“Sir John suggested he might join us,” said Maugham. “Blunt knows Guy Burgess as well as anyone. Besides, during the war Anthony worked for MI5. Which makes him doubly qualified to be here. Alan, please go and retrieve that cigarette end before it starts a fire. Everything in the garden is so very dry right now. Do try to be more thoughtful, Robin.”

Alan stood up, found the cigarette, and returned it to the ashtray while Robin continued to sound off on the subject of Blunt’s imminent arrival.

“Thank you, Alan.”

“I didn’t know he worked for MI5,” said Robin. “I thought he was an art historian, not a fucking spy.”

“Art historians make good spies,” said Maugham. “In art as in life, things are never quite what they seem. During the last war I myself did some work for MI6 in Lisbon. And then, in New York, I helped Bill Stephenson run British Security Coordination from the Rockefeller Center. But I’m still not allowed to say too much about that.”

“Is there a queer in London who doesn’t work for the security services?” Robin Maugham whined. “That’s what I’d like to know. Well, I wish someone had told me he was coming, that’s all.”

“I’m telling you now,” said Maugham.

“If you’re planning to be around when they get here,” I told Robin, adding to his now obvious discomfort, “maybe now would be a good time to tell your uncle what he doesn’t know. I mean about you and Blunt.”

“Good Lord, you haven’t fucked him, too,” said Maugham, and started to laugh his gravelly old laugh. “You little devil.”

Robin Maugham regarded me with pinpoint hatred.

“Perhaps before Blunt tells your uncle himself. Which he might well do, don’t you think? It’s just a suggestion, Robin. To save you any needless embarrassment.”

“You bastard.”

“He has fucked him, hasn’t he?” Maugham was still laughing delightedly in his almost Satanic way. “Do tell.”

But Robin had had enough and marched off the terrace like an angry terrier. A few minutes later we heard his Alfa Romeo take off.

“Now I really am fascinated,” said Maugham, continuing to cackle. “What on earth’s the matter with the boy?”

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?”