Interesting post. Because the story isn't in my otherwise comprehensive 1983 Penguin collection (why?), I had to go hunting for it on the internet and found the story - via JStor - in its original publication in the Transatlantic Review, summer 1969. There the man is named as Roche, not Quilian: I wonder what else got changed between magazine and book publication?
I'm not sure that I'd agree that Quilian/Roche's claim to be a detective is "ludicrous". Of course one learns to be suspicious of anyone's assertions in a Trevor story - and as a character he would perhaps be more at home in a Graham Greene novel - but his reason for being there in the hotel grounds is at least plausible.
Interesting post. Because the story isn't in my otherwise comprehensive 1983 Penguin collection (why?), I had to go hunting for it on the internet and found the story - via JStor - in its original publication in the Transatlantic Review, summer 1969. There the man is named as Roche, not Quilian: I wonder what else got changed between magazine and book publication?
I'm not sure that I'd agree that Quilian/Roche's claim to be a detective is "ludicrous". Of course one learns to be suspicious of anyone's assertions in a Trevor story - and as a character he would perhaps be more at home in a Graham Greene novel - but his reason for being there in the hotel grounds is at least plausible.