Miss Marple considered and fell.

"Very well then," she said, "perhaps I had better have a taxi."

The commissionaire had no need even to whistle. He merely clicked his thumb and a taxi appeared like magic. Miss Marple was helped into it with every possible care and decided on the spur of the moment to go to Robinson and Cleaver's and look at their splendid offer of real linen sheets. She sat happily in her taxi feeling indeed as the commissionaire had promised her, just like a queen. Her mind was filled with pleasurable anticipation of linen sheets, linen pillow cases, and proper dish and kitchen cloths without pictures of bananas, figs, or performing dogs and other pictorial distractions to annoy you when you were washing up.

Lady Sedgwick came up to the reception desk. "Mr. Humfries in his office?"

"Yes, Lady Sedgwick." Miss Gorringe looked startled.

Lady Sedgwick passed behind the desk, tapped on the door and went in without waiting for any response.

Mr. Humfries looked up. "What-"

"Who engaged that man Michael Gorman?"

Mr. Humfries spluttered a little.

"Parfitt left-he had a car accident a month ago. We had to replace him quickly. This man seemed all right. References O.K.-ex-Army-quite good record. Not very bright perhaps, but that's all the better sometimes. You don't know anything against him, do you?"

"Enough not to want him here."

"If you insist," Humfries said, "we'll give him his notice-"

"No," said Lady Sedgwick slowly. "No-it's too late for that. Never mind."

"Elvira."

"Hello, Bridget."

The Honourable Elvira Blake pushed her way through the front door of 180 Onslow Square, which her friend Bridget had rushed down to open for her, having been watching through the window.

"Let's go upstairs," said Elvira.

"Yes, we'd better. Otherwise we'll get entangled by Mummy."

The two girls rushed up the stairs, thereby circumventing Bridget's mother, who came out on to the landing from her own bedroom just too late.

"You really are lucky not to have a mother," said Bridget, rather breathlessly as she took her friend into her bedroom and shut the door firmly. "I mean, Mummy's quite a pet and all that, but the questions she asks! Morning, noon, and night. Where are you going, and who have you met? And are they cousins of somebody else of the same name in Yorkshire? I mean, the futility of it all."

"I suppose they have nothing else to think about," said Elvira vaguely. "Look here, Bridget, there's something terribly important I've got to do, and you've got to help me."

"Well, I will if I can. What is it-a man?"

"No, it isn't, as a matter of fact." Bridget looked disappointed. "I've got to get away to Ireland for twenty-four hours or perhaps longer, and you've got to cover up for me."

"To Ireland? Why?"

"I can't tell you all about it now. There's no time. I've got to meet my guardian, Colonel Luscombe, at Prunier's for lunch at half-past one."

"What have you done with the Carpenter?"

"Gave her the slip in Debenham's."

Bridget giggled.

"And after lunch they're taking me down to the Melfords. I'm going to live with them until I'm twenty-one."

"How ghastly!"

"I expect I shall manage. Cousin Mildred is fearfully easy to deceive. It's arranged I'm to come up for classes and things. There's a place called World of Today. They take you to lectures and to museums and to picture galleries and the House of Lords, and all that. The whole point is that nobody will know whether you're where you ought to be or not! We'll manage lots of things."

"I expect we will." Bridget giggled. "We managed in Italy, didn't we? Old Macaroni thought she was so strict. Little did she know what we got up to when we tried."

Both girls laughed in the pleasant consciousness of successful wickedness.

"Still, it did need a lot of planning," said Elvira.

"And some splendid lying," said Bridget. "Have you heard from Guido?"

"Oh yes, he wrote me a long letter signed Ginevra as though he was a girl friend. But I do wish you'd stop talking so much, Bridget. We've got a lot to do and only about an hour and a half to do it in. Now first of all just listen. I'm coming up tomorrow for an appointment with the dentist. That's easy, I can put it off by telephone-or you can from here. Then, about midday, you can ring up the Melfords pretending to be your mother and explain that the dentist wants to see me again the next day and so I'm staying over with you here."

"That ought to go down all right. They'll say how very kind and gush. But supposing you're not back the next day?"

"Then you'll have to do some more ringing up."

Bridget looked doubtful.

"We'll have lots of time to think up something before then," said Elvira impatiently. "What's worrying me now is money. You haven't got any, I suppose?" Elvira spoke without much hope.

"Only about two pounds."

"That's no good. I've got to buy my air ticket. I've looked up the flights. It only takes about two hours. A lot depends upon how long it takes me when I get there."

"Can't you tell me what you're going to do?"

"No, I can't. But it's terribly, terribly important."

Elvira's voice was so different that Bridget looked at her in some surprise.

"Is anything really the matter, Elvira?"

"Yes, it is."

"Is it something nobody's got to know about?"

"Yes, that's the sort of thing. It's frightfully, frightfully secret. I've got to find out if something is really true or not. It's a bore about the money. What's maddening is that I'm really quite rich. My guardian told me so. But all they give me is a measly dress allowance. And that seems to go as soon as I get it."

"Wouldn't your guardian-Colonel Thingummybob- lend you some money?"

"That wouldn't do at all. He'd ask a lot of questions and want to know what I wanted it for."

"Oh dear, I suppose he would. I can't think why everybody wants to ask so many questions. Do you know that if somebody rings me up, Mummy has to ask who it is? When it really is no business of hers!"

Elvira agreed, but her mind was on another tack.

"Have you ever pawned anything, Bridget?"

"Never. I don't think I'd know how to."

"It's quite easy, I believe," said Elvira. "You go to the sort of jeweller who has three balls over the door, isn't that right?"

"I don't think I've got anything that would be any good taking to a pawnbroker," said Bridget.

"Hasn't your mother got some jewellery somewhere?"

"I don't think we'd better ask her to help."

"No, perhaps not. But we could pinch something perhaps."

"Oh, I don't think we could do that," said Bridget, shocked.

"No? Well, perhaps you're right. But I bet she wouldn't notice. We could get it back before she missed it. I know. We'll go to Mr. Bollard."

"Who's Mr. Bollard?"

"Oh, he's a sort of family jeweller. I take my watch there always to have it mended. He's known me ever since I was six. Come on, Bridget, we'll go there right away. We'll just have time."

"We'd better go out the back way," said Bridget, "and then Mummy won't ask us where we're going."

Outside the old established business of Bollard and Whitley in Bond Street the two girls made their final arrangements.

"Are you sure you understand, Bridget?"

"I think so," said Bridget in a far from happy voice. "First," said Elvira, "we synchronize our watches." Bridget brightened up a little. This familiar literary phrase had a heartening effect. They solemnly synchronized their watches, Bridget adjusting hers by one minute.

"Zero hour will be twenty-five past exactly," said Elvira. "That will give me plenty of time. Perhaps even more than I need, but it's better that way about."