The Rat Trap

Nobody in a great household sees as much as the lady's maid. She witnesses the whispered conversations, the furtive letters, the visitors who arrive after dark. She knows which jewels are paste and which secrets could ruin a reputation forever.

Mariette Le Bas, a young French femme-de-chambre, has served seventeen mistresses across England and the Continent. Behind the elegant facades of London townhouses and Continental villas, she has encountered murder, theft, blackmail, and betrayal. From Bournemouth to Florence, from Paris to Genoa, her keen eyes and sharp wits have made her an unwitting witness to crimes that would make Scotland Yard shudder.

In these remarkable confessions, Mariette relates the most extraordinary cases from her years in service-tales of desperate wives, dangerous secrets, and deadly schemes among the fashionable classes of Edwardian society.