I sat listening. I always listen to Holmes. He's probably the only man I trust in the whole of this treacherous hell-hole. He also keeps his ear to the ground and therefore knows the score before anyone else has started the game.

'So the risk you're running,' he said softly, 'is that before very long someone is going to drum up an excuse for sending you out to some remote and benighted region of the globe just to get rid of you.'

'More tea, loves?'

Daisy stood over us with a chipped enamel teapot, the brave colours of King George the Fifth's coronation emblem still half-visible under the stains.

'That would be nice,' Holmes said cheerfully.

Daisy poured for us, slopping the tea over as an expression of her generosity, and limped away with her arthritis. She dispenses her undrinkable tea and uneatable buns, does our Daise, with the clumsy grace of a benediction, and if she ever got tipsy and fell into the Thames the entire staff of the Bureau would be there before she hit the water. Cloistered as we are in a covert haunt of subterfuge, we prize the presence of this single innocent soul.

'So what do I do?' I asked Holmes. He'd mentioned good advice.

He looked around him again, at Baker, at Kearns, and back at me, his voice softer than ever. 'You know Mr Flockhart?'

'Not well.' Flockhart was one of the controls, but he'd never run me through a mission.

'He's quite good,' Holmes said. 'Some people find him a bit on the enigmatic side, doesn't give much away. He also comes and goes, runs a mission or two and disappears for a while. Of course, he's fairly senior, he can pick and choose.' He spread his fingers on the table again, keeping clear of the pools of tea. 'My advice, then, is that you should perhaps cultivate his company in the next day or so, and see if he's got anything interesting for you. Don't push it; just listen, and remember that one must handle Mr Flockhart with the tender care demanded by — shall we say — a tarantula.'