“I thought you were anti-exercise,” said Daeng.

But the man sidestepped her question, barged into Siri, threw his arms around him and wept on his shoulder.

“I just heard,” he said through his sniffling. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

He then repeated it all in French. It took them a while to calm him down. They sat him on one of the barbershop chairs and Daeng patted his hand.

“Give him the talk, Siri,” she said.

“All right,” said Siri. “Here we go. Siri and Daeng and Civilai were elderly people who had lived for many years in an area rife with weapon fire, tropical diseases and falling coconuts. There were any number of ways our three heroes could have been snuffed out. They may have leaned a little too heavily on alcohol from time to time to get through it all, but get through it they did. And by some miracle they stayed alive until ripe old ages. They knew the grim reaper of infinite patience was sitting on a stool at the end of the tunnel ready to claim their penitence. And so the first pin fell. It was unfortunate that Civilai left them. They’d miss him. Given the amount of booze he’d thrown down his throat over the years, they could hardly have been surprised. It would have been a bigger surprise if none of them died. No, Monsieur Seksan, a lifetime is more than enough.”

And, with that, Siri pushed the Frenchman away from his damp shoulder and asked him what he was doing there. After a few seconds of self-gathering, Seksan took a deep breath and said, “Yes, let’s all be brave about this.”

Siri smiled at Daeng.

“Let’s,” said Siri.

“I found the records you requested,” said Seksan. “Before our little diplomatic standoff, Paris sent the no-longer secret files referring to the last few days of our occupation of Indochina. The staff here locked the files in the strong room and didn’t even get a chance to open the dispatch folders before they left. I took a look. Page after page of bureaucratic dross. But, as I’m blessed with having no distractions, I was able to dig down to the incident you mentioned.”

“You found it?” said Siri. “Excellent. Did you see mention of Civilai and myself?”

The name Civilai sparked another emotional response from the ambassador janitor. It took a while for the dry sobs to clear.

“No,” he said at last. “But they did mention the incident. They wrote that French agents had uncovered a plot to steal valuable artifacts from the national museum in Saigon.”

“Bastards!” said Siri.

“That army officers were involved and that they were court-marshalled and executed by firing squad whilst still on Vietnamese soil,” Seksan continued.

“And the museum curator?” Siri asked.