“You know the saying, an Englishman’s home is his castle? Well, the Symposium is a home and a castle. There’s a well-stocked library, a reading room, and a writing room. Card rooms and the billiard room for play, plenty of spaces for casual conversation, reading the papers, and so on, even a silence room where speech is strictly forbidden. A dining room with an excellent chef, drinks for the asking. Two floors of bedrooms so you never have to leave. Everyone from waiters to porters to doormen knows your face and your name. Nobody enters but members and approved guests. You saw for yourself how jealously the entrance is guarded, and members are Not At Home unless they specifically state otherwise. It’s designed to be the most pleasant, welcoming, comfortable place in one’s life, full of good company, where no importunate wife or bothersome business associate can trouble you.”

Will mentally replaced the membership’s idea of ‘good company’ with his own, leaving the rest of it in place, and felt a solid spike of envy. “That sounds pretty good,” he admitted. “Is your other club like that?”

“The Junior Antinous? No, that’s just gin and queers. Oh, finally.”

Harry Mitra, looking decidedly furtive, had stuck his head out of the door. “Kim? There you are. Come on. Mr. Darling,” he added with a nod to Will.

“I feel like contraband,” Kim murmured as they slipped in.

“That’s because you are,” Mitra said. “Just try to keep a low profile, will you? What do you need?”

“Knowle first, please. Then I want to find George Yoxall”—Will pricked up his ears—“and I’d also like to wander around a little and ask questions.”

“Knowle might have views on that,” Mitra said as they crossed the hall and headed up the stairs. “He’s got enough on his plate without complaints about strangers. What’s Yoxall got to do with the price of fish?”

“He had an issue with Fairfax. I’d like to ask him about it.”

“Did he? Well, I’ll see if he’s around, but I can’t promise anything.”

“I appreciate the effort. Thank you, Harry.”

Mitra gave him a rueful smile. “Sorry I can’t do more. Any light on the horizon?”

“Only that cast by everything on fire.”

“Sounds about right. This way.”

“Remind me who we’re going to see now,” Will said, as Mitra led the way into a corridor which he recognised as the one with the billiard room.

“The Secretary,” Kim said. “He’s the fulcrum, as it were, connecting the Club as a collection of gentlemen to the Club as a profitable commercial enterprise. He has to know everything that’s going on, reconcile grating personalities, whether of members or important staff, smooth over tensions, and preserve the Club’s reputation.”

“Sounds like a big job.”