Inside the envelope was a sheaf of receipts, most of them of the kind printed out by a modern till, but a couple handwritten in what I suspected was a deliberately archaic fashion—these had A GLIMPSE OF STOCKING printed at the top.

He might have been a transvestite, I thought, but I kept that to myself.

GIACOMO CASANOVA, the original Italian stallion, arrived in London to find one of his ex-lovers and babymothers holed up in Carlisle House, the former residence of the Earl of Salisbury, which faced onto Soho Square. Her name was Teresa Cornelys and, for her services to dissipation, debauchery, and the home furnishing industry she was once declared the Empress of Pleasure.

Carlisle House became London’s first members-only club. For a modest subscription one could enjoy an evening of opera, good food, and, it was rumored, convivial intimate company. It was Teresa who established the time-honored Soho tradition of packing them in, getting them drunk, and fleecing them till they squeaked. Alas, she was a better hostess than bookkeeper and eventually, after two decades, several bankruptcies, and a comeback tour she died alone and penniless in a debtors’ prison.

The rise and fall of Teresa Cornelys proves three things: that the wages of sin are high, that you should “just say no” to opera, and that it’s always wise to diversify your investment portfolio. This was the advice followed by Gabriella Rossi, also Italian, who arrived in London as a child refugee in 1948. After a career in the rag trade she opened her first branch of A Glimpse of Stocking in 1986 where she profited from the wages of sin, albeit tastefully, said no to opera, and made sure that her portfolio was suitably robust. When she died in 2003 it was as Dame Rossi, knighted for her services to naughtiness and leaving behind a small chain of lingerie shops.

The Soho branch was managed by a skinny blond woman who dressed in a no-nonsense trouser suit, but with no blouse, and worryingly thin wrists. She seemed genuinely amused when I showed her my warrant card and although she had no recollection of Henry Bellrush, she laughed out loud when I suggested that he might have been buying for himself.

“I doubt that,” she said. “This particular type of corset has a ‘vintage’ waist. It’s designed to be ten inches smaller than the hips—I doubt a man could wear that.”