The Other Side of Silence

It was time. I told the old man about the photograph, how his nephew had used it to blackmail Anthony Blunt and how Blunt had alleged it had later been stolen from his flat in London. “It might just be that Robin and Harold Hebel were in cahoots to make some money from you,” I explained. “Fifty thousand dollars, if you see where I’m going.”

“Yes, I do see. Oh dear. Poor Robin. No, it’s not funny at all, is it?”

Composing himself again, Maugham sipped his martini, ate the olive, and then sighed. “Look, Walter, I don’t expect you to understand this in the slightest, but for men like me and Robin and Alan, silence about who and what we are is not a choice so much as a matter of constant vigilance. In fact, it’s nothing short of an obsession. We inhabit a dog-eat-dog world of extortion and blackmail the way some people live with religion or politics. Blackmail infects us to the extent that we’re not merely its victims but, just as often, its perpetrators. Lovers spurned become our most painful tormentors. Boys we fondly kept in toys and treats and money-always lots of money-turn around and bite the hand that once fed them so generously in the name of their own freedom. Letters we’ve written are the tools of our own torture and potential downfall. It would be easy for me to condemn my nephew’s actions out of hand, but I’m not going to. As you yourself no doubt remember, I myself blackmailed you to come and help me out with this business. So, you see, I’m just as rotten and unscrupulous as Robin is.”

“I think you’re making excuses for him,” I said.

“Of course I am. Robin is my nephew, and in spite of his manifest failings I’m very fond of him. I’ll always be making excuses for him. He is the only member of my family I like. No, that’s not quite true-I have a niece, Kate, my brother’s daughter, of whom I am rather fond. But Robin is a weak man. And needs me. ‘Need’ is a more important word than ‘love,’ Walter. Especially at my time of life. Although perhaps it always was. It’s good to be needed. Perhaps one day you’ll realize that.”

TWENTY-TWO

Sir John “Sinbad” Sinclair crossed his long legs and straightened the perfect creases on the trousers of his summer-weight suit. His polished brown shoes gleamed in the lamplight, while his short, gray hair sat on top of a long head like an army beret. He looked exactly like what he was: an ex-general in the British army, one of those paternally minded and probably much-loved generals who regarded his men as his sons, and his junior officers as younger brothers. While he listened to the tape, he made notes with a fountain pen and occasionally rubbed a broken nose that was bent toward the left side of his face. He was a handsome man, about sixty years old and rather more vigorous than the other Englishman accompanying him. Patrick Reilly was younger than Sinclair by more than a decade, and while he was probably as tall as Sinbad, he was altogether less physical, with the beginnings of a double chin and a posture that belonged in a plantation chair on the veranda of some Indian bungalow. Where Sinclair’s expression was lively and adventurous, like a well-trained gun dog, Reilly’s was altogether more feline and wary, with small, searching green eyes and a mouth as tight as a Frisian miser’s purse. Neither of them had said very much, but Reilly already struck me as the more intelligent of the two. Both men regarded me with strong suspicion and were more than a little surprised-as was I-when Maugham had earlier introduced me as his “private detective.”

“Winston had one, when he came to stay here at the Villa Mauresque,” added Maugham, by way of explanation and justification. “Can’t remember the fellow’s name.”

“Walter Thompson, I think,” said Sinclair. “Like the advertising agency.”

“No, that was the previous one,” said Reilly. “Don’t you remember? Obtuse sort of chap. We had all that trouble when he wanted to publish a book about his experiences guarding Winston.”

“Oh yes.”

“Well, my detective is also called Walter,” said Maugham. “And he’s here with us tonight because he’s been helping me to deal with this blackmailer, Harold Hebel. I trust you have no objection to his being here because I’ve rather come to rely on his judgment. In any event, I prefer him to remain. Just as I’m sure you feel safer with your two chaps from Special Branch. If that’s what they are.” Maugham nodded in the direction of the French windows, where two largish Englishmen with guns were blundering around in the gardens and trying to look inconspicuous.

“I’ve no idea where they’re from.” Reilly looked at Sinclair. “Do you?”

“Not my department. I drew them both from stores. Standard issue for an excursion like this. They’re from Fort Monckton, I believe. Portsmouth muscle.”