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‘Mr Westerby, sir?’

‘Yes, old boy.’

Masters held out his hand. ‘Old boy, I want you to shake me by the hand.’

The hand stuck between them, thumb upward.

‘What for?’ said Jerry.

‘I want you to extend me the hand of welcome, sir. The United States of America has just applied to join the club of second-class powers, of which I understand your own fine nation to be chairman, president, and oldest member. Shake it’!

‘Proud to have you aboard,’ said Jerry and obligingly shook the Major’s hand.

There is a letter George wrote to Ann Smiley—he says—in the heat of the crisis, presumably in one of the long waiting periods in the isolation ward. Guillam leans heavily on it for his theory. Ann showed it to him when he called on her in Wiltshire, in the hope of bringing about a reconciliation, and though the mission failed, she produced it from her handbag in the course of their talk. Guillam memorised a part, he claims, and wrote it down as soon as he got back to the car. Certainly the style flies a lot higher than anything Guillam would aspire to for himself:

I honestly do wonder, without wishing to be morbid, how I reached this present pass. So far as I can ever remember of my youth, I chose the secret road because it seemed to lead straightest and furthest toward my country’s goal. The enemy in those days was someone we could point at and read about in the papers. Today, all I know is that I have learned to interpret the whole of life in terms of conspiracy. That is the sword I have lived by, and as I look round me now I see it is the sword I shall die by as well. These people terrify me, but I am one of them. If they stab me in the back, then at least that is the judgement of my peers.

As Guillam points out, the letter was essentially from Smiley’s blue period.