“I’ll take whatever is convenient,” I told him. “A French 75 is fine. So is straight bubbly.”
Hutchison nodded. “St George? Mr. Astley? Montrose?”
Crispin said he’d take champagne, as well, and so did Christopher, and Graham Ogilvie did the same. The four of us toasted Crispin with glasses of Ayala, while Gladys giggled over her French 75 and Hutchison poured himself and Freddie Montrose straight brandies.
“What’s going on in the kitchen that we don’t want to interrupt?” Montrose wanted to know, with a glance at the doorway.
Hutchison shook his head. “Nothing you need to worry about, old chap. That’s between Ronnie and Dom.”
“Oh, really?” Montrose waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Hutchison rolled his eyes—Gladys giggled—but Ogilvie took offense.
“Listen here, Montrose!” he said heatedly. “It’s not like that, but if it were, it would be none of?—”
“Easy, Gram,” Hutchison told him lazily, from where he had sprawled on the sofa with the glass on his stomach. “Everyone knows it isn’t like that. And Ronnie doesn’t need you to defend him, old man.”
It was fairly obvious to me, even if perhaps it wasn’t to Hutchison, that this had nothing to do with defending Ronnie Blanton from whatever Frederick Montrose might publish about him. Graham Ogilvie shot a quick look at Christopher—who wasn’t looking at him but was talking softly to Crispin about something or other; I caught the words, “—doesn’t really, and you ought to know that, Crispin,”—and then looked away again. I thought perhaps Ogilvie had some inclinations of his own that he didn’t want Montrose to make light of, even if it was Ronald Blanton and Dominic Rivers on the chopping block, and not himself and his own feelings.
At any rate, whatever Blanton and Rivers had been doing in the kitchen, it didn’t seem at all romantic. Ronnie came back after a few minutes, looking like a new man. Gone were the nervous mannerisms and shaky hands. In their place were bright, shiny eyes with dilated pupils—all that was left of Ronnie Blanton’s irises was a thin rim of blue around a large expanse of black—broad gestures, and a sense of palpable excitement.
Oh yes, and a smear of white at the edge of one nostril.
“Cocaine,” Frederick Montrose said softly while we watched Ronnie cross the floor toward us while Gladys jumped up from her chair and practically ran over to Dominic Rivers, who was waiting in the doorway. “And now it’s her turn.”
I lowered my voice to make sure I wouldn’t be overheard. “Do they all use it?”
Montrose glanced at me. His own eyes were bright behind the lenses of his hornrims, too, but the pupils were a normal size, neither overly large nor the pinpricks I had once seen on my Cousin Francis. “Not to the degree Blanton and Gladys do. They wouldn’t survive without the dope anymore. The others aren’t at that point, although I’m sure they indulge, too.”
“St George?” I ventured.
We both looked at Crispin, who was still talking softly to Christopher. He noticed us staring and, out of character, flushed pink under the makeup. Christopher looked over too, and smirked, and for a second, he looked so much like his cousin—and Crispin, in his dress and pink lips, so much like Christopher—that it was almost as if they had switched places.
Then Crispin’s lip turned up in its usual sneer and things went back to normal. And?—
“I know very little about what St George gets up to,” Montrose said. And changed it to, “Not aside from what everyone knows, I mean. The tabloids are full of the exploits of the scion of the Sutherlands.”
They certainly had been lately. “Women,” I said, with a displeased look at Crispin. “Women and more women.”
Montrose sniggered. “He does seem popular with the fairer sex.”
After a second, he added, “If he does indulge in dope, it’s purely recreational. He has none of the signs of being addicted. And while he certainly drinks a lot, and does some truly stupid things?—”
Like wrapping the Ballot around the West End light pole, I assumed, unless Freddie Montrose had somehow gotten wind of that young woman with the baby who had shown up at Sutherland House sometime in the last few months.
“—he’s not stupid in general.”
“And they are?” I indicated Blanton, now sprawled in a chair with a blissful smile on his face while he listened to Hutchison expound on something or other, and Ogilvie, who was watching them from the other side of the table with an unreadable look on his face.
“They’re certainly not as smart as they think they are.” Montrose leaned forward to put his glass on the table. “The Bright Young People aren’t all that bright, when it comes down to it.”
He shot me a look before he pushed to his feet. “Excuse me. I’m going to look for the facilities.”
I nodded, while he addressed himself to Blanton. “Your toilet, old man?”
“Out the door to the right, third door on the left,” Blanton told him.
Montrose ambled toward the door. Hutchison waited until he was into the hallway and out of sight before he said, “Don’t you think you ought to go with him, old man?”
“To the toilet?” Blanton giggled.
