In the early forties it had been the centre of the anti-slavery campaign, after which it became a focus for societies concerned with the supposedly oppressed nationalities of the Empire. To be ‘Exeter Hall’ was to be somewhere to the left of the Liberal Party. Box and Knollys were nearly an hour late for Professor Ainsworth’s evening lecture. They had both spent the day at the Old Bailey, where they had been required to attend as witnesses at the opening of the trial of the Balantyne brothers, forgers and murderers. In the event, they had not been called that day, but late in the afternoon they had been summoned to the office of the attorney general to countersign a number of depositions. By the time Box and Knollys approached the impressive but sooty Corinthian façade of Exeter Hall, it was after eight o’clock in the evening, and the sun was beginning to disappear behind the roof-tops, although, even in its decline, it was able to burnish the waters of the Thames with a coppery sheen.
