I wasn't completely ready to be self-effacing, though. If she could be stiff, then so could I. 'You have instructed me to forget about your husband's payment of money to anarchists,' I continued. 'I suppose you know more than I do and think this is irrelevant as well. Please say what you want, and I will obey your wishes.'

'Oh, Matthew, I'm sorry,' she said beseechingly, instantly warm again. 'Please do not be angry with me, even if I am angry with you. You are a bringer of evil tidings, you know. You cannot expect me to be happy with what you tell me, and not feel resentful. It is not your fault my life has become a nightmare in the past few weeks, but it has. I ask you to be gentle with me.'

'You are not gentle with me.'

'I'm sorry if I have hurt you in any way. It was not my intention. Please believe that.'

I did not; but the very words, spoken gently and with warmth, made hope fill me once more, and undid all the good work I had done in convincing myself that our relationship was one of employer and employee, nothing more.

'Of course I do,' I said.

Reading this over, I seem like a fool. Perhaps I was; I have already explained that Elizabeth came from a world of which I knew nothing. I suppose it is evident that my disdain and suspicion were matched from the beginning by an equal fascination. Her whole way of life – the money, the servants, the clothes, the paintings, the leisure, the sheer plenty – was intoxicating to associate with. It was impossible to separate her from those surroundings, but I think she would have been every bit as intriguing had she been very much poorer. She was captivating: the moods, the flashes of anger and equal bursts of kindness; the way she moved from vulnerability to a steely determination; the sense of humour that could give way to sudden seriousness. Her unpredictability was hypnotic.

Even in the way she treated others, like Mrs Vincotti. It wasn't pleasant, but it made me sensible that she did not treat me like that. Not often, at least. It made me feel special. I basked in it because I needed it; it was a sensation I had never experienced before. And, when all was over, it was something precious I took away with me. She made people – men, let us be clear – feel better than they were, more capable, more handsome, more worthwhile. It was not fraudulent, a technique she had to bend others to her will so she might get what she wanted, although it was that as well. It was, I am convinced, quite genuine, a sort of generosity even though it was something that she used to her own advantage.

'One last thing, then. The money.'

'What about it?'

'It has obviously gone somewhere. It might be helpful to discover where, if that can be done. My friend Franklin . . .'

'No,' she said sharply. 'Absolutely not. You gave me your word that you would maintain a complete discretion and you must keep to that.'

'But this is a very specialised matter,' I tried to explain. 'Account books, high finance, that sort of thing. I know nothing about it, and it wasn't what you hired me for. If you had known you needed someone to ferret out the secrets of a balance sheet I have no doubt you would not have chosen me.'

'You are an intelligent man, Matthew. And we must make the best of what is available. I do not say it would not be helpful to have expert help. Merely that you must not breathe a word of this to anyone.'

Franklin, I thought to myself with a groan. Seyd. Both knew and understood even more than I did. I thought I could rely on both of them, but what if I was wrong? What if Franklin decided to show off at work? Maybe curry favour with his superiors. I think you should unload your holdings of Rialto Investment . . .

'I do not know how much Franklin grasped . . .' I said, splitting the difference between candour and dissimulation in an equitable fashion. I felt a little warm around the collar as I spoke, and she looked at me enquiringly. I hoped I was a better liar than I felt. I was sure that I could prevail on Franklin to keep quiet, after all.

'Anyone else?'

'And my editor hinted that some people consider you to be an agent for the Dual Alliance and are alarmed that much of the Empire's capacity for manufacturing weapons has fallen into your hands.'

'It hasn't,' she said shortly. 'At present it has fallen into the hands of the executor. Where it will stay until these matters are resolved.'

I looked at her curiously. 'Ah,' I said.

'Discover this child, Mr Braddock,' she said with a faint smile. 'And the thanks of the Kaiser will be yours.'

I looked at her aghast. She sighed with exasperation.

'A joke, Matthew. A joke.'

'Oh. Right. Good.'

CHAPTER 19

After I left Elizabeth, I went round the corner to the pub, to breathe in rancid air of normality and to order my thoughts. Please do not think that there was much chance of this. I will edit much from the account, and describe only those facts which concerned the matter of Lord Ravenscliff. In fact, they occupied my mind for only the smallest fraction of my time. The rest was taken up, almost obsessively, with my feelings for his wife. I will not dwell on them; anyone who has been in my situation will understand all too well; anyone who has not will be unable to imagine it. So I will instead pretend that, with clear head and reasoned thought, I applied myself to writing down in my little notebook, the facts and the theories.

One stood out; the circumstances which led to the impossibility of finding this child meant that control of Ravenscliff's business empire had fallen semi-permanently into the hands of the executor. And who was this Michael Cardano, exactly?

The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. What about Cort's intervention when Ravenscliff died? He had concealed the fact for three days, and with the time bought, had arranged for Barings Bank to intervene and prop up the share price. Had the price collapsed, the City would have wanted a full accounting, reassurance that the businesses were sound. And in such an atmosphere, it might easily have been discovered that they were not sound at all. Even worse, perhaps, regrettable information about the integrity of many senior politicians might also have been revealed. A crisis in Government, together with the collapse of the greatest manufacturer of weapons in the country: not an ideal preparation for a trial of strength against our greatest foe. It was easy to see how a man like Cort might have considered the theft of a folder of papers a small thing to avert such a calamity. And I assumed, from my limited knowledge of the subject through reading spy novels, that breaking into a house and stealing papers was simple enough.

That was one question answered to my satisfaction, although perhaps not completely. But there were many others. The big one, of course, was the money. I had not learned a great deal about finance from Franklin, but I knew that, if a large sum of money is extracted from a company, it has to go somewhere. Where did Ravenscliff's millions go? Then there were the lesser problems of the anarchists and the spiritualist. Why was Ravenscliff associating with people for whom, I assumed, he had nothing but contempt?

To that last question, I had no answer. But as I did not have the expertise even to begin tackling the first ones, I decided this would be the place to start. Someone like the witch-woman was very much in my line of business. I had covered the murder, after all. I closed my notebook, stuffed it in my pocket and drained my beer.

I still had my scribbled notes on the story, so I read them as the omnibus clattered towards Tottenham Court Road. The witch-woman had not been a particularly successful member of her trade, largely because of personality – I had not managed to get anyone to give an opinion as to the quality of her aura or the respectability of her spiritual intercessors. Although she went under the name of Madame Boninska, this was obviously a fake; all people claiming to be mediums adopted names like that and dropped heavy hints about gypsy blood and exotic lineage. It was expected; no one would ever believe that someone born in Tooting Bec would have much skill in dealing with the far-beyond. Her real name and age remained a mystery; the police doctors guessed she must have been at least in her sixties, although they freely said (off the record) that her bloated and ancient carcass was so raddled by the effects of drink that she could have been ten years younger or ten years older. Nor was her real identity ever discovered; all that was known was that she had arrived in England a few months before her death, and had previously plied her trade in parts of Germany and France, offering her services to the gullible who went to places like Baden-Baden or Vichy. They had little enough to do, were glad of the distraction, and she had made a decent living. There was a slight suspicion that she had also supplied more human intercessors for the comfort of male customers but that was never pinned down. Why she had abandoned the Continent for London was unknown.