The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

by Kyril Bonfiglioli

  ‘Don’t worry, sir – I’ll handle him!’ With a swift high-kick which the most energetic member of the Folies-Bergère might have envied, Holmes caught Fellworthy on the jaw, and sent him skidding across the living-room, slap through that inelegant coffee table. ‘Whoops, sorry, Doctor!’ he cackled as his hand sharpened into a slicer. With an upward blow, he struck Fellworthy deep in the groin. A thwack to the knees with his truncheon (‘Oh dear, pardon me, Doctor!’) followed by a head-butt to the stomach (‘Silly me! There I go again, Doctor!’), and Fellworthy was wriggling about on the parquet floor like the fidgetiest young maggot at a Montessori open day. Petal, on the other hand, was quite dead, the profile of her corpse taking me back down memory lane, to an exhausting walking holiday I once enjoyed in the Cairngorms.

  ‘Lucky for us the doctor’s so unsteady on his pins, eh, sir?’ said Holmes with a chuckle.

  ‘Luck does not come into it,’ I snapped back a trifle tetchily.

  I allowed myself a self-satisfied smile. It was only when my whiskers made contact with my eyebrows that it occurred to me that I might be overdoing it.

  ‘Sometimes, my dear Holmes,’ I added. ‘It pays to remain calm.’

  At that moment, Fellworthy’s boot made forceful contact with my private parts and I was sent hurtling through the air, the wings of my moustache ensuring that my journey was smooth, even though the landing proved a mite bumpy.

  It took a couple of discreet jabs to the windpipe from Holmes’s little finger to bring Fellworthy back into line. At first, he was – how shall I put it? – a little delicate. But on awkward social occasions, I have always prided myself on getting the tongue-tied to, shall we say, open up. It’s surprising how much magic may be worked using only a length of rope, a wooden chair, and the gentle wave of a lethal syringe.

  ‘I loved Bronwen,’ he moaned. ‘Loved her, loved her, loved her.’

  ‘You loved her?’ I said. Easier to have loved an armadillo, I would have thought. But I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘I begged her, begged her, to take me back, to give me another chance. She said it was either the kiwi fruit or her – she said I could not be married to both.’

  ‘The kiwi fruit?’

  ‘Genetic modification, you fool. It’ll soon be all the rage. After the rabbits, I turned my attention to the kiwi. Why did no-one want to eat it any more? For a while, it had been the talk of the town. Kiwi this, kiwi that: they were selling like hot cakes. But then – nothing. I was contacted by the International Kiwi Association. They were desperate. Their research showed that consumers were turning to more convenient fruits such as the tangerine and the banana. They asked me to modify the kiwi to bring it more in line with consumer demands. After many false starts, I hit upon the idea of the Hamwi—’

  ‘The Hamwi? What the hell is a Hamwi?’

  ‘Half hamster, half kiwi, of course. The very first hamster-based fruit! It would walk off the shelves! And I was so very close to cracking it! The acclaim – the prestige – the honours – the money! But, oh no, Bronwen did not approve. I would have to choose. The kiwi or her. But I couldn’t choose and if I couldn’t have her, no-one else would! Collecting her car that day, I seized my chance: I rotated the lenses on her driving spectacles through ninety degrees. When she took to that wheel, it would have been like travelling on a rollercoaster upside down with her eyes crossed …’

  ‘You bowel fruit!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I meant, you foul brute! And what of your first wife?’

  ‘Bronwen?’

  ‘No, Doctor – Agnes.’

  ‘Ah. Agnes. Dear Agnes. She died in a tragic motoring accident, as I recall …’

  ‘Let’s not beat about the bush, Fellworthy,’ I said, making pretty patterns in the air with my syringe. It seemed to do the trick.

  ‘Agnes was well-insured and intensely irritating. A most hazardous combination, especially in marriage. Furthermore, she was epileptic. In the laboratory, I discovered how to induce an epileptic fit with a flicker-light oscillating at exactly the right frequency. For six months, I studied her every movement. She was a creature of habit, you see. She would always take the car at exactly 25mph down our drive. So I built a nice high fence with posts at just the right intervals, sent her out shopping one evening when the sun was bright but low – and ker-bang! The perfect crime!’ Fellworthy emitted a triumphant smile.

