“But I like your Inspector Guermantes. Of the Sûreté.” He’d like him better if Polly weren’t fishing names out of Proust.
“So do I, but that doesn’t mean I have to dance every dance with him. Only, if I don’t I’ll probably have to go back to being a wallflower.”
“That you will never be.” Melrose pushed back from the table and signed for the waiter, lurking back there in the shadows with two others. “I’ve got to go, Polly.”
Polly regarded her empty Weetabix bowl. “Yes, I guess I should, too.”
“Polly, when are you ever going to come visit me? I’ve asked you several times.”
“I’d like to.” She gathered her coat around her. It was one of Polly’s unflattering colors, a rust shade that really looked rusty. “But I’d undoubtedly be overwhelmed. By your house and your ritzy friends.”
“You’re no competition for Mrs. Withersby, that’s sure.” Tired of waiting for his bill, Melrose dumped money on the table, including a hefty tip.
“Who’s she?”
“One of my ritzy friends.”
Melrose’s first stop was in Regent Street, where he went into Hamley’s. Given that this was only two days before Christmas, he had not been mistaken about the crowd. The place was jammed, understandably, with children.
Ill-advisedly stopping to inspect this year’s toy rage-some sort of lunar space station manned by robotic personnel-he found himself surrounded by kiddies, one of whom got her sticky fingers on his black jeans and looked at him as if he were a ladder she was about to climb for a front-row seat. Her little look was so baleful, he sighed and picked her up and set her on his shoulders. Now she got her fingers into his hair, and he listened to the chattering, gasping children who coveted this toy. The place thronged and thrummed with pre-Christmas anticipation.
The parents of these children were all mucking about with apparently no care that their little darlings might be in the arms of the Regent Street Ripper. Tired of his hair being shredded, Melrose set the little girl down where she promptly began wailing to be taken up again, her little arms reaching pitifully upward. He patted her head and strong-armed his way through a crowd as thick as treacle. A haggard sales assistant pointed him in the right direction.
He searched the tables and walls but found nothing he wanted. He turned away when his eye lit on one article that just might do as it was very stretchy. He plucked it from the long hook on the wall and plowed through the field of wildflower children to the cash register.
Outside, he stopped on the pavement to think. People swam around him as if he were no more than an irritating rock in the middle of a stream. Then he walked the short distance to Liberty’s and into its stationery department. There he purchased a pad of paper and ventured down to the coffee shop where he got himself an espresso. He sat down with the pad and carefully drew a picture.
Following this he found a pay phone still working in Oxford Street and called Mr. Beaton. Melrose told him what he wanted and apologized for such dreadfully short notice.
After this, he took a cab to the Old Brompton Road.
Mr. Beaton, whose premises were above a sweet shop, was delighted to see him again after-what was it-three years?
“My lord,” said Mr. Beaton with but a marginal bow.
Melrose had never had the heart to tell Mr. Beaton that he’d given up his titles years before. Mr. Beaton would put it down to carelessness at best, slovenliness at worst. Mr. Beaton never changed: always the morning coat, always the tape measure. If Melrose had his way he would hang the George Cross on the ends of that tape measure.
Mr. Beaton’s apprentice-this one, tall and angular with a shock of ginger hair-copied the fractional bow.
“Now, if you brought your drawing, I’ll see what I can do.”
Melrose produced the picture he’d drawn in Liberty’s coffee shop. “I’m pretty certain it’s to size, Mr. Beaton. I’ve a good memory for things like this.” Had he?
Mr. Beaton instructed his apprentice to bring out certain bolts of cloth. The young man slipped into a room at the rear and was back in a few seconds, carrying the bolts of material.
“Just feel this, now, Lord Ardry.” Tenderly, the tailor held out several inches of material from one of the bolts.
Melrose always felt humbled in the presence of Mr. Beaton, for the old man’s attitude toward cloth was as reverent as a priest’s toward the chalice. Just then, providentially, sunlight filtered through the small panes, fretting the cloth. Melrose fingered the wool and sighed. Woven air, spun sunlight, Melrose had never felt anything as soft and weightless.
“It’s a silk worsted, quite fine. Would it do?”
“It’ll do wonderfully, Mr. Beaton.”
Pulling at his earlobe, the tailor studied Melrose’s sketch. “Quite a pleasant little challenge this will be. I’ve never done anything like it. Now: when would you be wanting this, Lord Ardry?”
Melrose blushed. “Well, I hate to ask it of you-I mean, given it’s Christmas and all-but, you see, I’ll be going back to Northamptonshire tonight-this is something I’d really like to deliver before I go-if it’s possible?”
“In other words, right away.”
“Could you possibly?”
Mr. Beaton removed his pocket watch from an honest-to-God pocket and said, “It’s getting on for three… Shall we say six? Or you can call me at five and see how I’m doing here.”
“Admirable. I can come back then. And, of course, don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Mr. Beaton raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
The apprentice blinked once, hard. For even he had caught this graceless remark.
So Melrose slunk down the narrow stairs, feeling gauche and crude, and with an eye unalive to anything aesthetically pleasing.
When Mr. Beaton plied his scissors and thread, there was no such thing as “less than perfect.”
Melrose taxied back to Boring’s, where he fidgeted, packed and bit his nails, a childish habit he had never been able to shake; he seemed to bite them only when he was deep into something-really deep, and that seldom happened, only when he was reading Henry James or Proust or working on one of Jury’s cases. (Would Jury be complimented? Proust, after all, was no slouch.) He was certainly deep into this case. He lay on the bed thinking deeply. There was something neither of them had seen, and he thought it was something obvious. He could feel it as obvious. He gave up and stumbled downstairs with his single bag.
It was after five o’clock, and Melrose decided not to call, but simply to go back to Mr. Beaton’s. He had a whiskey as he waited for the boy who dealt with keys and cars, who drove them off to some mysterious parking arrangement (garage? rooftop?) only the boy knew about; then he drove them back to appear magically outside of Boring’s door.
Melrose tipped him handsomely, remarking to the lad that he probably had the most important job in London; people would probably die to have someone else park their cars. Then he got in, turned his face skyward in the deepening dark and thanked God for money.
When he got to the Old Brompton Road, he parked illegally (as there was no other option) and took the steps two at a time to Mr. Beaton’s rooms.
“Absolutely perfect, Mr. Beaton. You’re a wonder.” Melrose held up the garments, marveling. “I don’t suppose you’d have a box-”
The apprentice immediately went into the back again and returned with a small box, perfect for the clothes. “Is it a gift, sir? I rather thought it might be and found this silvery paper if you need it-? I could wrap it up.”
Melrose thanked him profusely. “That’s very kind and it would be a big help.” He turned to Mr. Beaton. “Mr. Beaton, I would be happy to pay you now, if-”
Eyes closed, Mr. Beaton shook his head. “Not at all, not at all. I’ll put it on your account, my lord. Happy to do it.”