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Balloch seemed oblivious to my presence, focussing with considerable concentration on the food in front of him. He seemed to have selected some spécialité de la maison consisting of many small and aromatic dishes. A constant stream of waiters were arriving at his table, delivering new plates or taking away the previous and now-empty ones. I took this opportunity to look around at the dining room and inspect the rest of the diners. Almost everybody present was male - staff and members alike - and the pervasive sense of wealth and gravitas accompanied, for many of the members, with the effects of much gravity as well. The few females that were present fitted firmed into two camps. Firstly, severe-looked and antique family members in expensive but old-fashioned attire who were being entertained with extravigant food and obsequious conversation, with wheedling male voices forming a counterpoise to quietly-spoken but nonetheless firmly expressed disapproval from the grandmothers and dowager aunts. The second grouping were young, lithe and uniformly beautiful, dressed with considerable care and with a great deal of fashion sense, but who nevertheless looked just a bit out of place in these old-fashioned formal surroundings. They seemed more than a little grateful for the opportunity to dine here, and gushed and giggled and grinned though the conversations while fumbling with the cutlery and condiments. None of them looked like wives. I wondered again if Tillyfor or her sister had ever been entertained by Balloch in this fashion. As I studied the stage and the players around me, I continued sipping from the wineglass in my hand, topping it up from the bottle. The taste of the wine was exceptionally smooth and complex. But I was going to need to keep my wits about me, so I dug into the pockets of my coat and retrieved a glamour I rarely have need - or desire - to use. It was one which counteracted the effects of the alcohol in the wine and indeed, if the advertising puff was to be believed, anything else in the glass which was unhealthy for me. Such a waste, I mused, of the really good vintage, but needs must. As these things tend to be, the glamour was packaged in a small and brightly-coloured cardboard box adorned with detailed instructions for use, disclaimers of dubious legality and advertisements for other products from the same maker. I positioned the little box so that it was obscured from Balloch's sight by my body, flipped open the lid with my thumb and spoke the few words which activated the spell. As is the nature of Goblin magic, the words were inaudible to anybody else, and indeed even the movements of my lips would have been obscured momentarily. The lengths some manufacturers will go to in order to make sure the secrets of their glamours are preserved. The wine in its goblet glowed briefly. Satisfied that the magic had taken effect, I crushed the remnants of the box in my hand and dropped it into the ashtray. Then I sipped the wine once more. It took all of my will-power not to spit it out there and then, and to keep my expression unchanged. The fluid was almost certainly safe to drink and would even quench my thirst if I was really that desperate. But now it tasted flat and unpleasant. All the organic chemicals that had given the vintage those rounded and complex flavours - and were just a tiny bit poisonous - had been removed. Fortunately my taste buds were saved from their fate when the meal I had ordered arrived in the hands of the young waiter. I nodded my thanks and picked up my knife and fork as if to try the artfully-presented titbits, then put them down again as soon as the waiter had turned his back. From time to time I have had the opportunity to study drunks at close range. I have even been thoroughly inebriated myself on more than one occasion. But there is a skill that every Private Investigator needs to master: how to give every impression of getting uncontrollably drunk, without actually being so. I dug deep into the handbook of method acting, conspiring to give every impression that I was fully enjoying the weak fruit juice that the fine wine had become, and merely toying with the solid foodstuffs. Balloch was definitely watching me. He had noticed the bottle of fine wine that had been provided - much better, or at least more expensive than anything that had been delivered to his table - and had been carefully glancing in my direction as I slid further into my cups. I finished the last of the wine and stood up a little unsteadily, having left most of the foodstuffs on the plate, and wandered out in search of a bar.
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Part 13