Rupert could have sworn the genteel façade had suffered a kaleidoscopic shift. The wide front door burst open noisily, accompanied by a bellow of outrage. The bellower himself erupted onto the street. Chintz drapes, which harked back to the more spacious days of William Morris, were in motion. They were being tweaked aside, and the wondering faces of the clientele appeared, jostling for the best position to view the events developing on the pavement outside. The door had been opened to its widest extent to allow space for the manager—a cumbersome fellow in a dark suit—to manhandle and eject from the café a bundle of old clothes enveloping the skinny frame of what Rupert took to be a down-and-out. His tramp?

“Ah, there you are! So that’s where you were skulking!” Rupert’s attention was instantly caught. Occasionally, driven by hunger or despair, one of these all-too-numerous unfortunates would make a hopeless attempt to invade the premises of one of the city’s establishments by the front door instead of creeping round to the back, where he would be treated with furtive generosity by the serving staff if he was lucky.

Embarrassing little spat! Townies at play. Kinder not to look? Rupert would normally have grimaced and prepared to move on. But today he stayed put, observing the struggling pair. The portly grotesque, watch chain now straining across his silk-waistcoated abdomen, intrigued him. He widened the focus of his huntsman’s stare to take in the broader picture. Who was this? Rupert had taken him for the manager, but he corrected himself. No salaried employee would have taken the liberty of creating such a public scene. This lardy gent carried himself with all the assurance of . . . the owner. Rupert chuckled. He’d seen much the same whipped up, noisy aggression in a male robin establishing its proprietorial rights in the springtime nest-building frenzy. Well, well! Many had speculated on the identity of “Aunty,” and now, before his eyes, the mask seemed to have slipped off.

Rupert moved closer. He wanted to judge the quality of the verbal exchange that was now occurring between the two badly matched adversaries. Was his target articulate? Educated? The chairman had rather stressed that quality in his briefing. “Bear in mind that a modicum of resilience in the subject is to be preferred. We need a touch of steel to strike a spark!” It hardly mattered; the bell of Great St. Mary’s Church was banging out twelve. This man would have to do.

The sweating incarnation of “Aunty” was holding forth: “Git yer ugly carcass out of my tearoom or I’ll call the coppers! ’oo the ’ell do you think you are, coming in ’ere, all la-di-dah and taking the mickey, you old scarecrow?”