Blotto, Twinks and the Intimate Revue

by Simon Brett

  Which it always did. The pipe-maker in the arcade off Jermyn Street was too concerned with its reputation to risk giving short measure.

  Once the Earl was satisfied that the order met his requirements, he would sign a cheque to settle the bill. Then, after he had left, the pipe-maker’s staff would take the matchboxes out of the shop and put them in the dickie of the ancient Rolls-Royce waiting, with its patient chauffeur, at the Jermyn Street end of the arcade.

  Preoccupied with his counting and cheque-signing that particular morning, the Earl of Hartlepool did not notice the large gathering of men in black in the arcade outside the pipe-maker’s. And, since he was unaware that there was anything he needed to evade, the suggestion he put to the proprietor was not part of any evasion tactic.

  ‘Next port of call’s my tailor in Savile Row. Be quicker if I go out the back way.’

  The proprietor assented readily. He was always relieved when his most lucrative client left the premises. So he ushered the Earl of Hartlepool out of the back door into a little alleyway that linked up with Piccadilly.

  It took a while before a member of the Reverend Enge’s army noticed that they could no longer see their quarry inside the shop. At once, all drawing their revolvers, the men in black rushed in.

  They made all the staff raise their hands, and demanded forcibly to be told where the Earl of Hartlepool had gone. The proprietor, realising that the invading troops wished no good to his best customer, prevaricated to buy time.

  This did not go down well with the most hot-headed of the men in black, who reckoned the sound of a gunshot might speed up the proprietor’s processes of recollection. He discharged a couple of warning shots into the pile of matchboxes.

  In cricketing circles, there is a much-repeated story of a batsman whose trousers burst into flames because a ball struck him on the pocket in which he was carrying a box of ‘non-safety’ matches. Whether true or – more probably – apocryphal, it does make the point that matches can be ignited by a sharp concussion rather than the traditional striking against a rough surface.

  Now, though a single match-head, when struck, creates only a small flame, adequate for the lighting of a pipe, a candle or a gas ring, the effect of more of them igniting simultaneously is more dramatic. And the effect of a bullet crashing into a thousand boxes of them, each containing an average of forty-eight matches, is nothing less than cataclysmic.

  So it proved in what had, only minutes before, been a pipe-maker’s shop in an arcade off Jermyn Street.

  The Earl heard a dull boom from somewhere. He looked up at the perfect blue sky, in anticipation of the accompanying lightning flash, then remembered that lightning had a habit of coming before thunder. Strange, he thought, as he continued blithely towards his tailor in Savile Row.

  18

  The Map of Doom

  It was hard to estimate who was the most bored – Blotto, Twinks and Whiffler, or the two men in black under instructions to stop them plotting. As the stomach-rumbles around the room became more frequent, it was the guards that cracked first. ‘We’re going to the kitchen now,’ said one.

  ‘To make some more ham sandwiches,’ said the other.

  Whiffler Tortington groaned. He had suffered more than the new arrivals from the constant diet of ham sandwiches (without mustard, by all that’s holy!).

  ‘So, no talking,’ the first guard told them.

  ‘Or plotting,’ added his colleague, as they both left the room.

  Obviously ignoring their strictures, Twinks immediately whispered, ‘I’ve had it going round and round in my mind all morning. Even though we know what Barmy Evans is out to achieve, we don’t know what’ll be his first move.’

  ‘No, we’re right the wrong end of the sink plunger there,’ Blotto agreed.

  ‘Up a gum-tree without a paddle,’ Whiffler added.

  Twinks’s perfect forehead wrinkled in frustration. ‘If only we knew his master plan . . .’

  ‘Yes, if only we did,’ Blotto agreed. ‘But we’re as much in the dark as a black cat in a coal cellar with a mask on.’

  Then, very slowly, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud and irradiating the surface of a lake, recollection smoothed his furrowed brow. ‘Actually, Twinks me old egg-poacher, I do know where his master plan is.’

