Summoning her courage she slipped out of bed, found her bag, dropped a heavy ashtray into it, and crept to the door. Then, with one wild movement, she yanked the door open and swung the bag at the intruder.

The next moment her arm was seized in a grip of steel, and she was looking at the astonished face of Don Sebastian de Santiago.

‘Merciful mother of heaven!’ she moaned. ‘What have I done?’

‘Nearly brained me,’ her employer said wryly, feeling into the bag and removing the ashtray.

‘Forgive me, Señor. I thought you were a burglar.’

The habitual stern, haughty look on Don Sebastian’s face softened. ‘It is I who should ask your forgiveness for intruding on you without warning,’ he said courteously. ‘I ought to have knocked, but knowing it was your night for going to Julius Caesar I assumed the place would be empty, and persuaded Reception to give me a key.’ He regarded her face with concern. ‘Are you un-well?’

‘A little, Señor. It is nothing, but I preferred not to go out, and I knew I could entrust Catalina to Señora Cortez.’

‘Ah, yes, you mentioned her in your letters. A respectable English woman, who teaches languages.’

‘And the widow of a Spaniard,’ Isabella said eagerly. ‘A most cultivated and reliable person, with a mature outlook and the highest principles.’ Fearful that her chaperonage might be found wanting, she continued to expatiate on Maggie’s virtues until Don Sebastian interrupted her gently.

‘I don’t wish to keep you from your bed. Just tell me how to find them.’

Isabella produced her own unused ticket from the bag. ‘They will be sitting here.’

He shepherded her kindly to the door of her room, bid her farewell, and departed. In fifteen minutes he was at the theatre, arriving in the middle of the first interval. Rather than waste time searching the crowd, he went to the seat number on his ticket, and waited for Catalina and her companion to join him.