“There are a number of possible explanations. There were several other men at that particular pool party who might have taken photographs: Dadie Rylands, Raymond Mortimer, Godfrey Winn, Paul Hyslop. But most likely it was my former friend and companion Gerald Haxton. I met Gerald during the Great War and we were together for the rest of his life. He died in nineteen forty-four. Gerald was a wonderful man and I loved him very dearly, but in spite of my generosity Gerald spent too much and was always in debt—mostly to the local casinos. In order to raise some extra cash he may have sold the photograph to a male whore called Louis Legrand with whom he was infatuated. Loulou was here a lot during the thirties, and many of the guests here at the Villa Mauresque—myself included—were his appreciative customers. He’s in the photograph, too. He went to live in Australia after that, doing what I’m not entirely sure. But he turned up here a couple of years ago demanding money for some letters written to him by me and some of my more illustrious friends.”

“And what happened then?”

“I paid him off. With a check.”

“Who handled that business for you?”

“A lawyer in Nice. A Monsieur Gris.”

“To your satisfaction?”

“Entirely. But before you ask I can’t use him again. Unfortunately he died, quite recently.”

“If Louis Legrand had been in possession of the photograph then surely he’d have used it at the time, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, that’s true. But I now suspect he might not have used it because he appears in it. Anyway, he was disappointed with his check, it has to be said, and threatened to come back with something ‘more damaging.’ My lawyer wrote him a letter informing Loulou that if he ever returned with more menacing demands for money we would certainly place the matter in the hands of the police. And since Loulou did have a conviction in France, for pimping, which is illegal in this country, he could easily have been deported.”

“So, would you say it’s possible that he decided to use the photograph at one remove and sold it to Harold Hebel?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Do you have a print you can show me?”

Maugham went to his refectory desk and pulled open a drawer. He took out a largish black-and-white photograph and handed it to me, without hesitation or embarrassment, which, for anyone but him, would probably have taken some nerve. But at eighty-two I guess he was through apologizing or feeling ashamed of what he was.