by Simon Brett
The two subordinates, with the automatic compliance to aristocratic instructions which also had a long history, retired from the room, closing the door behind them.
‘Well, Whiffler,’ said Blotto cheerfully, ‘we’re rolling on camomile lawns, aren’t we?’
‘In what way?’ asked his old muffin-toaster.
‘Great Wilberforce, I’ve found you, haven’t I? I’ve been looking for you, and I’ve found you! I have completed my quest. My quest to locate Giles “Whiffler” Tortington has been completed. I feel like one of King Arthur’s knights actually placing his stickies on the Holy Gruel.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Whiffler, not totally convinced.
‘Oh, come on. There’s nothing to go all bliss-bereft about. We only have to get out of this place, and life can continue on the straight track to Paradise Mountain.’
‘Things aren’t that jammy, Blotters. I’ve been here for days and days, trying to work out how to escape, and there isn’t a cranny for a woodlouse to crawl through.’
Blotto was in no mood to be disheartened. ‘This place’ll be as easy to get out of as a one-bush maze.’
‘Oh yes? You appear not to have noticed that I am handcuffed to a radiator. You’ve got handcuffs on too. You’ll have to get out of those before you start thinking of escaping.’
‘No hitch there. Boddoes like me can always unlock handcuffs with a bent hairpin.’
‘I haven’t seen too many hairpins, bent or otherwise, in this fumacious swamp-hole.’
‘Don’t be dump-downed. Where’s the carefree Whiffler with whom I used to toast muffins at Eton?’
‘Far from carefree. And so would you be, if you’d been in this clammy corner as long as I have. On a diet of ham sandwiches – without mustard!’ Blotto winced at the idea of such cruel deprivation. ‘And it’s particularly vexing, since I haven’t got a mouse-squeak of an idea why I’ve been locked up in here.’
‘Oh, I might be able to uncage the ferrets on that one, Whiffler. I think Pierre Labouze and Everard Stoop are behind this little plot. You know who I mean?’
‘Of course I do. The producer and writer of Light and Frothy.’
‘Exactly. Give that pony a rosette! Well, they’ve got a rather devious wheeze on the wire, and that’s why they’ve had you kidnapped. The juice of it is: they want to marry you to a showgirl!’
‘But that’s all I want, Blotters. I want to be married to a showgirl!’
Blotto hadn’t considered this before, but Whiffler’s words made him realise that there actually was some beef in it. ‘Good ticket,’ he agreed.
‘The only slice of cheesecake I ask for in life is to be married to Frou-Frou Gavotte!’
‘Yes, but suppose these stenchers are lining you up in the traps to be married to some other showgirl . . . ?’
‘That would absolutely be the flea’s armpit.’
‘Well, don’t let’s don our worry-boots about it now, Whiffler me old pot-spurtle. First tick on the to-do is to get out of this place.’
‘There is no way out of this place!’
‘Oh, really, Whiffler! Don’t put a damp sock in the trumpet. Where’s the Tortington spirit that won the Battle of Bosworth Field?’
‘Actually, the Tortingtons didn’t win the Battle of Bosworth Field. We were on the other team – Yorkists: White Rose, don’t you know?’
‘Ah.’ The Lyminsters had actually been Lancastrians – Red Rose, and therefore on the winning side. But Blotto didn’t think it was the moment to revive old rivalries from 1485. Instead, he said, ‘Come on, Whiffler! Gird up the sinew! We’ve only got two men in black to beat!’
‘Make that three.’
They hadn’t heard the door open, but both turned to see, in its frame, a third man in black.
16
A Political Criminal
Lurking behind the newcomer were the two guards, and also a man with a dog collar and the face of a boxer (canine or pugilistic, take your pick). Whiffler knew who this last was, though Blotto had never seen him before. The way the three of them stood left no doubt that the man in front was in charge. He was not tall, but very muscular, and he had the kind of large moustache which Joseph Stalin would go on to make popular (or unpopular, according to your point of view). Pockmarks made his face look as though it had been used as a rifle range.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Barmy Evans.’ His voice was rough, but still had the slight singsong quality of the Welsh valleys where he had grown up.
