Also flown in for the occasion in October 1991 was Black’s first wife, Joanna. Eyewitnesses would swear that they spotted her shudder at the sight of Conrad holding court. None of those giants in dinner jackets, gleaming white shirts and polished shoes, laughing with their host, she knew, understood his fatal flaws.

In appearance the Blacks were renowned as one of the Canadian establishment’s happiest marriages. In reality she had told him their marriage was over and had gone home to Toronto with their three children.

She understood the cause of her misery. For 13 years she had lived with a showman. He had even asked her to change her name, which was originally Shirley. As owner of the Telegraph he was expecting a peerage, and “Lady Shirley” lacked gravitas. Now she was relieved not to have become Lady Black. London society, she realised, had not only embraced him at face value but had connived in a fictitious creation.

As soon as he had bought the Telegraph in 1986 — taking it over for £30m in a remarkable business coup — Black’s lifestyle had changed markedly, feeding his hunger to consort with the mega-rich and the powerful in the White House, Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. He was surprised at how easily British personalities succumbed to his invitations.

His social climbing was not sure-footed. Over lunch at Highgrove with Prince Charles a torrent of history poured from him, describing the British royal family’s eating habits. Ignoring Charles’s obvious distaste for the excruciating details of his grandfather George VI’s tendencies, Black did not stop until minutes before he departed.

“Not a success,” Charles later told an aide.

One of Black’s haunts after the break-up of his marriage was Annabel’s, the Belgravia nightclub. The fashionable basement was also favoured by another Canadian of whom he began seeing a great deal — Barbara Amiel.
Like Black, Amiel had been in Britain since the mid-1980s while her marriage — her third — had disintegrated.

She too had been launched on London society, thanks partly to an invitation to a dinner of German sausages and beer at the home of Frank Johnson, the journalist. George Weidenfeld, the publisher, was also invited. Amiel’s entrance into Johnson’s kitchen provoked the 67-year-old Weidenfeld’s eyes to pop out on stalks.

“I hear you know something about opera,” said Amiel, slicing a bratwurst. The following weekend she was seated next to him at La Scala in Milan.
With her past as a sexual adventuress in Canada, which she had written about frankly, there was no woman in London who understood men better than Amiel. “My dears,” she told a group of women after an exercise class, “apart from Anatole France and Albert Schweitzer, there is no man interested in anything but sex.”

She categorised the men with whom she enjoyed sexual relations into three types: men of wealth, men of power and men who were unthreatening, fun and trusted confidants.

Weidenfeld represented both wealth and power. Through his publishing house Weidenfeld & Nicolson he had cultivated a wide range of relationships. Regularly he entertained in his beautiful flat overlooking the Thames an international cast of multi-millionaires, politicians and cultural giants.

Weidenfeld could do more than introduce Amiel to wealth, culture and intelligence. He was renowned for his sexual antics. Many young women in London publishing or journalism had been propositioned by “Lord Popeye”, as he was lampooned by Private Eye.