by Simon Brett
‘We can’t ask anyone. We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s nobody about.’
‘Don’t you believe it. In my experience, it’s at moments like this that you’re most likely to come across an idiosyncratic but basically lovable rustic eyewitness.’
Even as she spoke, out of the gloaming, from behind a dilapidated cowshed near the signpost, there appeared an idiosyncratic but basically lovable rustic eyewitness. His face was as wrinkled as an over-wintered Cox’s Orange Pippin, he wore a grubby sun-bleached smock, and, through his haystack beard, a long piece of straw dangled from his toothless mouth.
‘Ooh-arr,’ he ruminated in a voice as deep and rich as caramel toffee, ‘youm beem gentreed folks from oop citified ways, doan’t ee?’
‘Excuse me,’ said Twinks.
‘Ooh-arr, me foine ladyfied gentrywooman, wocken Oi doo fur ’ee?’
‘Could you please not talk in dialect?’
‘Whoay noither?’
‘Some people find it terribly irritating.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said the idiosyncratic but basically lovable rustic eyewitness, adopting received pronunciation. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘My brother and I want to know if you’ve seen a foreign car drive this way?’
‘What kind of car would that be? A Frimmelstopf roadster?’
‘Exactly right.’
‘Well, no, I haven’t seen one.’
‘If you haven’t seen one,’ asked Blotto, ‘then why, of all the cars in the known universe, did you ask if we were looking for a Frimmelstopf roadster?’
‘I said I haven’t seen one.’ The rustic shifted his piece of straw from one side of his mouth to the other. ‘I’ve seen two.’
‘Each one driven at high speed by an identical twin?’
‘Yes, milady, exactly right.’
‘And did either of them also have a young woman travelling as a passenger?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘So which one?’ asked Blotto desperately.
‘The one that had a young woman travelling as a passenger was the first one that drove past at high speed.’
‘Zoltan,’ murmured Twinks.
‘And the second one contained only a driver.’
‘Bogdan,’ murmured Twinks.
‘And if you want closer identification,’ said the obliging rustic, ‘the driver of the first Frimmelstopf roadster had an old duelling scar bisecting his right eyebrow, and the driver of the second Frimmelstopf roadster had a small mole on his left earlobe.’
‘It must be them!’ cried Blotto. ‘Or two people who’re very good at disguise!’
‘But which way did they go?’ demanded Twinks.
‘Ah, milady, I would have thought someone with a deductive intellect like yours could have worked that out for yourself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, in a kidnap situation, where an individual is planning to abduct an ex-Princess and take her to the Continent, given the choice of “Smattering Beach” and “Smattering Harbour”, don’t you think most people –?’
‘Smattering Harbour!’ Twinks exclaimed.
‘Exactly right, milady. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have other people to tell what I’ve eyewitnessed and point in the right direction.’
‘Yes, of course.’
And the idiosyncratic but basically lovable rustic eyewitness again disappeared into the gloaming behind the dilapidated cowshed.
‘What a helpful man,’ said Blotto, as he targeted the Lagonda like a missile down the narrow lane signposted ‘Smattering Harbour’.
On the edge of the sea wall stood a tar-covered fisherman’s shack. Outside it untidily, as though parked in haste, stood two Frimmelstopf roadsters, steam still rising from their gleaming bonnets. Just as Blotto and Twinks’s Lagonda arrived on the scene, they heard from inside the shack the sound of a gunshot.
11
The Tale of a Twin
The space inside was gothically draped with hanging fishing nets and smelt, to Blotto’s nose, like fish (or was it guests?) who had outstayed their welcome by some months. The only illumination came from an ancient oil lamp hooked to a convenient rafter. This trickled a watery light on to a long figure in a black uniform, crumpled into a broken-backed chair, and caught the gleam of the fresh blood that pumped from his chest.
‘It’s Bogdan,’ murmured Twinks. ‘Can’t you see that the blood that’s pouring out of him is a different blood group from what is already caked on to the front of his uniform?’
‘No,’ murmured Blotto.
The tall bodyguard turned at the sound of their voices. ‘Ah,’ he said in a voice out of whose sides air seemed to be leaking. ‘So you have caught up with me?’
