Grottorosso rose splendidly from the bunk and came across the cabin to lay a hand on her bowed shoulder, for she had buried her face in her hands, apparently in despair. ‘Minerva, my dear. Look at me. Please? Now. You see that I do not weep? On the contrary. I am alive with hope, my mind is filled with ideas and thoughts, I am filled with optimism, I breathe, the blood courses, all is not lost! Not at all. And you have only yourself to blame for that! Miss Drew of Warwick, my beloved governess of many years ago, always used to say, “Umberto! Remember! When one door closes another door opens!” and like all clichés, Minerva, it is true. Another door has opened. Opened right before my eyes at that terrible picnic yesterday. While I was suffering at the hands of the demented Peverill, when all the doors were starting to close about me and the darkness of despair and rejection seemed to smother me, what did I see? What did I see, Minerva? But there, standing only feet away from me, laughing in the sunlight, glowing, alive, vibrant, glorious, a God in blinding yellow! I saw l’Aiglon! The real one. A reincarnation. I almost paled with amazement, eh Belluno? You saw?’

‘I saw,’ said Belluno. ‘You paled.’

‘Perfection!’

In yellow? Cuckoo Peverill’s boy?’

‘Exactly. His name is Pollock, he said. And here again, this Peverill was so utterly obscene, so vile. “She picked him up on the beach, like a pebble,” he said. Can you believe it? A husband about his own wife? It is not, of course, very surprising. What kind of marriage can it be? This brutal, ugly-minded creature, this English hysteric! Of course she would be attracted to a healthy, lusty young fellow like that. But to tell me, a complete stranger … I was shocked more than I can say to you. If he makes her happy, then one can only rejoice, for she appeared quite charming, still attractive; crushed of course, by this oaf in his British blazer.’ He went across to one of the portholes. ‘I took her a small gift, some corals I had. Nothing; very modest. She was so intensely grateful, I was moved.’ He raised one of the steel louvres, sunlight flooded the cabin, dancing on the glass and chromium.

You just tripped. You’re in the canyon now, honey … right down there, way down at the bottom.

‘But we already had l’Aiglon at that moment, right? You couldn’t use two, could you?’

‘As a double. I thought of him as a double, of course. For the riding, the swimming, and all the things which poor Hagel was so maladroit in performing. I was flooded with relief.’

‘But can he do all these things, this boy? Do you know?’

‘He said all. Except this …’ He touched the bloody sleeve of his fencing tunic.