While Philby and I had remained in Vienna, Otto Deutsch, a Ph. D. working for the sexologist Wilhelm Reich, not to mention the NKVD, had made several attempts to recruit the two of us to the Russian Secret Service. It was an invitation I had resisted at the time. I didn’t know about Philby himself, who had returned to England with Litzi in May 1934, so that she might escape the clutches of the Heimwehr, for she had been more openly active than Kim. I had always assumed that, like myself, Philby had resisted Deutsch’s invitation to join the NKVD in Vienna. But seeing him again, working for the SIS in the Russian counterintelligence section and apparently nervous at the renewal of our acquaintance, made me wonder.
Of course I could say nothing about this without drawing attention to my own background. Not that I thought it really mattered very much. If the British were, as was generally supposed by the OSS, breaking the German codes and not passing on relevant information to the Russians for fear of being asked to share all decoded German material, then, doubtless, Philby would see it as his duty to remedy such perfidious behavior toward an ally. I might even have applauded such so-called treachery. I would not have done it myself, but I might almost have approved of it being done by someone else.
Back in my hotel room, I made some notes for my Katyn report, had another tepid bath, and put on a tuxedo. By six-thirty I was in the bar at the Ritz ordering a second martini even as I was finishing my first. Saying the right thing, saying a lot less than people wanted to know, saying not very much at all, just listening-it had been a long day, and I was desperate to relax. Rosamond was just the woman to pull out the pins.
I had not seen her since the war began, and I was a little surprised that her once brown wavy hair was now gray, with a blue rinse; and yet she had lost none of her voluptuous allure. She kissed and hugged me.
“Darling,” she cooed, in her soft, breathy voice. “How wonderful to see you.”
“You’re still as gorgeous as you always were.”
“It’s very sweet of you, Will, but I’m not.” She touched her hair self-consciously.
I judged her to be in her early forties by now, but more beautiful than ever. She always reminded me a little of Vivien Leigh, only more womanly and sensuous. Less impetuous and much more thoughtful. Tall, pale-skinned, with a magnificent figure that belonged on a chaise longue in some artist’s studio, she wore a long, silvery skirt and a purple chiffon blouse that outlined her full figure.
“I brought you some stockings,” I told her. “Gold Stripe. Only I’m afraid I left them in my room at Claridge’s.”
“On purpose, of course. To make sure I’d come back to your hotel.”
Ros was used to men throwing themselves at her feet, and she almost expected it as the price of being so beautiful, even as she did her best to play that down. This was an almost impossible task; most of the time, and wherever she was, Ros always stood out like a woman wearing a Balenciaga cocktail dress to a Sunday school picnic in Nebraska.
“Of course.” I grinned.
She fingered the string of pearls around her creamy white neck as I ordered a bottle of champagne.
I offered her a cigarette and she squeezed it into a little black holder.
“You’re living with a poet these days, is that right?” I leaned forward to light her cigarette and caught a whiff of some perfume that reached right down into my trouser pocket, and then some.
“That’s right,” she puffed. “He’s gone off to visit his wife and children.”
“Is he any good? As a poet, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. And terribly good-looking, too. Just like you, darling. Only I don’t want to talk about him, because I’m cross with him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s gone off to visit his wife and children instead of staying here in London with me, of course.”
“Of course. But what happened to Wogan?”
Wogan Philipps, the Second Baron Milford, was the husband Ros had left to be with her poet.
“He’s getting married again. To a fellow Communist. At least he is as soon as I’ve divorced him.”
“I didn’t know Wogan was a Communist.”
“My dear, he’s positively riddled with it.”
“But you’re not a Communist, are you?”
“Lord, no. I am not and never have been a political animal. Romantically inclined toward the left, but not actively. And I expect men to make me their abiding cause, not Hitler or Stalin. Just as I have made men mine.”
“Then here’s to you, sweetheart,” I said. “You get my vote, every time.”
After a flirtatious dinner, we walked around the corner to St. James’s Place, where Victor Rothschild had a top-floor flat. A servant gave us a message that His Lordship had gone to a drinks party in Chesterfield Gardens and we should join him there.
“Shall we go?” I asked Rosamond.
“Why not? It beats going home to an empty flat in Kensington. And it’s been simply ages since I went to a party.”
Tomas Harris and his wife, Hilda, were a wealthy couple whose hospitality was exceeded only by their self-evident good taste. Harris was an art dealer, and many of the walls of the house in Chesterfield Gardens displayed paintings and drawings by the likes of El Greco and Goya.
“You must be Victor’s American,” he said, greeting me warmly. “And you must be Lady Milford. I’ve read all of your novels. Dusty Answer is one of my favorite books.”
“I’ve just finished reading Invitation to the Waltz, ” said Hilda Harris. “I was so excited when Tom told me you might be coming. Come on, let me introduce you to some people.” She took Rosamond by the elbow. “Do you know Guy Burgess?”
“Yes. Is he here?”
“Willard!”
A dark-haired and stocky but handsome man came over and greeted me, exuding an air that was part rabbinical, part tycoon, part Bolshevik, and part aristocrat. Victor Rothschild was a prophet crying in a wilderness of privilege and position. We shared a love of jazz and a mutually rosy view of science, which was easier for Victor, given that he was actually a scientist. Victor couldn’t have made himself more scientific if he’d slept on a Petri dish.
“Willard, good to see you,” he said, shaking my hand furiously. “Tell me, you didn’t bring your saxophone, did you? Will plays a pretty mean sax, Tom.”
“I didn’t think it was appropriate,” I said. “When you’re the president’s special envoy, traveling with a saxophone is a little like bringing your pool cue to an audience with the Pope.”
“President’s special envoy, eh? That is impressive.”
“I think it sounds more impressive than it is. And what about you, Victor? What are you up to?”
“MI5. I run a little antisabotage outfit, X-raying Winston’s cigars, that kind of thing. Technical stuff.” Rothschild wagged his finger at me. “Introduce him to someone, Tom. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Watching Rothschild disappear out the drawing room door, Harris said, “He’s too modest by half. From what I hear he’s involved in bomb disposal. Tackling the latest German fuses and detonators. It’s dangerous work.” Glancing over my shoulder, Harris waved a tall, rather limp-looking man of the lean and hungry kind over toward us. “Tony, this is Willard Mayer. Willard, this is Anthony Blunt.”
The man who came over had hands that more properly belonged on a delicate girl and the sort of fastidious, well-bred mouth that looked as if he’d been weaned on lemons and limes. He had an odd way of speaking that I didn’t like.
“Oh, yes,” said Blunt, “Kim’s been telling me all about you. ” He pronounced the last word with an indecent amount of emphasis, as if affecting a kind of disapproval.