6Victoria Street
London England
November 1909
Mansfield Cumming already knew that his new offices at 64 Victoria Street were going to be inadequate. He would have to bide his time and lobby for more space in the near future. After all, he had been delighted to be named the man in charge of this latest evolution of the intelligence services for His Majesty’s government: the Foreign Service Bureau, soon to be called MI6. The workload was astounding, but he also found it invigorating. It seemed that he was barely making a dent in his workload. Yes, lobbying for more space would have to wait.
Now in his third week on the job, he noted that on this morning he had an appointment on his schedule with William Melville of the War Office Intelligence Division. Cumming knew that Melville had been
