Normally he didn’t like drawing attention to himself but hiding in plain sight suited him on this occasion. Pulling a chocolate ball from the bottom of a pyramid, he sent the rest skittering across the floor. He slapped both hands to his cheeks in mock mortification and ran away, coming to a stop at a table where two military types sandwiched someone dressed as Hitler. Drawing himself to attention, he shouldered his cane, then twirled it round his body and tossed it in the air but fumbled catching it. Crouching down, he picked it up, took aim at Adolf and fired the drop-down trigger in his cane.
Everyone was still laughing at his antics as he ran, flapping his arms and twirling his cane to clear a path to a window. Once there, he leapt through the glass, landing in a lorry full of mattresses. As the lorry roared away, he wiped his makeup off and shrugged out of the baggy costume to reveal the workman’s clothing he wore below.
The embassy guests would ever forget the night they saw Charlie Chaplin assassinate Adolf Hitler.