Dunbar's Parisian adventure lasted only eight days. Originally he had entered the city on behalf of his father's textile concern and had not intended to see Zelle at all. Indeed, he had even chosen a remote hotel where no one of consequence stayed. Yet given certain memories, certain feelings on familiar streets, he eventually found himself watching from that field with a pair of Swiss binoculars. Later, he would also admit to having purchased her a gift—a rather cheap scarf. And although he did not venture to say what might have occurred had he found her alone ... he had definitely been drinking hard for days.

In the main these were difficult days for Dunbar. His life had no real purpose. Most of his friends were merely acquaintances. His women were generally whores. On returning to London from those eight days in Paris, he more or less picked up where he had left off. He walked in the afternoons. He drank to excess in the evenings. On occasion he attended the theater or the cocktail parties of friends. His rooms were comfortable but not extravagant. He lived alone.

He kept Zelle's photographs, about a dozen of them, wedged between the pages of a book. He kept her last note locked in a drawer. Like Gray before him, he continued to follow her career through the newspapers, although as everyone knew, the newspapers were hardly reliable. If there were moments when he missed her very badly, there were also moments when he hated her.

It was a casual conversation with a stranger that ushered him into the next phase of his life, a seemingly chance encounter with a friend of a friend from university. It was a Friday, the end of September. He had entered his club at the usual hour and soon found himself drinking with a young man named John Allenby. About an hour later an associate of Allenby's joined them, a slender, fair-haired man named Martin Southerland.

Initially the conversation was harmless, a quiet chat about Oxford and the fate of absent friends. Then, with no clear transition, the discussion turned to politics, specifically the German threat, and in response to a question Dunbar found himself describing his stay in Vienna and his brief encounter with Spangler. (Much later he would definitely remember that Southerland had become silent the moment Spangler's name was mentioned.) Then there were questions, some of them quite pointed. Did Dunbar happen to recall what Spangler was doing in Vienna? Did he recall where the man had been staying. He was also asked the name of Spangler's regiment, and what Spangler had looked like.