  There was no point in her berating him for not mentioning this fact earlier. But once he had told her, it was a matter of moments for Twinks to produce from her sequinned reticule a set of skeleton keys. With one, she deftly released herself from the handcuffs. She then quickly found the right one to unlock the roll-top desk in the corner of the room.

  She extracted a sheaf of papers, including a large folded map. This she opened, and what she saw provoked a very unladylike ‘Great whiffling water rats!’

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Blotto. ‘Come on, uncage the ferrets!’

  ‘Wait, Blotters. There’s a lot of guff here I’ve got to cram in the brainbox. I’ll hit you with the headlines when I’ve read it all.’

  ‘Twinks,’ asked Whiffler, rather plaintively, ‘couldn’t you just let us out of these bracelets?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘First things first.’

  She read in silence for a full five minutes, impervious to the pleading expressions on the faces of her two manacled companions. Then, just when she was about to speak, hearing the exterior door of the house being opened, she quickly replaced the papers, relocked the desk, and attached her handcuffs back to the radiator. She had only just completed these manoeuvres when the room door opened to admit Barmy Evans.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, with a joviality which didn’t reach as far as his eyes.

  Having been duly measured up for his wedding suit, the Earl then made his way to Rules. He had rather regretted agreeing to the luncheon date with the Countess of Lytham St Annes, but in the event, it proved to be a pleasant – and illuminating – encounter. He was in a considerably more composed mood as he got into the Rolls-Royce in which his chauffeur had been patiently waiting throughout the lunch.

  Since he had enjoyed a couple of pre-prandial Scotches, the lion’s share of a bottle of 1889 Mouton Rothschild, and a couple of post-prandial cognacs, the Earl was in no mood for conversation. ‘Don’t talk to me till we get to Little Tickling,’ he said.

  The chauffeur, brought up from birth to habits of obedience, did as instructed. So the Earl of Hartlepool remained blissfully unaware that there were no matchboxes in the Rolls-Royce. Or indeed that the pipe-maker’s shop where he had purchased them no longer existed.

  Barmy Evans, on the other hand, had heard what happened in the arcade off Jermyn Street, and was very unhappy about it. He accused Blotto and Twinks of somehow being involved in causing the conflagration. Both were able, in all honesty, to deny the charge, but Evans clearly didn’t believe them.

  ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter,’ he snarled. ‘Your fate has already been decided, the fate of you and all the rest of the useless spongers. I’ve just moved my schedule forward a bit, that’s all.’

  ‘Your schedule being to take the jam off the biscuit for all the aristocrats in this country?’ suggested Twinks coolly.

  Evans looked slightly surprised at how much she knew, but came back hard with, ‘Exactly that!’

  ‘And I would rather imagine,’ Twinks went on, ‘it’s creamy éclair for you that today’s a Saturday.’ Again, he looked taken aback. ‘With the House of Lords not sitting, and its members having pongled back to their country estates . . . where you can clamp the bracelets on all of them.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Barmy Evans could not stop himself from looking across to the locked roll-top desk. With sudden anger, he demanded, ‘Has one of the guards been talking?’

  ‘No, no, you can’t blame your brain-bereft bouncers for this.’ Twinks looked magnificent as she faced up to the villain. ‘I’ve just done a lot of research, and I know everything about your murdy machinations.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Ye
s, in deed and word. I know about your map of all the stately homes on the British Isles.’

  Again, he asked, ‘How? How do you know that?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I’ve got a power which, compared to yours, is a Howitzer to a pea-shooter.’ She, too, looked at the roll-top desk. ‘You understand the principle of this new discovery of the X-ray, don’t you, Mr Evans?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ he conceded.

  ‘Well, I have X-ray powers in my eyes. And nothing as shimsy as a locked desk can prevent me from reading your secret plans.’ Twinks wasn’t quite sure why she was following this track of nonsense, but she was enjoying herself.

  And it did seem to be having the effect of throwing Barmy Evans off his stroke. But only for a moment. Soon he came back forcibly at her. ‘I don’t care if you know all about my plans. What’s more important is that they’re already under way, and you’re in no position to do anything about stopping them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ said Twinks, with a confidence she did not really feel.