‘Yes,’ replied Blotto. ‘And we are glad to see that your crimes have been discovered and your dastardly plans foiled.’
‘I do not understand what you mean.’
‘It’s quite simple,’ said Twinks coolly. ‘Do you deny that you poisoned Captain Schtoltz?’
‘No, I do not deny it.’
‘And that this morning you stabbed to death the treacherous footman Pottinger.’
‘I did that as well, yes.’
‘Well then,’ said Blotto, ‘you must understand what I mean. Your crimes have been discovered and your dastardly plans foiled.’
‘I do not understand,’ the bleeding man wheezed, ‘what dastardly plans you are talking about.’
‘Do you deny,’ Twinks demanded implacably, ‘that you have driven down here to the south coast in pursuit of your brother Zoltan and the ex-Princess Ethelinde?’
‘I do not deny that either. My brother Zoltan is my sworn enemy. He opposes everything I believe in.’ He looked down at the blood bubbling merrily out of his chest. ‘It is he who has done this to me.’
‘Well,’ said Blotto, ‘I know it doesn’t do to hit a chap when he’s down, but I do have to say that I think your brother has done the world a service.’
‘No, he has not! Zoltan is a traitor! What he has done has struck at the heart of the Kingdom of Mitteleuropia.’
‘Wouldn’t you say,’ asked Twinks coolly, ‘that killing Captain Schtoltz and Pottinger were also acts that struck at the heart of the Kingdom of Mitteleuropia?’
‘No, I am a patriot! Everything I have done has been in the service of the King of Mitteleuropia!’
‘Ah yes, but which King? There seem to be at least two contenders for that title.’
‘There is only one true King of Mitteleuropia!’
Twinks shook her head sagely. ‘The supporters of the opposing faction say exactly the same thing.’
‘Listen –’
‘No, you listen, please, Bogdan Grittelhoff! I want to tell you about your crimes and the reasons why you committed them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it is something I usually do at this stage of the proceedings.’
‘But I am bleeding to death.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I won’t go into all the details. Right, listen carefully. Though you have the job of bodyguard to ex-King Sigismund, you have always –’
‘But I do not –’
Twinks raised a patient hand. ‘Please let me finish. Though you are his bodyguard, you are in fact in the pay of the vile usurper King Vlatislav. Since ex-King Sigismund’s deposition you have been sailing under false colours. You will do anything to prevent the restoration of ex-King Sigismund to his birthright, the throne of Mitteleuropia. So, when the ex-King despatched Captain Schtoltz on a secret mission to help his cause, you prevented that mission from being fulfilled by poisoning the messenger. Then you plotted with the treacherous Pottinger to kidnap ex-Princess Ethelinde. But you fell out with your co-conspirator, probably because he demanded money to stop him revealing your plans – the footman class is always doing that kind of thing – and stabbed him to death. Then you drove down here to snatch the ex-Princess Ethelinde from the protection of your honest and honourable brother Zoltan. But h
e, I am glad to say, has foiled your evil intentions by shooting you.’ There was a long pause, and then Twinks asked the question she always enjoyed asking in these circumstances. There is nothing so gratifying for an amateur sleuth as that moment when the criminal admits that you’ve sewn up the whole case. ‘So am I right?’
‘No,’ Bogdan Grittelhoff gasped. ‘You are completely wrong!’
‘Well, you would say that. Lying’s part of being a stencher like you.’
‘You listen to me now, milady’ The dying Mittel-europian’s manner was so authoritative that Twinks was silent. ‘You think I planned to kidnap Her Royal Highness Princess Ethelinde?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry to butt in, but shouldn’t that be Her ex-Royal Highness? Or actually,’ Blotto mused, ‘should that be Her Royal ex-Highness . . .? I mean, is it the “Royalness” or the “Highness” that is “ex”? Or indeed both of them? Should we perhaps be referring to “Her ex-Royal ex-Highness” . . .?’
‘It does not matter!’ cried Bogdan Grittelhoff passionately. ‘And so far as I’m concerned, ex-King Sigismund is not an “ex-King”, anyway. He is still the rightful monarch of Mitteleuropia. It is the vile usurper Vlatislav who will soon be the “ex-King”!’
