Bentley Burnham
- Blackmailer and information agent for the London underworld. Bad reputation. Georgie’s contacts say he likes to make people suffer
- Lives, for now, in a shabby second-floor flat in Shoreditch (the address pressed into the notepad at Durward Street). Middle-class dress, low company, rarely goes out
- Carries press credentials for the Birmingham Daily Post, possibly forged. Keeps files of evidence and unpleasant letters
- Hired by Menkaph to watch the party and find out who they are. Was specifically tasked with locating Georgie. Spent the day staking out Julia-Smith’s house in St John’s Wood, then the club, then the Thomas Cook office in Victoria
- Georgie and Amelia caught him in his own flat and leaned on him (threat to burn his papers). He talked
- Boards the Orient Express on Wednesday at Chalon-sur-Marne to deliver his report to Menkaph, who is in or near Paris. Gets off at Stuttgart
- Current arrangement: Georgie holds his papers as leverage. Burnham reports to Menkaph as instructed and tells the party what he passes on. He is somewhere on the train
- Trust him no further than the fire he was standing next to
- Aboard the Orient Express (Session 4). Polat and Saroch cornered him in the salon car. He tried to hold something back, fumbled his Fast Talk badly, then told all he knew, plainly terrified
- Revealed: he was told a “Miss Maria Pook” hired him, with a forged Birmingham Daily Post reporter cover; Menkaph has changed her aspect to a fortune-teller and is “advising” The American Couple; she carried no book he saw; she travels with a veiled servant, a couple of bodyguards, and several women; she terrifies him
- Also flagged the other salon passengers: The Russian Nobleman and The Scottish Reporter
- Got his papers back, downed his drink, and turned in to sleep before getting off at Stuttgart around 6 a.m. The party judged his account truthful as far as his small knowledge went