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I took the picture to be commem-orative of the new premiership. My eyes ran along the names in the front row—the Marquess of Crewe, D. Lloyd George, the Marquess of Ripon, Lord Loreburn, H.H. Asquith, Lord Tweedmouth, Sir Edward Grey—and alighted upon an oddity.
    Between Grey and R.B. Haldane, no name figured, merely the one letter I or possibly the number 1. I remarked on it to Sellick.
    “What does it mean?” I asked.
    “It’s in the front row of names, is it not?” he replied. I 22

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    agreed. “How many are in that row?” I counted the faces on the photograph—there were nine. “And how many are listed?” I counted again—only eight.
    “Of course,” I said. “It’s the pronoun I. Then this was written—and owned?—by a member of the Cabinet.”
    “Quite so.”
    I turned back to the photograph and focussed on the unidentified face between Grey and Haldane. A tall, broad-shouldered figure, handsome with a hint of arrogance in his features set off by a dashing moustache and a firm set to the jaw, younger than most of the others pictured but wearing the same sober morning dress, yet contriving nevertheless to project enterprise and initiative. I glanced along the row to Lloyd George—the shorter and stockier of the two—noting that both had a brightness of eye and a keenness of bearing that set them apart from most of their colleagues, crusty veterans, I guessed, of Gladstone’s days. This was as much as I could make out by candlelight and sepia, but I was annoyed that I couldn’t put a name to this particular face. I looked to Sellick for a clue and wasn’t disappointed.
    “Who is he, Martin, our mystery man? A promising Young Turk given his first taste of power?”
    “I’m not sure. It’s hardly my period. What was his post?”
    “He was Asquith’s new blood in the Home Office,” replied Sellick with a twinkle in his eye. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with identification, I’d have taken more notice of Sellick’s familiarity with Edwardian politics and perhaps concluded that he was either more of an historian than he’d given me to understand or less disinterested in our subject than his manner suggested. As it was, I was busy with a mental roll-call of politicians of the time.
    “Surely,” I ventured, “Asquith’s Home Secretary was Herbert Gladstone—son of W.E.—and he was succeeded by Churchill . . .
    No, I’m wrong. Didn’t Asquith ship Gladstone off as Governor-General somewhere when he came to office?”
    “Quite right,” said Sellick. “To Canada, in point of fact, thus making way for?”
    I was there at last and just as well, for Sellick’s smile was becoming slightly pained at the edges.
    “A man by the name of Strafford. But that’s literally all I
     

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    know of him—a few years of office, then nothing—a little-known figure hard to recall amid so many famous names.”
    “Little-known indeed,” said Sellick, “but in his day far from it. And not so hard to recall for those of us who live in his house.”
    “This is his house?”
    “It was. Edwin Strafford retired here from England and died in 1951. I bought it at an auction after his death and fell in love with the place. Then I began to sift through what was left here and found many interesting curios, like this photograph. When I realized that Strafford had been a British Cabinet minister—which nobody here knew, or told me if they did—I found what I could about him in the history books. That was precious little, but what there was formed our domestic mystery.”
    The historian’s curiosity in me had been aroused. It didn’t surprise me that I should be ignorant of the life of such a man, but the opportunity to learn something about it in such unlikely surroundings was not to be missed.
    “What is the mystery?” I asked. We had come to the nub.
    “Put Martin out of his misery, Leo,” said Alec helpfully. “You know you’re dying