‘What?’ asked Twinks, the roses fading from her cheeks.
But Blotto was not about to have his train of logic derailed. ‘Except . . .’ he pointed out, ‘that if Vlatislav is, as you say, a usurper, he’s never actually been a “King”, so he can’t really be an “ex-King”.’ Then he added helpfully, ‘He could be an “ex-usurper”, if you like.’
‘We are wasting time,’ hissed Bogdan Grittelhoff, ‘and what you seem to forget is that I am dying here!’
‘Yes. Sorry. Just thought it was an interesting point of protocol.’ An idea came to Blotto. ‘And now you come to mention it, I suppose you’ll soon be an ex-bodyguard. And, if you’re actually dying, an ex-person.’
‘Never mind that,’ said Twinks. ‘Bogdan Grittelhoff, you claimed just then to be a supporter of ex-King Sigismund –’
‘Of King Sigismund, for heaven’s sake! I am the loyal one. It is my brother Zoltan who is the traitor!’
‘Are you telling us –?’
‘I am telling you, milady, the truth.’
‘But –’
‘And you will hear me out, just as I had the good manners to hear you out!’ The effort of this shout seemed to have increased the flow of blood, which had now seeped through his trousers and was pooling on the dusty floor around his feet.
‘Would you like us to staunch that?’ asked Twinks, rather belatedly. ‘I’m sure we could find some towels or table cloths . . . or whatever it is that servants put on wounds.’
‘No!’ the man replied stoutly. ‘A Grittelhoff knows when to die!’
‘Oh, that’s all right then. If you can manage to get your explanation out before you do . . . well, it would be frightfully convenient . . .’
Bogdan Grittelhoff took a deep, rasping breath. ‘It took a long time for me to believe in the duplicity of my brother Zoltan. We were together from the womb.’
Blotto coughed discreetly. ‘There’s no need for language like that. There is a lady present, and ladies shouldn’t know about things like wombs.’
But the dying man ignored him. ‘We were twin fruits of the same stem. In everything we were together. We are both, I believe from birth, loyal to the ruling dynasty of Mitteleuropia. It is only in the past few days that I have come to understand the depths of my brother’s duplicity.’
‘What, while you were at Tawcester Towers?’
‘Exactly, milady. Only a few days ago I overhear Zoltan talking to Captain Schtoltz. The Captain has been given a secret mission by King Sigismund. He was to infiltrate the court of the Vlatislav in Zling and to assassinate the usurper. But then I hear that he and my brother have other plans. In fact, Captain Schtoltz was also in the usurper’s pay, and the mission on which he was really going back to Mitteleuropia was to find an assassin who will return with him to kill King Sigismund!’
‘At Tawcester Towers?’ asked Blotto, shocked.
‘Yes.’
‘But, I mean, getting to Mitteleuropia and back, not to mention finding an assassin . . . well, that’s all going to take a week or so . . .’
‘Undoubtedly.’
Blotto looked appalled. ‘And ex-King Sigismund and his lot were still reckoning to be at Tawcester Towers in a week or so? That long? I mean, there’s some proverb thingie about fish and chips or –’
Twinks cut across him. ‘So that was why you killed Captain Schtoltz?’
‘Of course. To protect the rightful King of Mitteleuropia!’
‘And why did you kill Pottinger?’
‘Because I overhear him too. In conversation with my brother Zoltan. And they are planning to kidnap Princess Ethelinde!’
‘So,’ said Blotto slowly, ‘your dash down here in the Frimmelstopf roadster – nice car by the way, but I’m afraid not a patch on the Lagonda – was to prevent the ex-Princess being kidnapped by your brother?’
‘Of course!’ Again the shout weakened him. His breath now came with the creak of leaking bellows. ‘And nearly I succeed. Zoltan is here with the girl, waiting for the motor launch which will spirit them away to the Continental shore, and thence to Zling where the girl will be in the clutches of her evil uncle, the vile usurper Vlatislav!’
‘Was the ex-Princess –?’
‘Milady, she is still the Princess,’ he moaned.
