Henderson reached above his bookcase and opened a hidden flap. Beneath it were two bolts, which enabled the entire bookcase to roll forwards on castors when they were released.

‘Blimey.’ Marc smiled as he took another sip of whisky. ‘I never knew it did that.’

‘I came back because of this lot, not out of concern for you,’ Henderson admitted, as he grabbed the wooden dado rail halfway up the wall and lifted out a perfectly disguised panel, behind which a three-shelved compartment was built into the wall.

‘Is that gold?’ Marc asked, as he eyed a stack of shining ingots. But before he got an answer his gaze was drawn towards cardboard boxes filled with ammunition and three guns hanging from hooks.

‘Sten gun,’ Henderson said, as he pulled one out and showed it to Marc. ‘Not the most accurate weapon, but if you’ve got five seconds and you need to kill everyone in a room it’s bloody handy. Mind you, this is more useful for what we’re doing.’

Henderson pulled out an automatic pistol with a silencer screwed on the front. ‘I’m going to be using this,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ll give you the Sten, but it’s a weapon of last resort because half of Paris will hear all about it when you pull the trigger on that thing.’

‘What about the gold?’ Marc asked.

‘I can’t come back here,’ Henderson said, ‘so I’m taking everything. There’s about a hundred thousand francs in French currency, but the Boche might bring in their own and make it worthless. On the other hand, gold never goes out of fashion.’

‘It’s lucky the Germans didn’t find this lot,’ Marc said. ‘I thought they did a pretty thorough search.’

Henderson smiled and pointed up at the ceiling. ‘I expect they found the handgun, false passports and ten thousand francs under the skirting upstairs and thought they’d got everything.’

‘Dummy stash,’ Marc said, nodding as his tongue explored the mound of dry blood that had built up around his missing tooth. ‘That’s pretty smart.’

‘I never should have had to come back here,’ Henderson said firmly. ‘Smart would have been moving all this stuff out before the Germans reached Paris. But with everything that’s been going on, with thousands of documents at the Embassy to destroy, plus a hundred Embassy staff to evacuate and two dozen agents and their families … I don’t think I’ve slept more than three hours at a stretch in the last fortnight.’

‘So what now?’ Marc asked.