Raymond had not been seen in the ballroom for seven days and seven nights. The rumour circulating around the hotel was that he’d been laid low with a particularly virulent strain of measles. In a place like the Buckingham, this was the sort of news that the management would keep hidden by any means necessary – for any inkling of pestilence in the hotel, and the veneer of glamour they worked hard to cultivate would vanish in an instant. Billy had heard Rosa and Ruth tittering that it was, inevitably, some other kind of pox that Raymond de Guise had fallen ill with – for wasn’t Raymond known to be a gigolo as well as a dancer? One of the concierges had posited that de Guise was actually holding Maynard Charles and the hotel board to ransom, refusing to come out of his chambers until a new, elevated contract was signed. This was the sort of thing that fallen gentlemen like Raymond de Guise did.

Alone among them, only Billy knew the real reason Raymond was confined to his chambers. The memory of him, spread-eagled on the floor of the Midnight Rooms as the mob surged, remained vivid in Billy’s mind.

Billy rode the service lift up to the staff chambers and knocked on Raymond’s door. When no answer was forthcoming, he knocked again. ‘Raymond!’ he called out. ‘Raymond, open up. It’s Billy.’

When the silence lingered, Billy lit upon a brilliant idea. He was proud of this; it would get him a reaction for sure. ‘I got a letter for you, Raymond. Courtesy of your . . . mother. But if you’re not here to take it, well, I s’pose I can always leave it with Mr Charles and you can collect it later—’

The door was wrenched open. There he stood, his face still swollen and marked with bruises, which had once been purple, but were now fading to yellows and tan browns. He was holding himself awkwardly, one hand braced against the door jamb, the other gripping the cane on which he held himself aloft. At the end of his right leg, his foot was encased in a thick bandage.

‘Get in here, Brogan,’ he snapped, and Billy was happy to oblige.

*

On the edge of the bed, Raymond’s eyes scanned over the letter: three-and-a-half pages of words scribbled in fury and haste.

‘You’ve already read this, I presume?’

Billy’s face opened in horror. ‘The thought of such a thing! Mr de Guise, what do you take me for?’

‘Maynard Charles has his fingers in every letter and package that goes out through the hotel post room. Don’t deny it for a second, Billy. You know it’s true. So why on earth would a letter enter this hotel that didn’t have his eyes on it?’