Warlord

FOUR

PERHAPS THERE WAS A HAPPIER MAN in all of England that brilliant June morning. There may well have been one or two. But you would be hard-pressed to find someone more joyously alive than one Ambrose Congreve. Bouncing along a sun-dappled country lane, behind the wheel of his Morgan motorcar, a sprightly tartan plaid driving cap on his head, pipe jauntily clenched in his teeth, the sun shining through shimmering spring green leaves, God in his heaven, and, once more, all was right with the world.

His tiny little corner of it at any rate.

Ambrose Congreve, the retired head of Scotland Yard and a brilliant detective, had long been Alex Hawke's best friend in all the world. Ambrose went about life in a fairly straightforward fashion, with few eccentricities or idiosyncrasies, but he was absolutely fanatical about four things. In order of importance, they were: his beloved fiancee, Lady Diana Mars, one. The incandescent Mr. Sherlock Holmes, two. His weekly golf foursome at Sunningdale, three. And his fastidiously acquired wardrobe, four.

Catholic in his tastes, he was basically a tweed man, sometimes given to green velvet smoking jackets from Turnbull's. Or "siren suits" like the ones Churchill had worn during the war. Or bright yellow cable-stitched socks on certain very special occasions. Today, for instance.

A pair of twinkling blue eyes, the eyes of an innocent baby, belied Congreve's gruff voice. This gruff manner, all this cock-of-the-walk huffing and puffing, well, it was all a pose, anyway, and deceived no one. Congreve was brainy, tough, shrewd, and relentless, but he was the kindest hearted of men, a fellow who gazed at the world from behind a remarkable moustache fully six inches long and waxed into magnificent points.

The lane was flat and ran between towering hawthorn hedges. He saw a sharp turning ahead and quickly downshifted, using the heel-and-toe, double-clutch racing method Hawke had taught him when he'd first acquired the car. The lane had now turned upward, climbing the wooded hillside under overarching trees creating deep wells of shadow, shattered by dazzling blades of stark brightness.

Just two weeks earlier, had anyone told you that the famous criminalist would be tootling down a shady Cotswolds lane en route to an early breakfast with Lord Alexander Hawke, you would have thought them mad as a hatter. And you'd have been quite right.

The former chief inspector had sadly given up on Hawke, a sorrowful, lost soul, gone for good. When Congreve and his fiancee, Lady Diana Mars, had recently bade farewell to Bermuda, they hadn't even stopped by Hawke's Teakettle Cottage to say good-bye. Congreve sadly told Diana he simply couldn't face it on the morning of their departure, tears threatening in his baby blue eyes. The sight of Alex in such a wretched state, he told her, the very idea of seeing his old friend for what might very well be-the last time-

No-enough, he scolded himself. That was all behind them now that Alex Hawke was blessedly, miraculously back among the living. The chief inspector sat back and simply enjoyed whipping along the country road in the Yellow Peril, as he'd dubbed his old Morgan roadster. Painted in (what was to him) a most pleasing shade of buttery yellow, this was his dream machine.

The fact that it was the only car he'd ever owned was beside the point. Every time he got behind the wooden steering wheel he cursed himself for a fool, having spent a lifetime oblivious to the joys of motoring, the smell of Castrol, the throaty rumble of the exhaust system. Well, he was making up for lost time now, he thought, grabbing second gear, downshifting for the tight right-hander coming up, accelerating into it, catching the apex perfectly.

He was currently en route to Hawkesmoor, the ancient Hawke family pile in deepest, darkest Gloucestershire. It seemed that Alex Hawke, and here he would pinch himself were he not driving at high speed, had, astoundingly enough, returned home to England! And, the dear fellow was not only home, but he sounded very much his old self again. Full of that old piss and vinegar that made him such splendid company, even in dicey situations sometimes bordering on the extremely perilous.

Hawke's recovery was nothing short of astounding. He fully intended to call Dr. Nigel Prestwicke at Bermuda's King Edward Hospital as soon as possible and offer his unbounded congratulations. The man was clearly one of the medical gods, a healer of the first magnitude. Small wonder that C, the chief of MI6, placed such enormous faith in him.

Purring along, Ambrose relished the moment he'd gotten Hawke's good news, on a Saturday morning just one week earlier.

As his fiancee had other plans that evening, Congreve had been at home, dining alone at Heart's Ease, the cozy Hampshire cottage he'd inherited from his aunt Agatha. His Scottish housekeeper, the positively angelic May Purvis, had just plucked her inimitable goose-berry sampler from the oven when the phone in the kitchen pantry had rung.

"Probably Lady Mars, sir," May said, serving him a generous, steaming portion. "Shall I get it?"

"Hmm," Congreve said, shoveling the stuff in while it was still piping hot. May was gone for a few moments and returned with a great sparkling smile on her pink face. She looked, what was the word, giddy. Giddy as a schoolgirl who's just glimpsed her first film star.

