Read Online The Other Side of Silence by Philip Kerr - Free Book Online

am not immune to public opinion. To say nothing of the embarrassment it might cause for my poor brother, Frederic, in England, who just happens to be the former Lord Chancellor. We’ve never been close, he and I, but I would like to spare him that, if I can. He’s very old. Even older than I.”
    â€œWhere did Hebel get this photograph?”
    â€œThere are a number of possible explanations. There wereseveral other men at that particular pool party who might have taken photographs: Dadie Rylands, Raymond Mortimer, Godfrey Winn, Paul Hyslop. But most likely it was my former friend and companion Gerald Haxton. I met Gerald during the Great War and we were together for the rest of his life. He died in nineteen forty-four. Gerald was a wonderful man and I loved him very dearly, but in spite of my generosity Gerald spent too much and was always in debt—mostly to the local casinos. In order to raise some extra cash he may have sold the photograph to a male whore called Louis Legrand with whom he was infatuated. Loulou was here a lot during the thirties, and many of the guests here at the Villa Mauresque—myself included—were his appreciative customers. He’s in the photograph, too. He went to live in Australia after that, doing what I’m not entirely sure. But he turned up here a couple of years ago demanding money for some letters written to him by me and some of my more illustrious friends.”
    â€œAnd what happened then?”
    â€œI paid him off. With a check.”
    â€œWho handled that business for you?”
    â€œA lawyer in Nice. A Monsieur Gris.”
    â€œTo your satisfaction?”
    â€œEntirely. But before you ask I can’t use him again. Unfortunately he died, quite recently.”
    â€œIf Louis Legrand had been in possession of the photograph then surely he’d have used it at the time, wouldn’t you say?”
    â€œYes, that’s true. But I now suspect he might not have used itbecause he appears in it. Anyway, he was disappointed with his check, it has to be said, and threatened to come back with something ‘more damaging.’ My lawyer wrote him a letter informing Loulou that if he ever returned with more menacing demands for money we would certainly place the matter in the hands of the police. And since Loulou did have a conviction in France, for pimping, which is illegal in this country, he could easily have been deported.”
    â€œSo, would you say it’s possible that he decided to use the photograph at one remove and sold it to Harold Hebel?”
    â€œYes, I would.”
    â€œDo you have a print you can show me?”
    Maugham went to his refectory desk and pulled open a drawer. He took out a largish black-and-white photograph and handed it to me, without hesitation or embarrassment, which, for anyone but him, would probably have taken some nerve. But at eighty-two I guess he was through apologizing or feeling ashamed of what he was.
    It was a nice swimming pool; at each corner there was an ornamental lead pinecone, with a diving board at one end and, at the other, a marble mask of Neptune as big as an archery target. There was water in the pool, too. Gallons of it. I tried to keep my eyes on the water, but it was difficult. Any self-respecting satrap would have been quite satisfied with the swimming pool’s obvious luxury and, quite probably, the many naked men and boys in various stages of arousal, who were grouped around the mask of Neptune and paying particular priapic attention to thegod’s open mouth. As obscene photographs go, it was up there with anything drawn by Aretino at his most provocative. I’d seen worse but not since the days of the Weimar Republic, when Berlin was the world capital of pornography.
    â€œWho’s who?” I asked. “It’s a little difficult to tell anyone apart.”
    â€œThat’s Guy there,” said Maugham. “That’s Anthony. And that’s