346 • MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET
Would he be willing to travel to one on behalf of theSecret Intelli-
gence Service(SIS)? At that time Wallinger, who was never directly
identified by Maugham in any of his books, was in charge of SIS’s
operations in Southern Europe. He had previously served in the In-
dian Police and, like his one-legged brother Ernest, for whomSigis-
mund Bestworked, was a senior figure in SIS. Aged 41, Maugham
was too old for military service, having already served on the West-
ern Front in a Red Cross ambulance unit, and was anxious to leave
London, where his mistress’s impending divorce from her husband
on the grounds of her adultery was set to create a scandal.
It was agreed with Wallinger that Maugham would go to Switzer-
land, ostensibly to complete his playCarolinebut actually to reestab-
lish contact with some of SIS’s agents. However his first assignment
was to watch an Englishman with a German wife who was living in
Lucerne. He took a room in the Hotel Beau Rivage in Geneva and
filed his weekly reports by taking the ferry across the lake to the
French side. Maugham was back in London early in the New Year to
seeCarolineopen in the West End, and then in March he resumed
his duties in Switzerland, accompanied by his newly divorced mis-
tress, Syrie Wellcome. They stayed in Switzerland until June, when
they moved to the French spa of Brides-les-Bains for a brief holiday,
and then returned to London, where Maugham asked Wallinger to
release him from SIS. In his place, SIS assigned another playwright,
Edward Knoblock.
Maugham did not write about his melancholy experiences in Swit-
zerland until 1928 when he releasedAshenden, which unfortunately
coincided with the publication of his friendCompton Mackenzie’s
spy novel,Extremes Meet, also based wartime service in SIS. InThe
Traitor, Ashenden travels to Lucerne to investigate an English expa-
triate married to a suspected enemy agent and he lures him onto
French territory so he can be arrested, a tale that is very close to the
first assignment Maugham undertook in Switzerland for SIS.
Maugham conceded that his stories were ‘‘on the whole a very truth-
ful account of my experiences,’’ but not all the episodes inAshenden
are directly attributable to Maugham’s own adventures. Three, for
example, originated with another close friend, Irish painter Gerald
Kelly, who had operated for SIS in Spain.The Hairless Mexicanand
The Dark Womandescribe how a Mexican general is hired to assassi-