"It's him, sir," May said, beaming as if Sexy Rexy Harrison himself were on the line instead of up in heaven.

"Him?"

"His lordship."

"Which lordship, my dear Mrs. Purvis? As it happens, I know several."

"Lord Hawke, sir."

"Alex Hawke? On the telephone? You must be joking," he said, leaping out of his chair and running for the pantry.

"Hullo?" he said, out of breath. "Alex? Is it you? Are you quite all right? Don't do anything foolish now because life is a precious gift that-"

"Sorry to disturb your supper, Constable. It's Alex, yes."

"Alex?"

"I believe I mentioned that."

"How are you, dear boy?"

"Quite well, thank you for asking. Back in the game, I might add."

Clearheaded, Hawke had sounded on the telephone; and completely sound of mind, body, and spirits. Speaking of spirits, he said he'd not had a drop or a cigarette in three weeks, had shed twenty pounds, and was back to his very strict fitness regimen. "Why?" Ambrose had wondered aloud. The man had been so completely submerged in the depths of despair when Congreve had last seen him, there had seemed scant chance of recovery.

It was then that Congreve heard his friend utter those four magic words: "Something has come up." As the cherished phrase came zipping over the wire, the chief inspector had known that, as his idol Sherlock Holmes put it so well, the game, once again, was afoot.

Alex had then invited him for early breakfast at Hawkesmoor. Not only that, he'd told him to pack a bag. Apparently, they would be off for a long country weekend, exactly with whom he would not say. All very mysterious, which suited him just fine. Aside from his rounds of golf at the lovely Mid-Ocean Club course, Congreve had suffered no end of boredom on Bermuda once he and Sir David Trulove had handily dispensed with a murderous gang of Rastafarian thugs on Nonsuch Island.

EARLY NEXT MORNING, CONGREVE, HAVING parked the Yellow Peril safely in the bricked stable yard, rang the front bell of the Hawke family's ancestral home. Hawkesmoor was a lovely old place, originally built in 1150, with additions dating from the fourteenth century to the reign of Elizabeth I. It had frequently been used as a setting in films, most recently in the latest production of Pride and Prejudice.

It was set amid vast acres of beech woods, parklands, and gardens designed by Capability Brown, England's most celebrated eighteenth-century gardener. Brown had also created the gardens at Blenheim Palace and Warwick Castle. His true given name was Lancelot, but he was called "Capability" because he nearly always told his landed clients that their estates had great "capability" for landscape improvement. "This particular Lancelot," Hawke had once remarked at a dinner party, "having forsaken a seat at King Arthur's Round Table, would have been an absolute smash in advertising."

When the ancient Pelham finally swung open the great oak door, the look on the old fellow's face was so heartbreakingly happy that Congreve embraced him, the two men hugging each other, both overcome with sheer joy over Alex Hawke's miraculous recovery.

"Where is he, Pelham?" Congreve blurted out. "I've got to see this miracle for myself before I'll truly believe it."

"He just returned from his morning 'run,' sir. He also takes an afternoon 'run.' This morning he ran to the newsstand over at Upper Slaughter and back, just to pick up the morning Daily Telegraph. The fact that today's copy was already waiting for him on the entrance hall table didn't seem to matter a whit. You'll find him up in the billiard room, sir. Alone. Shooting a game of what the Americans mysteriously call 'pool.'"

"How does he seem?"

"Risen, sir."

"Risen? Well put, Pelham, I must say. One never knows when all those inimitable Wodehousian literary genes of yours are going to kick in."

Pelham Grenville was in fact a distant relative of the brilliant humorist and playwright P. G. Wodehouse.

"Indeed, sir. One only waits in vain for all those royalty checks to start flooding the post."

CONGREVE BOUNDED UP HAWKESMOOR'S GRAND center staircase and turned right at the topmost landing. The billiard room was in the great West Wing, at the far end of this very lengthy corridor. He raced past endless portraits of Hawke ancestry long dead, including the infamous pirate, John Black Hawke, "Blackhawke," who'd taken first crack at establishing the family fortune in the eighteenth century, looting Spanish galleons in the Florida Straits, loaded to the gunwales with gold.

Entering the dark, heavily furnished billiard room, which reeked of centuries of cigar smoke and spilt brandy, he saw Hawke. A hazy silhouette in the brilliant light of the great window behind him, he was at the far end of the great mahogany table, stretched out over the green baize, lining up a difficult shot.

"Alex!" Congreve cried, unable to contain himself at the sight of his friend.

"Shh," Hawke said, not looking up. "This will only take a moment."

He drew the cuestick back slowly, nestled betwixt thumb and forefinger, then tapped the ivory cue ball, which ever so gently grazed the thin edge of the green six ball, sending it neatly into the side pocket with a pleasant and satisfying plop.

