“Then I’ll pop up and see her. Say hello.”

Joe made his way upstairs and tapped on her door. Receiving no reply, he banged more loudly. The door was locked as security required. In sudden anxiety, he darted down the corridor, making for Kingstone’s room. Had he left Cornelius in danger? That bloody Julia with her Cockney sparrow ways, always there in the background with her reassurances and over-familiar gestures of concern, was too easily overlooked.

The door was opened for him at once by a welcoming Julia. “Joe! Hello! Now, this is a good moment—just for once—to stick your nose in. Come in and advise. Silver grey or blue paisley tie for this shindig?” She waved two samples in front of him and, in a whisper, “I thought he could do with a little help this morning. First-day nerves? Looks like stage-fright to me. He’s a bit shaky and having trouble doing up his buttons. Such stubby fingers, bless him … What have you been up to? Never mind—you can tell me later.”

“Grey. Definitely the grey. Statesman-like and sober is what we’re after. He’s not going to tea with a duchess. I was looking for you, Julia. I have to see you. There’s something I have to tell you. I’ll be having breakfast downstairs. Come and find me when you’ve done up here, will you?”

“Fine. I’ll look forward to that.” She smiled again as though she meant it. Joe returned the smile.

The ease and normality of Claridge’s was beginning to settle around him like an eiderdown, soothing and slowing his reactions. He shrugged it off. Unease and abnormality were his lot in life. As was the breaking of bad news. Julia seemed not to have heard yet that Natalia was dead. Kingston appeared from his dressing room, slipping on his jacket. “Joe! It’s all right. Just screwing my courage to the sticking point but you can leave it to me,” he said, reading Joe’s expression. “Go have your breakfast. We’ll be fine.”

COTTINGHAM AND ORFORD, engaged in companionable chatter, were waiting for him at his office door at Scotland Yard.

Joe swept them inside. “The very blokes I wanted to see! Sit down, both of you. I want you to work together over this next bit. All our irons have been heating in the same fire, it would appear. First, Ralph—can you take the evening duty watching over Kingstone when he leaves the conference hall?”

They confirmed schedules for the coming week and then the three men turned their attention to the pile of documents on Joe’s desk, a pile that increased impressively with Orford’s contribution. The inspector was clearly bursting with information and Joe invited him to launch into his story. Murmurs of surprise and approval greeted his neat account.

Two victims were now named: Marie Destaines, with a grandmother in Stepney, and Absalom Hope, of no fixed abode.

The written information given by the murdered sailor had been used to track down the vehicle used for the deposition of the body of the dancer and Orford had followed the trail to the back kitchens of a clinic in Harley Street. An awkward moment. Orford paused to allow the Assistant Commissioner an opportunity to rap his knuckles for effecting an unauthorised entry but an encouraging chortle filled the guilty silence.

“I didn’t hear that. You mumbled, Inspector! Carry on.”

Orford passed a note of his conversation with the clerk at Companies’ House and watched as Joe’s delight turned to astonishment. He blinked, looked again and gave a low whistle. “So that’s where you are, you bugger! Hiding in plain sight! There for anyone to see if they know where to look. On paper this a well-funded and highly respectable establishment, Inspector. I’d buy shares in it. We’d better be very sure we’ve got this right. And remind ourselves that one of the links in the chain is a dead down-and-out’s sighting of a number plate in the dark. I don’t want to be the one who stands up in court and delivers that bit of evidence with a straight face and raised right hand, do you, Orford? Tell us what impressions you were able to form from the tradesmen’s level.”

“It gets no better, I’m afraid.” Orford summarised his impressions of the nursing home, touching on everything from the efficiency of the organisation to the healthy state of the drains. He referred with quiet pride to his uncovering of the menu.”

“All that holds up,” Joe agreed. He explained the circumstances of the girl’s death. “So—not a murder in this case but an illegal disposal of a body and denial of a respectable burial is what we have on the books. Not much is it? But at least we’ll have some news, even though heartbreaking, for the granny. It will at least be less distressing to account for a death in hospital in the course of a tricky operation. Orford—would you …?”

“I’d like to break the news, sir, if that’s all right. I’ll tell her the body will be sent to her for burial, shall I? And Absalom Hope?”

“I shall pursue the investigation into his killing. I have to tell you, Orford, that I think we may well have the blokes who did this already in custody down in Surrey on a charge of attempted murder. To which I shall hope now to add: murder achieved. They keep themselves busy.”

“One other thing, sir. Fingerprinting results came back in double quick time. The coin in the girl’s mouth. No more than we expected and it hardly matters now, I suppose, but the labs dealt with it so fast I thought maybe you’d want to …”

“I shall commend them. In fact, I shall be very interested to see what they’ve come up with.”

Joe read the short report in silence and studied the photographic evidence with the accompanying notes of the technician’s observations. Over the years he’d grown skilled at reading fingerprint evidence, valuing it—as did the general public—as solid and incontrovertible proof of guilt or—more rarely—innocence in affairs which in all other respects were murky and misleading.

The continuing silence as Joe struggled to make sense of what he was seeing was beginning to disconcert his two officers. Feet were being shuffled, watches discreetly consulted.

“Orford—you have the notes you took when we interviewed Sam and Joel with you? Have I got the names right? Colonel Swinton’s men? Good. They were the ones who gave the clearest—and the longest—account of the actual discovery of the coin as I remember. Could you find it and read it out to me again?”

“It was the strangest thing they’d ever seen in their lives,” the inspector murmured as he shuffled through his notes. “I heard them tell it three times at least but they never changed a detail. Solid witnesses. Here we are. Do you want me to miss out all that mythology stuff the professor filled their heads with—Hades and Charon and the gold of Thrace?”

“Thank you, Orford. Just the bones of it.”

The inspector read, apologising for his stumbling over handwriting mixed with shorthand.

“That’s exactly my memory. Look—get that typed up as soon as possible. Have them make an extra copy and get it to my desk.”

The Assistant Commissioner stared bleakly at his men for a moment and then gave vent to his feelings in language neither man had heard for fifteen years.

WHEN HE’D RECOVERED his equanimity, the instructions followed thick and fast. “Orford, go and get me another copy of these fingerprint sheets, will you? Take this card and have my secretary book an appointment for the professor to be there at the phone when I ring at eleven this morning. Then you’d better go and see Granny. Ralph, have you got your pass for the Geological Museum Hall? Splendid. Go in and watch Kingstone’s back, will you? He’s still under threat, even more so … Yes, I know Armitage will be there. Pass an eye over him for concealed weapons. They’re all supposed to have been frisked before entry but this is a cute one we’re dealing with. I’m pretty sure he committed a cold-blooded murder this weekend.”