Since neither Blotto nor Whiffler had heard his name before, it did not strike into their hearts the terror which it rightly should have done.
‘Chain that one!’
The two men in black moved so quickly that Blotto hadn’t time to stop them from chaining him by his handcuffs to the end of the radiator not occupied by Whiffler.
‘The time has come,’ Evans went on, stroking his luxuriant moustache, ‘to decide what’s going to happen to you two.’
‘I think I may be a move ahead of you on the chessboard here,’ said Blotto, feeling rather proud of himself. Twinks had warned him off trying to pursue the investigation, and here he was, having wormed his way into the villains’ lair. So, snubbins to her! ‘I think I know, Mr Evans, your plans for my friend here, Giles “Whiffler” Tortington.’
‘Oh, do you?’
‘Yes, it’s all part of a wocky scheme you’ve worked out with those four-faced filchers, Pierre Labouze and Everard Stoop.’
‘Is it?’
‘Bong on the nose it is. You’re planning to marry Whiffler off to a showgirl, who’ll then pay you murdy lumps of toadspawn a percentage of her new-found wealth.’
The looks exchanged by the two men in black and the dog-collared one showed Blotto that he was on the right track.
‘Congratulations on your research,’ said Barmy Evans drily. ‘That’s exactly what we’re planning to do. That’s why the Reverend Enge’s here – to take Mr Tortington off to his wedding.’
Whiffler’s red face took on tones of patriotic blue and white as he boldly protested. ‘I’d rather die than twiddle the old reef-knot with someone I don’t want to marry!’
Blotto recognised the moment when support for one of his old muffin-toasters was required. ‘And I will lay my life on the line too, to foil your fumacious plots!’ How he would do this, while handcuffed to a radiator, was not something he considered. Only cowards (or sensible people) would allow themselves to think like that, in the face of danger.
Whiffler continued, channelling the valiant spirit with which the Tortingtons had lost the Battle of Bosworth Field. ‘The only person I am ever going to marry is Frou-Frou Gavotte!’
There was a shocked silence, before Barmy Evans said, ‘Actually, it’s Frou-Frou Gavotte we are going to marry you to.’
‘Great galumphing goatherds!’ said Whiffler.
‘Toad-in-the-hole!’ said Blotto.
‘Release him,’ said Barmy Evans.
One of the men in black moved forward with a key to detach the prisoner from the radiator.
‘So, are you telling me, Mr Evans,’ asked Whiffler, rubbing his wrists where the cuffs had chafed, ‘that I was kidnapped outside the Pocket Theatre with the sole purpose of getting me married to Frou-Frou Gavotte?’
‘Well, yes,’ the criminal mastermind was forced to admit.
Giles ‘Whiffler’ Tortington stepped forward. ‘May I shake you by the hand? You’re a Grade A foundation stone.’
Awkwardly, Barmy Evans allowed his hand to be shaken.
‘So, shall I take him to the church?’ asked the Reverend Enge. ‘Just like we planned?’
‘Yes,’ said his boss testily. ‘Get them married as soon as possible.’
‘Praise be to sausages!’ said the ecstatic Whiffler.
‘And there won’t be any problem,’ asked the Reverend Enge, ‘with you signing a contract with us, agreeing to give ten per cent of your family income?’
‘No problem at all,’ said the ecstatic Whiffler.
‘The Earl of Hartlepool’s so loaded that it wouldn’t be more than a fleabite to him,’ observed Barmy Evans with a grim chuckle.
‘So, everybody’s rolling on camomile lawns,’ said the ecstatic Whiffler.
Blotto didn’t think the miscreants should be let off that easily. ‘You may think you’re very clever, Mr Evans, but in fact you have slightly plumped for the wrong plum here.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘You’ll be on ten per cent of all Whiffler’s jingle-jangle . . .’
‘That is my understanding, yes.’
‘. . . which you think will be ten per cent of all the income from the Little Tickling estate, when his Aged P shuffles off the old mortal . . .’
‘Exactly.’
‘But, in fact, you’ve been rather hoist with your own petunia.’
‘Oh?’
