'I've met him,' I said.

'And no doubt found him a charming little fellow.'

'Ah, yes, I did. Are you going to tell me something different?'

'He is a crook. He pays bribes to whoever needs them. A pimp, who supplies prostitutes to willing civil servants when required. A thief, who steals the details of other companies' bids for contracts. A fraud, who falsifies details of his products' capabilities. Whatever is necessary to win an order, Mr Xanthos will do it. He's a trader from the bazaar, with an oriental regard for the truth. That was his value to Ravenscliff, who looked the other way, so he did not know how these orders came about. Ravenscliff took care of the big bribes. I could read it all, you know, they had a sort of signature, and I came to know the style of each of them by the end. Xanthos used several banks, mainly the Bank of Bruges in Belgium, but also one in Milan and others in Bucharest, Manchester, Lyon and Dusseldorf.'

'Are you sure?'

He did not answer. 'We started to unravel all this, thread by thread, but couldn't see the point of it. That was what was so puzzling. What was it all for? Why had he made everything so complicated? No one could discover it. Wilf Cornford wondered whether it was all the doing of Caspar Neuberger, the director of finance, who loves complexity for its own sake. But I wasn't satisfied, so I looked further.'

'I hope you are not going to stop telling me now.'

'I will tell you, if you truly wish.'

'I do.'

'You know what a submarine is?'

'Of course.'

'Beswick Shipyard developed one of the earliest that was in any way a practical weapon. The Americans were the first, but Beswick came soon after. For the most part, they were more of a danger to their own crew than to anyone else. But Beswick got a contract from the government to develop a new, radical design which could carry torpedoes – Beswick, as you may know, also owns the Gosport Torpedo Company and it was looking for new markets.

'The Royal Navy decided to buy some, and fund the development. The contract with the Government was that this should be entirely secret. And, above all, that there should be no sales, none at all, to foreign governments.'

'Not like the torpedo, then.'

'Precisely. They had learned their lesson. The Navy realised, even at that early stage, that this new vessel might become a formidable weapon. Ravenscliff gave his word. Six months later he was building a dockyard for the Russians, who were then our most bitter enemies, to build submarines, torpedoes and anything else they wanted. That was the moment his finances became opaque. And the reason: to conceal any sign of treason.'

I looked carefully at him. 'Are you serious? You don't mean to tell me that no one noticed? When was this?'

'At the start of the 1890s. Ravenscliff built up the Russian navy to the point that it could challenge the Royal Navy in the Black Sea. All this long before Britain and Russia became allies and when it was one of our most dangerous enemies. Did anyone notice? No. Nothing could be traced back to Ravenscliff at all. The money was raised through bond issues in Paris; the companies were registered in several different countries, with the shares owned by companies set up for the purpose, their owners in turn being hidden. There was not a single thing to suggest that Ravenscliff had anything to do with these factories.'

'So how did you discover it?'

'That is what we do. And, as is often the case, the weak spot was the human side of things. The expertise. You don't just build a factory, put in a bunch of illiterate peasants and start turning out complex weapons. You need people to train the workforce, to oversee things. Not many, the Russians already had many engineers. But they had little managerial expertise, and that was Ravenscliff's speciality. I found some of the people who had worked at the yard, and they all came from Beswick. Eventually, one – only one – told me the whole story.'

'And then you received a visitor.'

'As you say. And now you know the story as well, so you had better be careful. Ravenscliff was utterly single-minded. He is dead, but his spirit, as they say, lives on in people like Xanthos and Neuberger and Bartoli. He chose them and trained them. The company embodies his methods. It is alive, and can work without him. You might say he transferred his soul into it, so that he will live as long as his companies exist. It is the only form of immortality a man like that could expect, and more than he deserves.'

'Did you ever meet him?'

Seyd shook his head. 'Never. I got to know him through numbers. It is not a bad way of making an acquaintance. And safer.'

'What did your numbers tell you? You see, I am having trouble. What was it all for? I'm a simple man, myself. I dream of a house and a garden and a wife. I want enough money never to have to worry. I do not want to end up in the poor house, or a pauper's grave. Ravenscliff had all that, decades ago. What did he want?'

Seyd looked thoughtfully at the carpet. 'Well,' he said. 'Not money. I really think he had no great interest in money. That is often the case with these people. Not fame or position, either. He took the peerage with the greatest of reluctance and never sought any sort of public role. Few people had ever heard of him and he liked it like that.'

'What does that leave? Power?'

'No, I don't think so. I've no doubt it pleased his vanity, but not greatly. No, I believe his motivation was pleasure.'

'I beg your pardon?'

Seyd smiled. 'Pleasure, Mr Braddock. Not something usually associated with heavy industry or armaments, I know. But he seems to have approached what he did rather as an engineer approaches a problem, or an artist a picture. He took pleasure in creating something that was harmonious, integrated and balanced. He could have been an architect, I think. Or maybe he would have liked these new crosswords, where the delight lies solely in solving the puzzle. He liked taking an insuperable problem, and conquering it. I've no doubt he liked the admiration that generated, and certainly never refused any profits, but I suspect he would not have done it had he gained no delight from it. You might even call him an aesthete. The pleasure was in the mind. He set out to create the most perfect organisation the world has ever seen, and he succeeded.'

'Numbers tell you that?'

'They hint. The rest is guesswork and experience.'

'I think I am more confused than ever.'

'Maybe so. But it is the only explanation of Ravenscliff which answers. Now, you know what I know, in an abbreviated version. What are you going to do about it?'

'Knowing him through numbers, what do mine tell you?' I summarised what the single file had contained. Seyd listened attentively, frowning in concentration as I spoke.

'So he's burning up his cash, is he? Well, I would rule out fraud, if I were you.'

'Why?'

'He was too elegant a man to be fraudulent in that way. It is too crude for him.'

'So?'

'He was using the money for something.'

'What?'

'How should I know? You seem to have taken that task on yourself. Find out, if you want, and if you can.'

The interview was over. All reporters with a little experience know when there is no more information to be extracted and I knew that I had got as much out of Young Seyd as he was able, or willing, to give. I stood up. The vicar, out of politeness, stood as well. He did not urge me to stay, to sit down again.

I walked to the door, then turned. 'One question then, which you should not mind answering. The man who came to see you at your club. What was he like?'

Seyd considered, trying to find an objection, but coming up with nothing. 'He was in his late forties, fair hair, thinning on top. Medium build. No moustache or beard, a large, unusually large, mouth. Entirely unremarkable. I do not know who he was, and have never seen him again.'