‘They’ve been looking for you all night, Maynard. Mr Simenon’s been high and low trying to track you down.’ Maynard Charles’s face curdled, but he gave Mrs Moffatt the nod, as if instructing her to go on. ‘You better see it for yourself, Maynard. It’s Raymond de Guise. Something terrible has happened.’

*

By the time Maynard Charles got to Raymond’s quarters, one of the hotel doctors – summoned at dawn from his Harley Street practice – was already in attendance. He sat at his bedside, and de Guise himself was trussed up like a hog. His face, a purpling mess of bruises and abrasions, was patched up in places, and his hair was smeared back to reveal where his scalp had been opened up in what Maynard Charles could only take for a public brawl. One of his arms was hanging in a sling, and he sat on the edge of his bed, stripped to the waist while the doctor – whom Maynard Charles recognised as Evelyn Moore, greying and distinguished after serving admirably in France during the Great War – ran fingers along his ribs and listened to the rattle in his breast.

Raymond winced as Maynard Charles appeared, with Mrs Moffatt trailing behind. On another day he might have leaped to attention, but Doctor Moore had already told him that at least three of his ribs were fractured. The wrist in the sling was only a sprain, but that was little consolation, for he had already tried to hold a classic ballroom pose with the good doctor and the pain had been excruciating. The reason he did not smile at Mr Charles’s appearance was less to do with the solemnity of the occasion than it was the fact that one of his front teeth had been sheared off at the root, and – no matter how many times he swilled his mouth out – the rest of it was still rimmed in scarlet.

‘Raymond,’ Mr Charles began. ‘You’re . . . alive, at least.’

‘Alive he might be,’ the doctor said, ‘but it isn’t good news, Maynard. His arm will take a week to stop feeling as sore. Another blow or two might have seen one of those ribs break fully. I’ve seen lungs punctured by little worse than this. But it’s his foot, Maynard.’ Doctor Evelyn Moore moved aside, to reveal the swollen horror of Raymond’s right foot. ‘I can’t be certain here, but I’d hazard it’s fractured here and here. We’ll have to use a compression dressing. Plenty of ice. Keep it elevated. He can try putting weight on it in a couple of weeks. But as for dancing? Well, if you’re lucky, you can have him at Christmas. If not—’

‘Christmas? That’s ten weeks and more . . .’