The Blue Last

“Oliver didn’t know,” said Jury.

“How in hell do you know that?”

“Because the baby was given up for adoption. His grandchild? Not in a million years. Tynedale wouldn’t give a damn for convention anyway. He’s the publish-and-be-damned type. Easier to be that way if you have money and, as you say, it’s always in fashion. My guess is Alexandra didn’t tell him because she was afraid Oliver would discover who the father was.”

“Thrash him within an inch of his life, you mean?”

“Wake up.” Jury snapped his fingers. “That Chateau-whatever is putting you under.”

Melrose looked at him. “Are you saying-”

“That Alexandra couldn’t have her father finding out Francis Croft was the father.”

Melrose sat back. “That’s pure speculation.”

“At least it’s pure.” Jury smiled. “Tynedale is a man who I think is very foregiving. But not in this case. In this case he’d have to be a fucking saint to forgive Croft. His best friend. His lifelong friend. A betrayal that would have ruined everything. Goddamn! It’s infuriating all of this had to happen a half century ago. But I’ll still have Wiggins go to Somerset House and do a record search.”

“And I still say it’s much too tenuous.”

“Tenuous is all I’ve got.”

They were back in the Members’ Room, Young Higgins having poured and deposited the French press pot on the table and Jury’s coat on the arm of the chair. Jury had asked him to bring it.

“My knowledge of the Second World War is shamefully small.”

“So’s mine. Except I do remember Dunkirk, the BEF being evacuated. I remember it mostly because it’s where my father’s plane went down.”

Melrose did not know whether to delve into this or not. “What was he flying?”

“A Hurricane. They were good planes. Except their engines weren’t fuel injected; they were carburetor driven. If they were forced into a dive, the engine quit. That’s what happened.” Jury looked away toward the part of Boring’s Christmas tree he could see, the tips of branches on one side. From one of them, a silvery angel hung precariously. “The RAF whacked the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk.”

They were silent for a while. Colonel Neame and Major Champs had gone upstairs. There was no one left in the Members’ Room save for them.

Melrose said, “Listen, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Come to Ardry End for Christmas.”

“That would be nice. But I really have to spend Christmas in Islington. You know.”

“Yes. Well, then come for dinner tomorrow night. Christmas Eve. You can spend the night and drive back to London the next morning. It’s not a long drive. Well, you know; you’ve done it often enough.”

Jury nodded. “Sounds good to me.” Then, “I like your new look.”

“What look?”

“The black clothes.”

Melrose looked down, seemingly surprised that he was he. “Oh.” He shrugged. “I just tossed on what was there. Didn’t have much to choose from.”

Jury shook his head. “Come on. That look’s assembled.”

Melrose was irritated at being found out about his clothes. Was his mind never to have any privacy? Did everybody know what went on in it? “Polly thought it was cool. ‘Way cool’ I believe is how she put it.”

“Oh, it’s way cool all right. A lot different from your usual get-ups.”

Get-ups? “What do you mean? That sounds like posturing?”

“No, no. Merely conservative. Expensive, of course-Michel Axel, Coveri, Ferre, Zegna, Cerruti-but conservative nonetheless.”

“Who are those people? Designers? If so, how do you happen to be acquainted with them?”

Jury laughed. “I’m not a total nincompoop when it comes to clothes. Although I expect you might not be able to tell from looking at me.”

“People look at you and they don’t even see your clothes. They see six-two and a smile. And of course your identity card. But you’re probably right; I guess I do look like I’m making a statement.”

“ ‘Fear wearing black.’ ”

“What?” Melrose laughed, briefly.

“It’s the definition of ‘cool.’ ‘Fear wearing black.’ Makes sense if you remember what ‘cool’ really meant before it got debased into meaning anything anyone approves of. ‘Keeping your cool’-the idea is that you don’t show any anxiety or fear. So there you are, as calm a dude as can be. And what’s icier than black?”

“ ‘Fear wearing black.’ I like that.”

“Thought you would.”

Forty-six

“I suppose you know Christmas is the day after tomorrow,” said Polly Praed.

She made it sound as though its propinquity were Melrose’s fault. They were having breakfast in a restaurant across the street from Polly’s Bloomsbury hotel. That the hotel was in Bloomsbury did not make it fashionable. It was called Rummage’s, not the happiest choice of names. Although he wouldn’t go so far as to call it a dump, it was far from being a hotel haunted by the cognoscenti.

Breakfast was included in the price of the room-not the breakfast they presently shared, but the Rummage breakfast, which they announced in their brochure (Melrose had read it waiting for Polly) as a “cooked breakfast.” Melrose guessed that the cooking was not done to order, but everything was cooked before the first frail traveler descended into the bowels of the “garden level” dining room. In other words, the basement.

To Polly’s statement that the hotel will cook your eggs any way you want, Melrose said they cook them one way only: “eggs overnight.”

Polly scoffed and said he was always criticizing, and Melrose answered, yes, he would always criticize Rummage’s, and would kick it if he ever saw it again, and that they could have breakfast at that nice little cafe across the street, faux Left Bank, which is where they now sat.

Or had been sitting. Melrose said he needed to get going soon because he had to get his Christmas shopping done before returning to Long Piddleton, but that they had time for another cappuccino if she liked.

“Do you really do it, Melrose?”

Melrose was making little waves in his cappuccino foam. “What? Do what?”

“Your own Christmas shopping.”

It seemed to be a genuine question. Had Polly landed that recently from the planet Uranus? “What are you talking about? Of course I do it.”

“Don’t get shirty. I just thought maybe you paid someone to do it for you. Or maybe your man Ruthven does it. Or someone.”

“Ye gods, Polly. What sort of life do you think I lead?”

She appeared to be thinking. “Well, the life of the idle rich, certainly. I just can’t picture you in Harrods mulling over the socks.”

“I can’t either, but that’s because I refuse to go into Harrods. It’d suck me right down. To go into Harrods means you must be prepared for quick-sand at every turning. Have you seen the number of people in Harrods?”

“Yes. But, of course, it’s for people. That’s why it’s there.”

“Wretchedly there. No, I prefer Fortnum’s. It’s crowded on the food floor but quite bracing on the floors above. Oxygen and plenty of it. No, Fortnum’s is the place. I can get everything I want in a minute.”

“It’s too late for hampers now; you’ll be disappointed.”

Melrose signaled the waiter for another round of cappuccino. “Polly, do you know you sound like my aunt