‘Yes. The matter of insurance is somewhat involved, the commercial worth of the objects being impossible to define. I am informed that as soon as their existence is made known there is likely to be an unprecedented response. Particularly from the United States of America.’

There followed a short silence.

‘Mr Conducis,’ Peregrine said, ‘I can’t help asking this. I know it’s no business of mine but I really can’t help it. Are you – have you – I mean, would you feel at all concerned about whether the letters and gloves stay in the country of their owner or not?’

‘In my country?’ Mr Conducis asked as if he wasn’t sure that he had one.

‘I’m sorry – no. I meant the original owner.’

Peregrine hesitated for a moment and then found himself embarked upon an excitable plea for retention of the document and gloves. He felt he was making no impression whatever and wished he could stop. There was some indefinable and faintly disgusting taint in the situation.

With a closed face Mr Conducis waited for Peregrine to stop and then said: ‘That is a sentimental approach to what is at this juncture a matter for financial consideration. I cannot speak under any other heading: historical, romantic, nationalistic or sentimental. I know,’ Mr Conducis predictably added, ‘nothing of such matters.’

He then startled Peregrine quite shockingly by saying with an indefinable change in his voice: ‘I dislike pale gloves. Intensely.’

For one moment Peregrine thought he saw something like anguish in this extraordinary man’s face and at the next that he had been mad to suppose anything of the sort. Mr Conducis made a slight movement indicating the interview was at an end. Peregrine opened the door, changed his mind and shut it again.

‘Sir,’ he said. ‘One other question. May I tell the company about the letters and glove? The gloves that we use on the stage will be made by the designer, Jeremy Jones – who is an expert in such matters. If we are to show the original in the front of house he should copy it as accurately as possible. He should go to the museum and examine it. And he will be so very much excited by the whole thing that I can’t guarantee his keeping quiet about it. In any case, sir, I myself spoke to him about the glove on the day you showed it to me. You will remember you did not impose secrecy at that time. Since the report came through I have not spoken of it to anyone except Morris and Jones.’