Joe extended a hand to steady Alice as she stepped into her rickshaw and, swept by an impulse, stood, her hand in his, and by a further impulse stooped and raised it to his lips and kissed it. They stood for a moment looking at each other in silence.

‘Joe,’ Alice breathed, ‘I wish I knew a bit more about you. You know everything there is to know about me and I know nothing, nothing whatever about you. That’s strange.’

‘There’s nothing to know really,’ said Joe. ‘I’m very pedestrian.’

Alice looked at him, considering, for a moment. ‘That’s the impression you try to give but I think there’s more to it than that.’ And then in a low voice she called to the rickshaw men to proceed.

Creaking, with the patter of running feet and the tinkle of warning bells, the rickshaw set off down the curving road, leaving Joe watching it and her disappear. ‘You know all there is to know about me,’ she had said. Not true, thought Joe. The rest of my life wouldn’t be long enough to find out all there is to know about that very remarkable, very complex and, let me admit it to myself, that very seductive girl. What’s that charge that’s sometimes levied? ‘Interfering with a witness’? That’s one witness with whom I would so happily interfere!

He turned to go on his way but out of the shadow there came a gently mocking voice. ‘ “Oh, what can ail thee, Knight at Arms, alone and palely loitering?” ’

Charlie Carter stepped into the dim street light. ‘Loitering, Commander? Loitering with intent to commit a felony?’

Joe was quite extraordinarily pleased to see him and said so. ‘Though how the hell you knew where I was I don’t suppose you’ll ever tell me!’

‘Oh, it’s not difficult! I picked up your trail after the seance. So did Alice’s rickshaw men, a couple of pi-dogs joined in the chase, “and after them, the parson ran, the sexton and the squire”. The whole of Simla’s agog by now, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Well, whatever,’ said Joe, ‘I’m devilish pleased to see you! And I’ll tell you – I could really do with a drink. It’s been quite an evening one way and another!’

‘Funny you should say that – that is exactly what Sir George said to me. Indeed, I’m under orders to bring you to him and if it’s a drink you want I can think of nowhere you’ll get a better one. We’ll walk, shall we? Clear the brain and you can run through some of the highlights of your tête-à-tête with Alice.’

When they reached the Residence lights were burning and servants moving about.

‘Sir George has had a dinner party this evening and it’s only just dispersing,’ said Charlie. ‘There, look, that’s the last carriage moving off now. Step in here with me.’

They turned together and went in through a side door. They were greeted by Sir George in white tie and decorations. It had evidently been a formal occasion.

‘Flawless timing!’ came his booming voice. ‘Trust Scotland Yard! Been waiting for you. Didn’t know quite where you were or what you were up to. Come in here – we’ll go into the library. Now, what can I offer you? Coffee? Of course. Brandy? Brandy for heroes, you know and here we are, three heroes in a row.’

He clapped his hands and shouted, and almost before he had done so glasses and a decanter appeared and a tall silver coffee pot.

‘Now,’ said George when they were seated, ‘I’ve heard about the seance. Quite fascinating! Most irregular! Can’t imagine how you got Charlie Carter to co-operate in your nefarious scheme but it seems to have produced a result. And now I want to know – what happened next? It is known that you disappeared into the night with the attractive Mrs Conyers-Sharpe but more than that is not known beyond the fact that you spent an unconscionable length of time hiding, I might almost say canoodling, in an unfrequented garden. And I dare say you exchanged more than words! Set your mind at rest, however – I’m only interested in the words! Whatever else passed — ’

‘George!’ said Joe. ‘For God’s sake! Don’t let your imagination run away with you! But it is true – I have a lot to tell you.’

‘Well,’ said George, ‘I won’t say “the night is young” because it isn’t very, but here we are and we are at your service.’

Joe sipped from the proffered glass, lit the proffered cigar, crossed his legs, lay back in the cushioned armchair and collected his thoughts. ‘Firstly,’ he began, ‘it is admitted to me, though not necessarily or even probably to anybody else, that, incredible as it may seem, there was a switch. She whom we have known as Alice Conyers, whom I shall always think of as Alice Conyers, is in fact Isobel Newton otherwise known as Isabelle de Neuville.’ And he explained the events of the Beaune rail crash. His audience listened spellbound.

‘That,’ said George, ‘is the most incredible story I have ever heard!’ And to Charlie, ‘Did you have even the remotest suspicion?’

‘Never,’ said Charlie. ‘Never in a thousand years. In fact, were it not from her own lips I wouldn’t believe it now. Not sure I do believe it.’

‘Secondly,’ Joe continued, ‘Alice is being blackmailed. By someone or some people, male or female, Indian or English, who know and have known for three years her true identity. And she has paid. The blackmailers are desperate to keep her in place and will do anything including murder to do so. It’s absolutely true – find the blackmailer and we’ve found our murderer.’

Joe explained the system whereby payments were passed through Robertson. ‘And all we have to do is intercept the next payment. I’ve told Alice to carry on as though nothing has happened. If we all do this, the blackmailer will assume we are unaware of the switch. Now could be our moment to close in. It’s likely if he or they conform to pattern, and so far the behaviour has been very consistent, that a demand will soon be made for the removal of Korsovsky. We must lean heavily on Robertson, extract everything he knows and make him cooperate.’

‘You make it sound so easy,’ said Charlie.

‘I’m not deceived,’ said George. ‘I understand the problems. If we could prove it – and that’s not as straightforward as it might seem at first sight – we could bring an action for fraud against Alice but as far as the further investigations are concerned, what would be the advantage of that? None, as I believe. If the blackmailer realizes his game is up then he’ll disappear.’

‘So you’re intending no move against Alice?’ said Charlie, a note of indignation creeping into his voice.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said George. ‘But I’m certainly not going to act precipitately. But I particularly ask you, Joe, Carter, to treat Alice’s revelations in confidence between the three of us for the moment. This is a situation which bristles with complexity – criminal complexity, legal complexity. Indeed, just to start the ball rolling, answer me this – who has Alice (I’ll go on calling her Alice) defrauded?’

‘Well,’ said Joe, who had been asking himself the same question, ‘I conclude that she has defrauded real Alice, little Alice. Little Alice is dead so she has defrauded little Alice’s heirs at law whoever they might be and little Alice’s heir at law would, I suppose, be her brother Lionel and Lionel is dead so who do we come down to? Well, you may be surprised to learn that as far as I can work it out we come down to Reggie. No longer her husband of course but the joint inheritor from real Alice’s grandfather’s will. She fraudulently made off with fifty-one per cent of ICTC which would otherwise have reverted to him. At least I suppose that’s right?’ he concluded dubiously.

‘Reggie!’ said George explosively. ‘Bloody fellow! Can’t stand him!’

‘Didn’t think much of him,’ said Joe.

‘Can’t stand him,’ echoed Charlie.

‘Well, that’s fine,’ said Sir George. ‘We “unmask” – I apologize for the word – Alice, she is disgraced, her marriage is null and void, her position in ICTC probably completely compromised, the work she does in Simla and Bombay will fall apart and we elevate that drunken oaf Reggie to a position of trust and influence. Sounds like a jolly good evening’s work, don’t you think, chaps?’