  ‘Huh,’ Evans said sardonically. ‘Since you know all about my plans, I take it you know about the Black Marias.’

  ‘Bong on the nose I do,’ said Twinks, still sounding cool. ‘You’ve got men stationed all over the country waiting to liberate the Black Marias from the various local constabularies.’

  Barmy Evans grinned. ‘The process has already started. This morning the Reverend Enge issued instructions from St Peter-Under-the-Counter. By now all of Scotland Yard’s Black Marias are in the hands of my men. And all over the country, the same thing is happening.’

  Something in what Evans said struck Whiffler as odd. ‘Rein in the roans for a moment there. I thought you said you’ve just moved the schedule forward . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Well, how do all your team of stenchers round the country know that? Have you written letters to them about the plan?’

  Barmy Evans laughed out loud at this outdated concept. ‘Certainly not. I am using the very latest in wireless telegraphy to contact my men. It is a system developed by Scotland Yard and installed in all the country’s Black Marias, but which I have stolen from them. Within each group, there is one van full of electrical equipment. This means that they can all receive my latest instructions instantly. They had the order to take over the Black Marias early this morning. And just before I came here this afternoon, I issued the order for the Black Marias to advance on the stately homes of England.’

  Blotto had heard enough. ‘You four-faced filcher!’ he shouted. ‘The British aristocracy has survived worse than you can throw at them. We didn’t come through the Crusades and the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War to have our fetlocks hobbled by some jumped-up little Welshman!’

  ‘The ruination of you toffs has commenced! It is already under way!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The Revolution!’

  ‘You running sore!’ said Blotto. ‘How dare you use a word like that when there’s a lady present?’

  ‘I don’t care about ladies! I don’t care about lords! Do you know where I grew up?’

  ‘No, and I don’t particularly want to.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Wales?’

  Blotto grimaced. ‘No, by Denzil! Why in the name of raspberries would anyone want to go there?’

  ‘Do you know what coal is?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject, Mr Evans.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Lyminster. Do you know what coal is?’

  ‘Well, of course I do. Dirty black stuff that heats up the Tawcester Towers plumbing.’

  ‘But I bet a privileged toff like you doesn’t even know where coal comes from,’ snarled Evans.

  ‘Of course I do. I’m not a complete voidbrain!’

  This assertion was arguable, but the master criminal was not about to take issue with it. Instead, he asked, ‘All right, where does it come from then?’

  ‘Oh, for the love of strawberries!’ said the exasperated Blotto. ‘It comes from the coal cellar!’

  ‘No! It comes from the bowels of the earth, where it’s dug out by Welsh coal miners.’

  ‘Does it really?’ Blotto was taken aback by this novel concept.

  ‘Yes. But not for much longer. That is all going to stop.’

  ‘No more coal mining?’ said Whiffler, who was marginally quicker on the uptake than Blotto. ‘But surely, that’ll mean no more coal?’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ said Barmy Evans, with grim satisfaction. ‘There’ll still be coal, but it’ll be dug out of the ground by different people.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Blotto.

  Evans looked ironically at Twinks. ‘You know, don’t you? Since your X-ray vision has managed to read all my plans.’

  ‘I know what you’re planning,’ said Twinks, ‘but it will never work.’

  ‘Oh, no?’

  ‘No.’

  Blotto was a bit confused. ‘Sorry, I’m not on the same page here? What is he planning to do? Swap all the Welsh miners for Scottish miners?’

  Barmy Evans let out a harsh laugh and said to Twinks, ‘Tell him.’

  ‘The master plan,’ she said, ‘is to capture all of the country’s aristocrats, and put them to work in the coal mines. And then to give all of their stately homes to the coal miners.’

  ‘Rats-in-a-sandwich!’ said Whiffler. ‘That sounds like . . . Socialism!’

  ‘Wash your mouth out, me old muffin-toaster,’ said Blotto reprovingly. ‘That’s another word that shouldn’t really be heard when there are ladies present.’

  ‘Sorry, old man, got carried away. Wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘Fully understand,’ said Twinks.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Whiffler. ‘You’re a Grade A foundation stone to take it like that.’