‘Very well. The Princess . . . was she aware that Zoltan meant her no good? Because apparently she left Tawcester Towers with him willingly.’
‘By the time I arrived to save her, she had worked out for herself that my brother was up to no good.’
‘Erm, you say,’ Blotto ventured, ‘“by the time I arrived to save her”, but, erm . . . well, looking round, it doesn’t look as if you succeeded in saving her.’
‘No. There is no end to my brother Zoltan’s treachery. I tell him the only way to settle our dispute is to fight a duel. That is the Mitteleuropian way when there is a dispute between brothers . . . as I am sure it is the way in all civilized countries.’
‘Well, no, actually,’ said Blotto, ‘quite often here the two boddos’ll each get another ten boddos together . . .’
‘And have a pitched battle, yes?’
‘No, have a game of cricket, actually. Amazing how cricket takes away all the . . .’ He struggled for the right expression.
‘Will to live?’ suggested Bogdan Grittelhoff.
‘No, no. Annie Something . . .?’
‘Animosity?’
‘That’s the fellow, Twinks. Thanks. Anyway, after a good game of cricket . . . Were you actually there that night when I explained the rules over dinner, because if you weren’t, I could happily give you a quick –’
‘I don’t think the gentleman has time for the rules of cricket,’ said Twinks softly. She looked across at the spreading pool of blood. ‘Or much else, come to that.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘So, Mr Grittelhoff, I gather you fought a duel for the Princess and lost?’
‘I did not lose, milady! Unless it is losing to be shot by your opponent before you have even turned and started pacing away.’
‘That is not losing. It is bad luck.’
‘And it wouldn’t happen in cricket,’ Blotto pointed out, ‘because in cricket there are rules for . . .’
The rest of his sentence was quenched by a look from his sister. For a moment the only sounds in the room were the rattling gasp from Bogdan Grittelhoff’s throat and the soft dripping of his blood on to the floor. Then Twinks spoke again. ‘So the important question is – where are your brother Zoltan and the ex-Princess Ethelinde now?’
With a supernatural effort of will, Bogdan Grittelhoff rose to his feet and pointed out of the hut’s cobweb-shrouded window. His hand stretched outwards in a gesture of futile heroism, as he cried, ‘There!’
; As they rushed to the window, Blotto and Twinks heard the thump of his body hitting the floor. They didn’t really have time to think that, as last words, ‘There!’ hardly won the coconut. Very unlikely to make it into a Dictionary of Quotations.
There was just enough light over the harbour for them to see dark-suited sailors cast the motor launch off from its moorings. They heard the roar of its powerful engines as the boat sped contemptuously away from the south coast.
And they saw, pathetically outlined against the stern rail, the forlorn figure of Her Royal Highness ex-Princess Ethelinde.
Or possibly, thought Blotto, Her ex-Royal ex-Highness ex-Princess Ethelinde.
12
The Family Honour
‘The fact is, Blotto,’ said the Dowager Duchess, ‘that we have to do something about it.’
‘Yes, Mater.’ Her son sounded subdued, as though he were still at school and had just been accused of roasting a smaller boy over his study fire.
‘Or rather,’ she went on, ‘you have to do something about it. The family honour is at stake. I know he’s only an ex-King, but if it gets round the courts of Europe that guests are not safe at Tawcester Towers . . . well, what kind of a reputation will the Dukes of Tawcester have? And obviously Loofah can’t do anything . . .’
Blotto agreed there. Loofah could never do anything. Except be Duke, and that didn’t take much doing. When it came to adventures, the younger brother was the family specialist. Though from what his mother said next, Blotto realized that wasn’t her reasoning.
‘. . . because we can’t risk the succession by him doing something potentially fatal. No, Loofah’s job is to stay here and concentrate on getting Sloggo pregnant with a boy. He can’t be gallivanting off on potentially fatal missions to Mitteleuropia. So it’ll have to be you.’
Blotto wasn’t offended by this. The Dowager Duchess was of the class that was never sentimental about children. And none of them would have questioned that the loss of a younger son was a small price to pay for the preservation of the family honour.
‘I’m happy to do it, Mater. In fact, it’ll be a privilege. Because I do in a way feel responsible for what happened to the poor girl.’
