'Good. Henry Cort is possibly the most powerful man in the Empire . . .' He held up his hand, for he could see my look of incredulity. 'Please. If you want me to tell you, you must not keep interrupting. I briefly came across him, as you so rightly guessed, at The Times about twenty years ago. Supposedly he was a journalist, but he wrote little. Yet he was sent to Paris as a correspondent even though there was one there already. No one knew where he came from, why he was given the job, except that it was said he once worked for Barings, and that his appointment was engineered by Sir Henry Wilkinson, a name which, I am sure, means nothing to you whatsoever.'

'You are right. But it is not the first time that Barings has cropped up in the last week.'

He waved away my diligence with impatience.

'Until he died, Sir Henry Wilkinson was the head – so they said, at least – of the Imperial Secret Service. It is said – equally without anyone really knowing – that Henry Cort is his far more efficient replacement. It is said – again without a shred of evidence or detail – that he once single-handedly prevented a catastrophe which would have brought the Empire to ruin. That he has killed men, and ordered the deaths of others.'

I opened my mouth to express something, then thought better of it and shut it again.

'An enterprise which operates on the scale of the British Empire is beset by foes and dangers. We have been fending off war for several decades, and have succeeded quite well. But it is only a matter of time before our luck runs out. Who will we fight? How will we ensure the best advantage for ourselves? Who are our friends? How do we guard our diplomatic, industrial, military secrets? This – so it is said – is what occupies Henry Cort.'

'You are not serious about this?'

'I am.'

'You've not been reading too many yellow novels?'

'No.'

'But you know this. Presumably our enemies know it.'

'Presumably. But I do not know it for certain and, perhaps, neither do they. What Cort does, and how he does it, I do not know. There are stories, but nothing that I could ever pin down enough to print in a newspaper, for example. Not that I would be allowed to, even were I so unpatriotic as to consider it. Nor does it matter. What I am trying to tell you is that if Cort is involved in some way, then so is the interest of the entire Empire. And that is not something that a junior reporter of no great experience should be dabbling in.'

'Perhaps he's just a family friend.'

'Ravenscliff did not have family friends. Nor does Cort.'

'So what is going on?'

'I have no idea. And I suggest you do not try to find out. It will do you no good. Does Cort know about you?'

'I very much doubt it. That is, I don't see how he could.'

'I see. Have you noticed anyone following you?'

Now I was really getting alarmed. 'You're not serious?' I was repeating myself, I know, but it seemed justifiable.

'A couple of years ago,' he said, 'there was a German reporter in England, a correspondent for a Berlin newspaper. He asked questions about Mr Cort. He died a few months later. On a railway track just outside Swindon. The verdict was suicide.'

'Really?'

'The moral of the story is, do not interest yourself in Mr Cort. As you are English, he will no doubt be more indulgent towards you, as it is safe to assume you are not – or not yet – in the pay of our enemies . . .'

'Of course I'm not . . .'

'But you are, of course, in the pay of a woman who is, or was, a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is in alliance with the German Empire . . .'

I gaped. I should have managed better, but I gaped. 'You're making this up,' I said reproachfully.

'I am merely pointing out that an excessively lucrative engagement for a spurious project might be interpreted in many different ways, some not to your advantage.'

'I am certainly not going to give up £350 a year because of the fantastical notions of some civil servant,' I said robustly. 'If anyone wishes to ask me what I am doing I will explain fully and openly. Naturally I will. But I am doing nothing inappropriate at all. And it is my right . . .'

'Of course. But your right as an Englishman can be misunderstood, and may be held to contradict your duty. So be careful. Are you still inclined to continue with this?'

I thought hard. He was a man I trusted; until that moment I had not realised how much I trusted him. But I could not entirely discount the money. And, uppermost in my mind there floated the image of Lady Ravenscliff, sitting on the settee in her sitting room, looking so vulnerable and needy, missing her husband so greatly, and placing herself in my hands. Asking my help. Me, of all the people in London.

'I may,' I said. 'But not until I am sure that your warnings are correct. I do not want to place myself in danger, obviously. Nor do I wish to meddle in things which are not my concern. But I have taken on a commission, and so far I can see no real reason not to fulfil it.'

He sighed, and looked frustrated and disappointed.

'I am not saying I am determined to continue. Merely that I wish to.'

'I thought that might be your attitude. I am sorry for it. I think you are making a mistake.'

I sat and considered. What McEwen had just said had made a deep impression. And yet, an old stubbornness was beginning to stir. Why should I be frightened off with just a word whispered in my ear? Why shouldn't I discover whatever I wanted to? I was breaking no law; in a way I was trying to discover if any had been broken. And I was being told that I should be afraid, and cautious. Englishmen should never be afraid or cautious; not of their own Government. I looked up defiantly.

'Who does Cort work for?'

'The Government.'

'I mean, which bit?'

'I have no idea. The Foreign Office, the War Office, the Home Office. All or none. It is in the nature of a task like this that it is ill-defined. You will not find any piece of paper saying what it is. I doubt he is even on the rolls of the Civil Service. We finally have a formal intelligence organisation, and he is not part of that, either.'

'Oh.'

'He will be paid, and his expenses met, out of miscellaneous funds, untraceable to any one department of state.'

'But one person cannot . . .'

'Oh, good heavens, there are more than Cort! All over Britain, throughout the Empire, all over Europe, there are his men, and his women, I gather, who watch our enemies and their doings. They watch troops, they watch politicians, they watch what sorts of weapons are being produced by factories. They watch ships in harbours, they watch the people watching us. I said we may eventually be at war; in truth it has already started. You've read the stories in the papers; about German spies in this country, about trained murderers waiting for the moment war breaks out to strike and cause havoc here, on the streets of London.'

'Hysterical nonsense.'

'Are you sure? Our enemies learn fast. They have watched the chaos a few anarchists with home-made bombs can cause. How easy it is to kill a king in Portugal, a president in France. To sow panic with a well-placed bomb in a restaurant. Do you think they do not realise what potent weapons are fear and confusion?'

Personally, I had always considered these mouthings in the newspapers to be simply a way of softening up the population so that repressive measures could be taken against the trade unions, and poor people who wished to strike in order to gain a living wage. It had never crossed my mind that someone like McEwen would actually take them seriously. Or that they might be true.