'I am struck,' I began, although it had not struck me until then, 'by the people I've met so far. Bartoli, an Italian. You, who I am told are Greek. Lady Ravenscliff, who is Hungarian.'

'And more than that,' he replied. 'The head of finance, for example, is a man called Caspar Neuberger.'

'German?'

'Oh, he'd be quite annoyed to be called just German,' he said with a faint smile. "I am Chewish, dear man! Chewish!" Try calling him a Prussian – he was born in Prussia – and see what sort of reaction you get. John used to refer to Caspar's military character just to see how long he would be able to control himself.'

'I stand corrected. But you know what I mean.'

'The corporation of mongrels and half-breeds. Yes, I do see. We are not a blue-blooded company. It is our great quality, and the reason why we have left all our competitors in the dust. John Stone had two great, remarkable, qualities, which you would do well to bear in mind. One was his gift for organisation. The other was his judgement of character. He wanted people who would do a good job with the minimum of supervision. He didn't care who they were, or where they came from. As he had no family to speak of, the board isn't stuffed with useless relations. As far as operations are concerned, Bartoli is a genius at seeing the evolution of the whole. Williams, the managing director, is a brilliant administrator but the son, I believe, of a bankrupt coal merchant. Caspar is extraordinary at finance, and I – sooner or later someone will tell you, so it might as well be me – am of mysterious but entirely unseemly origins. But it all works. John used to complain sometimes, saying it had all been organised too well, and there was nothing left for him to do. That the company no longer needed him.'

'And what exactly do you do?'

'Me? Oh, I'm just the salesman. The negotiator. Nothing more than that. People want to buy, I get the best price. I am easily the most disposable of them all. But, what I do, I do well. My reputation is, alas, different. Do you want to know what it is?'

'By all means.'

'I am the Angel of Death,' he said softly, and looked at me in such a way that for a moment I almost believed him. Then he brightened up and continued cheerfully, 'you wouldn't think it to look at me, but there we are. I am the sinister one, the worker in shadows, the man whose hidden hand is everywhere. John Stone's alter ego, who does the dirty work he could not do himself. No violence or turmoil happens anywhere on the planet without me being responsible for it somehow.' He smiled sweetly at me.

'Really?'

'Not at all. I am, as I say, merely a negotiator. But it is a fine reputation, you must admit. I do not discourage it much; it makes my life seem more interesting than it is, and perhaps even gives me a small advantage in negotiations. In fact, I do little more than travel around Europe, haggling over details of contracts.'

'You are not in England very much?'

'No. Sales to the Royal Navy and the army are done in a different way. I have nothing to do with it, and wouldn't be very effective anyway. The navy likes to deal with gentlemen and I, as you no doubt realise, am not a gentleman.'

'The obituaries referred time and again to the organisation of the companies. What's so special about that? Aren't all companies well organised?'

Xanthos laughed. 'Oh, no. You would not believe how some go about things. John Stone was remarkable: to create such an organisation, and keep control of it was a stupendous achievement. There are other factories, all over the world. Mines, wells, ships. All perfectly choreographed. And on top of that there is the money. The banks, the credit notes, the bills of exchange, the shareholdings, the loans, in many currencies and many countries. And everything has to be in the right place at the right moment, for the purpose of constructing these vast machines, some of which take nearly two years to complete. If people had any idea at all how remarkable this was, then the businessman would replace the priest and the poet and the scientist as the greatest figure of the age. But we are modest people,' he said with a smile, 'and do not desire fame.'

'But surely, someone orders a ship, you build it, get paid for it. Isn't it straightforward?'

He sighed. 'You don't understand governments do you? Or money. No. It is not straightforward. A government orders a battleship, say. Do they pay? No. Of course not. They pay a little, the rest when it is delivered. The greater part of the money you find yourself. That in itself is fabulously risky. Beswick's demands for capital are as great as that of many an entire country. The Government places an order, and we commit the capital. Then – they change their mind. No, Mr Braddock, it is not simple. Not simple at all.'

'I gather things are a bit difficult at the moment, is that right?'

He looked sternly at me. 'A bit difficult? We have been through terrible times in the last few years. Ever since the Liberals took power, orders from the Royal Navy have all but dried up, and they are our main customer. We – and Armstrongs and Vickers and Cammell Laird – have been hard put to keep going on occasion. Fortunately, Lord Ravenscliff was more than able to see us through hard times; we are in much better shape than our competitors.'

So much about Stone as a man of business. Why did everyone go on about that? Surely there must have been more to him that that?

'Did Lord Ravenscliff have close friends?'

'I have no idea.'

'Surely . . .'

'He was my employer. I liked and trusted him, and I believe that regard was mutual. But that is not friendship, if you understand me. That was a different world, one which I – and no business associate – ever penetrated. I know nothing about that side of him whatsoever. Whether he associated with princes or paupers, what he liked to do when he wasn't working. Whether he had any indiscretions . . .'

'You do not know.'

'I do not know. Nor have I ever been interested. And now, if you will excuse me, I have some letters to write. Still, it was pleasant to meet you. I have no doubt we will talk again.'

'I'm sure I will have many questions over the coming months.'

'I will gladly answer them all, if I can. As you may have discerned, I was a great admirer of John Stone.'

'He had no failings?'

'John Stone never did anything without a good reason, except fall in love and die. And perhaps these stand out as exceptions merely because we do not know what the reasons were, rather than because they did not exist. Do you count that as a failing, or not?'

CHAPTER 12

Interesting. I walked out of the Ritz and up Bond Street in a reflective mood, trying to unravel what I had been told, and what I had learned. The obvious interpretation, of course, was that Mr Xanthos truly believed I was writing a biography, in which business would loom large. He wanted to give me instruction about how to present the man. But that reference to indiscretions niggled me. Why would he have mentioned it at all?

And then there was the conspiratorial side. He was trying to draw me in, make me an insider, create feelings of loyalty, of belonging, by dropping exciting little titbits of information. And Lady Ravenscliff? A clear warning there, I thought. Don't be fooled, was the message.

But I could tease no more out of the conversation than that. Business had been tough, but everything was under control. Was that the point? To ram home the message that there was no business reason for Ravenscliff to drop out of a window, intentionally or otherwise? That I should look elsewhere if that was on my mind? But that would mean he knew I was not merely writing a biography, of course.

I hopped on a bus and relaxed. There is something about the clopping of the horses' hooves, the way the driver converses with his beast, the slight rolling of the carriage as it trundles along, which has always induced a sense of peace in me – when it is not crammed with noisy, spitting passengers, at any rate. I sat upstairs, even though it was chilly, and watched through gusts of pipe-smoke as the great houses of Portman Place, then the even greater establishments of Regent's Park, rolled by. I had never really considered that people actually lived in these places before; they had been as foreign to me as a palace or a prison – more so than prisons, even.