The coachman touched his beaver hat, climbed up on to his seat again, and snapped his whip. Collis was left on the boardwalk with Ursula, trying desperately to push his way through the crowds of theatregoers and curious by-standers, and to follow Sam Lewis’s enormous white head through the glass-and-pearwood doors of the Empire.

Inside, the foyer was more like the saloon of a sinking ship than a place of entertainment. The enthusiasm of the theatregoers verged on panic. Above them, a large chandelier sparkled, and there were red drapes hung all around, but they did very little to alter the impression that the Empire was simply a box into which a ridiculously large number of very excited people had jammed themselves. Collis kept his arm around Ursula’s shoulder as they forced their way to the doors of the auditorium itself, and it took five minutes of struggling and jostling before, ruffled and slightly glassy-eyed, they finally found themselves in Sam Lewis’s box.

Collis took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. Although it was chilly outside, the temperature inside the Empire was fierce. It was a theatre designed in the traditional manner, with a gilded proscenium over which two cherubs blew hunting horns, and with heavy red drapes; but there was nothing traditional about the way in which the audience behaved. They didn’t arrive calmly and take their seats, the way an audience would have done in New York, and await the performance in a murmur of polite conversation. Instead, they seemed determined to jump up and down, and argue, and shout to each other at the top of their voices, and wave, so that the main body of the stalls had the appearance of a squabbling flock of black-and-white gulls, all black evening coats and white shirts, bobbling and jostling, and the heat that was generated was enough to make Collis feel like fighting his way out into the plaza again and pressing his forehead against a cold store window.

Knickerbocker Jane opened her silver-link evening purse and took out a small engraved flask. ‘Will this help?’ she whispered to Collis. ‘You look as if you’re just about to shake off this mortal shackle.’

Collis gratefully took the flask, wrapped it in his handkerchief, and quickly tipped his head back to take a shot. It was cognac, VSOP, and it sank down inside him with a warmth and smoothness that slowed his pulse rate and brightened his eyes.

‘Thank you,’ he said, passing the flask back.

‘I’d rather be in hell than here, how about you, Collis?’ said Sam Lewis.

Collis coughed. ‘I don’t know. At least when you’re here, you can leave when it’s over.’

‘Well, sure,’ said Sam Lewis, ‘but the virtue of hell is that they don’t expect you to sit through some dangdratted thespianism, as well as roast.’