navy chalk-striped suit, Windsor-knotted regimental tie, and highly polished Peale wing-tipped shoes belied his efforts. He was even wearing, Hawke noticed with some amusement, his favorite brown trilby.
For a man who prided himself on his sartorial indifference, Congreve was surprisingly a la mode on this sunny morning in July. His socks even matched. Bright yellow.
“You look festive this morning,” Hawke said, nodding in his direction.
“Festive?”
“Hmm,” Hawke murmured.
“May I quote Thomas Jefferson?”
“Always.”
“On matters of style, swim with the current. On matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
Ambrose drew himself up, adjusted the round, tortoiseshell spectacles perched at the tip of his nose, bent, and carefully inspected the lion’s head brass knocker, brass numbers, and the letterbox inscribed “First Lord of the Treasury.”
“You know why that particular title is there?” Ambrose said, pointing to the letterbox.
“No,” Hawke replied. “No idea.”
“Ah. Dates from 1760, when the Duke of Newcastle was prime minister. He was also first lord of the treasury. All subsequent prime ministers have resided here at No. 10 by their right as first lord of the treasury.”
“Imagine that.”
The discreet black door, once wooden, now Kevlar, swung open.
Hawke and Congreve were escorted across the black and white checkered entrance hall to a small alcove containing some modern British sculpture. Their escort, a rather severe gentleman in a cutaway over a starched white bibfront, bowed slightly and departed to attend to far more pressing and important business, as an attractive young female staff member approached with her hand extended. “Good morning,” Hawke said, shaking her cool hand.
“Lord Hawke, how do you do? And Inspector Congreve,” the pretty brunette said, “What an honor. We’re delighted to have you gentlemen here at the prime minister’s residence. I’m Guinevere Guinness.”
“Thank you, Miss Guinness,” Congreve said, bowing slightly and favoring her with his most sparkling smile. “An honor.”
“Yes, honored,” Hawke said, inwardly wincing at the young woman’s use of his title. Hawke had long discouraged anyone at all from using it. However, here at No. 10, everyone stood on ceremony.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll be so kind as to follow me upstairs? You’ll be in the Terracotta Room for just a few minutes. Meeting is starting a bit late, I’m afraid. The prime minister has a surprise visitor from Washington this morning. Let’s just take the stairs, shall we?”
The two men followed Miss Guinness’s decorous ascent up the grand staircase. The stairway was quite impressive, cantilevered as it was out of the curving wall with no visible means of support. On the pale yellow wallpaper to their left were hung black and white portraits of every prime minister, ascending in chronological order.
At the foot of the stairway, a giant globe, a gift from French president Mitterrand, Congreve had noted, and, on the wall, a small portrait of the first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Gaining the top, Congreve paused to point out that, by tradition, the prime minister in residence was never displayed.
“Really?” Hawke said, “I had no idea.”
Hawke smiled inwardly. Having known Ambrose since his own early childhood, he knew precisely what was going on here. This little history lesson was nothing but tit for tat. Ambrose was exacting his revenge for the upland game shooting lectures he’d endured from Alex the week prior. It wasn’t knowledge the man was doling out; it was retaliation.
“Here we are, then,” Miss Guinness said. “There’s tea, I believe…and cress sandwiches.”
“Lovely,” Congreve twinkled, touching the tip of his forefinger to his perfectly upturned moustache.
They were soon comfortably seated in the Terracotta Room on two facing Chippendale sofas, admiring the historic portraits hung on walls the color of warm brick. Tea had indeed been laid, and Alex let his eyes roam about the room while Ambrose poured. Every item in the room was polished or brushed or plumped to perfection. It was a room where foreign visitors to Downing Street might get some sense of Britain’s cultural heritage. Above a door, a gilt-framed portrait of Lord Nelson, who had defeated the French fleet at Trafalgar.
“Do you happen to know, Ambrose, the precise number of French soldiers required to defend the city of Paris?” Hawke asked.
“Why, no, I don’t.”
“No one does.”
“Why not?”
“It’s never been attempted,” Hawke deadpanned.
“Jolly good,” Congreve said, trying desperately not to laugh out loud. “I daresay, yes. Never been attempted, hah.” He looked up, and leapt to his feet.
At that moment, the American president strode into the room, a smile on his weathered, craggy face. He had the look of a man who’d spent most of his life at sea, which indeed he had, and yet somehow the ravages of wind and salt and sun had never managed to get to his sharp grey eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short and brushed back.
“Well! Look who we’ve got here! It’s young Alex Hawke! Good God, it’s great to see you, Hawkeye! I heard nagging rumors from Tex Patterson you were going to be here.”
Alex stood up and the two old friends shook hands warmly, then, after a moment’s hesitation, embraced each other, each clapping the other man soundly on the back.
“Mr. President, it’s good to see you again,” Hawke said, “Too damn long since we didn’t catch any bonefish in the Keys. Are you the surprise visitor? I understood that you were huddled at Camp David this weekend.”
“I am, at least as far as CNN is concerned,” President Jack McAtee said. “Came over last night. This thing has rapidly gone from bad to worse, as you know, Alex, so I’m glad you’re on board. Consuelo tells me you’re making significant progress.”
“I hope so, sir. You’ll see what we’ve got in the meeting.”
“Good, good. Now. Tell me. Who is your friend here? This isn’t the redoubtable Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve by any chance?”
Congreve shook the man’s hand. “How do you do, Mr. President. A very great honor to meet you, sir. A privilege, indeed.”
“A great pleasure to meet you at last, Chief Inspector. The legendary Congreve of Scotland Yard. There are endless tales about you from young Alex here. His secret weapon, he calls you, behind your back. His own personal demon of deduction and derring-do, isn’t that right, Alex?”
“Ambrose takes a mystery and bends it to his will, Mr. President,” Alex said with a tilt of his head.
Congreve sputtered, “Well, I hardly—”
“Wonderful meeting you, Inspector. You must come for a chili supper with Betsy and me at the White House sometime. I’ll get Hawkeye here to arrange it. Anyway, I’ve got five minutes alone with your PM before the meeting, Inspector. This thing is a certified bitch, as you gentlemen well know.”
The president turned away and, trailing secret service agents, headed for the door. Alex looked at Congreve and saw that, for the moment anyway, the man had been rendered speechless.
“Forty-fourth president of the United States,” Alex said to Ambrose, with a nod towards his departing friend’s back. “Lives in the White House, as you may know, one thousand six hundred Pennsylvania Avenue to be precise.”
Hawke looked away just in time to miss Congreve’s withering stare.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll come this way?” It was the comely staffer Guinevere and they gratefully followed in her silky wake down the elegant hallway to the Cabinet Room.
The room, with its long, boat-shaped table was full of buzzing H.M. government and American diplomats, plus high-ranking military and spook types from both sides of the pond. The only people Alex recognized instantly among the lumpy, bestriped crowd round the table were Conch and, right next to her, Texas Patterson. There were charts
