Mortlock smiled and smoothed his moustaches. ‘I’m a very popular fellow. Now if you’ll excuse me.’ He gestured towards the door.

The Doctor looked him up and down with interest, nodded to himself and made his way out.

Mortlock sat down again and steepled his hairy fingers, his dark eyes glittering like jet.

*

Somewhere, across town, a meeting was taking place. It wasn’t the usual sort of meeting, not a grouping of town clerks discussing the creaking sewer system, nor a knot of twittering Christian do-gooders packaging up comestibles for the destitute of the East End.

No, this was something very different. A Conference of Crime!

The room – long and low-ceilinged and oppressive – was in almost total darkness and crowded with strange clutter. Everything from ammonites and Liebig Condensers to elephants’ feet what you stuck umbrellas in. Around the table, there was a hushed silence, broken only occasionally by a strange, low mechanical whirr.

At last, someone spoke. A woman’s voice, harsh, strident, Yorkshire-accented. ‘Are we ever going to get started?’

Again the strange, soft click and whirr.

The woman sighed and spoke again. ‘You actually have confidence in this hare-brained scheme of his?’

Then another voice, whispery as falling leaves. ‘I do.’

‘And how does it benefit us? How does it benefit C.A.B.A.L.?’

‘You know our credo.’

‘Of course.’

‘We sit in high places and fan discord.’

‘All well and good,’ grumbled the woman. ‘But this is just a scheme of petty revenge. We should be aiming at higher things.’

Another voice piped up from across the table; by its accent, Indian. ‘And you, madam? What plans do you have afoot?’

The woman smiled, though her smile was barely visible in the gloom of the stuffy room. ‘A variety,’ she said. ‘And one very pretty little possibility.’

*

In Anne’s dressing room, there came a delicate knock.

‘Miss Dante? Miss Dante.’ It was Arthur, the autograph man with the big baby’s head. ‘I do hope you’ll forgive this intrusion … ’

He creaked open the door, putting down the box of props which had gained him ingress.

The room was empty.

With an excited squeak, Arthur scurried inside as fast as his flabby body would allow, glancing quickly at the items on the dressing table: face powders, unguents, creams, a spray for the throat, something rare and expensive from Paris. And letters and photographs from admirers. A great many of them …

Arthur grabbed the nearest in his clumsy hands and read it over hungrily. ‘“To my own love. Yours always, Theodore.” Theodore? Who’s Theodore?’ He tossed it aside and grabbed another. ‘“To my darling Anne. From a devoted admirer.” “Devoted admirer”! Ha!’