The Blue Last

by Martha Grimes

  “ ‘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 café 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 Agatha sometimes, the way she’s always telling me how I’ll feel?”

  Polly was not offended. This was because she liked taking her own line, and not paying that much attention to Melrose’s. Right now she put down the spoon with which she’d been eating Weetabix (Melrose had never known anyone to actually order Weetabix in a restaurant) and asked, “What are you and Richard Jury working on?”

  “How do you know we are?”

  “I know. You’re obvious.”

  “Can’t discuss it. Sorry.”

  Polly made little jumps in her chair, “Oh, come on, Melrose; you can tell me a little, can’t you?”

  “Okay.” He told her about the murder of Simon Croft. “It was in the papers; maybe you read about it.”

  She shook her head. “What else?”

  “Nothing else.” Melrose had imbibed too much of Divisional Commander Macalvie’s philosophy: don’t.

  Yet he felt moved to tell her about Gemma and the shooting.

  “My God, Melrose! Whoever would murder a nine-year-old child?”

  “Because it happens, doesn’t it? A child abducted, beaten, maimed, raped, held hostage. Murdered. I know someone to whom it’s happened.”

  “Who?”

  Melrose shrugged, sorry he’d brought it up. He was thinking of Brian Macalvie again. “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “But in these circumstances? Her home, her family?”

  The waiter set two fresh cups before them with a waiterly flourish and Melrose asked for the bill.

  “In any event, Jury thinks it’s possible someone else was the target. A girl employed as undergardener who often went into the greenhouse.”

  “Did she tell him that?”

  “No.”

  “Then how does he know?”

  Melrose stopped his spoonful of foam on the way to his mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “What makes you think this undergardener and not the nine-year-old was the target?”

  “It seemed more-plausible. The girl often worked in the greenhouse after dark. Also, she quit right after the shooting.”

  “So would I. Yet she wasn’t in the greenhouse and the little girl was. Unless the shooter was blind.”

  “The undergardener is quite small. The greenhouse is shadowy, murky. The killer expected the girl to be there. Add that up and it’s possible.”

  “It’s possible, but is it probable? You’re going to quite a bit of trouble twisting the facts to suit what you want to believe.” She sighed. “Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries, mysteries.” Her head wagged from side to side as if she were shaking water out of her ears or auditioning for the role in the next Exorcist film. “I’m getting to loathe mysteries, including my own. Maybe mostly my own.”

  Melrose was relieved to get away from the Gemma affair. Was Polly smarter than they? “Good heavens, Polly, that’s terrible. But you do write other books.”

  “I could have written À la recherche et cetera and they’d still have me swimming the genre gutter.”

  “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.”

  After securing his package, Melrose thanked them again and raced down to his car.

  Sir Oswald Maples lived alone in a cream-painted mews house off Cadogan Square. He lived by himself despite the fact that he needed two canes in order to get to the door in the wake of Jury’s ring.

  He said, holding up one of the canes as if to shake Jury’s hand, “It’s not as bad as it looks. I don’t always need these, just when the knees start going underneath me. Come on in.” He used a cane to wave Jury into the living room.

  Jury thanked him and removed his coat, which Sir Oswald told him to toss over the banister. Then-again with the cane-he pointed to an overstuffed armchair across from a sofa where he’d been sitting himself. He must be over eighty, yet brandished the canes in the high good humor of a boy. Watching him whip them around to lean against the arm of the sofa, Jury wondered if he thought they were playthings. Had there been a servant and a buzzer to call him hence, Jury was sure he would have used the tip of the cane to press the button.

  “It’s rheumatoid arthritis, but the discomfort comes and goes. Would you like a drink, Superintendent?” He pointed to a tumbler beside him containing a finger of whiskey. “Or is it a bit early in the day for you?”

  It wasn’t yet noon, but Jury felt a sadness descend on him whose source he couldn’t name-or perhaps he could. He felt as if he needed a drink, after all. Sure. Needing a drink was the first step. Or maybe it was the last. But he hated to see Maples drink alone… No. That was the last. “No thanks. I just drank a bucketful of coffee.”

  Maples nodded and leaned back against the green love seat. “You wanted some information, you said on the telephone, about Ralph Herrick.”

  “Yes. As I told you, it was Colonel Joss Neame who mentioned you as possibly remembering Herrick. You knew him.”

  The older man nodded. “I did, yes.”

  “You were with the code and cypher branch of intelligence?”

  “Ah, yes. GC and CS.”

  “I’m involved in a homicide investigation. A man named Simon Croft was shot. You might have read about it.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve seen that house on the Thames. Often wondered who
lived there.”

  “Simon Croft did. Alone. He was writing a book about certain years of the Second World War. Croft knew Ralph Herrick. Croft was only a boy, but he rather idolized the man. A fighter pilot, a hero. Not surprising, I suppose.”

  “Indeed not. No, there was no question about Herrick’s heroism. His courage was almost-wanton.”

  Jury smiled. “A strange way of putting it.”

  “I know. But it was almost seductive, that courage, and he did throw it around. I don’t mean he bragged; that was the last thing he’d do. I mean-it was as if courage were an afterthought. God knows he had it, though. He took out, nearly single-handedly, four Junkers over Driffield, in Yorkshire. The bombers didn’t have a fighter escort; they realized finally they couldn’t send bombers without escort by Messerschmitts, but the 109s didn’t have the range to fly all the way from Norway.” He grew thoughtful. “Herrick commanded a squadron of Spitfires that intercepted the German bombers which were hammering one of the Chain Home radar stations. Absolutely critical. Herrick’s squadron downed all but one. No, there was no question about his courage, Superintendent.”

  Jury thought for a moment. “His family-rather, the one he married into-talk about him as though he were, well, an idol. He was idolized by more than one member. But one person took exception to this picture. She said she found him much too ‘plausible… one of those smooth racketeers one sees in old American films.’ That was her description.”

  Maples threw back his head in a soundless laugh. “That’s very good, that is. Let me tell you something about Herrick: a great deal of that courage he displayed was of the daredevil kind. I think it came from his not giving a bloody damn about much of anything. In some way I think he felt the whole war was a card game and he had an ace in the hole.”

  Jury smiled. “Did he play it?”

  Maples reached for the decanter he had placed on a table beside him, poured himself another drink and raised the decanter in question to Jury, who again declined. “Oh, I’m quite certain he played it. But the important thing was the game itself.”