‘You see,’ said Blotto, presenting his pay-off with great aplomb, ‘Whiffler is planning to renounce the title, so he won’t inherit anything!’
Funny, although he wasn’t necessarily the most intellectually gifted denizen of the planet, Blotto could sometimes be surprisingly sensitive to the expressions on people’s faces. And it took only one look at Whiffler’s to tell him he’d said the wrong thing.
Blotto had heard the phrase ‘a brow like thunder’, but had never seen such a thing before the one which was now erupting on Barmy Evans’s forehead, and echoing around the local mountaintops. ‘Is this true?’ the villain demanded.
‘Well, erm . . . erm . . . erm . . .’ was the total of the repartee that Whiffler could come up with.
‘So, am I to take him off to get married?’ asked the Reverend Enge.
‘Certainly not! Tell me, Mr Tortington, is your mother still alive?’
‘No, I’m afraid she tumbled off the trailer some years back.’
‘And is it your intention, when your father dies, to renounce the Earldom?’
Whiffler, honest to the sloes of his Argyle golfing socks, could not deny that it was.
‘Guns!’ said Barmy Evans suddenly.
Clearly, it was an order his henchmen had heard before. Instantly, revolvers appeared in the hands of the two men in black. They materialised too for Barmy Evans, and even for the Reverend Enge.
Evans nodded to one of the guards. ‘Take this specimen . . .’ he gestured to Whiffler ‘to the other room.’
‘And shoot him?’ the men in black suggested.
‘No, you idiot! You’re far too keen on shooting people. I heard you even tried to take a pot-shot at this same toff in the Pocket Theatre some days back.’
‘It seemed a good opportunity. I thought—’
‘You’re not paid to think. You’re paid to obey orders. I’m the one who decides who lives and who dies. Got that?’
The chastened man in black mumbled that, yes, he had got it. He gestured towards Whiffler. ‘So, what do I do with this toff?’
‘Manacle him!’
And, before Blotto had time to intervene, his protesting muffin-toaster had been dragged away to the next room.
‘You,’ Barmy Evans barked at the other man in black, ‘get together some of the boys, and go and abduct the Earl of Hartlepool!’ The man exited straight away.
‘Rev,’ Evans went on, to the battered clergyman. ‘As soon as we’ve got the Earl, you marry him to Frou-Frou – right?’
‘Right, boss. Do you want me to stay?’
‘No. You go and help the boys abducting the Earl of Hartlepool. They’re useless. I’ve never met anyone with less brainpower than they’ve got.’
Blotto, well aware of his own deficiencies in the intellectual department, didn’t think it was the moment to contest this statement.
‘Right-ho, boss.’ The clergyman disappeared.
Barmy Evans stroked his moustache, as he took a long, assessing look at Blotto. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I have to decide what to do about you.’
‘Well, sorry to put lumps in your custard, but I’m not worth marrying off to anyone. I’m the second son, you see, and—’
‘I know all that,’ Evans growled. ‘You weren’t abducted to get married.’
‘Oh? Then why was I abducted?’
‘You were abducted because you’ve been fingering my property. Dolly Diller. And I have a special way of dealing with people who finger my property.’
Broken biscuits, thought Blotto.
But he was only downcast for a moment. As ever, his sunny disposition quickly reasserted itself. He was unarmed, chained to a radiator, alone in a room with a homicidal career-criminal carrying a gun.
Those were the kind of odds Devereux Lyminster enjoyed. If only he’d had his cricket bat with him . . .
When she got back to the Savoy, Twinks tried ringing through to her brother’s suite but got no reply. She called Reception and was told that Mr Lyminster’s key was still hanging on the board there. And no, he had given no indication of where he would be spending the day.
Twinks was worried. Though she had given Blotto specific instructions not to do any investigating off his own bat, she knew his chivalric – not to say ‘quixotic’ – nature too well to have full confidence that he would have followed her advice. He was more than capable of having dived into another gluepot.
