Poppy Redfern and the Fatal Flyers by Tessa Arlen

Author:Tessa Arlen [Arlen, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

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“MY DEAR GIRL!” Ambrose has what we English call a hearty voice, and I moved the receiver two inches from my ear.

“I have to be quick—this is a trunk call,” I explained.

“Off you go, then, my dear, how I can be of help?”

What an obliging old darling my uncle is! Within minutes of the briefest of explanations he came up with immediate help, and he did so without a lot of prying questions. I like to think it’s because he works at the Admiralty, where everything is studiedly hush-hush, but it is probably because my bachelor uncle is the soul of discretion and always respectful of what he describes as other people’s privates.

“Where is young O’Neal now?” he boomed, causing the desk clerk to look in my direction and frown.

“We are in Winchester.”

“Righto, just minutes away from Didcote. So, you can drive up and meet me and my old school friend Mathew Cadogan at my club. We’ll be there early, at six. You are welcome to join us for drinks and then dinner.”

“It will just be Griff; I have a dinner engagement.” There was a long pause. We hadn’t been cut off because I could hear him breathing like a horse.

“Splendid! Now, everything going well at the new job? Splendid, splendid. Tell O’Neal I’m looking forward to meeting him again.” And he was gone.

I walked out to the car and found Griff staring through the windscreen with rather a bleak expression on his face. It lightened as he saw me.

“All set!” I said as he opened the car door. “Ambrose has a best friend from his old school days who knows everything about anything to do with poisons. He’s in forensics, whatever that is. They will both meet you at Ambrose’s club: the Travellers, 106 Pall Mall.”

“Oh good.” But he didn’t seem to really think so.

“Thank you so much for doing this. I promise, Ambrose is one of those people who mellow on second meetings.”

He pulled out into the road and turned the car back in the direction of Didcote. “That’s reassuring. Last time I felt as if I had gone back to the days of the great British Raj. He was the viceroy and I was some sort of native bearer. I am sure everything would have been fine if I was an Old Etonian.”

“An Old Wykehamist. He went to Winchester. It’s just his manner. I know he is not quite so . . . well, as informal and pally as my grandfather.” I thought about this for a moment. My grandfather is fascinated by young fighting men, and he reveres Griff, firstly because my father was a pilot in the last war, and secondly because he had never met a man who could go into a kitchen and come out an hour or two later with a perfectly roasted sirloin of beef. My uncle Ambrose can be a bit stuffy until he gets to know you.

“I know what you mean by Ambrose’s interrogative style; it can be awfully heavy going.

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