He sounds defeated and it’s a feeling that I’m beginning to recognise. ‘Dinah asked me to come because—’

Unexpectedly, he chuckles. ‘Yes, she saw you in the paper, saving all of your frocks from the fire. Exactly the kind of thing she, herself, would do. Her clothes are her babies. “Look, Moss, this Fern Banks, she’s a woman who loves her clothes,” she tells me.’

I laughed dryly. ‘I didn’t manage to save all of them.’ I find myself telling him about the Twenties and Thirties cocktail dresses whose sequins have dissolved or melted, and the wool suit that has shrunk to a smaller size than the lining.

‘A tragedy,’ he comments.

‘Yeah,’ I agree, straightening my teaspoon in the saucer.

‘To fix them is almost impossible. Who has the time to sew sequins?’

‘Exactly.’

‘It is a challenge.’

‘I know.’ But something in his tone makes me look up at him.

His face is impassive, but there’s a gleam in his eye. He straightens a cufflink and says, ‘You need a good tailor.’

He’s right. With a sudden epiphany, I say, ‘I do need a good tailor!’

For the first time since I entered the shop, he smiles. ‘Obviously, to make a judgement I’d have to see these garments for myself. To you, they’re ruined, but,’ he shrugs in an exaggerated way that reminds me of Dinah, ‘maybe for me I’ll see a solution. For example, I can re-line the suit, alter the seams, maybe put a little contrasting panelling in, that won’t be a problem. The sequins, well, it depends.’

‘I’ll bring them in for you to look at. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’

‘Of course,’ he says.

‘Okay, then.’ I pick up the cup and sip it. ‘Blimey.’ The coffee gives me an instant hit and makes me shudder.

Moss has gone all morose on me again. ‘This shop is in a busy street and look at it,’ he points out, even though the street is empty. ‘My wife didn’t tell me about the repairs. She tells me that you want to bring your clients here for a bespoke fitting. And also while they’re here you may bring items for them to look at, in addition, to catch their eye.’

Eh? ‘I didn’t exactly say that. That’s not how my business works,’ I explain to him. ‘I sell things online and in Camden Market and that’s my living.’

‘Women buy frocks from you without trying them on?’

‘Yes.’

He stares at me for a moment and shakes his head in disbelief.