by Simon Brett
‘Why did Passport Pinkerton change his name when he went out to Spain?’ asked Mrs Pargeter.
‘Well …’ Truffler phrased his words carefully. ‘I think he may have done some things that put him on the wrong side of the law.’
Mrs Pargeter tutted. ‘And my husband was always so insistent that his associates should stay on the right side of the law.’
‘I know. In Passport’s case, though, I think it was incompetence rather than criminality that let him down.’
‘Yes.’ Gary grimaced. ‘Putting his contact details in the Yellow Pages under “Forgery” didn’t help.’
Truffler Mason nodded morose agreement.
‘Hm.’ Mrs Pargeter nodded too. ‘So, what’s needed? Money to pay the funeral expenses?’
‘I think that might be handy – unless it’s already happened. But more importantly, Passport’s got this daughter called Samantha, and I gather she’s feeling the pinch.’
‘Introduce me to her,’ said Mrs Pargeter.
A man whose shoulders were so broad that he’d have looked better in a T-shirt than in the dark suit he was wearing approached their little group. Without preamble he addressed the one female member. His public school-educated voice was at odds with his bruiser-like appearance. ‘I’m told you’re the widow of the late Mr Pargeter.’
She didn’t deny it.
‘I just want to say I don’t want you talking to Lady Winthrop.’
‘I think whether I do that or not,’ said Mrs Pargeter evenly, ‘is rather up to me.’
‘But there’s nothing for you to say to her.’
‘I believe it is appropriate at such occasions to offer condolences to the bereaved.’ As well as formality, there was a new iciness in her tone.
‘Not in this case,’ the man almost snarled. ‘Keep away from her.’
There was a restlessness in the two men either side of Mrs Pargeter, both of whom reckoned the correct response to the man’s manner was a firm fist to the chin. Gary the chauffeur was already clenching his hand in preparation. But Mrs Pargeter calmed them with a gesture.
‘Anyway,’ the man went on, ‘it is not appropriate for you to speak to Lady Winthrop. You haven’t been introduced to her.’
‘If you’re a stickler for that convention,’ said Mrs Pargeter, ‘then why haven’t you introduced yourself to me?’
He was a little thrown by that and conceded his name. ‘I’m Edmund Grainger.’
‘Well, Edmund Grainger, I don’t really see why I should do what you tell me.’
‘Because if you don’t –’ his voice hissed with menace – ‘it’ll be the worse for you.’
At that threat, Truffler Mason also clenched his fists. But again she defused the tension with a gesture.
‘We’re leaving now,’ she said with considerable dignity. ‘I have never liked to stay in a place where I am not wanted.’
And she was still dignified as she led Gary and Truffler out of the room.
TWO
It was on the Friday afternoon that Mrs Pargeter went to visit Gizmo Gilbert. The voice that answered her morning call had been ancient but very precise and, when he heard the identity of his caller, suitably delighted. ‘My dear Mrs Pargeter, it would be a huge pleasure to meet you. When I think of all your late husband did for me …’ It was a litany which she had heard often, but of which she never tired. ‘So if there is anything I can do for you, Mrs Pargeter – anything at all – you have only to say the word.’
She did not think it appropriate to say that her visit concerned more what she could do for him. At least metaphorically, ‘Subtle’ remained her middle name.
The house stood out in a terrace not far from the many amateur football pitches of the Hackney Marshes. Stood out because it was the only one in the street yet to undergo ‘gentrification’. It alone still had the windows which had been put in when it was originally built (in the early Edwardian period). It alone had no coach lamps, pastel paintwork, window-boxes or designer brass knockers. Its shabbiness was defiant, and Mrs Pargeter anticipated that this defiance might be a characteristic of the house-owner she was about to meet.
She hadn’t wanted to arrive in the Bentley, so Gary had driven her there in a much less ostentatious Skoda Octavia. Even then she’d insisted that he let her out around the corner so that to Gizmo Gilbert she would appear to have arrived on foot.
