Harriet goes to Oxford and takes up a room at her old college, on the excuse that she’s doing some research for a book. She gets to know the dons, and finds that apart from one rather bitter woman who seems to disapprove of her, most of them are friendly, intelligent women.
However pranks and problems continue to happen, and although Harriet works diligently, she is at first unable to work out who might be causing the problem. She patrols the college buildings at night and takes note of all the pranks that have been played. One of the dons, Miss Lydgate, is writing a book and The proofs for a book are damaged, which seems to suggest that it is an educated person who is doing this - although there are “scouts” who do domestic work and live in the college. It gives Miss Lydgate a lot of work to sort out the proofs again. Harriet tries to convince the university women to hire a proper detective, as she is an amateur, but they are reluctant to reveal that someone in their college seems to be hostile to the idea of women being educated…
