He ought to have known about de Guise before Brogan spoke up. Somewhere along the way, his eye had been somewhere else – and he’d overlooked every sign that the dancer was not truly who he said he was. Thank the Lord that Billy Brogan had the good sense – or was it self-interest? – to have copied down the contents of that letter. A hotel director had to know every secret, every skeleton in every cupboard, because there was only one thing that could fell him: scandal. He had to know what scandals were coming and contain them.

De Guise – he would continue to call him de Guise; it would pay to buy into the legend – was right, of course. The Buckingham could be an unseemly place. When Lord Edgerton descended with his pack of fascist friends, his cousins in high society and their associates from overseas, something had changed. But he was in no position to ask anybody to leave the hotel; to do as much would have been unthinkable – even if it hadn’t been for Mr Moorcock and the other spooks like him who had found, in Maynard Charles, the perfect tool.

He didn’t realise until he spilled brandy above the rim of his glass that he had started shaking. Just the idea of Mr Moorcock’s threats was enough to make his blood boil. He drank what brandy remained in the glass and left the office, locking it behind him. Not that this had done any good once the Cohen boys had wandered into his hotel. He would not be able to reprimand the boy who’d let them in – to do so would have risked exposing the pact he’d made to keep Raymond here – but he would make certain, from now on, that he was not left alone at the staff entrance. Weak boys could be bought. He was sick and tired of people being bought and sold, traded like pawns, in this hotel. He was sick and tired of being the one doing the buying and selling.

But then he thought of Mr Moorcock again, and the only thing that could stop him screaming out loud was the walk he took, up through the housekeeping halls, into the service lift and up, up, up – not to his own quarters, but to the sixth storey and the unmarked door of the Park Suite.

Maynard had no need to knock. He kept a key on a silver chain in his pocket. He slipped it into the lock and, opening the door just enough to squeeze through, he entered the suite.

The smells hit him at once, as always they did: the light and woody oriental smell of cologne imported from the East; the smell of roast coffee beans and peppermints in the silver bowl on the dresser.