I stepped outside, locked the gun in my glove box, and went back into the hotel just as the Roses drew up in their cream Bentley convertible. I waited a moment, and then instinctively opened the heavy car door for Mrs. Rose to step out. He always drove them to the La Voile d’Or, but she always drove them back, having allowed herself just the two gin and tonics next to his six or seven whiskeys.

“Mrs. Rose,” I said pleasantly, and gallantly picked up the green chiffon scarf she dropped on the ground as she got out of the car. It matched the green dress she was wearing. Green wasn’t her color, but I wasn’t going to let that interfere with my game. “How nice to see you again.”

She answered, smiling, but I was hardly paying much attention to her; my mind was still on Spinola’s girlfriend’s gun while my eyes were now drawn to two men having an argument at the opposite end of the hotel terrace. One of them was a florid-faced Englishman who was often hanging around La Voile d’Or. The other was Harold Hennig. Automatically I opened the front door for Mrs. Rose before allowing myself a second look at Hennig and the Englishman, which revealed it was, perhaps, less of an argument and more a case of a smiling Hennig telling the Englishman what to do and the Englishman not liking it very much. He had my sympathy. I never much liked taking orders from Harold Hennig myself. But I put it quickly out of my mind and followed Jack and Julia Rose inside, and for the first time in a while Spinola and I beat them, which trumped everything until I went back to the Grand to cover for our night porter, who’d phoned in sick with a summer cold, whatever that is. I’d had a winter cold in a Soviet POW camp for about two years and that was bad enough. A summer cold sounds just awful.