“And now, could I just verify your credit card number?”

“I believe I gave that to someone already.”

“But not to me.”

Good God, isn’t that what police said when one objected to being asked the same questions over and over? The woman should work for the Met.

“You know, I’d always thought the payment would be made at the end of things.”

“That’s true. But this is just in case, you know.”

In case of what? A heart event in the middle of things? Miss Dalyrimple’s discovering she had walked not into an exclusive club but into a tattoo parlor? London’s being overrun by rivers of rats? He pulled out his wallet and thumbed through his little stash of cards and recited the number. He and Miss Crick then parted.

Now here he sat in the sleepy environs of Boring’s with a book he was trying to force himself to read, waiting for Miss Alice Dalyrimple. They would have dinner here, drinks and then dinner. There was no quieter place to have a conversation about the murders. Surely it would be on her mind, escorts being murdered. How did she know he wasn’t the one? Here these women were, going out with and having sex with potential serial killers, and seemingly careless of it. Had the snarky Miss Crick shown any concern? No. But then, she wasn’t the one going out.

Well, Jury didn’t think the danger was in the escort business itself.

If the women in this kind of work weren’t being murdered because of that work, and if it wasn’t coincidence they happened to be in it-then what did that leave? It meant, didn’t it, they had something else in common-

“My God! If it isn’t Lord Ardry!”

“Colonel Neame.” Melrose got up to shake the hand of the elderly, pink-cheeked former RAF pilot. “I was just wondering if you were around.”

“Always am, dear boy, except for my brief walks to the Ritz and Fortnum’s.”

Ritz for tea, Fortnum & Mason for silk-worsted suits and caviar counter. “Your itinerary must be the envy of London. And this,” Melrose went on, his arm out flung to take in the Members’ Room, “is the only way to live.”

“Well, it’s restful, of course. But I think a bit more animation wouldn’t go unappreciated. My, my!” He was looking toward the entrance to the Members’ Room.

A buxom blonde in a flimsy dress that looked to be made up of chiffon scarves stood at the entrance. The slowly turning fan of bamboo and palm fronds above her set the multiscarved garment in motion. The rest of the motion of bouncy breasts and churning hips was taken care of by the woman herself.

“Who, in God’s name, is this?” The tone was not unappreciative.

This could only be Miss Dalyrimple.

Melrose answered Colonel Neame, “This would be my guest, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Oh ho, my boy! Well done, well done!”

Melrose wanted to tell him he could do it himself, if he’d just yank out a phone directory. If anything could awaken the Rip van Winkles in the room, it was surely Alice Dalyrimple maneuvering herself toward him in her silver sandals.

“Miss Dalyrimple? I’m Algernon Plant.” He caught the colonel’s raised eyebrows.

“How j’ya do?”

Given Miss Crick’s rather hesitant description of her escort, Melrose had formed a cloudy image of a passable imitation of gentility. But Miss Dalyrimple, in her gait and her guise, did nothing to present a picture of good breeding. (The last horse to win the Gold Cup had done far better there.) And any hope of even passable credentials was blown to smithereens when she opened her mouth. Melrose wondered if even Marilyn Monroe, before her voice coach got to her, had sounded something like this. Alice’s voice was a breathless squeak.

He introduced her to Colonel Neame, who was staring so hard that his eyeballs looked as if they were on stems. Gruffly, he said, “Yes, yes, so nice.”

“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?”