Chapter 7 (sections i-ii) Summary

Six months after Maugham's long talk with Larry in Paris, the police knock on the door at his house on the Riviera. They want to know if he knows somebody by the name of Sophie MacDonald. The police tell him they have found her floating dead in the harbor, and they need him to identify the body. He tells the police that she is just an acquaintance and wonders why they can't identify her some other way. They tell him that her throat has been cut, and she was found naked. He agrees to go to Toulon the next day.

Maugham meets with a detective in Toulon. The detective tells him that they found a book in her room with his signature on it. After explaining that the inscription is a poem, Maugham gives him a brief recital of...