It developed into a triumphal progress, covering over twenty major towns and many hundreds of miles; wherever they went, Charles Bannister, travelling ahead, had been able to arrange meetings, demonstrations, radio broadcasts, TV appearances – all the accompaniments that buttress fame. His task was not difficult, since most people on their journey had heard of Esther, most editors were ready to give her space, most local charitable bodies were eager to co-operate. By now, Esther Costello had caught on, and the Esther Costello Guild had won itself a niche in the American mind that ensured for it, and for her, an uncritical welcome and a solid body of public support.

The Bannisters had thought it best to regularize (in their own sense) Esther’s position, before they set out on their tour; and the Esther Costello Guild was already a reality. Besides themselves, they had co-opted on to the Board of Trustees the kind of people who invited the confidence of the simple and spiked the guns of the inquisitive: the Guild, as set out on its letter headings and throwaway leaflets, looked good from every angle save that of a chartered accountant. The Board, in addition to the Bannisters (who remained in full control), consisted of four other advisory members. They were a bachelor earl, somewhat discredited in England, whose sexual foibles were not yet common property in America; a Midwestern bishop, ill-advised by an ambitious chaplain; a ranking city politician who commanded a large and sympathetic local following; and an old-time aviatrix (‘Birdwoman No 1’ – ‘First Lady of the Skies’), over whose wandering mind Charles Bannister had, at some crucial moment in the past, established an effective hold.

With this crew to hallow its activities, the Esther Costello Guild declared itself open for business. Business, from the very beginning, was brisk; and it gathered momentum until, by the time they reached California, traditional home of lunatic causes, they were a riotous and golden success. California took them to its heart; and in particular, Hollywood, seeming to recognize in Esther someone in its own idiom, a manufactured creature whose appearance could set the crowds gaping – Hollywood accorded them the full treatment.

It was scarcely flattering to be thus identified, but it produced notable results. They held a series of five public meetings, all crowded out and all conspicuously profitable. Esther was interviewed continuously, via Mrs Bannister. She signed autographs, and her guided hand was the feature photograph on scores of front pages. She toured the film studios, and met selected film stars. (“How terrible!” said one of these, struck by Esther’s basic tragedy. “She’s never seen any of my pictures …”) She left her footprints, in cement, in front of a famous theatre, in between those of a collie dog and a cowboy’s horse. (It was suggested that she made her eyeprints instead, but this was not a feasible proposition: the nose intervened.) She was the centrepiece of a fabulous party given by a world-renowned studio magnate, at which there were three separate brawls among the guests, and a holdup by one of the hired waiters. She received a proposal of marriage from an ageing Romanian prince who was seeking, by means of this – his sixth – union, to repair fortunes shattered as long ago as 1906.