Pearl Of Patmos

«True. I like it that way. And if I did have.a paper brought to the cottage it wouldn't be News of The world.

J raised a finger to a taxi. It ignored them. J joined Blade again on the curb. «You mustn't be smug, Richard. Admittedly the paper is an abomination, a pe

Blade did not hear him, not really. He was staring across the busy street at the newsboy. LADY DIANA DUCKS DAVID The newsboy was holding up a paper, quarter folded, and Blade could see that there was a picture, a three column `cut,' beneath the screaming headline. The photo was of a woman, but even Blade's eyes could not make out details at that distance.

J signaled another taxi and was again ignored. Blade crossed the street and bought a paper, giving the man a shilling and not staying for his change. He recrossed to where J stared in surprise, glancing at the picture as he nimbly dodged a lorry.

It was she. His Diana. Diana of the beach. It was incredible, impossible-yet there she was smiling out of the page. It was a posed studio shot, a still. The caption beneath it said: Lady Diana as she appeared in her most recent film, «No More Camelots.»

Of course. That was where he had seen her. In the flicks. In scores of magazines and papers.

As he rejoined J on the curb the old man said, «You must be very curious indeed, Richard. Risking traffic like this for a thruppe

Blade gri

J missed hailing an empty taxi and muttered a genteel curse. «I could have told you that, my boy. Sir David Throckmorton-Pell. The lady's husband.»

Blade kept an impassive face. He glanced again at the picture of Diana. Lady Dianal The minx. She had used her right name.

«I've heard of Sir David, of course. The judge. The one who sits in the Old Bailey? A pretty savage old boy, from all I've read.»

J had his own sense of humor. He said, «That's the one. They call him `The Rope,' I hear, and I hardly suppose it is because he likes to tie knots-unless they are hangman's knots.»

Blade hardly heard him. He was staring at the picture and remembering. The blue sea. Green eyes. Sinking down and down until…

«Richard-Richardl Good grief, man. Are you in a trance?»

Blade glanced up. J had snared a taxi and was already ensconced, the door open and waiting, the driver looking impatient. Blade folded the paper and thrust it into his jacket pocket. «Sorry, sir. Wool-gathering again.»

J directed the taximan to the Tower and then gave Blade a sharp glance. Blade avoided his eyes and stared out at the traffic. It was clotted like stale jam. They would be a time getting to the Tower.

J said, «Why the interest in Lady Diana's peccadilloes? Do you know the lady?»

Blade avoided a direct lie, but only just. «Not really know her,» he said. «I've seen her in films.»

He did not really know her. He thought of the old joke about sexual congress not constituting an introduction, and had difficulty in repressing a smile.

J leaned forward and spoke sharply to the driver. «Can't you go a little faster, man?» Lord Leighton 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 amoral-somehow he could not think of her as immoral-with 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 better-these 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 in dependent fortune. That mini-dress she had so raffishly tossed on the sand it 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 make-quite a good family, you know. Her father is Baron Gervase. Tons of money. Pulp and paper products in the Midlands, 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 spy-master and it was his job to know about people. All sorts of people. Still-

It rather amused Blade to see J on the defensive. «I do occasionally read Anthony Asquith's column in the Mirror,» 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 M16, England's chief spy apparatus. Certainly nothing humdrum about that job-except, 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 cried peccavt to the charge of reading a gossip monger, prattled on happily. Anthony Asquith, in the Mirror, 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 beach-something about cameras? «As long as there are no cameras»? That made sense, unless the lady lied. Very few of those people reeUy minded the flash bulbs.

«When they quarrel,» J was saying, «or get too bored r with each other, Lady Diana simply takes off without any explanation. The boredom, I should imagine, is mostly on her side. She takes her checkbook and a suitcase or two and just goes. Sooner — or later she always turns up-in New York, Hong King, Tangier, the south of France. It is said,» and J chuckled, «that the lady has a whim of iron.»

They were nearing the Tower of London. Blade, listening to J with one ear, sought to reconstruct a picture of Sir David Throckmorton-Pell in his mind. Pictures of the judge, `The Rope,' did not appear in the public prints as often as did those of his wife, but Blade had seen them.