by Simon Brett
The effect on the Earl of Hartlepool was instantaneous. He would probably have done the same, had the Inspector’s gun still been at his forehead, but of course it no longer was. In a fit of white-hot fury, the Earl snatched down one of the ancient shotguns from its wall bracket and shouted out, ‘Staff, pick up your guns! I’ve had it up to here with EGGS! The kind of man who’d destroy my model deserves no quarter! Let’s rid Little Tickling of these oikish sponge-worms!’
He let rip with his shotgun. The pellets flew high over the heads of the crowd, but were a signal for every other gun in the place to be fired. In the ensuing noise and chaos, Blotto and Whiffler managed to break free from their captors. Blotto picked up his cricket bat and burst into the fray, flooring men in black with a variety of hooks and drives.
From her Black Maria, Twinks heard the gunfire begin. Quickly finishing what she had to do, she rushed from the vehicle into the castle.
Inside, it was clear to Blotto that the home side was losing. Though most of the bullets and pellets discharged were air-shots, resulting in flesh wounds, the difference in training between the two sets of combatants was beginning to show. The staff of Little Tickling, though loyal and willing enough, had rarely shot at anything more threatening than a lethargic pheasant. Whereas, Barmy Evans’s men in black had spent nearly every night of their lives in gunfights with the most vicious criminals in the country.
Quite swiftly, the local team was disarmed and dragooned against one wall by the invading army. Eventually, only Blotto continued the fight, defending his corner against wave after wave of men in black, all very frustrated by the fact that they had been forbidden to use their guns against him.
‘Nice work, boyos! I see you’re getting on top.’
Distracted by the new, but horribly familiar, voice in the room, Blotto looked up. And in that moment, two men in black wrested the cricket bat from his grasp.
On the other side of the room, his moustache rampant and a smile of triumph spreading across his pockmarked features, stood Barmy Evans.
Broken biscuits, thought Blotto, once again clasped in the vice-like grip of two men in black. And deprived of his cricket bat. I really am in a bit of a swamphole, and no mistake.
He wondered where Twinks was. In the past, Twinks had always managed to get them out of the quaggiest of quagmires. But there was no sign of her.
‘Right, boyos,’ said Barmy Evans, still glowing with his success. ‘You’ve done very well, and soon the order will go out to your colleagues to pick up all the other aristocratic space-wasters in the country. Just a few things that need to be done before that . . . First, a job for you miners. Take all the Little Tickling staff and lock them in the cellar. And make sure none of their weapons go down there with them!’
The miners seemed happy with the job they’d been delegated to do, and the Little Tickling staff were so demoralised by their recent defeat that they submitted meekly to imprisonment.
‘Now, men,’ said Barmy Evans, once all the miners were out of the room, ‘just a slight change of plan. A couple of the coal lorries coming from Wales to get the toffs out of other stately homes have broken down. That means we’re going to need this lot of miners as extra muscle. They may not be keen about the delay in taking over this place, but I think I can rely on you lot to persuade them to do as I want.’
There were a few chuckles at this. ‘Persuading’ was one of their duties that the men in black enjoyed most.
‘So, when they come back, I want you to take the miners and put them in the Black Marias. Most of you’ll be in there with them, to deal with any trouble.’
Further chuckles. ‘Dealing with any trouble’ was another part of the job they enjoyed.
‘Just so’s none of them escape, the designated driver of each vehicle will lock the Black Maria from the outside and unlock it when you reach your destination . . . which I will give you shortly. All got that?’
The men in black mumbled assent. Still feeling slightly cheated by not being allowed to shoot Blotto and Whiffler, they relished the prospect of a little casual violence towards the miners in the Black Marias.
Barmy Evans listened to sounds from the hall. ‘Right, the miners are coming back. Could the designated drivers of the Black Marias take over the guarding of the prisoners?’
As the men in black changed roles, one of them asked, ‘Where are we going to take the toffs? Which of the Black Marias do you want them in?’
