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recognized the dark travelling suit of my companion.
    ‘What happened to my clothes?’ I asked.
    The chauffeur came forward, and, taking the suit, hung the coat on the back of the chair and smoothed the trousers.
    ‘Monsieur le Comte was no doubt thinking of other things when he undressed,’ he observed, and he glanced across at me and smiled.
    ‘No,’ I said, ‘those things aren’t mine. They belong to your master. Mine are probably in the wardrobe there.’
    He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, making the little grimace of someone who humours a child, and crossing to thewardrobe flung it open. There was nothing hanging there. ‘Open the drawers,’ I said. He did so, and they were empty. I got out of bed and rummaged in the two valises, the one on the chair and the other on the floor. They were filled with the possessions of my late companion. I realized then that we must have exchanged clothes in a fit of drunken folly, and somehow the thought of it was distasteful, beastly, and I brushed it aside because I did not want to remember anything else that might have happened.
    I went to the window and looked down into the street. There was a Renault drawn up in front of the hotel, and my car had gone.
    ‘Did you see my car when you arrived?’ I asked the chauffeur.
    The man looked puzzled. ‘Monsieur le Comte has bought a new car?’ he asked. ‘There was no other car when I came this morning.’
    His continued self-deception irritated me. ‘No,’ I said impatiently, ‘my car, my Ford. I am not Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur le Comte has gone out wearing my clothes. See if he left a message with anyone below. He must have taken my car too. It’s a joke on his part, but I am not particularly amused.’
    A new expression came into the chauffeur’s eyes. He looked worried, upset. ‘There is no hurry,’ he said, ‘if Monsieur le Comte wishes to rest a little longer.’ He came to me, and very gently put out his hand and felt my head. ‘Would you like me to fetch something from the
pharmacie?’
he asked. ‘Does it hurt you when I touch it, like this?’
    I knew I must be patient. ‘Would you ask whoever is at the reception desk to come upstairs?’ I said.
    He left me and went down the stairs, and when he had gone I looked about the bedroom once again, but nowhere, neither in the wardrobe, nor in the drawers of the dressing-table, nor on the table, was there anything of mine by which I could prove my identity. My clothes had vanished, and with them my wallet,passport, money, notebook, key-ring, pen, every personal thing I was in the habit of carrying. There was not a stud or a cufflink here that was mine: everything was his. There lay his brushes on the top of the open valise, with the initials J. de G.; there was another suit of clothes; there were shoes, shaving-tackle, soap, a sponge, and on the dressing-table a wallet with money, cards with ‘Comte de Gué’ printed upon them and ‘St Gilles, Sarthe’ in the bottom left-hand corner. I tumbled out the things in the other valise in the vain hope of finding something that belonged to me, but there was nothing – only his clothes, a travelling clock, a small writing-folder, a cheque-book, various packages wrapped in paper that seemed to be presents.
    I went and sat down again on the bed, my head in my hands. There was nothing I could do but wait. Presently he would come back. He must come back. He had taken my car, and I had only to go to the police, tell them the number, explain the loss of my wallet with money, travellers’ cheques and passport, and they would find him. Meanwhile … meanwhile, what?
    The chauffeur came back into the room, and with him a greasy, furtive-looking man whom I took to be the reception-clerk or even the
patron
. He had a slip of paper in his hand which he handed to me, and I saw it was the bill – the price of the single room for a night and a day.
    ‘You have some complaint, Monsieur?’ he asked.
    ‘Where is the