Page 137 of The Stranger in Room Six

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I am about to slit open the doll’s body when something makes me stop. Am I right to interfere with possible evidence?

So I call Garth on the private number he’d given me ‘in case you think of something important to tell me’.

‘Don’t touch it,’ he says firmly. ‘I’m on my way.’

When he arrives, he insists we wait until Mabel wakes up so we can ‘see her reaction’. Then he puts on a pair of latex gloves – the kind you see in films, so no one contaminates the evidence.

Harry, who has also been summoned, goes pale. ‘I hope to God this isn’t what we think,’ he says.

I watch Mabel’s body rise and fall with each breath. I’ve truly grown to love this woman. I don’t want her to have committed a crime, willingly or not.

Eventually, she stirs.

‘What are you all doing here? Why have you got Polly?’ she demands. ‘You’ll hurt her with those sharp scissors!’

There’s a collective gasp from us all as we peer over Garth’s shoulder while he unpicks the seam. Then, using a pair of tweezers, he carefully extracts a folded piece of paper from the stuffing inside.

Garth unfolds it. He whistles.

‘Look.’

We all lean over it. The heading isCONFIDENTIAL. SUSPECTED NAZI SYMPATHIZERS AND PEOPLE OF INTEREST.

Then there is a list of names. He reads it out.

Lady Clarissa Sinclair

Lord Jonty Dashland

Lord Henry Bedmont

There are more.

And right at the bottom isMabel Marchmont.

There’s a collective gasp.

‘Why would anyone have put my name there?’ protests Mabel.

Harry sighed. ‘You’ve already told me that you helped Clarissa and Jonty. Someone in the village must have suspected you but didn’t have evidence. That would have been enough to have made you a “person of interest”.’

‘But how could this document have got into my doll? Unless …’

She stops, as if remembering.

‘Clarissa used to confiscate Polly when she was annoyed with me. Maybe she put the list in her then.’

She looks at the faces around her: the one that doubts her (Garth) and the ones that desperately want to believe her (me and Harry).

‘I remember Clarissa and Jonty being accused by the police of hiding something too.’

They still don’t look convinced.

‘It’s true,’ she says, wringing her hands. ‘Although there is something else I should tell you.’

‘What?’ says Harry, a fearful tone in his voice.