The meeting broke up in great good humour with much self-congratulation and with a renewed appetite for the next stage of the case. Sweetman made his way back to Vine Street to impress and entertain his mates with an account of his exploits while Cottingham hailed a taxi for Scotland Yard where he intended to spend the day, as he put it, ‘working on the forensics’.

Joe was left facing an Armitage still apparently ill at ease and subdued by the uncovering of his deception. ‘Shouldn’t think they’ll find much more than the chambermaid’s dabs on that,’ he said finally with a dismissive shrug. ‘Let’s not be forgetting our friend was wearing gloves. Hardly likely to have said, “’Ere, hang on a minute, madam, whilst I divest myself of these gloves prior to seizing this ’ere poker and bashing you about the ’ead with it,” now is he?’

‘Doesn’t sound reasonable to me either,’ said Joe. ‘And I expect we’re in for a disappointment. Oh, and, Sergeant, I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for a further setback.’ He sighed and smiled a rueful smile. ‘I reported by telephone to the boss this morning and . . .’ He hesitated, wondering how to go on. ‘And for reasons I can’t readily understand – yet – I am directed once more – and very firmly directed, I have to say – to make use of the services of Constable Westhorpe.’

‘No!’ Armitage was gratifyingly thunderstruck.

‘’Fraid so. She is to accompany us this afternoon to Surrey to investigate Dame Beatrice’s home and family. There may well be female insights she can offer us, I’m told. But the first of our problems will be locating the wretched girl. I telephoned her home to make suitable arrangements at nine this morning only to be told by her father that Mathilda had already left the house in her uniform, reporting for duty in Hyde Park.’ He waved an arm vaguely to the west. ‘So she’s out there somewhere in six hundred acres of woodland, lake and garden.’

Armitage’s expression hardened but he commented lightly enough, ‘And they do a good job, these women, I understand . . . fishing little boys out of the Serpentine, protecting laundry maids taking a short cut between the wilder parts of Bayswater and the Knightsbridge hotels, reuniting straying toddlers with their nannies.’

‘The weaker members of the park-going community must be comforted by their presence,’ said Joe firmly.

‘Yers, and I’ve heard as how they’ve protected many an unworldly politician from the terrifying advances of ladies of a certain profession,’ drawled Armitage with undisguised sarcasm. ‘Did you hear, sir, about the Assistant Commissioner last December . . .’ He looked about him. ‘Must have been somewhere round here . . . Caught in flagrante with a Miss Thelma de Lava. I know the two lads who made the arrest. Takes courage to pick up the boss! Stout chaps!’

‘Would you say stout chaps? I’d say pig-headed prudes,’ said Joe mildly. ‘Anyway – the gentleman in question was the ex-Assistant Commissioner. And why the hell shouldn’t he treat himself to an early Christmas present?

‘Look, I suggest we start our search at the police station. They should be aware of her route. It’s up near the new bird sanctuary just past the Rangers’ Lodge. Hang on, though – let’s not forget it’s a Sunday.’

‘Right, sir. And that means there’ll be half London in the park and most of those’ll be milling about at Speakers’ Corner up by the Marble Arch.’

‘And you’re thinking that’s where she’ll have been deployed? Makes sense, don’t you think so?’

‘I’d rather not think so!’ Armitage’s face clouded. ‘It’s not a place I’d deploy a woman in uniform. Not today. Word is, things are likely to get a bit lively in the parks over this next bit. It’s this bloody strike that’s getting everyone het up. People are violently in favour or the reverse. And that’s where you’re likely to get clashes. Trouble. And there’s the usual pack of no-goods who can smell it across the city. They’re not interested in debate – all they want is a barney. They’ll turn up in their hobnails with their white scarves and their bull terriers just to see what’s going on. And if nothing’s going on – well, they’ll soon fix that!’ He added thoughtfully, ‘A woman in uniform is just their idea of an easy target. Shall we start searching at the Arch, sir?’

Joe responded to the concern in the sergeant’s voice. ‘Very well, Bill. Look, to save time, we’ll get a taxi to take us down Piccadilly and up Park Lane. We’ll check through the crowds there and work our way through the half-mile of wilderness across to the police station.’

‘Good to have a plan to work to, sir!’ said Armitage with a grin and Joe imagined rather than saw the salute.

‘If all goes well, we might even have time for a cuppa in the Ring Tea House,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Come on!’

When it could make no further headway against the strolling, laughing crowds, the taxi dropped them off to make their way over the turfed stretch of ground facing the Arch, the grassy area already thick with orators, street corner preachers and their audiences. Speakers’ Corner. You could always tell when the country was in a ferment, Joe thought, by counting the numbers of men and women standing on soapboxes, shouting, and by the size of the crowds prepared to stand and shout back at them. He turned a professional law-man’s calculating eye on the speakers as they threaded their way through. The passionate rhetoric and hot dark eye of a striking coal miner almost stayed his step and this was undoubtedly where the thickest crowd was congregating. A sympathetic crowd, judging by the absence of heckling and the trickle of applause when the man paused for breath, they were responding, as was Joe, to his starveling good looks, his white skin blue-traceried below the surface with ancient coal dust scars and stretched over bones which seemed about to break through the thin confines of flesh at chin and wrist.

Not to be wondered at, Joe thought with a rush of pity, when the man’s pay had been reduced by a quarter and his working week extended by ten hours. A fine reward the working man had been offered for four years of sacrifice.

‘Here, duck, ’ave a sixpence for a sandwich and a cup of tea,’ said a matronly figure. ‘You’ll feel better with summat ’ot in yer belly.’

The miner accepted the gift with grace and the surprising flash of a smile.

‘Not a penny off the pay!’ he shouted, encouraged.

‘Not a minute on the day!’ they responded, with music hall timing.

‘Don’t give ’em owt for nowt!’ growled an East Ender in heavy mimicry of the Yorkshireman’s accent.

‘Silly buggers,’ commented Armitage. ‘We’ll see if they still think the same when their milk supplies aren’t getting through.’

No discernible trouble yet though. No pit-bulls with their owners in tow. Probably still in the pub. No sign of a lady policeman either. In her dark blue serge, Mathilda would have been very obvious amongst the women who, it seemed, had decided that enough was enough – winter was finally over and they were welcoming the spring. Cotton dresses had appeared in honour of the bright April sunshine, though shoulders were still prudently covered by cardigans and even shawls.

Further on they dodged an ear-splitting harangue from a member of the fascist movement. He was shouting and gesticulating in an effort to outdo the man next door, a communist, judging by the red sash he wore around his chest. Joe noticed that Armitage’s step had slowed perceptibly as they passed the Bolshevik and he thought he might have lost the sergeant to the entertainment had they not been on a mission. Spotting a couple of uniformed bobbies patrolling, arms behind their backs, Armitage showed his warrant card and consulted them. He reported to Joe that they understood the women police to have been diverted to the Serpentine area. ‘Sunny day like this, the nippers are likely to go a bit mad and get themselves into trouble diving into the water.’