hippogrif

Another interesting point is that Klaus indicates that Gil was trying to keep his Paris activities from Klaus. Or at least, Klaus thought so. Given the already confirmed issues of correspondence between Gil and his old friends on Castle Wulfenbach, one does wonder if some third party was also interfering with Klaus' information stream.

One of the footnotes suggests that Gil was very active in a range of Hero-style activities: busting up bank robberies among other things. (chuckle) And the closest he got to dating was the scantily clad maidens associate with those events.

That suggests that, contra my prior speculations, Gil may not have been doing undercover work for Klaus. But, on the other had, it opens up the possibility of Gil trying to test himself as a Heterodyne Boy style hero and general Gentleman Adventurer. Which might explain a bit more of the hostility between him and Othar, if both were bucking for the same treasured status, and Othar kept not only intruding, but casting Gil as the villain instead.

I can see a lot of reasons for Gil to do that: Klaus is expecting a lot of him and he wants to know if he can live up to at least what Klaus was as a young man and associate of the HBs; Gil wants to enjoy some time putting himself at risk in ways Klaus would have violently disliked; Gil wanted to get his own view of the world; Gil actually hoped for a bit more girl action than he got, and didn't want Papa and Papa's spies looking in on him. There may be more.

I am still not completely sure Klaus didn't give him some tasks. But it seems less likely if Klaus felt left out of the loop regarding Paris.