The Victoria Vanishes(103)

The framed photograph placed behind the bar of the Pineapple pub in Leverton Street, Kentish Town, shows a wrinkled tortoise sporting windowpane glasses and a frayed brown trilby, wrapped in a moss-green scarf like an unravelling knitted python. Close beside him, taller and just three years younger, is a ramrod-backed gentleman of debonair demeanour, dressed in a rather gaudy Savile Row suit and a scarlet silk tie.

They are smiling for the camera and for each other, as if they have finally come to understand all the secrets of the city.