Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera

by Simon Brett

  The note in Twinks’s voice as she addressed her brother was as near to exasperation as she ever allowed it to get. ‘But, Blotto, surely you can tell your left from your right?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course I can, Twinks me old banana split.’

  ‘Then why couldn’t you see that the mole was on the right side of the woman’s chin and the scar was on the man’s left cheekbone?’

  ‘Because they weren’t. Look.’ Blotto raised his right hand and touched the side of his sister’s chin. ‘That’s my right hand – tickey-tockey?’

  ‘Tickey-tockey.’

  ‘So I’m touching the right-hand side of your face.’

  ‘No, Blotto, you’re not! You’re facing me, so what you’re touching is the left-hand side of my face.’

  ‘But when I look in a mirror and touch the right-hand side of my face, that’s where I see it.’

  ‘I am not a mirror, Blotto! I’m a real human being, for the love of strawberries!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said rather mournfully. He didn’t like it when Twinks snapped at him.

  ‘Anyway, given the unusual way in which the couple approached you, you should have been suspicious even if the mole and the scar did seem to be on the wrong sides of their faces.’

  ‘I did think it was a coincidence,’ said Blotto in mitigation.

  He looked so pitiful, so eager to please, that, as ever, Twinks found it impossible to stay angry with him. ‘Don’t worry about it, Blotters. At least we know that the pair who snaffled our Ruperts are still in Paris. And if they think they can get a ransom from us, they may not bother to find a buyer for the paintings.’

  ‘But we aren’t going to pay the stenchers any ransom, are we, Twinks?’

  ‘Of course we’re not. But we can play them along by pretending we’re going to.’

  ‘Good ticket!’ A smile spread slowly across Blotto’s angelic features. ‘I say, a thought’s just boffed me on the bonce.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, Twinks me old cheese-grater, if I have, sort of, by chance found the couple who stole the Ruperts …’

  ‘Or allowed them to find you.’

  ‘Yes. Well, if I have, that means you no longer have to keep doing your modelling for Blocque and Tacquelle, do you?’

  ‘Oh.’ His sister looked slightly put out by the suggestion.

  ‘What’s up? What’s put lumps in your custard, me old woodlouse?’

  ‘Well …’ Twinks blushed prettily. (Mind you, she did everything prettily.) ‘They are putting a lot of effort into their paintings. It’d be a pity if all of their hard work was sluiced out of the bilges.’

  Blotto looked at her in some puzzlement. This was unlike Twinks. In spite of having a lot to boast about – her beauty, her intellect and every other desirable quality in a woman – he had never met one of her gender who had less vanity. Was it possible that even Twinks was attracted by the idea of her body being immortalized as the chef d’oeuvre of the Trianguliste Movement? Had his sister got one of those things like that classical boddo he’d been told about in Latin lessons at Eton? Apollo, was it? Had even Twinks got an Apollo’s heel?

  The embarrassed speed with which she changed the subject suggested that he might be on the right track. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘award yourself a rosette for making contact with the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Sales-Malincourt – or the Maharajah and Rani of Pranjipur, but I think I should still follow up my enquiries with Blocque and Tacquelle. We don’t want our investigation only to have one prong.’

  ‘Fair biddles,’ Blotto agreed, storing away the notion of his sister’s vanity for possible use at a later date. ‘But what do we do now, Twinks me old carpet-beater?’

  ‘The pair of thimble-jigglers you met said they’d send a message to you here at the Hôtel de Crillon. We await that message.’

  Because Blotto and Twinks were the kind of people to whom that kind of thing happened, her words were followed immediately by a tap on the door of their suite. It was a footman bearing a message on a silver salver.

  ‘That was as quick as a cheetah on spikes,’ observed Blotto, handing the envelope to his sister as soon as the footman had left the suite.

  ‘But it’s for you,’ said Twinks, handing it back.

  ‘What?’ But sure enough, the missive was addressed: ‘PRIVATE – TO BE OPENED ONLY BY THE HONOURABLE DEVEREUX LYMINSTER’.

  ‘But I haven’t got any secrets from you, Twinks. You can read anything that’s been sent to me.’