The paint on the cracked front door had been white once, but was now flaking and in places worn away completely. The knocker was ancient and tarnished, but it resounded unexpectedly loudly when raised and dropped.
Gizmo Gilbert looked as though his body had been slowly eroded – as if he’d started out with normal human dimensions, which had been whittled away until now no cushion of flesh remained between his bones and their covering of parchment-like skin. The grey suit with dark stripes that he wore was floppy with age. Many new holes had been punched into his black belt to still give it some purchase on his narrow hips. The thin striped tie had ruched up the overlarge collar of his white shirt when he’d tightened it around his scrawny neck. His knuckles were swollen with arthritis.
‘Mrs Pargeter!’ he cried, his bony fingers clasping her plump ones. ‘This is such a pleasure. I never thought I’d be so lucky as to meet you, but I’ve heard so much about you from your late husband.’
‘He talked about me, did he?’ she asked, caught in a moment of emotion.
‘All the time. He swore that having you in his life made him the most fortunate creature on God’s earth.’
‘Oh,’ she said, touched.
‘But I can’t keep you standing here on the doormat. Come in, come in. Now, I’m sure you’d like a cup of tea.’
‘That would be very nice, thank you.’
The wallpaper in the hall Gizmo Gilbert led her through was shabby and worn in places, but everything in the house was spotlessly clean and there was an invigorating smell of furniture polish. He ushered her into a front parlour, the three-piece suite of which was a homage to the chintz of another era. On a tray on the small table stood a teapot encased in a silver-coloured orb with a round black ball on top, with two green Denby ware cups and saucers, matched by milk jug and sugar bowl. Rich tea biscuits were aligned on a green plate, and the tin in which they were kept was also on the tray. Its patriotic design commemorated the 1947 wedding of the future Queen Elizabeth II to Philip Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh.
Having settled Mrs Pargeter in an armchair, Gizmo Gilbert poured tea for her with hardly a tremor in his skeletal hands. She accepted the proffered rich tea biscuit – and, indeed, obeyed his injunction to ‘take two’.
When they were cosily settled, he asked again, as he had on the telephone, ‘Now, Mrs Pargeter, what can I do for you?’
‘Well …’
‘Is it something related to your late husband’s business?’
‘I suppose it is in a way, yes.’
Gizmo Gilbert’s faded eyes sparkled as he said, ‘I have been waiting a long time for this call.’
‘Oh?’
‘I had heard rumours from other former, er … work colleagues that you was continuing your late husband’s business, but only with your phone call this morning did I know that those rumours was true.’
Mrs Pargeter was very keen not to give a misleading impression. ‘They’re true to an extent, Gizmo … May I call you Gizmo?’
‘Please do.’
‘But I am not so much continuing my husband’s business as completing his unfinished business.’
‘Ah.’ There was an unmistakable note of disappointment in the monosyllable. ‘So you mean you’re not undertaking new business of the kind that your husband conducted with such brilliance?’
‘I fear not. I just don’t think I share the unique skill-set that my husband possessed.’
‘No, you’re probably right there. I don’t think anyone did. He was, in the literal sense of the word, unique.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Hm.’ The old man
wryly screwed up his thin lips. ‘I can’t deny a sense of sadness to hear you saying that the glory days will never be repeated. When I think of some of the work I did for your husband … particularly the gizmo I invented for the Shoreditch NatWest job … I get a feeling of—’
‘I’m afraid,’ Mrs Pargeter interposed gently but insistently, ‘that my husband talked to me very little about the details of his work.’
‘Ah. Ah well …’ Gizmo Gilbert still sounded nostalgic for the days that would never come again. ‘There’s something wonderful about working with people whose skills you admire, and your husband was highly skilled in what I believe is now called “team-building”. He got together the best experts in every area, all highly efficient specialists, and he nurtured their talents. That’s why he was simply the best in the business.’
Mrs Pargeter smiled gratefully. She appreciated the tact with which Gizmo Gilbert avoided being more specific about her late husband’s professional life.