‘Not in any of them. You forget, they have a different destination. They’re about to find out the delights of coal mining in Wales. When you get outside, you’ll find a blue Lagonda parked. Put them in that. And I’ll join you there, when we’ve got the miners locked up.’
Blotto considered making a bid for freedom straight away, but, his mind working well, as it usually did in stressful situations, decided against it. There were too many armed men around. Once they were in the Lagonda, with just Barmy Evans and however many guards he chose to escort them, that would be the time for action.
So he submitted meekly, as did Whiffler and the Earl, to being frogmarched out of Little Tickling.
The three of them seemed to be sitting in the Lagonda for a long time, while Barmy Evans checked that his instructions had been followed in the Black Marias. Outside the car, the six designated drivers stood on guard.
Eventually, they saw Barmy Evans approaching the Lagonda. ‘Right, they’re all locked in,’ he said to the drivers.
‘You lot will all find your destinations in envelopes by your steering wheels. Drive straight there. Don’t stop for anything.’
The drivers expressed their assent and set off towards their vehicles.
Barmy Evans didn’t get into the Lagonda. He just stood there, watching the Black Marias proceeding down the long drive away from Little Tickling. Then he turned and looked at the Lagonda’s occupants.
‘Don’t you think, Mr Evans,’ asked Blotto, a supercilious smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, ‘that you’re taking rather a risk, travelling on your own with us, without any extra guard?’
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s that much of a risk,’ said the voice of Twinks, as she stripped Barmy Evans’s moustache from her perfect upper lip.
22
All Relatively Tickey-Tockey
As she removed the disgusting make-up of pockmarks and other of Barmy Evans’s accoutrements, Twinks observed, ‘She is good, Madame Clothilde . . . you know, when it comes to disguises.’
‘You had the voice and everything,’ said Whiffler, lost in admiration.
‘Voices are as easy as a housemaid’s virtue,’ said Twinks.
‘Well, I swallowed it, like a trout does a Wickham’s Fancy.’
‘Yes, having observed the stencher at close quarters,’ Blotto agreed, ‘I can confirm that you were as alike as two butter pats.’
‘As I mentioned,’ said Twinks, ‘it should be Madame Clothilde you’re pinning the rosettes on. Though I must say, pongling round the country dressed as Barmy Evans did just make me realise how far the thimble-rigger’s influence extends.’
‘Sorry? Not on the same page,’ said Whiffler.
Twinks explained about not being charged in Warren Street for the Alvis 12/50 or in the filling station for the fuel. ‘Both of them thought I was the real biscuit, and they didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Barmy Evans.’
‘So, do you reckon the real version of the stencher is still chained to a radiator in Fulham?’
‘We can only hope so, Whiffler. We’ll get the full SP when we’re back in London. So, Blotters, let’s get there – zappity-ping!’
‘But rein in the roans for a moment there,’ said Blotto. ‘One thingette I want to de-cobweb . . . You just told the Black Maria drivers you’d given them places to go to . . .’
‘Yes,’ Twinks agreed. ‘And I have also, using the wireless telegraphy system in the specially adapted Black Maria, given instructions as to where all the others involved in this fumacious plot should go to.
’
Blotto looked puzzled. Again. ‘And did those instructions come from the real Barmy, or from you?’
‘From me. Though, obviously I was using his voice, so all his villains think they came from him.’
‘So where have you sent the stenchers?’ asked Blotto eagerly.
Twinks smiled a quiet smile. ‘Oh, I think we’ll find out quite soon enough.’
‘Just a minute,’ said the Earl of Hartlepool from the back of the car, where he was sitting next to Whiffler. ‘Have all those lumps of toadspawn gone?’
‘Yes,’ said Twinks.
‘And they won’t be pongling back here in short order?’
‘No, they won’t.’
‘And my staff are still all locked in the cellar, are they?’
‘Yes, I’ll let the poor greengages out before we go,’ said Twinks.
‘Don’t bother about that,’ said the Earl, as he gathered himself up to leave the car. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Tickey-Tockey.’
