“He seems tired. I’ll just go and tell them at the door to warn new guests that he’s not available for presentation.”

He walked away and Hamid said, “When do you return to London?”

Chavasse lit a cigarette. “Not sure. I’m waiting for orders from my boss.”

“Ah, the Chief, the famous Sir Ian Moncrieff.”

“You’re not supposed to know that,” Chavasse said.

“No, you’re certainly not,” a familiar voice said.

Chavasse swung round in astonishment and found Moncrieff standing there. He wore a crumpled sand-coloured linen suit and a Guards tie, and his grey hair was swept back.

“Where on earth did you spring from?” Chavasse demanded.

“The flight from London that got in two hours ago. Magnificent job, Paul. Thought I’d join in the festivities.” He turned to the Pathan. “You’ll be Hamid?”

They shook hands. “A pleasure, Sir Ian.”

Moncrieff took a glass from the tray of a passing waiter and Chavasse said, “Well, they’re all here, as you can see.”

Moncrieff drank some of the wine. “Including the opposition.”

“What do you mean?” Hamid asked.

“Our Chinese friend over there.” Moncrieff indicated Chung, who was working his way through the crowd towards the French windows.

“Chinese Nationalist from Formosa,” Chavasse said. “Runs a clinic for the poor downtown.”

“Well, if that’s what Indian intelligence believe they’re singularly ill-informed. I saw his picture in a file at the Chinese Section of SIS in London only last month. He’s a Communist agent. Where’s the Dalai Lama, by the way?”

“In the garden,” Hamid told him.

At that moment Chung went out through one of the open French windows. “Come on,” Chavasse said to Hamid, and pushed his way quickly through the crowd. The garden was very beautiful – flowers everywhere, the scent of magnolias heavy on the night air, palm trees swaying in a light breeze. The spray from a large fountain in the centre of the garden lifted into the night and the Dalai Lama followed a path towards it, alone with his thoughts. He paused as Dr. Chung stepped from the bushes.

“Holiness, forgive me, but your time has come.”

He held an automatic pistol in one hand, a silencer on the end. The Dalai Lama took it in and smiled serenely.

“I forgive you, my son. Death comes to all men.”

Hamid, running fast, Chavasse at his back, was on Chung in an instant, one arm around his neck, a hand reaching for the right wrist, depressing the weapon towards the ground. It fired once, a dull thud, and Chung, struggling desperately, managed to turn. For a moment they were breast to breast, the tall Pathan and the small Chinese. After another dull thud, Chung went rigid and slumped to the ground. For a moment he lay there kicking, then he went very still.

Chavasse went down on one knee and examined him as Moncrieff arrived on the run. Chavasse stood up, the gun in his hand.

“Is he dead?” the Dalai Lama asked.

“Yes,” Chavasse told him.

“May his soul be at peace.”

“I’d suggest you come with me, sir,” Moncrieff said. “The fewer people who know about this the better. In fact it never happened, did it, Major?”

“I’ll handle it, sir,” Hamid said. “Utmost discretion. I’ll get the head of security.”

Moncrieff took the Dalai Lama away. Hamid said, “Pity the poor sod decided to shoot himself here, and we’ll never know why, will we? As good a story as any. You stay here, Paul. You’ll make a fine witness, and so will I.” He shook his head. “ Peking has a long arm.”

The Pathan hurried away and Chavasse lit a cigarette and went and sat on a bench by the fountain and waited.

Chavasse stood in the entrance of the Caravel Club on Great Portland Street and looked gloomily out into the driving rain. He had conducted a wary love affair with London for several years, but four o’clock on a wet November morning was enough to strain any relationship, he told himself as he stepped out onto the pavement.

There was a nasty taste in his mouth from too many cigarettes, and the thought of the 115 pounds which had passed across the green baize tables of the Caravel didn’t help matters.

He’d been hanging around town for too long, that was the trouble. It was now over two months since he’d returned from his vacation after the Caspar Schultz affair, and the Chief had kept him sitting behind a desk at headquarters dealing with paperwork that any reasonably competent general-grade clerk could have handled.

He was still considering the situation and wondering what to do about it when he turned the corner onto Baker Street, looked up casually and noticed the light in his apartment.

He crossed the street quickly and went through the swing doors. The foyer was deserted and the night porter wasn’t behind his desk. Chavasse stood there thinking about it for a moment, a slight frown on his face. He finally decided against using the lift and went up the stairs quickly to the third floor.

The corridor was wrapped in quiet. He paused outside the door to his apartment for a moment, listening, and then moved round the corner to the service entrance and took out his key. The plump woman who sat on the edge of the kitchen table reading a magazine as she waited for the coffeepot to boil was attractive in spite of her dark, rather severe spectacles.

Chavasse closed the door gently, tiptoed across the room and kissed her on the nape of the neck. “I must say this is a funny time to call, but I’m more than willing,” he said with a grin.

Jean Frazer, the Chief’s secretary, turned and looked at him calmly. “Don’t flatter yourself, and where the hell have you been? I’ve had scouts out all over Soho and the West End since eight o’clock last night.”

A cold finger of excitement moved inside him. “Something big turned up.”

She nodded. “You’re telling me. You’d better go in. The Chief’s been here since midnight hoping you’d turn up.”

“How about some coffee?”

“I’ll bring it in when it’s ready.” She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you?”

“What a hell of a wife you’d make, sweetheart,” he told her with a tired grin, and went through into the living room.

Two men were sitting in wing-backed chairs by the fire, a chessboard on the coffee table between them. One was a stranger to Chavasse, an old white-haired man in his seventies who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and studied the chessboard intently.

The other, at first sight, might have been any high Civil Service official. The well-cut, dark grey suit, the old Etonian tie, even the greying hair, all seemed a part of the familiar brand image.

It was only when he turned his head sharply and looked up that the difference became apparent. This was the face of no ordinary man. Here was a supremely intelligent being, with the cold grey eyes of a man who would be, above all things, a realist.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Chavasse said as he peeled off his wet trench coat.

The Chief smiled faintly. “That’s putting it mildly. You must have found somewhere new.”

Chavasse nodded. “The Caravel Club in Great Portland Street. They do a nice steak and there’s a gaming room, chemmy and roulette mostly.”

“Is it worth a visit?”

“Not really,” Chavasse grinned. “Rather boring and too damned expensive. It’s time I saw a little action of another kind.”

“I think we can oblige you, Paul,” the Chief said. “I’d like you to meet Professor Craig, by the way.”

The old man shook hands and smiled. “So you’re the language expert? I’ve heard a lot about you, young man.”

“All to the good, I hope?” Chavasse took a cigarette from a box on the coffee table and pulled forward a chair.

“Professor Craig is chairman of the Joint Space Research Programme recently set up by NATO,” the Chief said. “He’s brought us rather an interesting problem. To be perfectly frank, I think you’re the only available Bureau agent capable of handling it.”