sell small items to different pawnbrokers.’