‘Just a minute,’ he said, suddenly intrigued by the face beside him. ‘Who’re you?’
‘I’m your son, Giles.’
‘Good heavens! Is that what you look like?’
With that, the Earl of Hartlepool scuttled back inside Little Tickling, to assess the damage and start rebuilding his matchstick model.
And Blotto floored the accelerator of the Lagonda, all the way back to the Savoy.
A few hours before these events, a very subdued Corky Froggett arrived in his hire car at Tawcester Towers. In front of the great house was an array of vehicles similar to those which had parked at Little Tickling. A row of Black Marias, behind which was drawn up a row of coal trucks. Although Corky was not to know it, the same scene was being played out at stately homes all over the United Kingdom.
The vehicles were all empty, except for one. In the front of a Black Maria with a paraphernalia of aerials and wires sprouting out of it, sat a man in black. He was so busy talking into some telephonic device that he did not notice as Corky Froggett walked past him towards the house.
The chauffeur drew his service revolver out of his pocket. The young mistress had instructed him to rescue the Lyminster family, and that was what he would do. Or die in the attempt. As he entered the Great Hall and saw the number of men in black and miners assembled there, the odds on dying in the attempt looked pretty high. Which gave Corky Froggett great satisfaction. He was being offered an opportunity to expiate the sin of not being on hand when the young master needed him.
But he was stopped in his tracks by a voice booming from the other end of the Great Hall. The voice seemed to have stopped everyone else in their tracks too.
It was a voice Corky recognised. At the foot of the great staircase, only requiring a Union Jack shield, a helmet and a trident to complete her Britannia pose, stood the Dowager Duchess. Behind her on the stairs cowered Loofah, the current Duke of Tawcester, his wife Sloggo, and a sprinkling of their daughters.
‘And I suggest,’ the Dowager Duchess was bellowing, ‘that you all turn round and return to the squalid swampholes from which you emerged! Tawcester Towers has lasted too long to be taken over by a common riffraff like you. It has survived being besieged during the Wars of the Roses and again during the Cromwellian unpleasantness. The Lyminster family are also survivors, whose superior breeding has always set them above scum like you. We survive – and will continue to survive – on one simple principle: Keep the serfs down where they belong!’
Corky Froggett, enjoying the good sense that the Dowager Duchess was talking, looked around at the tide of men she was holding back by sheer force of personality. They were all appropriately shamefaced and subdued, rather as the young master and mistress looked when they emerged from a dressing-down by their mother in the Blue Morning Room. On the other hand, most of the men in black carried revolvers, and Corky wondered for how long they would continue to know their place.
Fortunately, before their patience could be put to the test, the chauffeur heard a cry from behind him. The man in black who had been fiddling with the telephony in the Black Maria outside, rushed into the Great Hall, calling out, ‘Change of plan!’
The other men in black and the miners turned towards him, as he continued, ‘Just had a message from the boss by wireless telegraphy. We’re to clear out of this place straight away. There’s a new destination he wants us to go to!’
It seemed a matter of seconds until the only occupants of the Great Hall were members of the Lyminster family. And, of course, one of their chauffeurs. Corky, who knew it wasn’t his place to be there under such circumstances, silently withdrew.
But, as he left, he heard the Dowager Duchess observing to her son, the Duke, ‘It’s like dealing with Labrador puppies. Make it clear from the start who’s boss, and they won’t give you any trouble.’
* * *
At Scotland Yard, and in various county constabularies, there was great consternation. They had hardly recovered from the shock of having every Black Maria in the country stolen, before they had to cope with the surprise of having each last one of them returned.
The drivers from Little Tickling had followed the directions placed in envelopes by their steering wheels, and those outside other stately homes did as they had been told by Barmy Evans’s telephonic instructions, broadcast from the Little Tickling Black Maria.
