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‘Thank you, ladies, that concludes our work for this morning,’ she said. ‘Until next time.’

I made my way back to the front entrance and held the door open as the Ivys trooped out in a chattering train.

‘Ta, Stephen!’

‘Thanks for the tea.’

‘Nice apron.’

I stood with my ears burning fit to burst as they left, shooting little glances at me and giggling. I tucked my fraying cuff back in my sleeve – stupid flipping cuff – and made my way to the parlour, where Miss Decima was scowling out of the window. ‘Miss Decima, I wonder if I might have a quick word.’

She shot me a dark glance. ‘It sounds like you already are.’

I cleared my throat, then crossed my hands over my front and then changed my mind and put them behind my back. ‘It’s … it’s about my sleeping arrangements. I think it might be … prudent if I slept downstairs in the basement from now on, with the other servants. Rather than up here, in your apartment. People are beginning to talk.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘About what?’

I blushed. ‘That’s not for me to say, Miss Decima.’

‘Your ears are saying plenty.’ She chucked her notebook on to the table, beside her still-unread newspaper. ‘Absolutely out of the question. I will not have you gallivanting about three floors below when I need you up here, fetching me tea and making my morning egg.’ She shook her head. ‘Servants in the basement! Trust my fuckwit nephew to invest in an apartment that doesn’t even come with its own designated staff quarters.’

‘It’s Parisian, Miss Decima.’

‘It’s a pissing nuisance, is what it is.’

She turned and scowled out of the window again. I could tell, immediately, that she was in one of her moods. She was like one of those storm clouds that refuses to rain and just sits around, making everything beneath it dark and miserable. I started clearing away the cups. ‘Something on your mind, Miss Decima?’

She gave a great long sigh. ‘It’s these dismal little cases, Stephen. They’re going to be the death of me. I spent almost sixty years of my life confined inside a house: I’ve had enough petty domestic squabbles to last me a lifetime. And yet here I am, free at last, surrounded by them once again! I am one of the greatest scientific minds of my generation: I am not suited to solving trifling puzzles. You might as well ask Galileo to –’

‘Shovel pigs’ mess,’ I finished automatically for her. It was a phrase which she employed often, albeit in a different vernacular.

‘What I wouldn’t give for a proper mystery, like we had last year with Conrad’s murder,’ she carried on. ‘Multiple homicides! Long-held family secrets! It was an embarrassment of riches.’

I frowned. ‘Four people died, Miss Decima. It would have been six, if Temperance had got her way.’

Temperance was the maid who had helped us solve the mystery. I will admit to being quite fond of her, before she whacked me over the head with a hammer and then tried to drown me and shoot Miss Decima with a crossbow. That Miss Decima had allowed her to escape before the police arrived was still something of a sore point between us. ‘Ah, yes, Temperance.’ Miss Decima smiled fondly. ‘She certainly kept us on our toes, didn’t she?’

I glanced at the newspaper. ‘Maybe you should start looking for your own cases. Something more challenging to keep you occupied. Like this Crace business.’

On the front page there was a photograph of a tall, grim-faced man in a creaseless suit, the top of his bald head gleaming like a marble bust. If they made dictionaries with pictures in them, he’d be there under the word ‘patrician’.

‘Ugh,’ Miss Decima groaned, rolling her eyes. ‘People still interested in that, are they?’

‘They’ve found new details,’ I said, scanning the article. ‘Here we are … The unexpected death of Sir William Crace, former MP, has taken a further dramatic turn since his mansion burned to the ground in April. While police first ruled the incident as an accident caused by a faulty furnace, further investigation has revealed traces of explosive residue in the pipes …’ I held up the paper. ‘See? A bomb, Miss Decima. Maybe you could work out who planted it! They think it was a political assassination, on account of his voting record. By socialists or anarchists or’ – I squinted – ‘Fenians. What’s a Fenian?’

‘Member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood,’ Miss Decima muttered, snatching the paper off me. ‘Christ. Sir William Crace. He was a friend of Conrad, you know – used to visit Tithe Hall when he was a boy. Spat on his nanny and pulled all the tail feathers out of the peacocks. An absolute boilerplate case of sexual neurosis! He probably killed himself to avoid scandal after being found in a bordello with the handle of a dog-whip up his –’

‘You’ve been reading that Dr Freud book again,’ I said disapprovingly.

Miss Decima made to fling the newspaper away but then suddenly stopped. She glanced back at the photograph of Sir William Crace and something seemed to pass beneath the surface of her face. A memory, or thread of thought. She folded up the paper and placed it on her lap without another word on the matter. ‘Right! Take me to my study, I have work to do. You may head down the high street and fetch my hat from Ponting’s, please.’

Ponting’s. I felt my heartbeat clatter like a ticker tape. ‘Absolutely, Miss Decima, right away. Anything else?’

‘Yes!’ she snapped. ‘You can jolly well keep your eyes and ears open while you do it, Stephen. I am sure that the festering, crime-ridden streets of West London will readily provide a case that is more suited to my rare abilities.’

She was right, of course. Miss Decima was always right. Sadly, I had no idea just how right she would turn out to be.

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