She crossed the landing and, extracting her skeleton keys from her sequinned reticule, had no difficulty in gaining access to her brother’s suite. She did not need to go into the bedroom. Though she hadn’t quite known what she was looking for, she found it on the desk in the sitting room: a Savoy notepad on the top page of which was written, in fountain pen, ‘Detective Inspector Craig Dewar’, and a telephone number.
Not even going back to her own suite to make the call, Twinks asked the hotel switchboard to connect her to the Inspector. ‘Is that Scotland Yard?’ she asked.
Her question was greeted by a raucous laugh from the other end of the line. ‘Is this Scotland Yard? Yes, of course it is, darlin’.’
‘Could I speak to Detective Inspector Craig Dewar, please?’
‘Detective Inspector Craig Dewar?’ There was more laughter and shushing heard from the other end of the line, then a sober-sounding voice said, ‘This is Detective Inspector Craig Dewar. Who am I speaking to?’
‘My name is Honoria Lyminster.’
‘Ah. I’m assuming you are the sister of Mr Devereux Lyminster?’
‘You’re bong on the nose there.’
‘And are you calling me because your brother asked you to do so?’
‘No, I’m calling because my brother seems to have disappeared.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘This morning.’
‘Well, I don’t think we need be sending out the search parties yet, Miss Lyminster. I’m sure there are plenty of distractions in London to keep a young man away from his hotel for a few hours and—’
‘I am calling you, Inspector, because I believe that my brother has been abducted.’
‘Oh yes? And who might he have been abducted by?’
‘Barmy Evans.’
‘We’d better meet,’ said Detective Inspector Craig Dewar tersely.
It was too late at night to telephone most people, but Twinks knew that she would instantly get through to Professor Erasmus Holofernes in his rooms at St Raphael’s College, Oxford. He would by then have dined at High Table with his Senior Common Room colleagues and be back in his room, hard at research amidst the chaos of papers and correspondence through which only he could find his way.
As anticipated, the Professor was delighted by her call. ‘My dear Twinks, what a pleasure it is to hear from you. In Oxford, I find I am constantly surrounded by the babbling of second-rate minds. What a blessed relief it is to talk to someone who is my intellectual equal.’
She made no comment on what he said. It had never been her habit to be coy about accepting compliments, particularly when – as in this case – he spoke no less than the truth. ‘Razzy,’ she said, ‘I wonder if I could impose on your go
od nature to do some research for me?’
‘It would be no imposition at all. It has to be more interesting than what I have on my desk right now.’
‘Why, what are you working on?’
‘Oh, it’s just a petition I’ve had from the League of Nations. They want my advice on how to achieve world peace. Boring, boring, boring.’ There was the sound of a considerable tonnage of papers hitting the floor. ‘There! All that’s off my desk. So, what do you want me to research for you, Twinks?’
‘It concerns a lump of toadspawn who’s running various wocky operations in London.’
‘Excellent! Much more interesting. As you know, I have extensive contacts in the London underworld.’
‘That’s why I’m asking you, Razzy. I knew it’d be your size of pyjamas.’
‘So, what’s the name of the rotter you want me to spill the beans on?’ There was a new excitement in the voice of Professor Erasmus Holofernes. World peace could go hang. This was the kind of investigation that really got his juices flowing.
Twinks replied, ‘Barmy Evans.’
There was a long silence, and when the Professor answered, it was in a much more subdued tone. ‘I don’t need to do any extra research to tell you about him, Twinks.’
And he spelled out to her the full extent of Barmy Evans’s evil.
While there have been many politicians who have used their position to further their criminal intentions, there have been relatively few criminals whose motivation was political. But Barmy Evans was one of that select band.
It did, though, take a while for Blotto to work this out. But then it took a while for Blotto to work most things out.
One of the reasons for his slowness of perception in this particular case was that Blotto’s own political convictions were rather vague. In fact, if he were ever asked about the subject, he would probably have said that he didn’t have any politics. He had just grown up believing the obvious: that, by birth, the aristocracy were superior to everyone else, so it was natural that they should own more land and money than everyone else, and it was equally natural that everyone else should work very hard to maintain the aristocracy in the manner to which, over the centuries, they had become accustomed. Within his social circle, Blotto very rarely met anyone who thought any differently.