The confusion of the nation’s police force quickly turned to jubilation, when they discovered that, locked in the back of the returning Black Marias, were virtually every member of Barmy Evans’s gang. They were particularly pleased to have delivered to them a criminal who had had the nerve to pass himself off as one of their own, under the name of Detective Inspector Dewar. It was a network they had been trying, without success, to crack for years.
The jubilation turned to ecstasy when an anonymous tip-off to Scotland Yard told them that the gang’s ringleader, Barmy Evans himself, could be found attached to a radiator in a house in Fulham.
Twinks had made the police’s job easy for them. All they had to do off their own bat was to organise transport back to Wales of a large number of disgruntled and incomprehensible miners. They all went back down the pits to earn a pittance, and make huge profits for the aristocrats, whose homes they had been so near to taking over. The proper social order had been restored.
So, when the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police was given a knighthood by a grateful King, ‘for his incomparable achievement in rounding up the Barmy Evans gang’, it never occurred to the officer in question that anyone else deserved a share of the nation’s gratitude.
And when Blotto suggested to his sister that she perhaps ought to have got some credit for her contribution, all she said was, ‘Don’t talk such toffee.’
Since before the abduction which had set these adventures in train, Whiffler Tortington’s only wish had been to marry Frou-Frou Gavotte, and now there was nothing to stop him from achieving that ambition.
Because, at one point, Barmy Evans had also wanted to effect that union – and had even made some arrangements towards that end – Whiffler contacted the Revd Enge about the wedding arrangements. The clergyman, knowing by then that all of his previous associates – Barmy Evans and the men in black – would soon be in prison, agreed to conduct the ceremony at St Peter-Under-the-Counter. (He also, deprived of other outlets for his talents, had a kind of damascene conversion and embraced the novel idea of devoting the rest of his life to the spiritual welfare of his parishioners.)
The wedding, arranged with all the speed that Whiffler and Frou-Frou could have wished, was a quiet affair. Blotto and Twinks, of course, were present. So were Dippy Le Froom and his new wife Poppy. The Light and Frothy company were represented only by Jack Carmichael. Pierre Labouze and Everard Stoop, regarding the marriage as just another transaction in their aristocrat/showgirl business, did not attend. Nor did they find out till afterwards that neither Whiffler nor Frou-Frou had any intention of signing a contract to pass over a percent
age of their income to the two schemers.
Logic dictated that they hold the Reception at the Savoy. It was a splendid occasion, at which the champagne flowed generously. There were only two speeches. Jack Carmichael, who had given Frou-Frou away, spoke at some length about what a talented performer he was, but nobody listened. They just went on quaffing champagne.
Everyone was silent, though, when Giles ‘Whiffler’ Tortington stood up to speak. Oratory was not really his thing, but the four words he did speak were greeted with massive applause. ‘I’m just so happy,’ he said, looking at the love of his life.
Blotto had been encouraged, during the Reception, to see Dippy Le Froom knocking back the champagne with the best of them and, after the speeches, got the opportunity for a word alone with his old muffin-toaster.
Nodding towards Poppy, he said, ‘I thought that little breathsapper of yours reckoned you didn’t need the old alkiboodles.’
Dippy beamed. ‘Oh no, she’s come round to the idea.’
‘How did you swiggle that?’
‘Didn’t have to. She’s just such a sweet, caring girl. All she’s concerned about is my happiness. She saw how unhappy I was off the alkiboodles and, as she said, realised that my heart was big enough to love both her and a bottle of good claret. So, she let me off the leash!’
‘What a Grade A foundation stone you married there, Dippy.’
‘Couldn’t agree more. And what’s more – another spoffing good bit of news – there’s soon going to be a little Le Froom crawling round the carpets.’
‘Toad-in-the-hole, Dippy! You are the boy!’
‘Thanks, Blotters.’
‘So, see a lot more of you down the Gren, will we?’
‘A bit more.’ He looked cautious. ‘Fact is, I’ll probably be spending more evenings eating at home.’
‘Well, I’ll be snickered,’ said Blotto. ‘Are you telling me Poppy’s learnt to cook?’