  ‘It might be from some breathsapper of a Frenchwoman who has seen you pongling along the Champs Élysées and fallen for you like a partridge full of lead.’

  ‘Don’t talk such toffee, Twinks! I’ll bet it’s from the Maharajah and Rani of Pranjipur, and its contents are for both of us.’

  ‘You check the SP. I won’t look.’

  So while Twinks averted her eyes, Blotto opened the envelope.

  It wasn’t from the Maharajah and Rani of Pranjipur. There were a couple of sheets of paper handwritten in French, with a note on the front which read:

  Blotto, I was worried that if I gave this directly to Twinks, she might ignore it like she did the last one. Could you find a subtle way of getting this to her, so that she doesn’t realize that it’s actually come from me? Relying on you to be a Grade A foundation stone, Buzzer.

  Oh, for the love of strawberries, it was another poem from the lovesick Marquis of Bluntleigh! And, to compound the felony, written in French. ‘Nothing urgent,’ said Blotto, shoving envelope and contents into his pocket.

  ‘Well, I do hope we get the message from the art thieves soon,’ said Twinks.

  This time her wish was granted. An immediate tap on the door admitted a footman with a message on a silver salver. (He was possibly the same footman who had brought the missive from the Marquis of Bluntleigh, could even have been the same one who had brought the research documents from Professor Erasmus Holofernes, but Blotto and Twinks didn’t notice that. People of their breeding paid no more attention to the bearer of a message than they did to the envelope that contained it.)

  It was addressed to both of them. Brother and sister pored over the contents.

  If you weesh to undertake subtle negotiations concerning zee purchase of zee Tawcester Towers Gainsborough and Reynolds, zee Hon. Lyminster should appear in zee South Tower of zee Cathedral of Notre-Dame near zee Emmanuel Bell at nine o’clock zees evening. Zee Hon. Lyminster should be alone – any attempt to appear wiz anozzer person will mean that no negotiations or meeting will take place. Zee larger key in zees envelope opens zee small door at zee foot of zee South Tower, zee smaller one gives access to zee stairs leading up to zee Bell Tower. If you ever weesh to see your paintings again, follow zee instructions in zees message.

  ‘Larksissimo!’ said Twinks. ‘This is just the thing to light the fireworks of fun!’

  Blotto looked puzzled. ‘Who do you think it’s addressed to?’

  ‘Well, me obviously.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not me?’

  ‘Why should it be?’

  ‘Well, the poor thimbles who wrote this clearly aren’t very good at English, but I’d have thought that “zee Hon. Lyminster” could be meant to mean “the Honourable Lyminster” – or, more correctly, “the Honourable Devereux Lyminster” – in other words, me.’

  ‘But, Blotto me old grapefruit-slicer, couldn’t “zee Hon. Lyminster” also be an abbreviation for “zee Honoria Lyminster” – in other words, me.’

  Her brother looked perplexed. ‘Well, how for the love of strawberries are we supposed to know which one they mean?’

  ‘There is a clue in the message.’

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘They say they want to “undertake subtle negotiations”.’

  Twinks didn’t have to say any more. Her brother knew where his strengths lay, and none of them ever lay in a sentence containing the word ‘subtle’. He agreed that it was his sister who was being summoned to the South Tower of Notre-Da
me.

  ‘But why do they want you to be on your own?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps they think,’ she chuckled, ‘that it’ll be easier to deal with a poor little violet of the female persuasion. Perhaps they think I’m a soft centre.’

  Her brother laughed at the incongruity of this idea. Anyone who thought they could run circles round Twinks needed a bit of a spring-clean in the brainbox department.

  Another thought struck him. ‘You don’t think it’s a trap, do you?’

  ‘Even more grandissimo if it is! I love traps as much as a pike loves troutlings. I love the challenge of the things!’

  Blotto smiled proudly. She was quite a girl, his sister.

  Since her appointment at Notre-Dame was not till the evening, Twinks went off for her afternoon session of sitting for Eugène Blocque. She was slightly defensive when she told her brother of her plans and Blotto’s impression was confirmed that she really did have an ambition to be immortalized as the muse (he understood the word now, knew it was nothing to do with stables) of Triangulisme.

