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out with a dammed-up rush that showed it was the main purpose of the event for some people. I was definitely underdressed. The recital was timed so that most people could go on to dinner afterwards. Women gleamed in silks and satins. Diamond pendants and earrings flashed light back to the chandeliers. Our hostess was a titled lady whose husband lived in the country, leaving her with the town house. Perhaps I should have gone over and thanked her for her hospitality, only I knew too much about her because she’d been on the fringes of an unhappy case of mine and she knew I knew. Assuredly, the invitation had not come from her. I accepted a cup of tea from a footman, perched myself on the end of a row of chairs and waited.
    Almost at once a gentleman came and stood beside me. He was dressed in well-tailored but unshowy evening clothes, slim and tall. Not young, in his early forties perhaps. The dark hair over his forehead was touched with small flecks of grey like seafoam on waves. His eyes were brown and looked full of vitality. Something made me think he might be in the diplomatic service. He looked like a gentlemen who knew the world and was at home in it. Even before he spoke, I guessed that he wasn’t English. Elegant Englishmen tend to be too pleased with themselves.
    â€˜Are you enjoying the music, Miss Lane?’
    His English was perfect, but it wasn’t his native language. I could tell that, without being able to guess his origins, which annoyed me because I pride myself on a quick ear.
    â€˜Very much.’
    â€˜You didn’t think he took the second movement a little too slowly?’
    â€˜I think it might have been how Beethoven intended it, don’t you?’
    An inclination of his head, deferring to my opinion.
    â€˜You’ll excuse my speaking to you without an introduction, Miss Lane. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance.’
    He was cautious in naming names, even his own it seemed.
    â€˜Then you have the advantage of me,’ I said.
    He gave a fractional bow, nicely poised between politeness and irony. ‘Sebastian Clyde, at your service.’
    As he straightened up, he looked me in the eye and smiled, defying me to comment. Sebastian might be true, but I did not for an instant believe in the oh-so-British Clyde.
    â€˜Are you sure it isn’t the river Avon?’ I said. ‘Or perhaps the Mersey or Ouse?’
    The lifting of one eyebrow implied that well-bred people did not comment on little matters like false names.
    â€˜I met our mutual friend a few weeks ago in Stuttgart,’ he said. ‘He said that you had behaved with great discretion in the matter of . . .’
    And he mentioned a case of mine, known to only a very few people. Disraeli was one of the few, and his itinerary had included Stuttgart. Mr Clyde glanced towards the piano.
    â€˜I see our maestro has not returned yet. There’s somebody I should like to introduce to you, if you’d permit me.’
    A group of men were standing near the piano, listening to somebody. There were seven or eight of them, ranging in age from twenty to eighty and every one of them was leaning his head with that unmistakeable indulgent air of a man listening to a pretty woman. As we came closer, the sound of their soft male chuckles filled the air, like a loft of pigeons on a summer afternoon. Mr Clyde managed to clear a path through them to the centre of attraction.
    â€˜Contessa, may I present Miss Lane. Miss Lane, the Contessa D’Abbravilla.’
    The eyes that met mine were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen, large, slanting slightly upwards at the corners and deep violet in colour. Once, travelling the Mediterranean with my father and brother, we’d looked down from the yacht into the sea-filled crater of an old volcano, hundreds of feet below us. The sea at its deepest point was exactly the colour of her eyes. That memory came to my mind while it was still registering