Scrubber Stewart-Richardson was a long-standing member of White’s, so I asked him first if he knew Valderano. He did not, but kindly volunteered to look him up in his members’ list. He came back to say he thought he might have found him. This could have meant a listing under Waring. Anyway, I gave up on that route and decided on the most direct approach of all - a telephone call. Valderano sounded disarmingly charming. He was sorry to be unable to see me right
away. He was just off to Portugal for a couple of months. If there were any papers I wanted him to see, his daughter would be sure to forward them. He would be only too happy to help if he could.

I put together some selected photo-stats of what I thought would be the most interesting prime source material and wrote a covering letter to say I should welcome an introduction to Kakojan Niazi. I could hardly be more direct than that.

I then walked the package round to the address he had given me in Knightsbridge.

As luck would have it (and in these matters, luck matters), the packet was too big for the letterbox, so I rang the bell. Nothing happened for a while. As I was about to try another flat, a voice answered. I stated my business, which was simply to leave an envelope on the hall table. But it was not to be as simple as that.

The Valderano flat was at the very top of the building with no lift. By the time I reached the top, I must have looked ready for a glass of water, but found myself invited to lunch instead by his daughter and Portuguese son-in-law.

Three months later, Valderano invited me to meet him for tea at White’s. On arrival, on time, I gave the Ducal title and once I saw it was recognised, my own unadorned name. By now I had some idea what to expect. After all, I had visited his home, indeed met his daughter. Somebody had told me he affected a monocle. I need not have worried for one moment about failing to recognise him in a crowd. We had the whole place to ourselves. Perhaps he knew that this would be the case at such an hour. My impression was of a very tall figure with pebbly black eyes, and no sign of a monocle. He seemed to me to have stepped straight out of an Osbert Lancaster ‘Maudie Littlehampton’ cartoon, or possibly even earlier, Robert Benchley. His turnout was impeccable and he enunciated very distinctly but rather quietly.

Once he had established my interest in all this, he told me that in all his dealings with Kakojan Niazi, over eight or nine years, he had always found him to be totally honest and reliable. He was a patriot, and, to spell it out, in case it was a word unfamiliar to me, he said he was a man entirely motivated by a desire to help his country.