Michael Dene is a British spymaster.
He is officially, so we are told, head of "K Department, Special Branch". Later the organization is described as the British Intelligence Service, said to affiliated with the Foreign Office. The third reference to his employment lists him as "head of the Special Branch of the British Intelligence Department". Either Dene enjoyed a degree of promotion over the years we follow him or his enjoyment of mystery remains strong - or both.
When we first encounter this man, he is seated in "a large, comfortably furnished office. A thick pile carpet covered the floor, and the walls were surrounded with bookshelves. In the centre was a big, flat-topped desk littered with papers, behind which, with his back to the light, sat a lean-faced man with a high forehead and keen, grey eyes". The man meeting Dene had encountered considerable trouble tracking him down as he had only been told to find "Dene of the Secret Ser..." from which the logical deduction had been 'Serivce'. However, this being 1936, "the fact that Great Britain possesses a Secret Service at all is treated as a polite fiction by the Powers that Be".
Dene is further described as have a "clean, clear cut face" and "a latent power about [him]". There was unusual intelligence in the broad forehead, determination in the set of mouth and chin; Dene, of the Secret Service, could prove a formidable opponent opponent to the machinations of the unknown group whose object was the downfall of Great Britain".
Elsewhere we are told that "Dene was a constant globetrotter, equally at home in London, Paris, or Amsterdam, New York, Belgrade, or Bucharest, or any other of the world's capitals. He came and went mysteriously, unknown and unperceived, a relentless worker for 'the Department'". Impressively, it is said that "No. 55, his official soubriquet in the Department, was a law unto himself". A nice touch was the comment made by one of his closest associates, namely "queer devil, Dene".