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worked at the Hotel Adlon.”
    â€œRight. Everyone stays at the Adlon.
Grand Hotel
. The film, I mean. Vicki Baum, wasn’t it? The Austrian writer.”
    â€œYes, I think so.”
    â€œThought so. I’m a writer myself. Books, plays. Working on a play right now. A comedy that’s based on Shakespeare’s
King Lear.
It’s about a man who has three daughters.”
    â€œThere’s a coincidence.”
    Maugham laughed. “Quite.”
    â€œI suppose it would be too much of a coincidence if you were not related to the other Maugham who lives around here.”
    â€œHe’s my uncle. Matter of fact, he used to know Vicki Baum, when he was living in Berlin before the first war.”
    The drinks arrived and Robin Maugham grabbed his glass of white wine off the waiter’s tin tray with the impatience of the true drunk. I should know; my own greenish glass had taken on the aura of the holy grail.
    â€œHe likes Germans, too. Willie. That’s what we call the old man. Speaks it fluently. On account of the fact that before med school he spent a year at the University of Heidelberg. Uncle Willie loves Germany. He’s particularly fond of Goethe. Still reads it in German. Which is saying something for an Englishman, I can tell you.”
    â€œThen we have something in common.”
    â€œYou too, eh? Jolly good.”
    It was easy to see that Robin Maugham was a playwright. He had an easy way of speech about him, a talky, bantering sort of chat that concealed as much as it revealed, like a character you knew was going to prove much more consequential than he seemed if only by virtue of his prominence on the theater bill.
    â€œYou know, what with the bridge and the German, perhaps you’d like to make up a four at the Villa Mauresque one night. The old man is always keen to meet interesting new people. Of course, he’s notoriously private, but I’ll hazard a guess that the concierge at the Grand Hôtel—not to mention someone who worked at the famous Adlon—well, that person must be used to keeping a few confidences, what?”
    â€œI’d be delighted to come,” I said. “And you needn’t worry about my mouth.”
    I thought about Anne French and what she might say when I told her I’d been invited up to the Villa Mauresque. It was possible she would perceive my invitation as an affirmation of her own strategy: to learn bridge in order to meet Somerset Maugham. But it seemed equally possible that she would see it as some kind of betrayal. And while for a brief moment I considered simply not telling her in order to spare her feelings, it seemed to me that my being there at all could only help to facilitate her own invitation. Alternatively, I might be her spy and report on how things really were at the Villa Mauresque, providing her with the color she needed for her book.
    â€œBut I feel I ought to read one of his novels,” I said. “I’d hateto have to admit that I haven’t read any. Which one would you recommend?”
    â€œA short one. My own favorite is
The Moon and Sixpence
. Which is about the life of Paul Gauguin. I’ll lend you my own copy if you like.”
    Robin Maugham looked at his watch. “You know, it occurs to me that we could still make dinner at the villa. That is if you haven’t already dined. Willie keeps a very good table. Annette, our Italian cook, is wonderful. Willie was in a good mood today. Rather absurdly, an invitation to the forthcoming wedding of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly in Monaco seems to have left him as delighted as if he was getting married himself.”
    â€œI got an invitation myself but sadly I shall have to decline. It would mean finding all my decorations and buying a new suit, which I can ill afford.”
    Robin smiled uncertainly.
    I looked at my own watch.
    â€œBut sure. Let’s go. I don’t mind interrupting my alcohol consumption with some