“And what’s your role in this affair?” she said. “If you don’t mind me asking. Because, I’ll be honest, this sounds to me to be a little beyond the duties of a normal hotel concierge. Whatever they are. I’m never all that sure.”

“I’m not so sure myself. Mostly I just answer stupid questions. Steal the occasional piece of lingerie from a guest’s room. Throw away a room key now and then. Look after a gun or two. Dispose of a bloodstained dress. The usual stuff. But now and then I try to help people out.”

I’d spent the evening doing quite a bit of that already. Julia Rose’s gun and the key to Spinola’s apartment were safely in my jacket pocket, and as soon as Julia’s green dress was in the hotel incinerator, she’d be in the clear. I wasn’t even looking for a tip.

“Is that what you’d call your role here? Helping out?”

“Sure. I’m a sort of go-between. A human fender, like you see dangling off one of those nice white boats in the harbor down the hill, to stop the paintwork getting scratched against the dockside pontoon or another boat. Only I’m hanging between Maugham and the blackmailer.”

“How did you get that job?”

“I answered an ad in the Nice-Matin. Wanted: Dumb German. Look, it doesn’t matter. But years ago, in Berlin, I was a cop. So this kind of thing isn’t exactly new to me. People have been disappointing me for a long, long time.”

“You certainly give that impression.”

“It’s my face, I know. I worry I’m on my way to looking like Somerset Maugham.” I shrugged. “I don’t know why, but I feel sorry for the old man. Almost everyone around him is looking out for themselves and their bank accounts.”

“And you’re not?”

“No more than is normal for a guy like me.”

“Is he going to pay the blackmailer?”

“It looks that way. Some people are flying down tomorrow from the Foreign Office in London to help verify the tape recording.”

“The Foreign Office? Goodness. It certainly sounds serious.”

“It seems to be.”

“Not to mention dangerous. One reads about this kind of thing in the Sunday newspapers. Demanding money with menaces requires—well, menace, doesn’t it?”

“Usually. That’s certainly true in this case.”

“So please, be careful.”

“I think I’m in no danger. But I’ll let you know for sure, the day after tomorrow.”

“No, really, Walter, if I can help in any way, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Sure. But I really don’t see what you can do.”

“You don’t have to hide your hand from me. Is it that you think I can’t be trusted? We are sleeping together.”