The alligator eyes narrowed in their folds of brown skin as he considered the proposition. “I’m a r-rich man,” he said, “and it strikes me that I need protection of some kind. Especially at my time of life. I might be kidnapped. Or blackmailed again. And there are always unwanted visitors at the front gates wanting a book signed. You have no idea. But if you became my security adviser, Herr Wolf, then I’d feel a lot safer. And not just me. My guests, too. Some very famous people come and stay here from time to time. Very famous and just as often even richer than I am. Charlie Chaplin, Jerry Zipkin, the Queen of Spain. And then there’s my art collection. As you will doubtless have observed, I have paintings by Gauguin, Matisse, Renoir, Pissarro, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Monet, Utrillo. A man with a gun is just what the place needs most, I think.”

“Who painted that one?” I said.

But Robin Maugham agreed enthusiastically. “This is a brilliant idea, Uncle,” he said. “Your very own Simon Templar.”

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” I said, with no idea of who Simon Templar was. “I am not a good man.”

“Look around,” said Searle. “There are no honors and decorations coming the way of anyone in this house.”

“No, indeed,” said Robin.

“I know that you returned with fifty thousand dollars I thought I’d never see again,” said Maugham. “I think that b-bespeaks a certain devotion to principle.”

“Then try this, sir. I’m not sure I could handle the predominantly male atmosphere up here at the villa. Pool parties and rent boys.”

“We’re much too old for all those shenanigans now,” said Maugham. “Aren’t we, Alan?”

“Speak for yourself,” said Searle.

“What about you, Mr. Wolf? Is there anyone in your life? A woman, perhaps.”

“You managed to make that sound queer,” I said.

“It is,” he said. “To us.”

“I’m not interested in anything like that anymore.”

“You sound exactly like a man with a broken heart,” he said. “You fascinate me, Mr. Wolf. Who was the woman who made you so bitter?”

I laughed. “It took more than just one.”

“Love is just a dirty trick that’s played on us to achieve a continuation of the species,” said Maugham. “That’s what I think.”