Anyone who had a heart

Welcome to the Hearts club. Chauffeur-driven Mercedes are parked in a long line outside a home in Knightsbridge where the club is secretly meeting tonight. In the marble hallway, I squeeze past the newly arrived guests whose wrists and necks are adorned with fat diamonds and chunks of gold jewellery. Inside the drawing room, a wall of noise emanates from a hundred or so aristocrats - tanned men, expensive blondes and sleek highsociety matrons - having the time of their lives. Eyes are on fire, fuelled by a potent drug. No ordinary cocktail party at the pinnacle of London society is this much fun.

The drug is not cocaine or lust, it's money. Everyone is here to gamble a £3,000 stake on a scheme to get rich quick. It's called Hearts because their names are written on a paper chart, decorated with a pyramid of hearts, when they pay their stake. Over in the corner of the drawing room is that society photographer, huddled together with those handsome young friends of the royals. Everyone is someone, all regulars in Harpers & Queen or Hello!

Last week, newspapers blew open the secret of the Hearts club. They were bound to sooner or later, given the social elite who have joined. One headline screamed: "It girls lured into pyramid scheme." Cilla Black was exposed as a member: she regretted her involvement and warned other women to steer clear. Stern columnists tut-tutted that the club is a scam that works much like a chain letter - after putting in a £3,000 stake, two friends are recruited to do the same, who in turn enlist people, until there are eight new members.

Then the original investor reaches the top of the pyramid of hearts and waits to collect a £24,000 booty. Experts were quoted, saying that like all pyramid schemes, it is bound to collapse as soon as too many people get involved, leaving gullible victims broke.

But the disapproving writers have missed some vital points. Ever since the club sprang up in London last summer, society has been fizzing as never before. And the scale of the club is breathtaking. Parties have been taking place every week all over Chelsea and Knightsbridge - attended by the likes of Lady Portia Agar and Polly MacLehose - sometimes in smart pubs such as the Fulham Road's Goat in Boots, other times at private homes.

What is more, it's not all about greed. Many of the members have gambled money on behalf of charity. "I could give it straight to Save the Children, but I will be able to donate much more when I win," is an intention frequently repeated. I know a number of individuals who have paid the initial stake on behalf of impoverished friends: somehow, it is more acceptable to the recipient's pride to be given a gambling bet than ugly cash itself. Numerous members have also said to the friends they have introduced to the club that they will pay for any losses. Among the upper classes, it seems noblesse oblige is alive and well.

I was introduced to the club by a girlfriend, a hugely well-connected 30-year-old internet entrepreneur. One evening over supper in her flat she whispered to me that she had already made £48,000 from something called the Hearts club and was going along to a party in Knightsbridge to put in another £3,000. I bumped into two other girlfriends who had already collected £24,000, and were also going in for it again.

Back at the Knightsbridge party, the hysteria is infectious. "Francesca got her £24,000 within a week of joining," shrieks one girl. "I know it's a gamble,and £3,000 is a lot of money for me, but I really think I am going to make a bundle," confides another. (I only resist joining the club instantly because I have just taken out a mortgage.)

I overhear some outrageous snobbery, too. "Apparently, there's one offshoot of the club in Streatham," says a glossy blonde, pronouncing the place as if it were a notorious gulag in Siberia. "They are all housewives, and it took them a whole month to move up just one place on the chart."

The yellow, silk-lined dining room at the back of the vast Knightsbridge house has been set aside as a winners' enclosure - a place where the people whose name has reached the top of their heart chart can discreetly collect their £24,000.

The atmosphere is more intense as new members shyly pull fat envelopes from inside pockets or handbags, and hand over their initial stake. Not one of the winners opens the envelopes to count the money. In this circle, they take it on blind trust that everyone will pay up in full.

Every wife I speak to confesses that she has not told her husband. "He is too mean and careful about money," is a common refrain. Children are keeping their involvement well hidden from parents - and vice-versa. But the trouble for them all is that meetings are not one-offs. To reach the top of a chart and collect your loot, they have to attend five meetings in all.

"The excuses people come up with in order to go to them are wonderful. One of my friends tells her husband she has joined WeightWatchers. Another friend has had an awful lot of appointments at the pedicurist," says one famous event-organiser.

THEIR obsessive desire for secrecy is also based, it appears, on acute social embarrassment. Just as money is never spoken about in polite society, the desire to make oodles of it in a hurry is utterly shameful. Unless of course, you are all in the same club together. I ask my friend, who introduced me to the club, how the wave of newspaper stories about the scheme has affected the club's members.

"Everybody's incandescent," she hisses. "There won't be any more meetings in the Goat in Boots or public places. They will just be held in people's flats." But surely the recent publicity is so bad that it is bound to bring the scheme screeching to a stop? "Good heavens, no. People are still joining in droves. It's just going underground," she says.

As I leave the party and walk back onto the Old Brompton Road, I happen to be clutching a bulging briefcase. "Golly, you have done even better than me," says one leggy girl who has also come from the party, giggling as she eyes my bag. She had obviously struck gold at the Knightsbridge Klondike that night, and she assumes I have too.

Am I disapproving? No, I kick myself that my bag is stuffed with newspapers rather than crisp £20 notes in brown envelopes.