  He stayed in their suite. Dashed comfortable, the Crillon, and although there were lots of things to be seen in Paris, his morning at the Louvre had provided Blotto with all the sight-seeing he needed for the next few millennia. An innocent snooze on his soft goose-feather bed sounded a lot more attractive as a proposition.

  As soon as he lay down, he switched off like a light. Blotto never had any trouble sleeping. He didn’t normally do it during the day, but then there were very few days when he’d spent the morning looking at large paintings. An ordeal like that would make any boddo sleepy.

  He hadn’t undressed for his snooze by more than removing a blazer. Which was just as well, because when he woke up there was a woman in his room!

  Not just any woman either. It was Dimpsy Wickett-Coote. And in her eye was a gleam, a gleam he had witnessed in other women’s eyes, a gleam that always spelled danger. Dimpsy had amorous intentions towards him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Blotto,’ she breathed.

  ‘Good afternoon, me old stumps and bails,’ he said, trying to bring a quality of levity to the occasion.

  She looked down at him from her great height. And she did actually lick her lips.

  Blotto felt totally naked without his blazer, but as he half rose from the bed to reach it, a strong hand pushed him back on to the goosedown and, in what seemed to be the same movement, Dimpsy Wickett-Coote was suddenly lying alongside him. Her ardent black eyes burned into his vacant blue ones.

  ‘I see hidden depths in you, Blotto,’ she susurrated.

  ‘No, there aren’t any,’ he protested. ‘Shallow as a puddle when the sun comes out, that’s me.’

  ‘Blotto,’ she murmured, ‘I have had many lovers.’

  ‘Toad-in-the-hole …’ seemed an appropriate response to this, so that was what he said. The next essential, though, was a change of subject, something that got her off the topic of her lovers. So Blotto asked, ‘How did you manage to get in here?’

  ‘I have very good connections at the Crillon. The Deputy Under Manager is one of my lovers.’

  As a ploy for getting her off the subject of lovers that approach was clearly not going to win any rosettes, so Blotto tried another diversionary tactic. Cricket, he’d found, was always good in these circumstances. Nothing seemed so to dampen a woman’s amorous intentions as talk of cricket. So he asked, ‘Any idea how England are doing in the Test Match?’

  ‘They’re 211 for 3 at stumps in Melbourne,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, I’ll be snickered,’ said Blotto. ‘How on earth do you know?’

  ‘The England captain telephoned me the score.’

  ‘Why on earth did the old greengage do that?’

  ‘He is one of my lovers,’ replied Dimpsy Wickett-Coote.

  Blotto’s attempts at getting her off the subject of her lovers seemed to be falling at every fence. Before his brain had time to devise yet another devious ploy, he found his face seized in Dimpsy’s hands and his lips pulled towards hers.

  ‘And now you are about to become one of my lovers too,’ she murmured ominously.

  ‘I’d be frightfully careful if I were you,’ he remonstrated. ‘I’ve got a real stencher of a cold.’

  ‘What do you think I care about a cold, Blotto? I don’t give a tailor’s tuppence for infectious diseases. After all, I’ve been spending jeroboamsfuls of time sitting for Blocque and Tacquelle in their studios, and they’ve got more than colds. They’ve got the phtisie.’ Then inevitably she added, ‘They’re both my lovers.’

  ‘Yes, um, Dimpsy, it seems to me that when it comes to lovers, you’ve got quite a full dance card. And a girl doesn’t want too much mustard on her ham, does she? You know, there is an old tag about having too much of a good thing.’

  ‘But it depends how good the thing of which you have too much is. I am a connoisseur of lovers, Blotto. When I am with the right lover, I become the most beautiful woman in the world.’

  ‘What, like old Blocque and Tacquelle thought you were?’

  ‘Yes.’ A shadow crossed her exquisite brow. ‘But they no longer think that. Since your sister arrived in Paris.’ There was real venom in the words. ‘So now I need a new lover to make me feel once again that I am the most beautiful woman in the world. And I have decided that that lover is going to be you, Blotto.’

  He shrank inwardly. Talk of that kind always brought him out in crimps. Oh, what a gluepot, he thought miserably. He never liked being on the horns of a dilemma and Dimpsy Wickett-Coote had just impaled him on a spoffing great big one. They were both already compromised. She, an unmarried woman, was in the hotel bedroom of him an unmarried man.

