Lin Tan asks Miss Allen whether she knows anyone who could help with her martial arts training; Miss Allen suggests, with some dubiety, one of the funders of the project, a Mrs Garrud, though she has retired from teaching.

When Lin Tan visits Mrs Garrud at Thornhill Square, she makes her case over tea: she’s largely the protector of the others in the group, and needs to get better at it. Mrs Garrud, who’s coming up on sixty, thinks about it, then says “hit me”. Lin Tan leaps round the table and makes a solid strike, which Mrs Garrud catches without seeming to move; she thinks further and then agrees, but insists that Lin Tan be dedicated to her training. (At least five days a week, for as long as she can manage.) This training is thoroughly practical, much in the style Lin Tan already uses, and has nothing to do with sport or fairness.

Gertrude wonders whether the supercilious man might have been some Minister’s friend sent to look into things informally. But what about the interference with his investigation that Jameson reported?

Milly gets Miss Allen to ask Miss Marsden whether she mentioned her concerns to anyone else; she didn’t. The group gets together a description of the man, and Milly mentions this to St John; he thinks it sounds rather like a lawyer who was with the group that had him sent to Coldbridge House. St John asserts that he isn’t a Mason; he’s never found it terribly interesting, and privately feels that it’s all very well for the sort of chap who regards his regimented school days as the happiest time of his life…

Several of the group walk round London looking for signs of shine, and in particular trying to track down that man. There’s nothing visible at Freemasons’ Hall (in use, though still under construction, at Great Queen Street); some pieces of regalia being worn in the House of Lords show slight trace, some of the older books in the British Library, and sacred vessels in most churches. Miss Allen gets them into the Crime Museum, and that’s strangely varied: some items have significant shine, some are blurry, and some have nothing at all.