Lucas in 1904. However, it is often in unremarkable places such as this that some of the most remarkable things happen. Indeed, some six years before Lucas wrote these words, Newhaven’s London & Paris Hotel was the unwitting host to an event that was to have far reaching repercussions, not only for a twenty-four-year-old heiress, but also for a man who was to become the epitome of the twentieth-century spy. Incorporated into the design of Newhaven Harbour Station, the imposing three-storey stucco building was luxuriously furnished with thirty bedrooms and was everything the discerning Victorian traveller could possibly want or expect. It was here, at the quayside platform on the afternoon of Friday 11 March 1898, that a sixty-three-year-old invalid was helped down from the train into his wheelchair. Accompanied by his nurse, Anna Gibson, the Reverend Hugh Thomas2 proceeded to the reception desk to announce his arrival. He and the nurse had booked two rooms up to and including Monday 14 March, when his twenty-four-year-old wife, Margaret, was due to arrive from London.
