I sat down in the whitewashed dining room where the makings of breakfast had been laid and pretended as if I were prepared to eat it; but as soon as Ernest had left to make some fresh coffee I grabbed the suitcase again and went upstairs to the master bedroom, where I found the master sitting up in bed with a newspaper and a cup of tea in his unsteady hand. He was wearing white silk pajamas and half-moon glasses, and with the Chinese prints on the walls he looked like an older and rather less compassionate version of the goddess Kuan-Yin, whose imposing statue stood on the black floor of the downstairs hall.

“You don’t look like someone who’s had a stroke,” I said.

“I’m not,” he said coolly. “I feigned that in order to be rid of everyone. I’d had enough of the whole business. And now that they’ve all returned to London, I can return to normal.”

“I might have known.”

“Well, this is a surprise. I certainly didn’t expect to see you again, Herr Wolf. Or perhaps I should now say Herr Gunther. Have you come to shoot me?”

“Oddly enough I haven’t.”

“Pity. At my time of life one craves a little excitement. I rather think that being shot might have a very stimulating effect on my book sales, which, lately, have been in decline. Just as long as one didn’t die, of course. That would be too sad. Then I should miss the thrill of seeing myself once again at the top of the New York Times bestsellers list. ‘England’s Greatest Writer Shot by East German Spy.’ As a headline it has a certain newsworthy ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But as it happens I don’t work for East German intelligence. Or for that matter any other intelligence service. I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir, only I’m not a spy. I’m afraid your friends in MI6 were sorely mistaken on that score. And I do mean sorely. I’ve got the bruises to prove it. The fact is, I’m just a citizen with a past.”

“Aren’t we all, dear. Aren’t we all. But you have come to settle a score, have you not? With me.”

“Actually, I’ve come to do you a favor,” I said.

“Really?”

“I was hoping you might do me one in return.”

“This sounds suspiciously like a rather more subtle, slippery kind of blackmail. A squid pro quo, so to speak. Is it? Are you intending to blackmail me, Herr Gunther?”

“I said I was hoping you might do me a favor, sir. I wasn’t even thinking of demanding one with menaces.”

“Good point.” He nodded at a comfortable chair beside the bed. “And I beg your pardon for my presumption. Please. Sit down.”