‘To inherit the berries?’

‘Exactly that! Amongst this mob of threadbare fortune hunters there was one who stood apart. I suppose he was a nephew – or he may have been a great-nephew. He was all right. I’d never met anyone like him before. He was a naval officer. He thought (and he taught me) that having a good time could be an end in itself. Hard to believe but such a thought had never entered my head! He was stationed in Malta. If you’ve got access to a navy pinnace whenever you want one, Malta’s not far from Nice and it occurred to me that he had a certain advantage over the other players. He had a certain advantage over me too.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Joe, ‘let me guess. He proved himself to be a honey-tongued seducer? Am I right?’

‘My, Commander! No wonder you occupy so prominent a place in the detective force! Nothing escapes you! And you’re right. I was undone. And before I gain your undeserved sympathy for the horrors of my lot – I’ll tell you – I had never until then enjoyed anything so much as being undone! He was very good fun. He was extremely amusing. He had lots and lots of rackety friends. He knew his way up and down the Côte d’Azur. His career was not very committing – I wouldn’t be at all surprised in those days if you explained to your commanding officer that you were playing a rich relative you wouldn’t get leave to do so! The navy was very like that in those pre-war days. So it went on but Nemesis stalked!’

‘Nemesis in the form of Mrs Hyde-Jellicoe?’

‘Yes,’ said Isobel with a laugh. ‘Came a night when the bloody voice tube didn’t work or I’d forgotten to put the whistle back in it – you can imagine the tableau! The door opens, and framed in the doorway, dressing-gowned and awful, my employer, his great-aunt, amazed and aghast to have imperially caught us in the act! In a trice – lost! Lost to him any chance he might have had of inheriting, lost to me, my job. I had, you see, taken my first step on the road to ruin. My employer made clear her intention of writing immediately to my father to apprise him of the fact that his daughter was a harlot! (I’d love to see that letter!) But I was damned if I’d hang about waiting for his reply. I must say Edwin – his name was Edwin – was very decent about it. I had my clothes and about thirty pounds, not much else. He gave me twenty-five pounds. All he had, I think. “Don’t want you to go short, old girl,” he said.

‘Well, I did go short. Fifty-five pounds didn’t go far even in those days on the Riviera. I had no means of making a living and when I was reduced to my last few francs I decided to do what I had seen others doing. No, not what you’re thinking! Not yet at any rate… I started singing. There were lots of performers of different nationalities just singing in the streets. I hadn’t got a wonderful voice – well, you’ve heard me – but I was very pretty and fresh and I seemed to appeal to rich old gentlemen. I was making enough to survive by singing in front of the cafés for a couple of hours each evening. One evening I came upon a very jolly crowd who seemed to have taken over a café in the old town. They were foreign. I listened and identified their language as Russian. Well, I knew a Russian song or two — ’

‘That story about your singing master?’ Joe interrupted. ‘It was true then?’

‘Of course! I was brought up to tell the truth and I almost always do. So I thought, I’ll show you! I’ll get your attention! Russians are very romantic, you know, so I started to sing the most heart-rending song I knew. It worked! They wept! They joined in the chorus! They turned out their pockets for me – not that it did me much good – they were as destitute as I was, I think! But they took me into their group, they made much of me, they gave me supper. But more than that…’

Her voice trailed away and Joe knew that she was thousands of miles and many years away from him.

‘One of them was a singer. A real singer. Feodor Korsovsky. He took me home with him that night and for the next year we were never apart. I loved him. He said he loved me.’

‘What separated you?’ Joe asked. His satisfaction at having guessed that Alice Conyers had been hiding a relationship with the Russian took second place to his curiosity as the story unfolded.

Alice remained silent for a long time. ‘The Atlantic Ocean,’ she said finally. ‘Is that big enough or should I also mention the wife I was not aware he had in New York? And perhaps the Great War which kept him away from Europe for four years? Will that do?’ Her voice had taken on a sharp edge.

‘He kept the programme you scribbled on…’

‘Yes. That was quite a surprise… do you mind if I keep it? It means a lot to me.’

‘No,’ said Joe. ‘I suppose that’s all right. I’ll ask for it if I need it.’

‘So there I was alone again. Feodor had been offered a wonderful engagement in New York. He couldn’t afford to take me with him so he gave me what he had and I prepared to wait until he came back. He never did. I was hurt, of course, but more than that I was angry. But I knew exactly what to do. Amongst the friends that Edwin had introduced me to there was a commander RN. Almost a caricature – red face, roving eye, probably the most entirely amoral man I’ve ever met but friendly and rather attractive. Finding me as it were vacant, he was very ready to take me on and, indeed, according to a good Edwardian tradition, install me in a little sea-front flat in St Raphael.

‘The flat became a tremendous rendezvous for naval officers. I don’t suppose for a moment that Bertie was particularly faithful to me. I don’t recall that I was particularly faithful to him! I was having a really good time. But as the saying goes, All good things come to an end. This was 1914 and suddenly the coast was full of French army officers as mobilization gained ground. Some of them were very dashing – Zouaves, Spahis, even a contingent of the Légion Etrangère, all with money to spend, all glad of a welcome. But none so glad as Colonel Chasteley-Riancourt. Cavalry soldier, very grand. A perfide aristo if ever I saw one! He moved me out of the St Raphael flat into a little house he owned in the hills behind Monaco.’

She paused. ‘Let me look at you, Joe. What do I see? Icy disapproval?’

‘Nothing of the sort,’ said Joe. ‘If you see anything at all you see fascination! Please don’t stop!’

‘Well, as I say, there we were living in Monaco. And, if Chas had a fault – what do I mean, if Chas had a fault? Chas had thousands of faults not the least of which was an inability to take his eyes off the roulette wheel and this was rather agony. I had to sit and watch thousands, millions of francs pouring through his fingers. Francs that would have been better bestowed on my little soft, scented hands! Have you ever met a compulsive gambler?’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Joe. ‘I shared a billet with one in France. They’re a race apart.’

‘Chas was very much of that race. He was very Old France, you know. Conventional in many ways and what in that exalted world do you do when you find yourself short of a few francs – you peel a picture off the wall and sell it. A Fragonard, a Lancret, perhaps even a Chardin. But of course, there he was in a flat in Monaco, not much to sell so what did he do…?’

Joe thought he knew but, ‘Go on, then,’ he said, ‘what did he do?’

For a moment the jaunty tone wavered. ‘Well, very practical man, Chas. Not perhaps romantic but certainly practical. He sold that for which he could get the best price. He sold me. I’ve often wondered for how much. My purchaser was a Belgian, Aristide Mézière, an arms manufacturer, rich as only sin can make you. His idea was to export me to Paris where he had a house on the Place Vendôme, recently acquired and needing a little exotic furniture. Good God! If that had lasted I might be the Baronne Mézière now!’

‘How old were you, Isobel?’ Joe asked quietly.