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Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. The Grand Masquerade Ball
  5. Five Months Earlier . . .
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. September 1936
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. October 1936
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-one
  29. November 1936
  30. Chapter Twenty-two
  31. December 1936
  32. Chapter Twenty-three
  33. Chapter Twenty-four
  34. Chapter Twenty-five
  35. Chapter Twenty-six
  36. Chapter Twenty-seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-eight
  38. Chapter Twenty-nine
  39. Chapter Thirty
  40. Chapter Thirty-one
  41. Chapter Thirty-two
  42. Chapter Thirty-three
  43. Chapter Thirty-four
  44. Chapter Thirty-five
  45. Epilogue
  46. A New Year
  47. Extract from Anton Du Beke’s next novel’
  48. Acknowledgements
  49. About the Author
  50. Letter from Author

He was alive – and, even in spite of how battered and bloody he was, it made Nancy Nettleton’s heart soar.

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

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THE SUN HAD NOT YET cast its first glorious light on the trees and rooftops of Berkeley Square, but Mrs Moffatt moved hurriedly through the hallways of the Buckingham Hotel, riding the service lift to the staff quarters, then backtracking down the service stairs until she came to the secluded area where the managers’ residences lay. Behind the first door the night manager, a shadowy fellow who went by the name of Victor Garlick, was fast asleep; Mrs Moffatt fancied she could hear his snoring reverberating along the hall. She hurried past, to the door at the very end of the hall and knocked sharply. When no answer came, she knocked sharper still – and when no answer came again, she did something she had not expected to do. She reached into her pocket, produced a ring of keys as impressive as those of a medieval gaoler, and opened the door herself.

The suite was empty. Mr Charles was nowhere to be seen. The four-poster bed in which he slept appeared untouched. His desk was neatly organised, with the Monarch typewriter sitting patiently and the ink pot, pencils and ruler arranged at perfect right angles. His evening suit was still hanging on the hanger in the open wardrobe. On the other side of the room, the curtains remained drawn – and it was this, more than any other thing, that convinced Mrs Moffatt that she was right; Maynard Charles had not awoken here in his official quarters, not this morning.

But there is another place, she thought. Not that anyone knows about it but me . . .

Locking the door behind her, she marched back to the lift and rode it down a further storey – where, by accessing another locked door, she slipped unnoticed among the guest suites. There was no time to apologise to Mr Levant, the ageing star of the Parisian music halls, as he stepped out of the Pacific Suite with his paramour, a young lady forty years his junior. Mrs Moffatt bustled past and turned the corner, where at last she stood in front of the unassuming door of the Park Suite.

She knocked.

She waited.

She knocked again, more urgently this time, and relented only when she could hear the footsteps approaching on the other side.

The door opened a crack and Maynard Charles appeared, his jowly face screwed up in consternation. ‘Emmeline,’ he ventured. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’

There was no other reason that Mrs Moffatt might disturb him so. She knew better than to come to the Park Suite on a whim.