Attomey-at-law David Bartle, from Brinkmeyer, Hartley and Bernstein, had documentary proof of his having received the accusations made against him. He couldn’t deny the claims had been delivered. How had the law firm got this correct address? His mind momentarily blocked again, then cleared. It had to be the Carlton hotel. Not just an hotel: a grand hotel, in every definition of the accolade, one of whose services was permanently holding in its files the names, personal details and preferences of its regular clients from their first and succeeding visits, a source of information Harvey Jordan had himself utilized in the past. If he’d been followed on the return flight from Nice – instead of being abandoned there – and to Chelsea his assumed name of Peter Wightman would have been discovered, against comparison with the inevitable French photographs, and British police possibly brought in to resolve the mystery of conflicting identities. So he’d been lucky with a partial escape, Jordan decided, trying to rationalize his problems. But partial escape wasn’t enough. It had to be complete.

Jordan was waiting in the apartment lobby for the arrival the following morning of the attentive doorman, John Blake, who at once confirmed his signing for the recorded delivery of the American letter.

‘I guessed it was important: that’s why I put it on the top of your pile, as I told you,’ reminded the doorman. ‘They took a note of my name and home address, too. It was all right my signing for it, wasn’t it?’

The man had told him, remembered Jordan, and he’d tossed the letter, along with everything else, in a jumbled mess on top of the bureau without bothering to look at it. ‘They? There was more than one man?’

The balding man shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jordan. I meant the Post Office. It was the normal postman but I’d never before seen the receipt form he asked me to sign. He said it was important – that I had to – because it was a legal document.’