  I had heard enough. ‘Perfect no more,’ I commented. ‘Even the General Medical Council might blanch at allowing a doctor to murder both his wives. Your evil has brought you only the prospect of prolonged incarceration in a urine-soaked cell with just a psychopathic sex-beast for company. But I can promise you this, Dr Fellworthy. If you come clean now, I may be able to secure you an upgrade in your accommodation. Club Class will ensure that your cell is soaked not with urine but with the great smell of Brut aftershave.’

  ‘Not that! Anything but that!’ stuttered the doctor.

  ‘Very well,’ I said, seizing my opportunity. ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, I shall guarantee that your cell will be doused in Brut aftershave three times a day, rising to four times on Sundays and Bank Holidays. Now, Doctor, spit it out – why did you murder Bronwen?’

  ‘It was my hamsters – she took a shine to my hamsters – she hated the experimentation, hated it! But I was not going to have that woman stand between me and—’

  ‘Tummy-rot!’ I interjected. ‘Baloney-balooney! You killed Bronwen because her research had led her to uncover the truth about you.’

  ‘No – it was my hamsters! My beloved hamsters!’

  ‘She had discovered there was a survivor of that massacre. A survivor not from the victims – but from their persecutors!’

  ‘Hammy-hammy hamsters! She wanted to stop me playing with my hammy-hamsters!’ Fellworthy was sobbing like a baby. I’ve never seen such a gush. If I had been of a more sporting inclination, I might have felt tempted to roll off his head in a barrel.

  ‘Bugger the hammy-hamsters!’ I said. ‘You were the survivor, weren’t you?’

  ‘She never liked kiwi fruit anyway,’ he blurted. ‘Much preferred pineapple. I told her there was no future in pineapple, but would she listen? Would she?’

  ‘She confronted you with her discovery. You made her promise she would never tell a soul, and that her research would cease forthwith. Nevertheless, you had those spectacles made just in case. And your foresight was rewarded, wasn’t it? After your trip to Jersey, your marriage fell apart and it was then that you discovered that the research money was still flooding into her account. Having uncovered the truth, she could not let it go! Her desire for academic fame and glory was greater than any loyalty to you – and looking at you now, Doctor, one can only applaud her sense of priority!’

  ‘You’re wrong! You’re wrong! She never approved of genetic modification! She was a vegetarian, near as dammit! Legs on her kiwi fruit – even small ones – would have upset her!’

  ‘But you knew your Soviet masters would never have allowed this news to get out – they promised to kill you in some particularly excruciating fashion if you didn’t stop her. So you chose your time carefully, reached for the novelty specs, and Bob’s your uncle – she was gone!’

  ‘Fruity little hamsters! Hammy little fruitsters!’ he continued. I realised then that he was never going to come clean.

  ‘It’s the Brut-filled cell for you, my man. Excuse me while I step over Petal and call the Chief Constable. Do you know him? A Duke, of course. And one of the better ones.’

  It must have been while my mind was floating back to the effortless superiority of his Grace that Fellworthy grabbed at his own skinny little moustache, pulled it clean off his face, hurled it into his mouth, swallowed it and perished in hideous agony right before our very eyes.

  Holmes shook his head. ‘Cyanide tablets hidden behind a false moustache,’ he muttered, disapprovingly. ‘The oldest trick in the book, eh, sir?’

  ‘Which book?’ I hiss
ed.

  XXI

  Full house, kings on queens

  Thanked be fortune, it has been otherwise

  Twenty times better; but once in special,

  In thin array after a pleasant guise,

  When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

  And she me caught in her arms long and small;

  Therewithall sweetly did me kiss,

  And softly said, dear heart, how like you this?

  When Jock spotted me across the concourse at Jersey airport his great, battered face contorted itself into a frightful snarl, causing innocent bystanders to scatter like sheep and huddle in corners, clutching their infants. I well knew that this one-fanged grimace was meant as a cheery grin but it still never fails to frighten even me. The effect was enhanced by the black patch over the empty eye-socket. As I approached he remembered that I have often told him not to wear such a patch when women and children are about; there were stifled shrieks from the terrified populace as he tore it off, fished his glass eye out of a trouser pocket, spat on it and rammed it home. Back to front.

