All that he was, his core, his truth, was the hot ache throbbing beneath his trousers.

It felt a little wet in there. A small amount of pre-ejaculate had leaked out from the tip of his penis. It would not take many strokes to have the whole joyous spend shoot hotly out.

That was his truth: that moment of immense release. And there were times when he didn’t care who knew it. When he almost longed to be discovered naked in a moment of high engorgement and its messy aftermath. When he wanted the world to see him for who he really was.

Dangerous thoughts. Dangerous thoughts for a senior official in the Admiralty, with access to state secrets.

He looked up just in time to see one of the club’s servants enter the breakfast room. He arranged his newspaper carefully, but felt his erection wither anyhow.

The man placed a silver tray of breakfast things on the table by his chair. Coffee and a soft-boiled egg, with toasted bread soldiers.

Lord Dunwich noticed a small square package neatly wrapped in brown paper on the tray. ‘Thank you, Etherington. I say, what’s this?’

‘It was delivered for you this morning, My Lord.’

‘Was it, indeed?’ Lord Dunwich studied the address. The script was formal, calligraphic. It was not a hand he recognized. ‘Green ink? Who uses green ink?’

‘I cannot say, My Lord. Shall I pour the coffee, My Lord?’

‘Please do, Etherington, there’s a good fellow.’ Lord Dunwich frowned down at the package. The colour of the ink unnerved him. He noticed too that there was no postage attached. He was beginning to have a decidedly uneasy feeling about this package. Perhaps the moment he had so long dreaded had at last arrived. And yet it seemed the wrong size and shape to contain incriminating photographs. Besides, he would have known if anyone had ever taken photographs of him in flagrante delicto. He would have seen the flash gun discharge. ‘I say, Etherington. Did you see who delivered it?’

‘I did not, My Lord. I could ask Mr Cork, if you wish. He took delivery of it, I believe.’ The servant replaced the china coffee pot on the tray with delicate precision.

‘No need. All will be revealed when I open it, I’m sure. Thank you, Etherington.’ Lord Dunwich made his voice sound cheerier than he felt.

The servant bowed. ‘Will there be anything else, My Lord?’

‘No, thank you. That will be all, Etherington.’

Lord Dunwich waited until the man was out of the room, then cast sidelong looks at his neighbours in the breakfast room. All the other members were thoroughly engrossed in their morning newspapers. No one appeared to pay him any heed, at any rate.

The package was heavier than he expected it to be. He held it to his ear and shook it. There was an audible rattle. He felt the contents shift minutely within the tight constraint of the box. It was a single object, he reckoned. Solid, hard, possibly spherical. Not photographs, then. That was cause for some relief.

Lord Dunwich took out his pipe knife and opened the blade. The sun flared in the unsheathed steel. The string on the package popped as he cut it. He pulled the brown paper away, revealing a white cardboard box, a cube of approximately two inches along each side.

No card enclosed. And nothing written on the box.

Lord Dunwich could not imagine anything more sinister than this plain, white box.

The hand holding it began to shake, once again rattling whatever was inside. The only way to quell his fear, he realized, was to confront it. He lifted the lid.

A gleaming white eye, its iris a circle of blue, grey and brown flecks, stared up at him.

With a cry that startled the other occupants of the breakfast room, he threw the box away from him. The eye bounced and rolled along the carpet, before coming to a stop.

The beautiful, fascinating iris was fixed in his direction.

THREE

Quinn opened his eyes, tearing himself away from the darkness, as if from urgent business. The day was already established. The April sunshine intruded into every corner of his room, an unwanted busybody. No wonder spring was always associated with cuckoos.

He pulled aside his bedding and sent one foot out to test the reality of the floor.

He pulled his green candlewick dressing gown together over striped flannel pyjamas and tied the cord protectively, before venturing out of his room. He was never anything less than aware of the proprieties. At least here at the lodging house. Some might say he was less scrupulous in his professional life.

As he descended the stairs, he rubbed his Adam’s apple, half-remembering the dream he had just woken from. Something to do with his time in Colney Hatch asylum. He had been lying down in a darkened room, recounting a sordid dream to an unseen doctor. But he could not remember any details of that dream within a dream.

He reached the landing below and paused. His heartbeat hardened into a muscled pounding. One of the doors had been left slightly ajar.

One of the doors!

He realized immediately how disingenuous – how downright deceitful – was his initial reluctance to acknowledge which door. Or rather, whose door.

It was the door to Miss Ibbott’s room.

He stood and tensed, straining to listen. Was she in there? Or had she gone down to the bathroom herself, beating him to it? Perhaps he could justify his standing there outside her door on the grounds that he was merely trying to settle that one, perfectly reasonable question.

It certainly could not justify what he did next, not even to himself.

He moved closer to her door, lifting and placing his slippered feet with deliberate stealth. He put his ear to the inch-wide gap.

His heart, his pummelling heart, must give him away! Its tocsin clamour surely filled the house. Certainly it made it hard for him to ascertain whether she was in her room or elsewhere.

But if she was in her room, why would she leave the door ajar? At this time of day, she would no doubt be engaged in her toilet, perhaps combing her hair before her mirror. Or perhaps she was still in bed, rousing herself drowsily from whatever dreams girls like her experienced. Not wholly innocent dreams, he speculated. But perfectly natural ones. Dreams, perhaps, coloured by cruelty and spite.

Whatever she was about, it would be of an intimate nature. She would brook no intrusion. And yet this door-ajar business, did it not have about it something of the aspect of an invitation? Or if not that, an expectation?

The question was, an invitation to whom?

Not Quinn, that was for sure. A man more than twice her age. Leaving aside all his other disadvantages.

More likely it was either Appleby or Timberley, the two young male lodgers who made it their life’s work – or perhaps their sport – to vie for her fickle affections. Who was in the ascendancy at the moment, he wondered.

Quinn had recently observed in Timberley signs of stress and upset – tears, in short. Quinn could think of nothing guaranteed to make a man less attractive to a woman than emotional weakness.

And so, he speculated that the door was left ajar for Appleby. Was this to be the moment he would finally snatch the coveted prize? A kiss from Miss Ibbott? And all before breakfast.

But was she even in there? The more he thought about it the less sense it made. Would they risk a liaison at this time of the day, when lodgers such as himself were trudging up and down the stairs? There had to be some other explanation. Either she had left the door open by accident. Or she had indeed slipped out of her room. If the latter were the case, she could return at any moment and catch him there in what could only be described as a compromising position. Not only that, by such carelessness she was laying herself open to the risk of burglary. Or, if she was in the room, to the risk of assault.