“Military Gentlemen desirous of reconnecting with old colleagues are invited to make use of our discreet and swift location services. Enquiries at . . .” she recited. “And he gave the phone number.” She smiled. “That wretched phone never stopped ringing! So many callers asked the same thing—‘Am I through to Enquiries At?’ The newspaper typesetters had spelled ‘at’ with a capital ‘A.’ People seemed happy to use it. It just stuck.

“Just after the Kaiser’s war, it was. You know the chaos. Army units split up. Families, too. Men missing in the thousands. So easy to lose track of loved ones.” Her expression hardened. “Or hated ones.”

“Bit off more than you could chew, did you?”

“We got all sorts. Abe was very good at making connections. He greased a few palms, got to know the right people—clerks and record keepers and suchlike in the regiments. He could always be bothered, Abel. Fell into a conversation as though he’d only just spoken to you the week before. People liked him. Told him their stories. The enquiries came in, and it paid well. He took on another girl to do the typing and I helped him with the tracking down.

“And that’s when it got interesting! Some people didn’t want to be found. Were being tracked for sinister reasons, you can imagine. Unpaid debts, treachery, ‘that watch I lent him,’ ‘that sergeant who had it off with my wife while I was in Mesopotamia.’ It took some skill, but Abe caught on that he could charge a fee of those who didn’t want to be found, just to keep his mouth shut.”

“Ouch!” said MacFarlane. “Asking for trouble, playing one side against the other.”

“He was very good at it. He got caught once when the two sides compared notes and decided he needed to be taught a lesson. Lost a front tooth in that little spat. Still, he was always a good fighter in a dirty sort of way. Hard to lay a glove on Abe!

“Then, one day, something peculiar happened. Abe was contacted by a very senior army officer who interviewed him from his leather armchair in a club in St. James’s. He wanted a man found—a fellow officer—and Abe got the feeling that it was for no good intent. The client clearly hated the bloke he was hunting for. Well, Abe located the bloke and reported back. The gent was delighted and paid up on the spot. With a bonus. Then he asked if Abe’s services extended that little bit further. Experienced military man that he was—oh yes, he’d taken the trouble to enquire into Abe’s records, which were impressive and ‘shall we say—a bit mixed,’ he suggested delicately. Could Abe see his way to being of further assistance?