“Yes, I suppose it’s possible. I can see Blunt using a picture in the way you describe. But this tape is something else again. My uncle will only buy it if the secret service is prepared to underwrite the cost of the purchase. And they won’t buy it without listening to it themselves. Which still leaves Blunt in the shit because of the photograph, I’d have thought.”

“Not really. Your uncle has the photograph now.”

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?”

“So, unless Anthony Blunt’s name is on that tape, he’s in the clear. More or less.”

“Anthony Blunt?” Somerset Maugham came into the room and helped himself to some coffee. “What’s Anthony got to do with any of this?”

Robin Maugham blushed again, this time to the roots of his dyed hair, and stammered an answer. “I was just telling Walter that Blunt used to share a flat with Guy Burgess in London. And that now and then you had him bid for pictures at art auctions in London. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Old Masters are his special thing. Poussin, Titian, not really my cup of tea. And too damned expensive. But over the years he’s spotted a couple of good buys for me. Impressionists, mainly. He has a good eye, Anthony.”

“And yet he didn’t seem to notice he was sharing a flat with a Russian spy,” I said.

“You didn’t know Guy Burgess,” said Maugham. “He was a very charming rogue and a most unlikely spy. Everyone thought so.”

“That’s the thing about the English,” I said. “You think charm excuses almost anything, including treachery and treason.”

“Yes,” said Maugham, lighting a pipe. “That’s quite true. It’s a failing of ours, to find excuses for people. Of course, charm only works for Germans when it seems to have been divinely conferred.”

“When was the last time you saw Guy Burgess?” I asked.

Maugham paused for a moment. “Probably Tangier in nineteen forty-nine. Got himself into a bit of a scrape in Gibraltar beforehand, I seem to recall. But that was the thing about Guy; he was always getting into scrapes. Frankly, his behavior made him a most improbable spy. Often drunk and outrageously homosexual—when he defected, nobody could quite believe how he managed to pull it off for so long. I suppose you might say it was the perfect cover, to seem so indiscreet that people couldn’t possibly think you might be a spy.”

Maugham set his coffee cup down and moved to a chair.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

I stood up and walked over to the Grundig. In its green Tolex carry case, the tape machine resembled the forgotten layer of an old wedding cake. I twisted the gold switch and slowly the two reels began to turn.

EIGHTEEN