‘Lady Billington suggests you join her for sherry later,’ said the girl.

‘All right.’ accepted Charlie. He noticed that the fountain motif had water coming out of a cherub’s nipples.

The secretary led the way into the villa through a side door. Charlie felt the chill of air conditioning and saw that the windows were tinted against the sun, in addition to the Venetian blinds. The floor was black and white marble, like a chessboard, and halfway down the corridor there was another fountain. This time the water was spurting from a fish’s mouth. There were recesses and alcoves with plinths and urns, and from them trailed tendrils of evergreen plants. She stopped at the beginning of the corridor that seemed to run the length of the house and said, ‘What exactly is it that you want?’

‘Reassurance, I suppose,’ said Charlie. ‘To know that the security is still good.’

‘Sir Hector is very security conscious,’ she said curtly.

‘So it would seem. Is that electric circuit on the wall operated every night?’

‘By a time switch,’ she confirmed. ‘It prevents human error, someone forgetting. There are floodlights, too, along the beach.’

‘What about the house?’

‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’

There were restraining fixtures on the majority of the ground-floor windows, preventing their being opened more than six inches. There were two sets of French windows, one at the side overlooking the seaview verandah and the other at the front of the house, leading out onto the wide driveway. On each were two sets of breaker points, to sound an alarm if contact was interrupted. In addition there were pressure pads beneath the carpeting. The same protection was installed at all the doors. There was the main entrance, the minor door through which they’d come into the house, one leading out through the kitchen and a fourth out onto the verandah, separate from the French window. Charlie followed behind the secretary from place to place, checking the details against the protection listed upon the file copy he had brought from London.