In the morning she got hold of some money by the simple expedient of going shopping with a footman and saying to him: “Give me a shilling.” Later, while he waited with the carriage at the main entrance to Liberty’s in Regent Street, she slipped out of a side entrance and walked to Oxford Street, where she found a woman selling the suffragette newspaper Votes For Women. The paper cost a penny. Charlotte went back to Liberty’s and, in the ladies’ cloakroom, hid the newspaper under her dress. Then she returned to the carriage.

She read the paper in her room after lunch. She learned that the incident at the palace during her debut had not been the first time that the plight of women had been brought to the attention of the King and Queen. Last December three suffragettes in beautiful evening gowns had barricaded themselves inside a box at Covent Garden. The occasion was a gala performance of Jeanne d’Arc by Raymond Roze, attended by the King and Queen with a large entourage. At the end of the first act one of the suffragettes stood up and began to harangue the King through a megaphone. It took them half an hour to break down the door and get the women out of the box. Then forty more suffragettes in the front rows of the gallery stood up, threw showers of pamphlets down into the stalls and walked out en masse.

Before and after this incident the King had refused to give an audience to Mrs. Pankhurst. Arguing that all subjects had an ancient right to petition the King about their grievances, the suffragettes announced that a deputation would march to the palace, accompanied by thousands of women.

Charlotte realized that the march was to take place today-this afternoon-now.

She wanted to be there.

It was no good understanding what was wrong, she told herself, if one did nothing about it. And Mrs. Pankhurst’s speech was still ringing in her ears: “The spirit which is in women today cannot be quenched…”

Papa had gone off with Pritchard in the motor car. Mama was lying down after lunch, as usual. There was nobody to stop her.

She put on a dowdy dress and her most unprepossessing hat and coat; then she went quietly down the stairs and out of the house.

Feliks walked about the park, keeping the house always in view, racking his brains.

Somehow he had to find out where Walden was going in the motor car. How might that be achieved? Could he try Lydia again? He might, at some risk, get past the policeman and into the house, but would he get out again? Would Lydia not raise the alarm? Even if she let him go, she would hardly tell him the secret of Orlov’s hiding place, now that she knew why he wanted to know. Perhaps he could seduce her-but where and when?

He could not follow Walden’s car on a bike. Could he follow in another car? He could steal one, but he did not know how to drive them. Could he learn? Even then, would Walden’s chauffeur not notice that he was being followed?

If he could hide in Walden’s motor car… That meant getting inside the garage, opening the trunk, spending several hours inside-all in the hope that nothing would be put inside the trunk before the journey. The odds against success were too high for him to risk everything on that gamble.

The chauffeur must know, of course. Could he be bribed? Made drunk? Kidnapped? Feliks’s mind was elaborating these possibilities when he saw the girl come out of the house.

He wondered who she was. She might be a servant, for the family always came and went in coaches; but she had come out of the main entrance, and Feliks had never seen servants do that. She might be Lydia’s daughter. She might know where Orlov was.

Feliks decided to follow her.

She walked toward Trafalgar Square. Leaving his bicycle in the bushes, Feliks went after her and got a closer look. Her clothes did not look like those of a servant. He recalled that there had been a girl in the coach on the night he had first tried to kill Orlov. He had not taken a good look at her, because all his attention had been-disastrously-riveted to Lydia. During his many days observing the house he had glimpsed a girl in the carriage from time to time. This was probably the girl, Feliks decided. She was sneaking out on a clandestine errand while her father was away and her mother was busy.

There was something vaguely familiar about her, he thought as he tailed her across Trafalgar Square. He was quite sure he had never looked closely at her, yet he had a strong sense of déjà vu as he watched her trim figure walk, straight-backed and with a determined quick pace, through the streets. Occasionally he saw her face in profile when she turned to cross a road, and the tilt of her chin, or perhaps something about the eyes, seemed to strike a chord deep in his memory. Did she remind him of the young Lydia? Not at all, he realized: Lydia had always looked small and frail, and her features were all delicate. This girl had a strong-looking, angular face. It reminded Feliks of a painting by an Italian artist which he had seen in a gallery in Geneva. After a moment the name of the painter came back to him: Modigliani.

He got still closer to her, and a minute or two later he saw her full face. His heart skipped a beat and he thought: she’s just beautiful.

Where was she going? To meet a boyfriend, perhaps? To buy something forbidden? To do something of which her parents would disapprove, such as go to a moving-picture show or a music hall?

The boyfriend theory was the likeliest. It was also the most promising possibility from Feliks’s point of view. He could find out who the boyfriend was and threaten to give away the girl’s secret unless she would tell him where Orlov was. She would not do it readily, of course, especially if she had been told that an assassin was after Orlov; but given the choice between the love of a young man and the safety of a Russian cousin, Feliks reckoned that a young girl would choose romance.

He heard a distant noise. He followed the girl around a corner. Suddenly he was in a street full of marching women. Many of them wore the suffragette colors of green, white and purple. Many carried banners. There were thousands of them. Somewhere a band played marching tunes.

The girl joined the demonstration and began to march.

Feliks thought: Wonderful!

The route was lined with policemen, but they mostly faced inward, toward the women, so Feliks could dodge along the pavement behind their backs. He went with the march, keeping the girl in sight. He had been in need of a piece of luck, and he had been given one. She was a secret suffragette! She was vulnerable to blackmail, but there might be more subtle ways of manipulating her.

One way or another, Feliks thought, I’ll get what I want from her.

Charlotte was thrilled. The march was orderly, with female stewards keeping the women in line. Most of the marchers were well-dressed, respectable-looking types. The band played a jaunty two-step. There were even a few men, carrying a banner which read: FIGHT THE GOVERNMENT THAT REFUSES TO GIVE WOMEN THE PARLIAMENTARY VOTE. Charlotte no longer felt like a misfit with heretical views. Why, she thought, all these thousands of women think and feel as I do! At times in the last twenty-four hours she had wondered whether men were right in saying that women were weak, stupid and ignorant, for she sometimes felt weak and stupid and she really was ignorant. Now she thought: If we educate ourselves we won’t be ignorant; if we think for ourselves we won’t be stupid; and if we struggle together we won’t be weak.

The band began to play the hymn “Jerusalem,” and the women sang the words. Charlotte joined in lustily:

I will not cease from mental fight

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

I don’t care if anybody sees me, she thought defiantly-not even the duchesses!