‘And that’s where I come in. When do I leave?’

He gave me a knowing look and then smiled. Jolly’s infrequent smiles were unnerving. ‘You’d better wait until you’ve seen the chairman.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You have an appointment with him at eleven.’

During my ten years offering expert consultation to this company, I had met the chairman exactly ten times and I’d already had my ration for the year. ‘What does he want?’

‘Ah!’ said Jolly, and smiled again. ‘Mrs Salton is the chairman’s niece.’

Lord Hosmer was perturbed. He waffled on for fifteen minutes without stopping, repeating himself many times, and it all boiled down to the fact that he was exceedingly and understandably perturbed. I was to investigate the situation directly and personally and not to rely on any of my minions; I was to investigate the situation and report to him immediately, if not before; I was to proceed to Campanilla starting, if possible, yesterday, and what was I waiting for?

Yes, sir; yes, sir; three bags full, sir.

There was one question I really wanted to ask: what angle should I take? Did he want me to look for a reason to invalidate the claim – in which case Jill Salton, niece to the chairman, would be justifiably annoyed? Or should I work the other side of the street and let the company catch a £500,000 draught? But that’s not a question to put lightly to the chief executive of an insurance company. Hosmer was neatly impaled on the horns of a dilemma and it would be tactless to embarrass him by asking awkward questions which should properly be put to an underling, who would instead look at the entrails of a chicken at dead of night and interpret the Great Man’s mind.

So I went back to friend Jolly and put the awkward question to him.

He was affronted. ‘You’re to find out the truth, Kemp,’ he said pompously.

Ken Costello was a much happier man. Although he juggled hundreds of millions of pounds, he didn’t let the awesomeness of it worry him unduly. He was a big, boisterous extrovert given to practical joking in the infantile Stock Exchange manner and equipped with an enormous fund of dirty stories also culled from former colleagues on the trading floor. When I walked into his office he lifted an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Salton,’ I said.

‘Ha!’ His eyes rolled. ‘Is Jolly worried?’

‘More to the point, are you?’

He shrugged. ‘Not much – yet.’

I sat down. ‘Okay, I’m listening.’