‘My aunt will never forgive us,’ Gussie corrected. ‘She has but just finished new-furnishing the drawing-room.’
‘But we were there an hour ago, and Mrs. Everleigh wasn’t, was she?’ Clarissa said.
‘No, but Mrs. Daughtry may not know that.’ Gussie ran for the door.
‘But where is she, then?’ Clarissa said, her voice rising. ‘Really, there are too many people adrift somewhere in London when we want to talk to them, it is most disobliging—’
Gussie was already out the door, Theo hard behind her. The whereabouts of Mrs. Everleigh did not interest him so much as the whereabouts of Mrs. Daughtry — and they had left the house unguarded.
***
It is time now to pay a visit to that worthy and long-suffering Bow Street Runner, Ballantine. We last encountered him shaking off the helpful interferenc
