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long?”
    â€œNo, no, Letty! I took a taxi from the station and I’ve only just got here. Tell me at once! Were you successful! Did you get it?”
    Laetitia looked with amused affection at the anxious face and decided it would be cruel to spin out the tension. “Yes! It worked like a charm!” she replied. “Oh, we’ll have a pot of tea for two, Miss, and two of your Chelsea buns, please.”
    When the waitress had gone off with their order, Laetitia took the letter from her bag. She passed it to her friend, watching her reaction as she opened and read it.
    â€œPerfect! This is perfect! I couldn’t have written a better recommendation myself. Well done! Gosh, it took some courage to face him down like that. I say, Letty, did he fall easy victim to the blackmail?”
    â€œHe did! I laid it on a bit thick—I mean, I made out that I understood him to be your fiancé…Hope you don’t mind? Esmé, I have to warn you that he made no attempt to deny the relationship. In fact he looked rather smug, I thought, when I brought it up. Anything you feel you ought to confide?” She looked anxiously at Esmé Leatherhead. “You will be careful, won’t you? Dalton’s a vindictive little twerp. I hope you’ve not got into an entanglement for my sake?”
    â€œDon’t worry!” Esmé hurried to reassure her. “He’s never actually proposed to me, so that’s all right. The minute he does, I shall turn him down. But he’s much more concerned to spend his time sweet-talking my father. And you know my father! He’s getting pretty fed up with the overtures, I can tell you! Felix and his verses are hanging by a thread and he’s tolerated only because I’ve been kind to him. One more ambling alexandrine, one more halting hexameter, and Father will set the dogs on him! I think I’ll wait until you’re safely in France and then complain that he’s becoming a pest.”
    She took up the letter again and her smile faded. “I won’t ask you if you’re sure you know what you’re doing, Letty—I expect you’ve got it all worked out to the last move—but
I
shall ask for some reassurance! And what’s all this nonsense about the name?”
    â€œYou know perfectly well that my mother’s name was St. Clair before she married my father. And the French half of my family have always called me by my second name—Stella. You should hear them trying to pronounce ‘Laetitia’!”
    â€œAren’t you being just a little…um…over-careful?”
    â€œYou’re trying not to say ‘hysterical’?”
    Esmé grinned and nodded.
    For a moment, Laetitia looked uncomfortable. “Believe me—I have good reasons for the deceit. And, anyway—the identity does belong to me. It’s going to be my professional name. I can do this, Esmé! Whatever they ask of me. Andrew Merriman is a pretty harsh taskmaster, you know; he would have put me on the next boat home if I’d not been pulling my weight. I can do it! I’ve learned techniques and methods. But I’m adaptable—if anonymity is what seems to be required, I can always fade into the background.”
    Esmé, plumply pretty, looked in disbelief at her statuesque friend, wondering what could possibly be the background into which Laetitia Talbot could fade. “It’s not that that concerns me, Letty. I’m sure you’ll integrate like anything. It’s the danger. Dead man’s shoes, that’s what you’re proposing to fill. A
murdered
dead man’s shoes! And not just any man.
Daniel
…” She leaned across the table and squeezed Letty’s hand. “I know you were very fond of him.”
    â€œFond? Oh, more than fond. I loved him,” said Letty. “He was my father’s best friend and
my
best friend. My father was off soldiering for most of