"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 07 - Pearl of Patmos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)
would have the computer ready and His Lordship did not like to be kept waiting.
They were trapped in a endless maze of traffic. The driver scowled in his mirror and said, "If I 'ad
wings, Gov, I could maybe fly over this blinkin' mess. But this 'ere cab didn't come equipped with no
wings, so we waits. Yer can always walk, Gov."
J settled back in frustration. Blade took the paper from his pocket and began to skim through the
story about Lady Diana. J craned to see the picture. "Quite a lovely girl, isn't she?"
Blade nodded. "Beautiful." And passionate. Fey. Certainly amoralтАФsomehow he could not think of
her as immoralтАФwith a hard core of honest lust and a sweetness to temper it. All of this he must keep to
himself.
J began to stuff his pipe, resigned now to the long wait and the fact that they would be late and Lord
L would be angry. Helmeted bobbies appeared and began to sort out the traffic amid an unholy din of
squawking horns.
J, reading over Blade's shoulder, said, "She has run away from the old boy again, eh? Not the first
time, either. Not much news in that, really, but of course they have to puff it up. Make what they can of
it. A pity, really. For both of them. Of course they should have known betterтАФthese May and December
things never work out."
By this time Blade had finished the story. The Lady Diana was a sometime film actress, a member of
the Jet Set, of the Now and Beautiful people, and she had an independent fortune. That mini-dress she
had so raffishly tossed on the sandтАФit had probably cost a hundred pounds.
"Very odd, that marriage. Can't imagine why either of them got into it. It isn't as though she were a
totsy on the makeтАФquite a good family, you know. Her father is Baron Gervase. Tons of money. Pulp
and paper products in theMidlands , something like that."
Blade gave his boss a sideways look. This was a facet of J he had never seen before. But then J was
a spymaster and it was his job to know about people. All sorts of people. StillтАФ
in theMirror," the older man admitted. "Pays to keep up with things, you know."
"Of course," said Blade gravely.
"It's mostly guess and hearsay," J continued. "But now and then one comes across a kernel of truth."
Blade nodded. "I'm sure."
J sucked at his pipe. It had gone out. "A little light reading is good for one at times."
Blade laughed. "You needn't apologize, sir."
"I'm not apologizing, damn it. It's just that, well, I know it is all a lot of bumf, but it is fascinating to
read about these people at times. Utterly worthless, most of them, with far too much money, but one has
to admit that they are not humdrum."
"Yes," agreed Blade. "One must admit that." As the taxi lurched forward at last he regarded J
covertly. J was head of MI6,England 's chief spy apparatus. Certainly nothing humdrum about that
jobтАФexcept, perhaps, to J. Since the advent of the computer J had been head of MI6A, the Security
Authority set up to preserve the secret of Dimension X. He was a member of a select small group sharing
the greatest secret since the Manhattan Project. Yet he read gossip columns to ease his boredom. Or,
and in all honesty this must be a more likely reason, to ease his tensions, to gain some relief from the
awesome burden of responsibility he carried.
Blade shook his head. It was a mad world.
They were out of the traffic snarl now and making good time. J, now that he had confessed his
weakness, had in effect criedpeccavito the charge of reading a gossip monger, prattled on happily.
Anthony Asquith, in theMirror, was apparently an ardent champion of the Lady Diana. Hardly a column
passed that did not mention her.
Blade remembered something she had said on the beachтАФsomething about cameras? "As long as
there are no cameras"? That made sense, unless the lady lied. Very few of those peoplereallyminded the
flash bulbs.
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