I sat down a little too gratefully, leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and let out a sigh.

“You sound tired. And you look terrible.”

“I just want to go to bed and sleep for a thousand years.”

“I do hope you’re not planning to do that here,” he said. “At the Villa Mauresque.”

“Why would you think so?”

“That suitcase, of course.”

“That suitcase contains files about you. Lots of them. Compiled by someone called Anne French, who worked for the Stasi—the East German secret service—and who was, she alleged, planning to write a biography of you for some American publisher.”

“Oh, which one?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s true—about the biography, I mean. Actually, there’s very little I do know about this woman that’s true, probably. But the files are real enough. There was a whole drawer full of them in her filing cabinet. And now they’re all in this suitcase.”

“She’s the woman who Sir John said had been working with you and Harold Hebel all along. To blackmail me and, in turn, the British secret service.”

“That’s right. Only with you I was on the level. Which is more than I can say of her. Frankly, the idea that she and I were working together was painful news to me. Exquisitely painful. I thought we were just sleeping together now and then. I found out otherwise. It seems that she had her own clandestine agenda.”

“That’s fish for you.”

“Fish?”

“Sorry. Queer slang for women.”

“Oh. Right. Anyway, a great deal of what’s in those files is quite detailed and for all I know there may be something that you’d prefer never saw the light of day. You being a very secretive, private man.”

“I’m quite sure that’s true. I loathe the idea of a biography as another man might loathe the attention of a Harley Street proctologist. Especially at my time of life. So. What do you want for these files? Money, I suppose? There’s very little else I can give a man like you.”

“No. I’ve got some money.” I was already thinking of the ten thousand francs I planned to take from Hennig’s toilet bag at the Grand; there was no point in letting the French police have it when, eventually, they came to search his room. “No, all I want is something that you of all people should easily understand, Mr. Maugham.”

“What’s that?”

“I just want to be left alone.”

“Ah. Privacy. That’s the most precious commodity there is. You do know that, don’t you?”