‘We were a great team,’ the old man reminisced. ‘Your husband was a brilliant picker of men. A good judge of character. He hardly ever got it wrong, and when he did it was all down to his trusting nature. Being a man of such outstanding honesty himself, he found it difficult to believe that everyone else was not like him.’
Mrs Pargeter was content to let this paean to her late husband continue. The old boy was clearly enjoying it, and she was under no time pressure to get on to the real purpose of her visit.
‘Of course, one of the worst times he was betrayed – or very nearly betrayed – was in the case of “Magnet” Mitchell. Did you ever hear about that?’
Mrs Pargeter once again apologized, repeating that her husband had talked to her very little about his work.
‘Well, he was called Magnet because things had a strange habit of getting stuck to his fingers. No, give him his due, he was a brilliant burglar.’
Mrs Pargeter frowned vaguely, as if she had never before heard that last word. But Gizmo Gilbert didn’t notice her reaction and went on: ‘One of the absolute best, he was. Old Magnet could break in anywhere. If that kind of job needed doing it was Magnet your old man always called on. Result was he knew all the inside workings of the business. Mr Pargeter trusted him with everything.
‘But little did he know the serpent he was nursing in his bosom. Old Magnet was taking notes all the time, building up, like, a dossier on your husband’s empire. Do you know what he turned out to be, after all?’
‘No,’ Mrs Pargeter replied with complete honesty.
‘He was only an undercover cop, wasn’t he?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. There was a pretty big bust-up in the team when that news came out, I can tell you. About what should be done to the traitor. Your husband, who was always a man of peace, I reckoned, didn’t want to take any action. Well, not action of a violent kind, anyway. He even thought we could take advantage of Magnet’s inside knowledge of the police force, use him like a kind of double agent, get him to give us advance warning of any raids the cops were planning, that kind of thing. But not everyone in the team agreed with your old man on that. There was some young hotheads around back then, who didn’t share your husband’s dislike of violence.
‘Anyway, a few weeks after the discovery of who Magnet really was, he was killed in a crash on his motorbike. Thought to be an accident – indeed, I’m pretty sure the old coroner come up with a verdict of “accidental death” – but none of us really bought that. I don’t think your husband did either. Maybe coincidence, but soon after that a couple of youngsters we worked with – people of the pro-violence persuasion – suddenly found themselves off Mr Pargeter’s payroll. I’m still pretty sure the reason for that was they’d fixed Magnet’s death.’
Gizmo Gilbert sighed. ‘Happy days,’ he said. ‘Never been happier than when I worked for your old man. Ah well … At least I’ve still got my memories of him.’
‘As have I,’ Mrs Pargeter agreed mistily. Then, pulling herself together, she went on, ‘But I gather from Truffler Mason—’
‘Dear old Truffler. Yes, he still keeps in touch. Lovely geezer. Still always sounds like the sky’s about to fall in on him.’
‘I don’t think that’ll ever change.’
‘No. I got money on the fact nobody’ll ever see him laughing.’ The old man chuckled.
‘Anyway, Truffler told me you were being as inventive as ever. Still coming up with the gizmos, eh?’
‘Yeah, I keep my hand in. But it’s not the same. Too much competition. When your husband got me involved in using that remote-control technology it was new. Now every tinpot cat burglar reckons he’s an IT expert.’
‘Really?’ said Mrs Pargeter blandly. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, love. But Truffler implied to me that you might now be concentrating on a different area of the business?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘How did he put it? He said that you were working on inventions that had more of a … domestic than professional application.’
‘Oh, right. Yes, I’ve tried. But it’s tough. There’s a lot of competition out there. Remote controls for things round the house, they’re ten a penny. And very shoddily produced, may I say? Mostly in China. At least when I made something, it was durable. Looked pretty good and all.’
‘A work of art?’
‘Well, I’m not one to blow my own trumpet, but, though I say it myself, some of them were bloody works of art. Actually, Mrs Pargeter …’ His voice took on a new intimacy. ‘There’s something I’ve been working on recently that could have been designed absolutely with you in mind.’
