The Other Side of Silence by Philip Kerr

man, Walter.”
    â€œAs far as it goes.”
    â€œOne imagines that you wouldn’t be working as a concierge at the Grand if you weren’t.”
    â€œPerhaps. But good fortune rarely walks you out the door to your car. Not these days.” I shrugged. “What I mean to say is, we’re all trying to make a living, Mr. Maugham. And if we can pull off the pretense that we’re doing it honestly, then so much the better.”
    â€œYou’re an even bigger cynic than I am, Walter. I like you more and more.”
    â€œI’m German, Mr. Maugham. I’ve had a lot more practice with cynicism. We all have. It’s the thousand-ton weight of German cynicism that caused the collapse of the Weimar Republic and gave us the thousand-year Reich.”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œWhat can I do for you, sir? You didn’t bring me up here to help me confess my sins.”
    â€œNo, you’re right. I came to tell you about a few of mine. The fact is, Walter, I’m being blackmailed again.”
    â€œAgain?”
    â€œI’m a rich old queer. I have more skeletons in my closets than the Roman catacombs. Being blackmailed is not so much an occupational hazard for a man like me as an existential condition. I fuck, therefore I am subject to demands for money, demands with menaces attached.”
    â€œPay him, whoever it is. You’re rich enough.”
    â€œThis one is a professional.”
    â€œSo go to the police.”
    Maugham smiled thinly. “We both know that isn’t possible.Blackmailers work on the same principle as the Mafia. They prey upon a vulnerable minority of people who can’t go to the police. Their power is our silence.”
    â€œWhat I meant was, why tell me?”
    â€œBecause you used to be a policeman, and because I want your help.”
    â€œI don’t see how I can be of assistance, Mr. Maugham. I’m a concierge. My detective days are long gone. I have a hard job seeing off the merry widows at the hotel, let alone a professional blackmailer. Besides, I’m a little slow on the uptake these days. I’m still trying to work out how you know I used to be a detective.”
    â€œYou were ten years with the Berlin police. You told us yourself.”
    â€œYes, but it was someone else who told you I’d been the house bull at the Adlon Hotel.” I nodded. “But who? Wait, it was Hennig, wasn’t it? Harold Heinz Hennig. I saw him arguing with your nephew in front of La Voile d’Or a couple of weeks ago. So that’s his racket.”
    â€œNever heard of him.”
    â€œI forgot. He’s not calling himself that anymore, is he? He’s checked into the Grand under the name Harold Heinz Hebel. It was he who told you about me, wasn’t it?”
    â€œThat’s right. Hebel. He told my nephew about you. It was his idea that I should try to employ you, Walter.”
    â€œHis idea?”
    â€œHe said he knew you from the war and that you were reliable. And honest. As far as it goes.”
    â€œThat was nice of him. Not that he would know how to spell ‘reliable’ and ‘honest.’ The man is a criminal.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWell then, why take his recommendation? Why not hire a local man? A Frenchman.”
    â€œIt’s simple. You see, Walter, it’s Harold Heinz Hebel who’s blackmailing me.”
    â€œNow I really am confused.”
    â€œThe fact is, Hebel’s asking rather a lot of money for a compromising photograph of me and some other people. He wants me to feel that I can make a deal with him in complete confidence. He said you’d be the kind of man to make sure he kept his side of the bargain. And that you’re not the type of man who would get nervous handling a large sum of money.”
    â€œNow I’ve heard everything. Blackmailers recommending detectives. Or ex-detectives. It sounds an awful lot like a salmon recommending a good