‘Let me see,’ said Charlotte. ‘One was Sir Marcus Brough, I believe. Yes, that’s right. Paul had a long conversation with him. That didn’t happen when he approached the other man. In fact, he was very rude to your brother.’

‘What was his name?’

‘I’ve forgotten, I’m afraid but …’ She racked her brains. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said, ‘I do remember his position in the Cabinet.’

‘Go on.’

‘He was the President of the Board of Trade.’

‘Oswald Ferriday.’

‘That was the name,’ she agreed. ‘However did you know it?’

‘I met him at the Home Office,’ explained Peter, ‘and he stared at me as if he wanted to see me boiled in oil. I realise why now. Ferriday must have mistaken me for Paul. It’s not the first time someone has done that,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘and I daresay it won’t be the last.’

Any reservations that Paul had had about keeping Dorothea Glenn ignorant of the truth about her beloved had been swept away. He and Hannah would never have got the vital information that had emerged if the young actress had been stunned by news of his murder. From what he’d been told about Orsino Price, he was able to build up a picture of him. If he could win the confidence of someone like Dorothea, he must have been highly plausible, concealing far more about himself than he actually told her yet somehow persuading her that he was an acceptable suitor. Paul had met lots of failed actors like him: handsome, cunning, apparently agreeable young men who hung around on the fringes of the theatrical world in search of a way to advance their careers on the stage. Instinctively rejecting the advances she’d received in the past, Dorothea had somehow found Price irresistible.

Leaving her in Hannah’s care, Paul paid a visit to Captain Golightly to make him aware of the latest development. The latter was delighted with the news.

‘That’s more than we could have hoped,’ said Golightly. ‘This wretched fellow was clearly the assassin’s apprentice. One thing concerns me, however. If all that he had to do was to cause a distraction, he couldn’t have been paid very much. Why was he boasting to Miss Glenn that he was about to enjoy a windfall?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Paul.

‘And what did you conclude?’

‘My feeling is that Price didn’t realise exactly why he’d been hired. What he thought was a simple task turned out to have a sinister aspect. All of a sudden, he was an unwitting accomplice in a murder.’

‘That must have shaken him.’