He wasn’t going to think about that now. Kim did enough thinking for two, and they couldn’t both sit around being contemplative or they’d end up as monks. And he wanted to enjoy the evening properly, since Kim had been off scouting out another old house’s library for sale down in Sussex and they hadn’t seen each other for a few days. So Will had a quick wash, put on a clean shirt, failed to do something about his hair, and headed out to catch the tram to Holborn.

Kim lived in a swanky set of mansion flats, and had given Will a key to the back stairs, rather than have the porters know all their comings and goings. It was probably fair: he was a tradesman, he might as well use the tradesman’s entrance. As it were, he thought to himself with a grin, and let himself in and up to Kim’s kitchen, where a bald man in a sombre black suit and a white apron was at the stove.

“Good evening, Mr. Darling,” he intoned.

“Evening, Mr. Peacock,” Will said cheerfully, because Peacock’s gloom always gave him the wild urge to embark on a song and dance routine. “How are you?”

“Tolerable, thank you. Lord Arthur is in the sitting-room.”

Which was to say Sod off, I’m busy. Will took himself into the main room, where Kim was at the cocktail things.

“Starting early?”

Kim turned, a smile lighting his dark eyes. “Hello there. How did it go with Deansbrook?”

“Coughed up in full. Got a tenner over the number you put on it. He wasn’t very pleased.”

“Excellent. Aveston will be delighted. He needs the money.”

So did Will, and he was on a percentage. He gave Kim a highly coloured account of negotiations as they sipped sidecars, and Kim capped that with some comic stories of his scouting efforts in Sussex, which rather underplayed that he’d made some excellent finds.

“And I got something else, by the way,” he added, as Will admired his loot. “A bit...let’s say, out of the ordinary. Not for sale.”

“What is it?”

“Poetry. In the vein of the Decadents, though it goes a bit far even for them, and by that I mean half of it is raving mad. Well, the title is White Stains, implying exactly what you might think.”

That didn’t sound like Kim’s usual reading matter. “Why’d you pick that up?”

“Because amid the filth, there is some quite exquisite beauty. Listen to this.” He opened a slim volume.

“‘Lie close; no pity, but a little love.

Kiss me but once and all my pain is paid.

Hurt me or soothe, stretch out one limb above

Like a strong man who would constrain a maid.

Touch me; I shudder and my lips turn back

Over my shoulder if so be that thus

My mouth may find thy mouth—’”