In a very acute sense it went right against what he had just been told by the PM – it was active when Chamberlain wanted passivity and if the truth emerged it would not be a warning he would be given but the door.

Two problems combined in one solution: he needed to check the machinations of McKevitt, keep the operation that Lanchester had alerted him to in progress while ensuring if it all went tits up the blame lay squarely at another door. The finger was soon on the intercom buzzer to his secretary.

‘Ask Noel McKevitt to come and see me, would you, as soon as he has a moment free?’

Translated that meant ‘immediately’ and was taken as such by the recipient. McKevitt knew that Inskip had passed on his concerns, just as he knew their knowledge of each other and shared interests were well known.

That meant Quex was going to be hauled in and told to mind his p’s and q’s on Czecho and he had enough respect for the man to think it would not take his boss long to unearth the connection; the call from the top floor told him he already had.

He was thus well prepared to face Sir Hugh Sinclair’s wrath with the certain knowledge that he was fireproof – there was no way he could be sanctioned for merely doing his job and if he was it would go all the way back up to Downing Street; the man under threat was the man he was going to see.

‘Noel, nice of you to respond so quickly. Do take a pew.’ As his backside hit the chair, Quex followed up that jolly greeting. ‘I’ve just had an interesting chat with the PM.’

‘Really,’ McKevitt replied, putting as much marvel into the tone as he could and also wondering why the old man’s secretary had stayed in the office, taking a chair well away from the discussion.

‘Aye, he’s worried about Czecho – and who can blame him, what?’

Beware of the cat that smiles, McKevitt was thinking, for if the old man was not actually grinning his tone was too jocular for what he had just gone through.

‘Wants nothing to upset the apple cart,’ Quex continued, ‘and as I pointed out to him, that will not be easy, what with the Hun stirring things up. Look what they did to Kendrick in Vienna.’

And what, McKevitt thought, has that got to do with the price of coal?

‘He fears an incident that will somehow compromise his sterling efforts to sustain the peace. What chance do you think there is of something cropping up in, say, Prague, that the Germans could exploit?’

The temptation to say ‘You would know better than I’ was one that had to be suppressed.

But he was not going to give this old sod the answer he wanted, which was that such a scenario was unlikely, so that, at some future date and backed by the testimony of his secretary, he could openly claim to have asked for a reassurance only to find it not forthcoming. Best seek to be non-committal, not definite, opaque.

‘Sure, if they tried anything, it might be there all right.’

‘Exactly my point to the PM, they may attempt a repeat of what happened to Captain Kendrick.’

‘Prague is not Vienna, sir.’ Presented with a chance to be sarcastic he was not about to pass it up. ‘The Gestapo has, as far as I’m aware, no power of arrest there.’

‘True, but any accusation that excessive numbers of our chaps in situ, and you know the numbers better than I, are involved in using their skills to aid the Czechs might appear in the German papers at any time.’

‘I felt that more muscle was needed there, sir; it is after all the present hot spot in my area of responsibility and it could impact on its neighbours.’

‘And very apposite that was to move more men in, but how will the Hun see it? What if they publicise the number of our Prague agents in the same way they splashed on Kendrick, with the added information that the establishment has increased threefold. Shipping in more bodies might come back to haunt us, and even if it’s untrue what they claim, the mud, the PM fears, might stick and, I have to tell you, he was even more alarmed to hear we had reinforced the station recently, thus increasing such a risk.’

‘I considered it worth an extra effort to keep the Government informed.’

‘And, my dear chap,’ Quex cried, ‘it was a brilliant ploy at the time, which I told the PM.’

‘But not now?’

‘No, it now involves a risk Mr Chamberlain does not want to take! With his agreement I’ve decided to pull out all our chaps in Prague, including those you have shipped in from other stations. They, of course, can go back to their previous posts.’

The thought could not be avoided: he’s heard about my request to search for new arrivals and he wants to put the mockers on it to give his man, and now I am convinced there is one in place, a free run.

‘Only it has to be done with maximum discretion, Noel, and we cannot risk even a coded cipher. So I want you to go to Prague yourself and close down the operations there. It must not, I repeat not, be revealed to either the press or the Germans that we have done so.’

‘To ensure discretion will take time. Embassy folk have wagging tongues.’

‘Yes, it will, though shipping the extras back should be straightforward.’

‘When do you want me to go?’

‘I would have thought soonest done soonest mended, wouldn’t you? You can go in on a diplomatic passport, so I would like you to drop everything else and travel as soon as you can.’

McKevitt made a good fist of looking thoughtful, but he had come to one conclusion while Quex was still talking. ‘It might be best to get everyone out as soon as possible, over a day or two, including the regulars, and stay around to clear up anything outstanding myself.’

‘Good thinking, I’m sure with you there any risks will be sealed down tight.’

Making his way back to his own office, McKevitt was nearly laughing. The old man had just handed him the keys to unlock his suspicions and, while he was there, he would find out what was going on and put a stop to it, but not before he had laid at the door of those who needed to know the truth that Sir Hugh Sinclair was not only losing his touch, he was actively thwarting the policy of those who employed him.

Odd that Quex was happy too, for Jardine, by the time McKevitt got there, would be long gone from Prague and the Ulsterman had no way of connecting anything to him, doubly so given he was travelling under an assumed name.

The man might seek to stir things up but that would only play into Quex’s hands, and if it all went up in the air and an incident did occur, how could he carry the can for anything, when the head of the relevant section was on site and in control?

For all Veseli’s certainties it was an anxious two days and a testing exchange of telegrams before on the Saturday morning the invitation came from Henlein’s press office to say the visit was on and that two rooms were waiting for Corrie in the Victoria Hotel.

Moravec phoned Cal to confirm, again without using either his name or hers, that Corrie would be given full access to the SdP leader on the Sunday. Cal then called the Ambassador Hotel and alerted Corrie that he was on his way and for her to be ready to move.

Throwing economy to the winds – it was Moravec’s money after all – Cal had hired a really luxurious and very powerful German-made car, a dark-green Maybach Zeppelin with a soft top, a V12 engine and a top speed that exceeded a hundred miles an hour if you had the courage to push it hard.

It was also a very weighty car which, apart from a tank, would smash to bits anything it hit – if he had to run he wanted to do so in something hard to catch and impossible to knock off course. He had also bought a good camera, a long lens and several rolls of film, as well as a hunting knife which he would just leave in the car to be found if anyone wanted to search; hiding it would only make it seem suspicious.