  ‘Nice to see you, Mr Charlie,’ he growled.

  ‘And it is nice to see your honest face, Jock, as refreshing as a glass of cool water.’

  ‘You got a bloody lovely memory, Mr Charlie.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I mean, fancy you remembering what cold water tastes like.’ And he unleashed the grin again.

  The journey home was uneventful, if you call it uneventful to be jounced about in a Rolls driven at 70 mph through the narrow, winding lanes of an island whose speed limit is 40.

  ‘That excrement on your mush is growing away nice, Mr Charlie.’

  ‘Thank you. Arising out of that, how are the canary’s bowels?’

  ‘Oh, he’s back in top form, passing lovely little motions, regular as clockwork. I put him back on the red pepper and rum diet, always works the oracle. I sometimes reckon he holds back on purpose, just to get his grog.’

  ‘Well, go steady with it: I’m not having drunken canaries cursing and belching and trolling dirty songs when the Rector calls.’

  ‘Yeah. Did you find out who clobbered the schoolmarm and that?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Get bashed up much?’

  ‘Once or twice. People never seem to tire of beating me about the head.’

  ‘Arr,’ he said enigmatically.

  ‘Madam at home?’

  ‘Yeah. Come back yesdee. Her and Cookie are making you a special surprise dinner for tonight.’ I raised a mental eyebrow – this did not sound like the sullen virago who had sped me to Oxford unkist.

  Indeed, as I decanted myself from the car it was a smiling, loving wife who ran to greet me, taking my hands in hers and devouring my face – except for the moustached area – with huge, brimming eyes.

  ‘Oh, Charlie Charlie Charlie!’ she cried, as is her wont.

  ‘There there there,’ I said gruffly, folding her into my arms but taking care that our faces should be side-by-side rather than vis-à-vis, for obvious reasons. Soon I was in my personal armchair, my favourite blue velvet smoking-jacket and a matching pair of Morocco slippers, beaming at the glass of brandy which, with her own hands, she had placed within my easy reach.

  ‘Tell me all about it,’ she urged. I told all of it that was fit for her gently-nurtured ears. Agog is what she was as she drank in the narrative. It was evident to the trained eye that she lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d and I lov’d her that she did pity them.

  ‘And how was S. Tropez?’ I asked. ‘Did you have fun?’ She levelled the aforementioned huge eyes at me again – and once again they were brimming with many a happy tear.

  ‘Oh, Charlie dearest, I meant to be unfaithful to you, out of spite I guess, but when it came to the crunch I just couldn’t. Anyway, all the men were so lean and muscular and bronzed and, well, I guess I’ve kind of got used to a cuddly guy. Oh, Charlie darling, I’d love to cuddle up with you right this moment and smother you with burning kisses and eat you all up, every scrap.’

  She lowered her splendid eyelashes demurely.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ I murmured. ‘I see no obstacle to such a course.’ She did not answer, but a shadow passed over her face and she flicked a reproachful glance at the hedge-like obstacle. In an instant the moustache and my libido were locked in a death-struggle, a desperate battle of wills. The former was hopelessly outclassed, of course; no moustachio has ever won such a contest, the Old Adam is always victorious. Soon I had that moustache on its knees, whining for mercy, pleading that it was too young to die. But I was Adamant.

  ‘No quarter!’ I said, sternly.

  ‘How do you mean, Charlie dear?’ asked Johanna, knitting her lovely brows.

  ‘Never mind. Just press the bell for Jock, please.’

  ‘Jock,’ I said when he entered, ‘is there plenty of hot water? Good. Is there a stout pair of scissors in the bathroom? And a razor and my larger badger-hair shaving-brush?’ His eyes seemed to sparkle; it was the eye of a man who scarcely dares hope – a thug who cannot believe the witness of his cauliflower ear.

  ‘Yes, Jock, you have guessed aright. I intend to prune this floribunda right back to its parent lip. I shall raze it to the ground, leaving not a wrack behind. Cartago delenda est!’

