The hotel was big and rather famous, ostentatious if not downright flamboyant, within easy walking distance of Whitehall , and... not entirely what it seemed to be. Its t op floor was totally given over to a company of inter­ national entrepreneurs, which was the sum total of the hotel manager's knowledge about it. The occupants of that unknown upper region had their own elevator at the rear of the building, private stairs also at the rear and entirely closed off from the hotel itself, even their own f ire escape. Indeed they - 'they' being the only identific ation one might reasonably apply in such circumstances - owned the top floor, and so fell entirely outside the hotel's sphere of control and operation. Except that from the outside looking in, few would suspect that the building in totalwas anything other than what it purported to be; which was exactly the guise or aspect - or lack of such - which 'they' wished to convey. As for the 'international entrepreneurs' - whatever such creatures might be - 'they' were not. In fact they were a branch of Government, or more properly a subsidi­ary body. Government supported them in the way a tree supports a small creeper, but their roots were wholly separate. And similarly, because they were a very tiny parasite, the vast bulk of the tree was totally unaware of their presence. As is the case with so many experimental,