THE GRAND BALLROOM SEEMED TO lie under an enchantment on this balmy summer night. The ballroom’s wooden floorboards shimmered, as if beneath a haze; the guests bedecked in their pristine dinner jackets and lavish gowns of satin, rayon and ivory silk were open-mouthed in anticipation, and the silence was broken only by the scurrying of footsteps outside the doors – for, though the ballroom seemed frozen in time, life still went on inside the Buckingham Hotel. Guests still came and went, lovers still fought and made love in the hotel’s magnificent suites, the generators still turned, the kitchens still buzzed, old Maynard Charles – the hotel director himself – still paced the Buckingham’s opulent halls, waiting for the moment when he might be needed. Yet, once the ballroom doors were closed, the Grand was a world apart from the rest. The spell of silence held – until, finally, the Archie Adams Band began to play. Only then was the spell broken, and a completely different kind of magic woven in its place. The magic of music. The magic of dance.

Listen . . .

Raymond de Guise, lead demonstration dancer of the Buckingham Hotel, had been patiently watching the bandleader, waiting for the first note to strike. Archie Adams, a distinguished-looking man in his late fifties, with his bow tie and immaculate hair, had been playing in orchestras for all of his life and had picked up a thing or two about dramatic entrances. His orchestra was making one now. The first notes of ‘A Californian Serenade’ echoed across the ballroom, the trombones stabbing out the melody and bringing the guests to attention. Archie Adams himself led them on the ballroom’s grand piano, his twenty-strong orchestra made up of trumpets, trombones, saxophones, violins and even a double bass, with a single percussionist keeping the beat. Behind the double doors that led to their dressing rooms, the hotel dancers waited. Then, on Raymond’s cue, the doors flew open and they whirled, together, out onto the floor.

Raymond, a man of imposing stature that belied his elegance on the dance floor, was the first through. His dinner jacket was midnight blue, his collar high and starched so that his black curls, which were rebellious and refused to be tamed by even the strongest pomade, came close to touching the fabric. Hand in hand with his partner Hélène – resplendent in her sea-green gown, hand-stitched with a million tiny pearls like scattered stars – he reached the centre of the dance floor and together they turned to welcome the rest of the company.

‘Shall we?’ he whispered, as he did before every routine.

Hélène, who was always ready, smiled in return. ‘We shall, Raymond. Let’s show them how it’s done . . .’