  ‘Right, Mr Charlie,’ he said in hushed tones. ‘Want any help?’

  ‘No, Jock. I appreciate your offer but there are some things a sahib has to face alone.’

  Johanna and I fled upstairs hand in hand and soon I was standing before the mirror, looking my last on Tiger Clemenceau – and at Johanna’s reflection in the glass as she slithered out of her costly raiment in a way which sent my blood-pressure right up into the paint-cards. Twice I raised the glittering executioner’s blade to my upper lip and twice it fell from my nerveless fingers. Johanna stole up to me and nibbled lovingly in my ear.

  ‘Infirm of purpose,’ she murmured. ‘Give me the scissors.’

  I believe it was on the following Monday that I was sitting in the kitchen, munching my elevenses and exchanging civilities with the canary.

  ‘Shaving the upper lip,’ I remarked, ‘is a curse which canaries and women have been spared.’ It cocked its ear. ‘Except of course, certain aunts,’ I added, evoking a squawk of alarm from the feathered f.

  ‘On the other hand,’ I mused, fondling the bare ruined choir where once the sweet-briar sprang, ‘you and they will never know the bliss of being freshly shaven.’

  Jock brought in the mail. Continuing to munch, I picked out of the bundle one of those big, costly envelopes such as only American Embassies can nowadays afford. The contents read as follows, to wit:

  Sir,

  I am directed to require you, immediately on receipt of this letter, to return the Temporary Accreditation Wallet issued to you by the undersigned.

  This return should be made by hand of officer or, failing that, by British Registered Mail.

  I am further directed to express the thanks of the Section concerned of the Department concerned for your friendly co-operation in the recent academic research. That Section is given to understand that if at any time in the future you should be in Washington, DC and cared to sign the Visitor’s Book in the Guard Room of the White House, you would receive an invitation to join the President and the First Lady at the Cocktail Hour.

  ‘You all right, Mr Charlie?’ asked Jock crossly.

  ‘Yes, Jock. Sorry, just giggling.’

  ‘Well, you’re upsetting the canary, aren’t you. You know what his bowels are like.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, continuing to read.

  You will appreciate that only subjects of general and unspecific interest are discussed at the Cocktail Hour.

  Cordially,

  H. Blucher

  Colonel, US Army

  P.S. Hey Charlie, you old sod, you know that doctor who did an auto-destruct while you waited? We ran the usual routine checks and, would you believe it, your Sp
ecial Branch had a file on him. He emigrated to Britain in 1946; naturalised 1948, changed name by deed poll 1949. Original name: Nikolai Djugashvili Ulianov. How about that?

  I stared at the words. ‘Yeah,’ I said, turning to the canary. ‘How about that, hunh?’

  It shrugged its shoulders and went on catching the crumbs from my bacon sandwich.

  KYRIL BONFIGLIOLI

  THE MORTDECAI NOVELS

  “I am Charlie Mortdecai. I like art and money and dirty jokes and drink. I am very successful.”

  Don’t Point That Thing at Me

  The Hon. Charlie Mortdecai is up to his earlobes in trouble. A Goya painting has gone missing and the authorities seem to think he knows something about it. He does. If he and his thuggish manservant Jock are not very careful, some very nasty men with guns are liable to make them very dead.

  After You With the Pistol

  It’s been made clear to Charlie that he has to marry the beautiful, sex-crazed and very rich Johanna Krampf. The only fly in the ointment is that she seems determined to involve him in her crazy schemes of monarch-assassination and heroin smuggling. Perhaps it’s all in a good cause—if only he can live long enough to find out.

  Something Nasty in the Woodshed

  Charlie has decamped to Jersey after a spot of bother in London, and is hoping to lie low with his manservant and his new bride. But then a friend’s wife is attacked, and for once he takes on the role of pursuer rather than pursued.

  All the Tea in China

  After an act of lechery that anyone but a close relative might forgive, Karli Mortdecai Van Cleef, a distant relative of the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai, throws in his lot with an opium clipper bound for China. So begins a staggering adventure. It runs in the family …

  All available from The Overlook Press

  www.overlookpress.com

  * No, not you; ‘readers’ is a cardsharks’ word for marked cards.