But the young man was already gone, his footsteps echoing away. Sam had no choice but to wait, surrounded by the quiet murmurings of the few diners at the far end of the room. He allowed his eyes to blur, his imagination to run. Had A. L., the owner of the case, once sat here in solitary splendour, penning a letter before departing Tangier, never to return? Perhaps the dining room had been full of guests back then, champagne and brandy and music from a piano, chatter in French, English, Arabic, cigar smoke swirling like secret code.

‘Monsieur?’ He looked up. A middle-aged man was standing before him. ‘I am Farouk, the manager here,’ he smiled. ‘How may I help? You are interested in a room? I am sorry for your wait, we do not have many staff tonight.’

‘That’s, ah, OK.’ Sam shifted in his espadrilles. ‘I’m not here about a room. I wanted to ask about your … cloakroom. It sounds crazy, but I have this.’ He pulled the tag from his pocket. ‘I think it came from here?’

The manager frowned, holding out his hand. In the dim light, the leather tag looked older than ever.

‘Oui,’ he said at last. ‘Oui, oui, this belonged to the Continental.’ He looked at Sam over his spectacles. ‘How did you come by it, monsieur?’

‘I found it,’ Sam said, before immediately regretting the words. He needed some reason to explain his being there, to make it less strange. I’m trying to write a book wouldn’t cut it. ‘That is, I found it among my late uncle’s possessions. This was his too,’ he said quickly, showing them the case.

The manager looked no less confused. ‘Your uncle was a guest with us?’ He held up the tag. ‘But this is very old. I have never seen one like it, and I have worked here for twenty years.’

‘Yes, I think he was a guest.’ Sam could feel himself turning red. ‘Perhaps some time around nineteen twenty-eight?’

‘That is fifty years ago, monsieur!’

‘I know, I know, I just—’ He groped for some rational argument, but there wasn’t one. ‘I just wondered why he kept it,’ he muttered. ‘Whether he left any belongings here, unclaimed, for some reason. I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea.’

The manager was smiling now, polite but pitying. ‘It is true we sometimes store items for guests, but for this long?’ He handed back the tag. ‘I do not know.’

‘Store? Then you do have a storage room?’

‘Of course, monsieur.’

‘Could …’ His curiosity was too much. What might be lurking in the storeroom of a hotel like this? ‘Could I perhaps have a look?’

The manager’s eyebrows rose. ‘We do not allow guests to enter the storeroom. It is untidy. Too many old things.’