"Brilliant shot," Congreve said, honestly. He knew nothing about billiards, of course, but he recognized finesse when he saw it.

"Courtesy of a misspent youth," Hawke said, smiling up at him. "All your fault. You and Pelham needed a tighter leash. Grab a stick and join me for a game of 8-Ball."

"Shoot pool? Me? Do I really look like some kind of barbarian?" Congreve said gruffly. He loathed all sports and athletic activity save one. Golf. Golf, he worshipped and adored, thy staff and thy mashie they comfort me.

Hawke put his stick back in the rack and walked the length of the room toward his friend.

"Hullo, Constable," he said, using the one term of address he knew the former god of all Scotland Yard found most irritating.

"My God, it's true," Ambrose said, taking his friend's measure from head to toe. "You are back."

"I do seem to be in residence, don't I?" Hawke said, extending his hand.

Congreve ignored it and embraced his friend, pounding him on the back out of sheer joy. It was as if Alex Hawke was indeed, as Pelham so aptly put it, "risen." Back from the dead, and though not literally true, it had been a damned close thing indeed.

The world had almost lost him, and there were damn few like him left.

Congreve said, "What on earth happened to you after Diana and I left Bermuda, Alex? We feared we might not ever see you again, frankly. I've never seen such an extraordinary transformation in my entire life!"

"A wake-up call. Literally."

"Sorry?"

"I received a wake-up call in the middle of the night. And I chose to answer it instead of ignoring it, as I would have done most nights. Come along, now, we'll talk about it at breakfast. Pelham's got a small buffet waiting in the Conservatory. Nice and sunny down there, unlike this gloomy den of iniquity."

"Lead on, I am famished. Driving at speed makes a chap ravenous."

"Don't tell me the infamous Yellow Peril is still running."

"Still running? Like a top! I may enter it in the Goodwood Classic Revival race this year. Show Sir Stirling Moss and the lads a thing or two."

The breakfast room was a former conservatory with a domed glass and delicately laced iron ceiling soaring overhead. Potted tropical palms ten feet high stood around the perimeter. Beneath the sparkling glass, Ambrose Congreve and his reborn friend tucked into a hearty breakfast.

The chief inspector's eggs Benedict looked positively voluptuous. Hawke's thin layer of Tiptree's raspberry preserves on a single slice of whole grain bread looked Spartan in the extreme. Both had steaming hot tea, but Hawke's was herbal.

"You're serious about this new regime, aren't you?" Congreve asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

Hawke sipped his tea quietly, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. He was present, but he was clearly absorbed with something else.

"Deadly serious."

"Then tell me about this life-changing 'wake-up' call before I go mad. I'm a copper. I can't stand unsolved mysteries."

"Oh, it was a wake-up call, all right," Hawke said, his blue eyes crinkling in the brilliant sunshine of the octagonal room. "Both literally and metaphorically."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the call actually woke me up in the middle of the night. And it forced me to come to my senses. Such as they are, of course."

"May I ask who was on the other end of the line?"

"You may."

Congreve frowned at this typical childishness. "All right, once more with feeling. Who was on-"

"His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales."

"HRH himself?"

"Yes."

"What did he want?"

"He called to invite me, and anyone else I cared to bring along, out to his country home at Highgrove for a long weekend. Your oversized brain obviously helped you make the cut."

"So. Not the usual fishing, shooting, and hunting weekend, one assumes?"

"Hardly."

Congreve leaned back in his chair, thinking. It didn't take long to arrive at his conclusion.

"There's been some credible threat to the Royal Family," Ambrose said. "Correct?"

"Hmm. Quite impressive. You should have been a detective."

"Anyone else going to be there?"

"We shall see, but I would imagine so."

"When do we leave for Highgrove?"

"Now would be as good a time as any."

"Alex?"

"Yes?"

"Listen carefully, Alex, because I mean every word I'm about to say. I am deeply glad to have you back. Even if it took something like some, some awful threat against the Royal Family to do it."

"Thank you. Had it been anyone else but Charles, I'm not sure I could have managed to pull myself back from the-"

"But it was Charles, wasn't it? And he called you because he's known you all your life. And he trusts you and you alone. No one else in this country is capable of the kinds of things you do. No one. He knows that."

"Please. Don't be ridiculous."

"Alex?"

"What?"

"It's been a long time. To be perfectly honest, I've missed you terribly, dear boy. I think I may-"

"Oh, Ambrose, for heaven's sake, dry up. Don't go all leaky like a schoolgirl. We're back in action in case you hadn't noticed. Tears are frowned upon both on horseback and under fire."

Congreve smiled.

Alex was back. As Dr. Watson had once said of a rejuvenated Sherlock Holmes, "The man was once again on the foredeck, cutlass in hand, eyes on the far horizon, searching for bad weather or enemy sails."

Hawke had returned indeed, in full measure.