  ‘No icing off my birthday cake,’ said Twinks.

  ‘Listen!’ roared Barmy Evans. ‘Will you load of toffs just put a sock in it! What I came to tell you is that one of Scotland Yard’s finest Black Marias will be here in a matter of minutes to take you lot off to Wales.’

  ‘Hold back the hounds a moment,’ said Blotto, who had been slowly processing what he had recently heard. ‘’You’re saying that Black Marias are on their way to capture the aristocrats in every stately home in the country . . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barmy Evans confirmed.

  ‘Including Tawcester Towers?’

  The villain grinned and fondled his moustache, as he confirmed this.

  ‘And you’re planning to capture the Mater, and Loofah – he’s my brother, the Duke – and Sloggo his wife, and all their girls, and take them off to work in Welsh coal mines?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m planning to do. I’m glad the message has finally sunk in. And then I will take over the government of this country!’

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ Blotto did his goldfish impression. ‘You can’t do that.’

  An evil grin played around Barmy Evans’s lips as he asked, ‘How’re you going to stop me?’

  ‘Well,’ said Twinks, ‘I might have a few ideas.’

  19

  Secrets of the Sequinned Reticule

  Before Barmy had time to react, she had managed to reach into her sequinned reticule and produce a self-igniting firecracker. In the seconds during which he was dazzled by the flash, she again used the skeleton keys to undo her handcuffs.

  But, when the smoke cleared, she hadn’t had time to do the same service for Blotto and Whiffler. The revolver was once again in Barmy Evans’s hand, and a shout had summoned the two men in black from their ham-sandwich-making (without mustard) duties. They too had guns at the ready.

  ‘Shoot them!’ shouted their boss. ‘They’re more trouble than they’re worth!’

  Another firecracker from the sequinned reticule bought a few more seconds’ respite, but Twinks didn’t use the time to free her accomplices. Instead, she reached back into the reticule and produced a set of monkey wrenches. She worked quickly behind the radiator wit
h these, then stepped meekly forward and held up her hands, as the three revolver barrels focused on her.

  ‘Shoot me first,’ said Twinks.

  ‘Why should we do that?’ asked Barmy Evans.

  ‘Oh, for the love of cheese!’ she responded. ‘Don’t they teach you any manners in Wales? You should know, the rule is always: “Ladies first”.’

  ‘OK, boyos,’ said Barmy. ‘We all shoot together!’

  As the three revolvers were levelled at her chest, Twinks suddenly pulled a thin chain lasso from her sequinned reticule. She whirled it up to fix securely to the light fitting, then lifted herself high above the ground, just as the three guns fired in unison. The three bullets clanged against the radiator, in front of which she’d been standing.

  ‘Jollissimo!’ cried Twinks from near the ceiling. ‘Forward into battle, lads!’

  As she started to sing ‘The British Grenadiers’ –

  ‘Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules . . .’

  – Blotto and Whiffler surged ahead.

  The monkey wrench had loosened the radiator from its fixings, and the handcuffs of the two men lifted it from the ground. Steaming water hissed from a broken pipe, as the heavy metal rectangle swung forward. It connected first with Barmy Evans’s shins and, as he fell, clattered into the two men in black. Three revolvers went flying through the air.

  The radiator came to a rest on the other side of the room, just as Twinks concluded the chorus of the song: . . .

  ‘There’s none that can compare,

  With a tow, row row row, row row row,

  To the British Grenadiers!’

  And she sang it as Honoria Lyminster, not Florrie Coster.

  Deftly, she replaced the chain lasso in her sequinned reticule and, extracting the skeleton keys, released her two companions from their handcuffs. It was a matter of moments to transfer the three sets of bracelets to the three dazed villains and handcuff them to the now-freestanding radiator. Taking a larger chain from her reticule, Twinks fixed it round the radiator, which she padlocked to a solid water pipe.

  Picking up the three revolvers, she dropped them neatly into her sequinned reticule. She extracted her set of skeleton keys, and opened the roll-top desk to appropriate Barmy Evans’s map and plans.