"How old would you say this Hentzau was?" My boss asked, looking up from the book. His eyes were keen with interest.

"About my own age, I suppose. Not yet thirty."

"Hmm." The boss flipped a few more pages, then looked up. "As I thought. All the young male members of the house of Hentzau are accounted for – and none of them are supposed to be here. What did you say he looked like?"

"I didn't. Reasonably tall. Red hair – dark red, but rich, and intensely coloured. Grey eyes. Sharp nose."

The boss smiled. He opened the book to a well-thumbed page near the middle. "Does he look like he might be related to this man?"

I looked at the hand-tinted photograph of a mustachioed man on the younger side of middle-aged, wearing a sword – and a crown. Except for his age, and the moustache, he could have been Theo von Hentzau.

I looked at the caption on the picture, then up at my superior in shock. "But, that's -"

"Yes. Rudolf V of the House of Elphberg, King of Ruritania. And, I suspect, your young man's half-brother."