‘I’m imagining rather a lot right now, as it happens,’ I said smartly, folding my arms.

She shook her head and threw up her veil. ‘You silly sausage.’ (Her grasp of the vernacular had come on, I must admit.) ‘You know there’s no one except you.’

‘Do I?’

‘I was trying to gain her confidence.’

‘Well, you didn’t have to try so hard, did you?’

‘Jenny!’ she said, sternly. ‘We don’t have time for such foolishness. Tonight is the final. If the Doctor is right then matters are about to come to a head. We must concentrate all our endeavours on solving this mystery.’

‘Yeah, well.’ At last I turned to her. ‘I may have made a little breakthrough there, as it happens.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Some of us still remember how to do detective work.’

Her face fell and I suddenly felt a little guilty. So I gave her a little peck on the cheek, then reached into my skirts for a manila dossier secreted there. ‘Mr Gideon Mortlock, as the note on the body said, is not what he seems.’

*

In the foyer of the Pom, a proud-as-punch Billy Skittles was acting as Master of Ceremonies. All the nobs was there for the Grand Final, and surrounding the crumbing old building was a ring of coppers, sent in to protect the Royal personage – and his distinguished guests – who was, for one night only, deigning to descend to the grim levels of the hoi polloi.

‘His Royal Highness,’ yelled Billy, ‘the Grand Duke Moritz of Herzoslovakia!’ A middle-aged man with a big hooter and a ludicrous, feathered hat entered and bowed, his arm linked to that of his ugly wife. The crowd crammed into the entrance, eyes on stalks, all clapping like seals. The Duke was followed by an elderly man in flowing Roman purple.

‘His Eminence, Cardinal Mazzini!’ cried Billy. ‘Papal Ambassador to the Court of St James!’ The Cardinal and his entourage entered smoothly and vanished into the crowd.

‘Mr Henry Irving,’ cried Billy. The great thespian come in on his spindly legs, balancing his pince-nez on his nose and looking like he’d rather be somewhere else.

Outside, meanwhile, the Doctor was doing his best to penetrate the security. He marched boldly up to the nearest policeman and smiled in a friendly fashion. ‘Evening, officer, if you could just let me through.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the bobby – who was the fresh-faced young chap what we encountered the night we found the headless corpse, ‘but no one’s to be admitted on account of the Royal visit.’

‘Ah yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ He flashed his clever paper – the one what’s blank but makes people see what they wants to see – but still the policeman shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir but I haven’t ever heard of the Ambassador to Peladon.’