The Other Side of Silence

Robin Maugham sighed and then stared up at the ceiling as if hoping he might find the answer hanging off the dusty wooden chandelier. The French windows were none too clean either; bright sunlight showed up cobwebs like giant fingerprints on more than one pane of glass, and in the lost domain that was one corner under the refectory table was a champagne glass containing a cigarette end. Maybe I did belong somewhere like that; I wasn’t exactly gleaming myself.

“Don’t get me wrong, Robin. I’m no better than you. In many ways I’m worse. Long ago I concluded I don’t have a soul of my own. Not anymore.”

“Look, if I tell you the truth, will you promise not to tell my uncle?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know. It all depends on what you tell me.”

“I’ll pay you to keep silent about this.”

“I think you’re mistaking me for another double-dealing bastard, Robin. I’m not a blackmailer. And I agreed to help your uncle, not help someone else to put the squeeze on him.”

“Look, I’ve made mistakes. I’m only human. But you must believe me, I’d never do anything to hurt my uncle Willie.”

“Not consciously, perhaps. So. Why don’t you tell me? How did Harold Hebel come to be in possession of this photograph?”

Robin Maugham got up and went to close the drawing room door. Then he lit a cigarette, quite forgetting there was one already burning in the ashtray, and walked around the room nervously for a few seconds before sitting down again. It wasn’t yet eleven but already he was sweating profusely.

“I’m not exactly sure, to be honest.”

“Take your time. I’m in no hurry. I took the whole morning off.”

“There’s a man in London who used to be a friend of my uncle’s. Chap named Blunt, Anthony Blunt. He’s queer, too.”

“Blunt’s one of the naked men in the photograph that was taken here at the Villa Mauresque, right?”

“The one taken in nineteen thirty-seven, yes.”

“Go on.”

“He’s now a very prominent art dealer. Very well connected. Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures. Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Anyway, I was a bit short of cash and so the last time I was in London, Anthony and I met for lunch at my club and I offered to sell him the photograph and some letters from him to Gerald. You see, Blunt’s a friend of this fellow Guy Burgess, too. In fact, I think they even shared a house during the war. Naturally, it would mean that Blunt would have to resign from all his offices if that picture ended up in the newspapers. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t a fortune I was asking. Just a thousand pounds, that’s all. Cheap at the price in view of how much Hebel is asking for it.”

“So what happened after you started blackmailing Blunt?”

“Steady on, old boy. I wouldn’t call it blackmail, exactly. I mean, I never threatened to send the letters and the picture to the newspapers or anything like that. You might even say I was trying to help the poor fellow out. To stop them from falling into the hands of anyone else. To give him peace of mind. Yes, I could have destroyed them, but then he might always have wondered what became of them, and if one day they might come back to haunt him. You do see the difference.”

“You’re a much better blackmailer than you think you are, Robin.”

Robin Maugham leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette with fury, as if he wished the ashtray had been my eyeball.

“Fuck you, Walter,” he said.

“I’d rather you didn’t. So, then; Blunt bought what you were offering so very cheaply. Prints, negative, letters, the whole package wrapped with a nice pink ribbon. Cash?”

“Yes. Cash. He moaned about it quite a lot but yes, eventually, he paid. So, naturally I was more than a bit surprised when this fellow Hebel turned up here with the photograph asking for fifty thousand dollars. I mean, fifty thousand dollars? Jesus. That rather puts my amateur effort in the shade.”

“Have you spoken to Blunt about this?”

“Yes. He says the photograph was stolen from his flat at the Courtauld Institute soon after I sold it to him.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes. Maybe. His place is always full of rent boys. Any one of them could have pinched it. Besides, I can’t see why he would hand the picture to someone who might easily blackmail him. It strikes me that Anthony Blunt has as much to lose as my uncle.”

“But a lot more to gain, perhaps. Is Blunt rich?”

“No, not especially. I mean, he has some rather valuable pictures, and some rich friends, but not much money of his own.”

“So, not as rich as your uncle Willie?”

“Lord, no. Not many people are.”