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‘Couldn’t help myself. Now tell me what you think of Mr Gussett’s account, Stephen. I’m curious to hear your thoughts. All ears, if you will.’

‘I’m leaving.’

‘That was the last one, I promise.’

I sighed. ‘Well, he’s clearly unwell, isn’t he? All that nonsense about the police listening in on him with Detectiphones. Plus those nervous illnesses he mentioned. Sounds like his aunt going missing has made him unwell again.’

‘Quite,’ said Miss Decima. ‘Though I suspect that Mr Gussett’s paranoid, erratic behaviour may in part be the result of a predilection for his own preferred choice of anaesthetic. The cocaine injection. The man is clearly knee-deep in the Devil’s Dandruff.’

I spluttered with surprise, but I couldn’t disagree with her. All that fumbling and sweating, talking a hundred words a minute … I knew what bad medicine could do to a person. Clarence reminded me of the people that hung around the back streets of Bow when I was a boy, not a well-to-do dentist in Kensington. ‘Gosh.’

‘Gosh indeed,’ said Miss Decima. ‘While Mr Gussett’s account is therefore unreliable, we cannot deny that it has opened up a veritable orchard of possibilities for our investigation. Let us begin, first, with his recollections from Saturday.’

She removed her teeth and placed them on the table. That was always a good sign.

‘Clearly, the phone call made to his office was a hoax,’ she began. ‘Though I doubt it was the police. Somebody wanted to keep him away from the apartment that evening, and what’s more they made sure to do it while he was at lunch, so there was no chance of his speaking to them himself. It would have been someone who knew that he went out at lunchtime, and whose voice he would have recognized over the phone. To my mind, the only person who fits the bill is Theodora herself – or, perhaps, this third suffragette. He may well have spotted her Irish accent.’ She sighed. ‘This young Irish woman is undoubtedly the same suffragette whom Flora mentioned – I suspect she was also the third woman whom you saw climbing the statue, the one with the cough.’ She paused. ‘Remind me, Stephen: what were the other two women doing while she was climbing?’

I thought back. ‘Theodora was looking around – standing watch, I suppose. Lavinia was opening up a carpet bag that she’d brought with her.’

‘Did you get any indication of what was inside?’

I shook my head. ‘She ran off with it.’

Miss Decima nodded thoughtfully. ‘Hmm. I suspect its contents will explain everything, once we get our hands on it. Much like this third, nameless suffragette.’ She sighed again. ‘Sadly, this places us in a most unenviable position. The WSPU have over a thousand card-carrying members: I can hardly ask Mrs Pankhurst to send me the pledge cards of every member with an Irish-sounding name. That would take days, and we have fewer than three left to solve this mystery. So any suggestions you have, Stephen, are greatly appreciated.’

I paused. As a matter of fact, I did have a suggestion. ‘Clarence said she was a maid, didn’t he?’

She looked at me blankly. ‘Yes?’

I thought fast. ‘Well – you said earlier that it made sense for Lavinia and Theodora to live near each other. That might even be how they became friends in the first place. And the same goes for this third one. It’s not likely she’d have anything else in common with Lavinia or Theodora. It’s not … usual for two posh women to make friends with a servant. They might be polite and wish her the best and that, but they wouldn’t go so far as to be friends. So, if you ask me, this third suffragette – this maid – attended the same chapter meetings as Lavinia and Theodora. She worked locally. And, if you ask me, she works in Kensington Gore.’

Miss Decima’s eyes had started gleaming. ‘Justify.’

I coughed. ‘Well, Clarence said she was at Theodora’s apartment a lot – there’s no maid in all of London who has that much free time. The only way she’d be able to do it is if she was skiving off work – and, in order to manage that, she’d have to live close by. Really close. So forget going through a thousand membership cards. All we need to do is ask around the Gore, and find out if there’s a maid who’s been missing since Saturday, who’s Irish and who has a bad cough.’

I’ve rarely seen Miss Decima look so proud. ‘Do you know, Stephen – sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, you really are quite remarkable.’

I could feel my ears burning like billy-o. ‘I’ll ask Peter. He’s bound to know most of the servants in the area …’

Her gleaming eyes hardened over, like a candle flame being snuffed out by a flung brick. ‘You want to ask our chief suspect for information that might potentially lead to his own arrest?’

That shut me up.

‘Never mind – find him anyway,’ she sighed. ‘If I remember correctly, you have a deep, dark secret to uncover. Don’t return until you’ve learnt what it is! Butter him up, pull out his toenails, kiss him – whatever works. And, while you’re at it, keep your eyes peeled for our other two suspects lurking around the scene of the crime.’

I sighed. ‘I’m really not sure that proves anything, Miss Decima.’

‘Why not? If the hat fits, wear it, I say.’

Her words were like an alarm clock in my head. The hat. In all the revelations of that morning, I’d plumb forgotten it. The money she’d left for me was there in my pocket.

‘As you wish, Miss Decima!’ I said, striding to the door. ‘I’ll be back with that secret before you know it!’

Within moments I was out of the apartment and racing down the stairs, my heart drumming like a military march. I glanced at the empty porter’s office as I walked past – still no sign of Mr Benson, said a voice at the back of my head, which I ignored – then hurried outside, stepping over a dead pigeon – that’s two now, said a voice at the back of my head, which I also ignored – and kept going. Nothing was going to stop me. My hat was so close I could almost taste it. It’d take me ten minutes to get to Ponting’s – less if I ran. I could slap the money down on the counter, point at the hat, say box it up, Jimmy, and be back to our investigation before you could say –

I turned the corner and slammed right into a woman standing there. I stumbled back, ready to apologize – and my blood turned cold. ‘You.’

‘We need to talk,’ said Temperance.