‘Here we have the details of one Wilhelm Stefan Werner, born on 6 November 1845, now aged forty-four years. His place of birth is stated to be Hamburg. His father’s occupation is given as “restaurant porter”. But far from having any great success or reputation in the restaurant business here in Berlin, we find young Wilhelm Stefan at twenty years of age following in his father’s footsteps and working also as a restaurant porter here in the Hotel Imperial in Freidrichstrasse.

‘Now,’ he flicked to the next page of the file, ‘nothing wrong with that. Honest work, you might think. But this is where it starts to get interesting.’

Swallow could see that Pfaus was relishing his role as narrator of whatever drama was about to unfold.

‘He has a few offences on the record committed in Hamburg. Two charges of assault, one serious, on a street girl near the port. She died a few days later, probably as a result of the beating he gave her. But the post-mortem showed she had liver disease and a bad heart, and there was not enough evidence upon which to mount a charge of murder. He did a year in prison. Then another assault on a police officer. He spent a month in jail for that. Then he moved to Berlin and somehow got a job at the Imperial, apparently helping to manage supplies coming into the kitchens. Then in February 1879 the manager of the hotel lodges a complaint with the Kriminalpolizei, alleging that Werner, along with another employee, had been systematically defrauding the place over three years, charging for goods that had never been supplied and lodging the proceeds in a false bank account.’

‘If they had a free run for three years, they must have creamed off a bit of money,’ Swallow ventured.

‘Indeed. They got away with an amount that might equate to several hundred of your British pounds.’

Swallow did not attempt to conceal his incredulity.

‘What do you mean “got away with”? Are you saying they didn’t get jail?’

‘That’s precisely what I’m saying, Joseph. They were never charged. The owners of the hotel had already decided it was time to sell out. They had agreed a price with new investors, underwritten by one of Berlin’s leading banks. They didn’t want any scandal around the running of the business. In fact, they gave Wilhelm Stefan Werner a fine letter of commendation to his new prospective employers in London.’

‘Do I have to guess?’ Swallow asked. ‘The Savoy Hotel in the Strand?’

Pfaus grinned.