“In this briefcase I’ve got a list of about three hundred Paris restaurants and seven hundred hotels that are to be declared off-limits because of prostitution. And a list of about thirty that are officially approved. Not that anyone will take a blind bit of notice either way. It’s been my experience of vice that all the law in the world won’t stop a fellow who’s intent on having a bit of mouse or a whore who’s ready to give it to him. Anyway, it’s my considered opinion that if a man is looking for a good time in Paris then he could do a lot worse than go to the Hotel Fairyland on the place Blanche in Pigalle. According to the Prefecture of Police in the rue de Lutèce, the girls working in Fairyland are free of venereal disease. Of course, it might be asked how they know that, and I think the simple answer would have to be that it’s Paris, and of course the police would know that.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I just thought you might like to know that yourself, sir. Before the word gets around.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll bear it in mind. But I think I’m going to be too busy to go looking for any more trouble than I already have. I’m on a case, see? An old case, and I figure I’ve got my work laid out in front of me. Anything else gets laid out, I’m liable to get even more distracted than seems reasonable, even in Paris. I’d like to tell you more about it, but I can’t for security reasons. You see, the man I’m after got away from me before. And I don’t intend to let that happen again. They could put hot and cold running Michèle Morgan in my hotel bedroom and still I’d have to behave myself.”

Willms smiled his snake smile, the one he probably used when he wanted to get some poor little snapper to give him one for free. I knew what these bulls from Vice were like. But while he was loathsome, I didn’t doubt that he might actually have been useful to my mission, and I suppose I could have offered him a job. I had a letter from Heydrich that would have compelled any man’s commanding officer to offer me his full cooperation. But I didn’t offer him a job. I didn’t because you don’t pick up a snake unless you really have to.