‘Yet you’re a crafty fox, Justice,’ Cook said softly, ‘and though the cards is set against you, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, somehow, you was to wiggle out of it.’ The possibility was appalling to her. ‘We all have to pay for our sins… and the likes of you should be made to pay twice over, because you’ve been blessed with the best that life can offer. And you’re still hungry for more!’ The one thing that turned Cook’s stomach was the thought of Justice Crowther outwitting Miss Emma yet again. Oh, it was true that Miss Emma was now a rich and powerful lady when at the time she was ill-used by her uncle she had been little more than a child, but the man had some powerful and influential allies. He was a Justice, after all.

Suddenly Cook’s mind was made up! She would make the letter known! Her first instinct was to show it immediately to Miss Emma, but then she recalled that Miss Emma was reputed to be not fully recovered from her illness. Mr Tanner then? No! There was no doubt in Cook’s mind that he would likely strangle the Justice, and be hanged for it. The authorities? Well, yes… but they had an uncanny way of dragging an innocent body into the proceedings in a way that terrified a simple soul such as Cook.

At the point when the agitated woman was in her deepest thoughts, the bell on the wall behind her loudly jangled. ‘Mercy above!’ she gasped, clutching her two chubby hands to her breast and rising from the chair. ‘It’s a wonder I ain’t struck dead!’ With a bright red face and pounding heart she looked up to see who on earth could be summoning her at this late hour. ‘It’s the drawing-room,’ she observed with interest. ‘It can’t be the master, because he’s not back yet, I think. And it can’t be his spoilt daughter Martha… because Amy took a glass of hot milk to her room some two hours ago, together with a headache powder to “soothe my aching head”. No! That one would be out to the world and snoring like a good ’un,’ Cook decided with a measure of indignation. That left only one other person to be ringing the bell. Agnes Crowther. ‘What in heaven’s name could she be wanting at this time of night?’ Cook wondered, at the same time ramming the letter into her pocket, then straightening her pinnie and patting her grey curls into place. ‘There’s no peace for the wicked,’ she told herself, mounting the steps as fast as her thick old legs would allow.

In the drawing-room, Cook found the mistress in a strange mood. ‘I wasn’t certain whether you had all gone to bed,’ Agnes Crowther explained, being mindful of the fact that she had already informed Amy there would be no further need of her that evening.

‘That’s all right, ma’am,’ Cook said, waiting her instructions, ‘I wasn’t ready for bed… had too many things on my mind, d’you see?’