Willsen shared the desire to avoid upsetting Denmark and so he rather liked the idea of talking to someone from the embassy, but his innate caution came to the fore. “Are we supposed to be revealing our purposes to the Danish government?”

“Of course we’re not and of course we shan’t.” Lavisser stopped and unleashed his dazzling smile on Willsen. “Sir David told me you expressed scruples about visiting Denmark? Is that right? Believe me, my dear Willsen, I feel the same. My mother’s family live there and I will do nothing, nothing, that places them in jeopardy.” He paused, then his voice became, if anything, even more earnest. “If you and I cannot bring Denmark and Britain into a closer friendship, my dear Willsen, then we have no business going there, none. I merely seek general reassurances from Hanssen. I want news of the political situation in Denmark. I want to know what pressures the French are applying. The French are the irritants, but aren’t they always? And of course Hanssen will want to know the purpose of our visit, but we shall merely say we are visiting families. What could be more innocent?" Lavisser smiled, walked on, and Wilsen, reassured, followed the tall guardsman across the street. A crossing sweeper, a skinny boy with a running sore on his forehead, sprinted to brush a horse dropping out of Lavisser’s path. The guardsman spun a careless sixpence toward the lad, then led Willsen down an alleyway. “Would it offend you if we visited Hanssen by his servants’ entrance?” Lavisser asked. “Only with the Baltic so tremulous you can be sure that the damned Frogs will be watching his front door.”

“The French? In London?”

“They have agents everywhere,” Lavisser said, “even London. But not, I think, in this alley.”

The alley was noisome and dark. It culminated in a gate that stood ajar and led into a bleak narrow yard that was made even darker by the day’s dense clouds and the surrounding walls. The yard’s cobbles were half covered in rubbish that was being loaded onto a handcart by a tall, heavyset man who seemed surprised to see two red-coated officers invade his grubby domain. He hastily stood aside, snatched off his ragged hat and tugged his forelock as the two officers stepped gingerly through the yard’s filth.