“Pleased, I’m sher,” answered Alice.
They all sat, Alice in a flounce and a flutter of the scarf dress. Melrose hoped she wouldn’t start in immediately stripping and settling the scarves round Colonel Neame.
“Miss Dalyrimple-”
“Oh, for heaven’s sikes, call me Alice.” Seated beside him on the sofa, Alice tucked her hand through his elbow and gave the arm a pat. “We’re going to ’ave some fun, sweetie, ain’t we?”
Her eyelids were so heavy with dustings of gold and green, they came down like little shutters. She was wearing a multitude of perfumes, scents that were fighting for prominence.
“Care for a drink?” Melrose asked.
“Wouldn’t say no, would I? I’ll ’ave a tequila and lime.”
Colonel Neame thought this laughable. “Doubt you’ll get anything quite that involved here, Miss Dalyrimple.”
“Involved?” Her eyebrows danced.
“Oh, we only mean that Boring’s runs more to the straight offerings of whiskey and gin.”
“I’ll be a monkey’s. Gin, then.”
Melrose wasn’t surprised as he ordered up drinks for all of them. He and Colonel Neame had been drinking that old standby, eighteen-year-old Macallan’s. The little redheaded porter took their order and whisked himself off.
Opening his mouth to express a thought that hadn’t yet formed, Melrose shut it when he saw Polly Praed standing in the entryway, not looking at all like Alice Dalyrimple. Polly was wearing her old standby mustard-colored suit, a color that Melrose had tried to get her to jettison long ago. It hardly did justice to her eyes, the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. They were a limitless, bottomless purple blue, staring at him-he was sure-accusingly, though too far off to really tell.
Polly was here not by accident, but by design. Melrose had called her and enlisted her help. A mystery writer, he had said, might be expected to grill someone associated with an escort agency as the three murdered women had been.
Yesterday, he had said, “You’d be doing me a great favor, Polly.”
“Good. Then you’ll owe me.”
He hadn’t counted on that. Being in Polly’s debt could result in having to read a new manuscript, a chore she’d asked him to perform in the past. This was a chore he’d always managed to get out of; it was bad enough reading the published books. Or not-reading them. The new book he was not-reading was the one on the cushion beside him. Not-reading required an inventive mind: how to convey to the author he’d read a book when he hadn’t. That usually involved reading the beginning and making it up from there.
He quickly stuffed the book between the cushion and the arm of the sofa. The title alone was enough to kill off brain cells: Within a Budding Grave. The last one he had not-read was The Gourmandise Way. In her personal Search for Lost Time (and he hoped she didn’t find enough of it to write another dozen books), Polly had gone on this Proustian rant. The dust jacket of the latest had disclosed that the plot turned on a mistaken burial-they’d buried the wrong man. God only knew what would follow from that. He wondered why she was squandering her talent, for she was genuinely talented. Why was she messing it about? Letting it drift like a baby Moses into the bulrushes?
“Polly! Over here!” as if they were on the loading deck of the Queen Elizabeth.
Polly made her way over-suspicious, he now could see.
Before Melrose could try to lighten the atmosphere, Colonel Neame was on his feet, pumping her hand, saying, “Miss Praed! We met last time you were here, and I just want to tell you how very much I enjoyed The Gourmandise Way.”
Melrose shuddered. The book about a chef’s deadly dinner, with that nod to Proust.
Polly thanked Colonel Neame and tucked herself into the wing chair beside him. She was staring from Melrose to Alice, who had now received her gin and was downing it. The porter handed over the other two drinks and waited for this new guest’s order.
“Nothing… Oh, no, wait, I’ll have a sherry. Whatever kind you have.”
“Wonderful to see you, Polly. You’ll have dinner?” Turning to Alice, Melrose said, “You won’t mind, will you, if Miss Praed joins us?”
Both women looked at him uncertainly. He gave them both a fool’s grin. What did you expect? I’m an idiot. Polly, he knew, would be happy to subscribe to this, but Alice might feel it a bit insulting.
Alice Dalyrimple, who certainly would mind, shrugged and said, “Suit yerself.” She rearranged her décolletage-would that neckline sink any farther? Could that cleavage be yet more pronounced? Yes to both. Sitting forward with her small hands on her knees, she looked grimly at this mustard-suited woman who was now taking her sherry from the porter. But suddenly and impishly, she returned to her original cuteness level and gave Polly (who jumped) a swat on the knee. “Oh, I get it! Ain’t you two a riot?”
Melrose and Polly, dumb to her meaning, only looked at each other.
Then Alice leaned toward Colonel Neame, laughed as if bubbles were coming out of her nose, and said, “Come on now, sweetie, make it a foursome!” Then, “O’ course, it’ll cost ya!” The laugh was almost silvery, for there was money in it.
The three managed to get into the dining room without further incident (or making it a foursome). Dinner had an impromptu feeclass="underline" a patched-together quality, insofar as Boring’s could ever seem patched together.
Young Higgins, Boring’s oldest waiter, would never permit it. If Miss Dalyrimple had floated scarves about him, Young Higgins would remain as resolutely unflinching as any of the Palace Guards.
“We have escargots tonight, my lord.” At Alice’s wrinkled nose, he put in, “Snails.”
It was a relief to find Young Higgins was as much of a class artist as he himself. Melrose smiled. “I’ll have them.” Remembering his manners, he said, “Oh, sorry, Polly. What’ll you have?”
“Soup,” she said curtly.
“Me, I don’t think I want a starter,” said Alice. “Watching my weight.” She twinkled. “So just bring me another one of these, love!” She held out her gin glass, which Higgins took with a sniff.
“Madam.”
They all ordered the roast beef.
Enough of this, thought Melrose; let’s get down to it. “Polly, here, is a mystery writer,” he said, leaning over the table toward Alice.
Alice was impressed. “That book the Colonel was talkin’ about, you wrote it? I never!”
Melrose said, leaning even closer into Alice’s disturbing neckline, “Polly’s really good at murders.”
“Oh, Jesus Christmas! Are you going to write about us?”
Young Higgins was slipping soup and escargots before Polly and Melrose and a fresh gin before Alice, then going soundlessly off. It gave Polly a few seconds to take in the “us.”
Alice said, “You know, us escorts.”
“I might,” she said, sotto voce. “That’s what I’m thinking of doing; that’s why I’m in London: research. How lucky to meet you.”
Spearing a radish from the small plate of complimentary crudités that looked hard as enamel, Alice said, also sotto voce, “Well, if you ask me, this crazy person’s nothing but a sex maniac.”
An interesting conclusion, thought Melrose. “Why do you say that? It would appear sex mania is what he’s against. Although, to think it’s sex at all is making an assumption.”
“That’s so true,” Alice said, leaning toward Polly. “People think the wrong ideas about escort services. They think they’re just about sex.”
They are, thought Melrose. For a few minutes, they ate in silence.
“But aren’t they about sex?” asked a braver Polly as Young Higgins appeared with their entrées.
Alice said in a sharpish way, “They most as-sur-ed-ly are not. Just look at the three of us, we’re ‘aving a meal, ain’t we? Whatever comes later, that’s up to you two. Oh, what nice-looking beef! D’ya ’ave any tomato sauce, dear?”