Dulcie winced. ‘I can’t prove he isn’t if he is,’ she pointed out.

‘Well, you’ll be able to tell, ’cos you’re top drawer yourself. You’re Lady Dulcie Maddox, aren’t you?’

‘In my private life, yes. But when I’m working I’m simply, Dulcie Maddox, PI.’

She guessed that Roscoe didn’t like that. He was impressed by her titled connections, and when she brushed them aside he felt cheated.

Last night he’d invited her to dinner in order to meet his daughter, Jenny. Dulcie had been charmed by the young girl’s freshness and naïvety. It was easy to believe that she needed protection from a fortune hunter.

‘I want you because you’re the best,’ Roscoe returned to his theme. ‘You’re posh. You act posh. You look posh-not your clothes because they’re-’

‘Cheap,’ she supplied. The jeans and denim jacket had been the cheapest thing on the market stall. Luckily she had the kind of tall, slender figure that brought out the best in anything, and her mane of fair hair and strange green eyes drew admiration wherever she went.

‘Inexpensive,’ Roscoe said in one of his rare ventures into tact. ‘But you look posh, in yourself. You can tell aristocrats because they’re so tall and slim. Probably comes from eating proper food while the peasants had to make do with stodge.’

‘Maybe with the others,’ Dulcie said. ‘But with me it came from not having enough to eat because all the family money was blown on the horses. That’s why I’m working as a private investigator. I’m as poor as a church mouse.’

‘Then you’ll need a load of new gear to be convincing. I keep an account at Feltham’s for Jenny. I’ll call and tell them to do you proud at my expense. When you reach the Hotel Vittorio you’ve got to look the part.’

‘The Vittorio?’ She looked quickly out of the window, lest he guess that this particular hotel had a special meaning for her. It was only a few weeks ago that she had been planning her honeymoon in that very hotel, with a man who’d sworn eternal love.