'That was an unusual thing to do,' I said to Wilkinson as we travelled back to Paris the next day. He smiled.

'The Prince does love the demi-monde, and he does love beauty,' he said.

'He knows . . . ?'

'Oh, good heavens no. And if he ever discovered, I would have a great deal of explaining to do. If he ever realised I had knowingly . . .'

'Then who does he think she is?'

'Lesser aristocrat, too low for inclusion in the Almanach. Lack of birth made up for by her radiant beauty. You told me she wasn't beautiful.'

'Well, she wasn't. Not when I first met her.'

'Anyway, it wasn't really my doing. He invited me to dinner, I said I was going to this soirée, and he said he wanted to meet this woman. He'd heard of her, you see, and you know what he's like. Tell her, by the way, not to get any ideas. If she goes anywhere near him, I'll put a stop to it.'

I became quite indignant on her behalf. 'You know quite well what I mean,' he said severely. 'I know perfectly well how she makes her money. It doesn't concern me, as long as she confines herself to continentals. The Prince is a man with a weakness, and he likes to visit Paris.'

'Is that why . . . ?'

'It struck me that it might be a useful insurance policy. She is in our debt now, and part of the price is no scandal. Sooner or later they would have met in Paris; and he is like a child in a sweetshop when it comes to women. He really cannot resist. Certainly he would not have been able to resist her. You have no idea how much time the Embassy spends clearing up the mess from these affairs. I want to stop this one in advance. Tell her that, if you please.'

'Very well.'

'Besides, he is notoriously stingy. She will earn more from knowing him than from sleeping with him.'

'I'll pass the message on.'

CHAPTER 10

If I am spending a great deal of time digressing on the subject of this woman, rather than recounting the excitement of life as a gatherer of intelligence for the British Empire, it is for two reasons. The first is that she is relevant to my story; the second is that she was very much more interesting than my daily routine. For example, on my return to Paris I spent some considerable time putting the finishing touches to my investigation of French naval policy, and that involved a good deal of time interviewing people (in my capacity as journalist) at the Coal Exchange, and poring over daily lists of bulk coal trades. Fascinating? Exciting? Do you wish to hear more? I thought not.

In fact, I would even say that coal itself is a more interesting subject than the people who trade it. Each commodity and financial instrument attracts different sorts of people. Dealers in bonds are different from dealers in shares; those who trade in commodities are different again, and each commodity and each exchange – rubber, cotton, wool, coal, iron ore – has its own character. Coal is dull, the people who buy and sell it duller still. Their world is black, colourless and without pleasure. The brash young men who are beginning to sell oil and create a whole new market out of nothing are much more interesting; they have a touch of the desert about them, while the coal dealers have infused the gloom of the Picardy coal mines, or the Methodism of south Wales.

And two days a week I traded on my own account. Perhaps I should describe this, as it illustrates the true nature of espionage better than anything else can. I rented a dingy little office in the rue Rameau as soon as I arrived – chosen carefully so that there were several possible exits, and a clear view of the street below in both directions; I had learned from Arnsley Drennan better than ever he realised. It was bleak, uncomfortable and cheap, perfect for my needs. Then I registered myself as Julius de Bruyker, import/export broker, and under the name of that fictitious gentleman of uncertain Low Country origins, I wrote to a young man at the German Embassy who dabbled in intelligence matters. A pleasant, but not particularly bright fellow, he came to see me, and I offered him information about the forthcoming British naval exercises. It was interesting, although entirely safe information, but he was delighted to get it. More information followed the next week, and the week after that, until the point came when he began to wonder what I wanted.

Nothing, I said, but any information he had acquired about French troop dispositions in North Africa I would consider a reasonable payment. Such information was of no strategic interest to the Germans, so after a short period considering the matter, they obliged.

Next, I contacted an officer at the Russian Embassy, the Austrian Embassy and in the French intelligence services and offered all of them the same information. All were keen enough, and in return from the Russians in due course I acquired information about a new French cannon, from the Austrians information about French and German diplomatic correspondence and the French gave me details of German armour plating – when complete, this information was passed on to John Stone's companies, and helped make up for some of the inadequacies of British steel manufacturing.

And so it went on; I really was a broker, taking in information and selling it on. The good thing about information is that, unlike gold, it can be duplicated. One piece of information about shipbuilding in Britain, for example, could be traded for information from half a dozen different sources, and each of these could, in turn, multiply themselves many times over. So I supplied information about the new Vickers twelve-inch gun, and got in return detailed information about the German army's new howitzer, the Austrian army's requirement for horses, the Italian government's negotiating stance on North Africa and the French government's real policy towards British domination of the upper Nile. Details of the German howitzer were then traded for more information. The beauty of the system was that no individual was ever asked to provide information which would damage their own country – they were asked for material which on its own was harmless until blended with information from different sources, or which affected the security of a foreign rival. Spies are bureaucrats, by and large; they have masters to satisfy and must take that into account as they go about their lives; by supplying information I made their lives easier, and so they regarded me as a useful person to do business with. Of course, the utility of the system could only last as long as I had a monopoly of the method, otherwise the same information would have started reappearing time and again.

For a very small amount of start-up capital, so to speak, I began reaping handsome returns, and do not think that the similarities between what I was doing, and what Elizabeth was doing, escaped me. We were both trading in specialised goods, exploiting weaknesses in the market to sell the same thing to many different customers simultaneously. Success depended on each customer being unaware of the existence of the others. That was the danger which faced both of us.

So, in that period when I was trying to be fascinated by the Coal Exchange, my only real entertainment was provided by Elizabeth. I was curious about her shareholders. Not for any prurient reason, I hope, but for the sake of information only. Accordingly, when I returned to Paris I had Jules, my friendly, trained foot soldier, station himself nearby to watch comings and goings.

A useful lad, this Jules. He was the son of Roger Marchant, an ex-soldier with an incurable hostility to the discipline associated with either the army or any more normal paid work, who was employed on a part-time basis by Thomas Barclay.

'As you are going to do all the energetic work, you must have Roger to help you,' Barclay begged, although one look at the man – who was swaying slightly when we were introduced – forced me to say that I could not possibly deprive him of such a useful man. It was not Roger who was the main problem – although absolute reliability was not his watchword – but his wife and several children, whose demands for sustenance far outstripped the poor man's ability to provide for them. The petty-cash box of The Times was constantly being raided, first by Barclay and later by myself, in a desperate attempt to get the wretched woman out of the office, to which she resorted when she felt that death and starvation were only hours away. Roger was remarkably insouciant about it all. The duties of family life did not, as far as he could see, necessarily involve feeding it.