The literary sleuth at work in The Stranger's Child

So a couple of discoveries as we move through part 4 of Alan Hollinghurst's "The Stranger's Child," following Paul Bryant, literary sleuth, as he gathers string for his bio of the war poet Cecil Valance. First, Paul interviews George Sawle, now 80+, whom we met in the first chapter - Cecil's boyfriend at Cambridge, who later comes on to Cecil's sister, Daphne - indicating either his bisexuality or his duplicity, and perhaps getting engaged to her shortly before he died in the war. What Paul learns: according to the doddering George, a retired history professor (watched closely by his mean-spirited wife, fellow historian Madeleine): Cecil would fuck anyone. In other words, George's brief relation with Cecil was one of Cecil's many (no surprise) and perhaps Cecil had plenty of girlfriends as well as boyfriends - a mild surprise there. During the course of the interview, George touches Paul, "feels him up" as H. puts it - indicating what? Most likely that Georg has been bi or homosexual throughout his life, that his (childless) marriage with M. has also been loveless? Not sure what to make of it - except that nearly every guy in this novel turns out to be gay. Hm. Then Paul moves on to a conference at Oxford, where he sets out to interview Dudley, Cecil's younger brother and a writer himself, who had written a memoir with some information about Cecil. Dudley - also watched closely by his sharp-eyed 2nd wife, Linette - give Paul some key info about his first wife, Daphne (George's sister, the one whom Cecil may have been engaged to): he indicates that Daphne's first-born, Corinna, was actually Cecil's child, from that final war-time liaison when Cecil and Daphne may have become engaged. That's kind of interesting - but so what? Corinna is a very minor character - first seen as a child, then later as a mean-spirited adult and piano teacher whose professional career went nowhere. Now, dead of lung cancer. So not clear what Paul can do with this info other than use it as a bit of juice in his likely never to be finished biography. Paul then goes off to interview Daphne herself, the climactic achievement in his literary sleuthing, and we'll see how that goes. Given his bumbling - tape reocrders and batteries that fail, drunken bouts, episodes of shyness and insecurity - I have my doubts as to his success.