To Miss Maiden the mysterious Mr Aladdin, with his Persian origins, his charm and his flavour of the exotic East, appeared like the answer to a prayer. It was perhaps odd that anybody should be called Mr Aladdin, but it was even odder that Miss Maiden did not enquire more deeply into Mr Aladdin's past. Had she done so, she almost certainly would not have allowed him to help her in the management of her business affairs, and she might have avoided her macabre fate.