‘I thought pine, sir, would be appropriate,’ said Mawson. ‘I hope the temperature is as you like it. May I suggest a long, hot soak, sir?’

‘You may indeed,’ said Peregrine warmly.

‘Perhaps I may take your rug and coat. And shoes,’ said Mawson with an involuntary change of voice. ‘You will find a bath wrap on the rail and a hot rum and lemon within easy reach. If you would be good enough to ring, sir, when you are ready.’

‘Ready for what?’

‘To dress, sir.’

It seemed a waste of time to say: ‘In what?’ so Peregrine merely said ‘Thank you’ and Mawson said ‘Thank you’ and withdrew.

It was rapture beyond compare in the bath. Essence of pine. A lovely longhandled brush. Pine-smelling soap. And the hot rum and lemon. He left off shivering, soaped himself all over, including his head, scrubbed himself scarlet, submerged completely, rose, drank and tried to take a responsible view of the situation. In this he failed. Too much had occurred. He realized after a time that he was becoming light-headed and without at all fancying the idea took a hard-hitting cold shower. This restored him. Rough-dried and wrapped in a towelling bathrobe he rang the bell. He felt wonderful.

Mawson came and Peregrine said he would like to telephone for some clothes though when he thought about it he didn’t quite know where he would ring. Jeremy Jones with whom he shared a flat would certainly be out and it wasn’t the morning for their charlady. The Unicorn Theatre? Somebody would be there, of course, but who?

Mawson showed him to a bedroom where there was a telephone.

There were also clothes laid out on the bed. ‘I think they are approximately your size, sir. It is hoped that you will have no objection to making use of them in the meantime,’ said Mawson.

‘Yes, but look here –’

‘It will be much appreciated if you make use of them. Will there be anything else, sir?’

‘I – honestly – I –’

‘Mr Conducis sends his compliments, sir, and hopes you will join him in the library.’

Peregrine’s jaw dropped.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mawson neatly and withdrew.

Conducis? Conducis! It was as if Mawson had said ‘Mr Onassis’. Could this possibly be Mr Vassily Conducis? The more Peregrine thought about it the more he decided that it could. But what in the wide world would Mr Vassily Conducis be up to in a derelict theatre on the South Bank at half past ten in the morning when he ought to have been abominably lolling on his yacht in the Aegean? And what was he, Peregrine, up to in Mr Conducis’s house which (it now dawned upon him) was on a scale of insolently quiet grandeur such as he had never expected to encounter outside the sort of book which, in any case, he never read.