‘Really?’
‘It runs on batteries, and it’s called “The Widow’s Comforter”.’
‘Is it?’ said Mrs Pargeter.
Gizmo Gilbert clearly felt more at ease in his workshop than he did in other areas of the house. The space, which appeared to take up most of the remaining ground floor, had been custom designed and was spotlessly clean. But it was not the cleanness of somewhere unused. There was an air of ongoing projects about the place, of experiments not yet fully developed. And the neatness of a proud workman who regarded tidying up at the end of it as part of a day’s work.
Round three walls of the space ran a continuous workbench, above which serried ranks of tools were slotted into their allotted places. Vices, adjustable magnifying glasses, highly focused lamps, lathes and a variety of other power tools were fixed to the bench at intervals.
Gizmo Gilbert said nothing as he led Mrs Pargeter across to a particular section of the work surface where a metal safe was affixed to the wall. Taking from his pocket a key ring adorned with a variety of small remote controls, he pressed a sequence of three and the safe door clicked open.
Inside, nestled in a purpose-built cut-out of charcoal-grey foam rubber, was a device made of lighter grey metal. About four inches long, it had the look of an oversized car fob. He slipped the gizmo out of its moulding and, cupping it in his spidery hand, held it across to Mrs Pargeter.
‘This,’ he said proudly, ‘is “The Widow’s Comforter”.’
‘Oh?’ she asked cautiously. ‘And what exactly does it do?’
‘I address you, Mrs Pargeter,’ he replied, ‘with the greatest respect, but – I hope you will not mind my using the word – as a widow.’
‘That is undeniably what I am. It may not be a role that I would have wished to take on, but yes, I am a widow.’
‘And there are many occasions when a widow must regret the absence of her deceased spouse.’
‘Undoubtedly that is true.’
‘Particularly, I would imagine, at the end of the day as the widow prepares herself for her lonely bed.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Mrs Pargeter, not entirely certain where this was going.
‘It is at such moments when that loss of a husband must be felt most keenly.’
She said nothing, waiting to see what came next.
‘There are things that only a husband can do for hi
s wife.’
A silence ensued.
‘I refer particularly to the business of getting her clothes off.’
‘Do you?’
‘And this is where my invention will prove absolutely invaluable.’
‘Oh?’
‘Many women’s dresses, I have observed over the years, Mrs Pargeter, are designed with a zip down the back.’
Mystified, she agreed.
Suddenly, Gizmo Gilbert opened another metal door on his wall to reveal, stretched downwards in a frame, a fully zipped-up zipper. ‘Press the button on “The Widow’s Comforter”, Mrs Pargeter,’ he ordered dramatically.
She did as instructed. Instantly, the zipper in the frame unzipped.
Cocky as a conjuror who has just rejoined the two parts of his saw-bisected lady, Gizmo Gilbert announced, ‘And that is what “The Widow’s Comforter” does. It works on every kind of zip so far invented. And solves for every widow the terrible problem of having no husband to unzip her dress at the end of the day!’
‘It’s brilliant,’ said Mrs Pargeter with some relief.
The inventor smiled with gratification.
‘Just one thing, though, Gizmo …’
‘What’s that?’
‘I think you ought to change the name.’
Mrs Pargeter was still holding her host’s latest invention when they returned to his front room. She graciously refused his offer to make more tea, feeling a warm glow because she had suddenly seen a way of helping Gizmo financially without threatening his proud independence. To achieve this she would need to employ a service set up by another of her late husband’s former employees.
He wasn’t really called Armitage Shanks, but (being a well-known firm of sanitary wear manufacturers) it was a popular joke name for any all-purpose actor, and so that was what his associates called him. When legitimate theatre work was unavailable (which, as for the majority of actors, was most of the time), the late Mr Pargeter would often find little jobs for Armitage Shanks to do. Jobs which took full advantage of his thespian skills. It was amazing how often there would be an opening in his business ventures for someone to play a loss adjuster, a successful investor or the victim of some unspeakable scam.
