Maugham nodded sadly. “Tell me, Walter, how was it that you became the house detective at the Adlon?”

“Until nineteen thirty-two, I’d been a cop with the Berlin police. My politics meant that I had to leave. I was a Social Democrat. Which for the Nazis was tantamount to being a Communist.”

“Yes, of course. And how long were you a policeman?”

“Ten years.”

“Christ. That’s a lifetime.”

“It certainly seemed that way at the time.”

—

After dinner and a couple of rubbers, Maugham said, “I want to talk to you in private.”

“All right.”

He took me up a wooden stair to his writing space, which was inside a freestanding structure on top of a flat roof. There was a big refectory table, a fireplace, and no windows with a view that could distract a man from the simple business of writing a novel. A bookshelf held some favorite titles and, on a coffee table, a few copies of Life magazine. Another of Jersey Joe’s Tahitian sparring partners was up on the wall, but what with the beam from the lighthouse at the southwestern end of the Cap, it was a little like being on the deck of a ship of which Maugham was the Ahab-like captain. We sat down at opposite ends of a big sofa and then he came to the point.

“You strike me as an honest man, Walter.”

“As far as it goes.”

“One imagines that you wouldn’t be working as a concierge at the Grand if you weren’t.”

“Perhaps. But good fortune rarely walks you out the door to your car. Not these days.” I shrugged. “What I mean to say is, we’re all trying to make a living, Mr. Maugham. And if we can pull off the pretense that we’re doing it honestly, then so much the better.”

“You’re an even bigger cynic than I am, Walter. I like you more and more.”

“I’m German, Mr. Maugham. I’ve had a lot more practice with cynicism. We all have. It’s the thousand-ton weight of German cynicism that caused the collapse of the Weimar Republic and gave us the thousand-year Reich.”

“I suppose so.”

“What can I do for you, sir? You didn’t bring me up here to help me confess my sins.”

“No, you’re right. I came to tell you about a few of mine. The fact is, Walter, I’m being blackmailed again.”

“Again?”

“I’m a rich old queer. I have more skeletons in my closets than the Roman catacombs. Being blackmailed is not so much an occupational hazard for a man like me as an existential condition. I fuck, therefore I am subject to demands for money, demands with menaces attached.”

“Pay him, whoever it is. You’re rich enough.”

“This one is a professional.”

“So go to the police.”