  If someone found them together, in very short order they would be ruined – or married, which was probably worse. Apart from anything else, he didn’t think the Dowager Duchess would approve of Dimpsy Wickett-Coote as a daughter-in-law. The purchase of a life peerage was the kind of vulgarity that could be ignored in the father of a schoolfriend. In the father of a potential entrant to the Lyminster family it would become a much whiffier slice of Stilton.

  Blotto knew that what he should do was show Dimpsy the door, before any more damage was done. But noblesse oblige and all that rombooley … His instincts as a gentleman told him he should come up with some honeyed words that would effect the siren’s eviction without hurting her feelings. And Blotto had never been very good at coming up with honeyed words.

  ‘Erm, actually …’ he said, ‘when it comes to being a lover and that kind of thing, I think you might find me a bit of an empty revolver. I’m sure you could do better.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ replied Dimpsy, in a voice whose forcefulness reminded Blotto uncomfortably of his mother.

  ‘But I’m not sure that—’

  ‘Stop gabbing, Blotto, and kiss me!’

  The gentle hold she had on his face had become a vice-like grip. Their lips were almost touching when he had a really beezer brainwave. Rolling out of Dimpsy’s clutches, Blotto managed to reach his blazer. Wearing it he felt twice the man he had before as, reaching into its pocket, he produced the Marquis of Bluntleigh’s poem. Cunningly he didn’t bring out the envelope addressed to Twinks.

  ‘Dimpsy!’ he cried rather magnificently. ‘Much as I am honoured by the fact that you wish to be my lover, it is a gift which I cannot accept while I know that another man – a friend of mine, in fact, and a far worthier man than Iwill ever be – loves you far more truly than I ever can. See, he has written this poem for you!’ Theatrically, he thrust the paper towards her. ‘And what’s more, to show how much he loves you, he has written it in French!’

  Dimpsy took the poem and glanced at it. ‘This is written by Buzzer Bluntleigh.’

  ‘He it is that loves you!’

  ‘No, he doesn’t. This poem’s addressed to Twinks.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The fact that I helped him write it.’

  Oh, broken b
iscuits, thought Blotto. I’d forgotten that. As it turned out, his really beezer brainwave hadn’t been a brainwave at all. Not even a brainripple.

  ‘Now kiss me!’ Dimpsy Wickett-Coote commanded him.

  Reluctantly, his stock of escape plans exhausted, Blotto moved towards her. He tried to remember how he’d dug himself out of similar gluepots in the past and suddenly an idea lumbered into his brain. Prayer!

  Prayer, and almost inevitably that would involve God. They were neither of them concepts that frequently came into the mind of the Honourable Devereux Lyminster. He didn’t really have a faith, as such. Well, he was Church of England, which came to the same thing.

  But, as he had once before in a comparable predicament, he found himself praying to someone or something to get him out of the amorous clutches of Dimpsy Wickett-Coote.

  And once again it worked!

  There was a tap at the bedroom door. Almost weak with relief, Blotto bellowed out, ‘Come in!’

  And there in the doorway stood Corky Froggett.

  11

  A Case of Sabotage?

  ‘If it had not been a matter of urgency, milord, I would not have troubled you.’ As ever, the chauffeur stood to attention in his uniform, as if he had never left the army. ‘I apologize, milord. I did not know you had company.’

  ‘Don’t don your worry-boots about that, Corky.’ Bizarrely, Blotto found himself about to offer some spurious explanation for Dimpsy’s presence in his bedroom, that she’d come to measure him for a pair of sock-suspenders or something of the sort. But then he remembered who he was talking to. Despite their closeness, Corky Froggett was still only a servant, after all. And people of Blotto’s class didn’t have to explain themselves to servants.

  Anyway, his prayer to someone or something had worked. Dimpsy Wickett-Coote was no longer in his bedroom. Blotto wondered whether Corky Froggett had just been spirited there by divine intervention, or whether the chauffeur actually had a reason for appearing at his door. ‘So what’s the bizz-buzz?’ he asked.