Free Spy by Ted Bell

to a very worried looking “C,” Sir David Trulove, new chief of SIS, there was a small group from both 85 Vauxhall Cross and Whitehall present, and one got the feeling they’d all come expecting to pay last respects to the corpse.
    Congreve, like everyone present, had been horrified at Hawke’s utterly wasted appearance. After a brief, private moment with C, who bent to whisper something in his ear as he was being loaded into a waiting ambulance, Hawke was whisked off to Lister Hospital in Chelsea. There, he was diagnosed as suffering from severe malnutrition, malaria, septic infection from a snakebite, and God knows what else. He’d been in hospital for two months. He’d made a remarkable recovery, and had only been released from hospital three days ago.
     
    A LEX H AWKE and former Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard had just completed a lengthy luncheon at Black’s. Hawke’s club was on upper St. James’ Street, an ancient bastion for gentlemen of property. The two friends had met in the bar at one o’clock to hoist a glass or two. One, in honor of Hawke’s hospital release, another celebrating Congreve’s semi-engagement to the beauteous and very wealthy Lady Diana Mars.
    Congreve’s splendid news, delivered just that morning, had taken Hawke completely by surprise. Congreve, getting married? He, like everyone else, had Congreve down for a lifelong bachelor.
    “Semi-engaged?” Hawke asked, not sure what that meant.
    “Hmm. I haven’t exactly asked her. I haven’t proposed. But we do have an understanding.”
    “To understanding!” Hawke said, raising his G&T.
    Any witness to Congreve’s behavior in Diana’s presence over the last year should have known what was in the offing. Smitten was gross understatement. Love was oversimplification. The man was besotted with Diana Mars. They’d been seen out and about London so frequently, and in such close proximity, many people assumed they’d been married or at least involved for decades.
    Ambrose had recently whisked Diana off to the Isle of Skye for a week of sightseeing. They’d also managed to visit the odd distillery, this being preparatory research for a new book the famous criminalist was in the midst of writing.
    His book would not be some tawdry tell-all about the Scotland Yard detective’s famous exploits amongst the criminal classes; in actual fact, it was projected as a slim volume to be titled Inspector Congreve’s Single Malt Cookbook. Congreve envisioned the thing as a gentleman’s companion, something that would be right at home on the shelf below one’s first editions of H.R. Haggard or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
    Now, they’d abandoned the bar for Black’s cavernous smoking lounge. Their faces hidden in the shadows of two large leather wing chairs, the two men spoke of serious matters like love. A tall window, spattered with rain, rose above them and the dingy light filtering down from above was watery and gray. It was a perfectly miserable London afternoon in late November.
    Ambrose was freshly aglow, a man in love; his companion Hawke was happy simply to be alive.
    “Congratulations, Ambrose. I am extremely happy for you both.” Hawke raised his glass of Gosling’s rum.
    “Cheers,” Congreve said, clinking it.
    “One thing you must never forget. I may have said this before, but it bears repeating. Great marriages are made in heaven; but so, too, are thunder and lightning.”
    “I’ll drink to that,” Ambrose said, smiling. “I say, you don’t think I’m being impetuous, do you? I’ve known her less than two years after all.”
    “Not at all. I think it’s high time you settled down. And Diana will be a brilliant match for you. You two will be very happy. I wonder, Constable, how do you envision the thing?”
    “Well, I am mad about her and—”
    “No, no. The marriage. How do you see it? If she says ‘yes,’I mean.”
    “I suppose I haven’t really thought that much about it. A comfortable