Snape sat down behind his desk. Tim and I were sitting opposite him. We’d been waiting for him in the office for a couple of hours but he hadn’t offered either of us so much as a cup of tea.

“What I want to know,” he began, “is what the two of you were doing at the circus tonight. Why were the performers trying to kill you? And what happened to Boris the balloon seller?”

“Someone killed him,” I said.

“I know that, laddy. I’ve seen the body. Someone stuck a knife in him.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “The circus people thought it was us.”

“That’s an easy enough mistake to make when you two are involved.” Snape smiled mirthlessly. “We went to the circus because we wanted to talk to the balloon seller,” he explained. “Luckily for you. But why were you interested in him? That’s what I want to know.”

“I wanted to buy a balloon,” I said.

“Don’t lie to me, Diamond! Not unless you want to spend a few minutes on your own with Boyle.”

“Just one minute,” Boyle pleaded. “Thirty seconds!”

“All right,” I said. “We were interested in Lenny Smile.”

“Ah!” Snape’s eyes widened. Boyle looked disappointed. “Why?”

“We’re working for a man called Joe Carter. He’s American . . .”

“He thinks Lenny Smile was murdered,” Tim said.

Snape nodded. “Of course Smile was murdered,” he said. “And it was the best thing that ever happened to him. If I wasn’t a policeman, I’d have been tempted to murder him myself.”

Tim stared. “But he was a saint!” he burbled.

“He was a crook! Lenny Smile was the biggest crook in London! Boyle and I have been investigating him for months—and we’d have arrested him if he hadn’t gone under that steamroller.” Snape opened a drawer and took out a file as thick as a north London telephone directory. “This is the file on Lenny Smile,” he said. “Where do you want me to begin?”

“How about at the beginning?” I suggested.

“All right. Lenny Smile set up a charity called Dream Time. He employed two assistants . . . Rodney Hoover, who comes from the Ukraine. And Fiona Lee. She’s from Sloane Square. We’ve investigated them, and as far as we can see, they’re in the clear. But Smile? He was a different matter. All the money passed through his bank account. He was in financial control. And half the money that went in, never came out.”

“You mean . . . he stole it?” I asked.

“Exactly. Millions of dollars that should have gone to poor children went into his own pocket. And when he did spend money on children, he got everything cheap. He provided hospitals with cheap X-ray machines that could only see halfway through. He provided schools with cheap books full of typing errrors. He took a bunch of children on a cheap adventure vacation.”

“What’s wrong with that?”