Completely Unexpected Tales: Tales of the Unexpected. More Tales of the Unexpected

by Roald Dahl

  'What about you?'

  'Not necessary. I'll be sitting in the car. They won't see me.'

  We went to a children's toy-shop and we bought for George a magnificent black moustache, a thing with long pointed ends, waxed and stiff and shining, and when he held it up against his face he looked exactly like the Kaiser of Germany. The man in the shop also sold us a tube of glue and he showed us how the moustache should be attached to the upper lip. 'Going to have fun with the kids?' he asked, and George said, 'Absolutely.'

  All was now ready, but there was a long time to wait. We had three dollars left between us and with this we bought a sandwich each and then went to a movie. Then, at eleven o'clock that evening, we collected our car and in it we began to cruise slowly through the streets of New York waiting for the time to pass.

  'You're better put on your moustache so as you get used to it.'

  We pulled up under a street lamp and I squeezed some glue on to George's upper lip and fixed on the huge black hairy thing with its pointed ends. Then we drove on. It was cold in the car and outside it was beginning to snow again. I could see a few small snowflakes falling through the beams of the car-lights. George kept saying, 'How hard shall I hit him?' and I kept answering, 'Hit him as hard as you can, and on the nose. It must be on the nose because that is a part of the contract. Everything must be done right. Our clients may be watching.'

  At two in the morning we drove slowly past the entrance to the Penguin Club in order to survey the situation. 'I will park there,' I said, 'just past the entrance in that patch of dark. But I will leave the door open for you.'

  We drove on. Then George said, 'What does he look like? How do I know it's him?'

  'Don't worry,' I answered. 'I've thought of that;' and I took from my pocket a piece of paper and handed it to him. 'You take this and fold it up small and give it to the doorman and tell him to see it gets to Pantaloon quickly. Act as though you are scared to death and in an awful hurry. It's a hundred to one Pantaloon will come out. No columnist could resist that message.'

  On the paper I had written: 'I am a worker in Soviet Consulate. Come to the door very quickly please I have something to tell but come quickly as I am in danger. I cannot come in to you.'

  'You see,' I said, 'your moustache will make you look like a Russian. All Russians have big moustaches.'

  George took the paper and folded it up very small and held it in his fingers. It was nearly half past two in the morning now and we began to drive towards the Penguin Club.

  'You all set?' I said.

  'Yes.'

  'We're going in now. Here we come. I'll park just past the entrance... here. Hit him hard,' I said, and George opened the door and got out of the car. I closed the door behind him but I leant over and kept my hand on the handle so I could open it again quick, and I let down the window so I could watch. I kept the engine ticking-over.

  I saw George walk swiftly up to the doorman who stood under the red and white canopy which stretched out over the sidewalk. I saw the doorman turn and look down at George and I didn't like the way he did it. He was a tall proud man dressed in a fine magenta-coloured uniform with gold buttons and gold shoulders and a broad white stripe down each magenta trouser-leg. Also he wore white gloves and he stood there looking proudly down at George, frowning, pressing his lips together hard. He was looking at George's moustache and I thought Oh my God we have overdone it. We have over-disguised him. He's going to know it's false and he's going to take one of the long pointed ends in his fingers and then he'll give it a tweak and it'll come off. But he didn't. He was distracted by George's acting, for George was acting well. I could see him hopping about, clasping and unclasping his hands, swaying his body and shaking his head, and I could hear him saying, 'Plees plees plees you must hurry. It is life and teth. Plees plees take it kvick to Mr Pantaloon.' His Russian accent was not like any accent I had heard before, but all the same there was a quality of real despair in his voice.

  Finally, gravely, proudly, the doorman said, 'Give me the note.' George gave it to him and said, 'Tank you, tank you, but say it is urgent,' and the doorman disappeared inside. In a few moments he returned and said, 'It's being delivered now.' George paced nervously up and down. I waited, watching the door. Three or four minutes elapsed. George wrung his hands and said, 'Vere is he? Vere is he? Plees to go see if he is not coming!'

  'What's the matter with you?' the doorman said. Now he was looking at George's moustache again.

  'It is life and teth! Mr Pantaloon can help! He must come!'

  'Why don't you shut up,' the doorman said, but he opened the door again and he poked his head inside and I heard him saying something to someone.

  To George he said, 'They say he's coming now.'

  A moment later the door opened and Pantaloon himself, small and dapper, stepped out. He paused by the door, looking quickly from side to side like a nervous inquisitive ferret. The doorman touched his cap and pointed at George. I heard Pantaloon say, 'Yes, what did you want?'

  George said, 'Plees, dis vay a leetle so as novone can hear,' and he led Pantaloon along the pavement, away from the doorman and towards the car.

  'Come on, now,' Pantaloon said. 'What is it you want?'

  Suddenly George shouted 'Look!' and he pointed up the street. Pantaloon turned his head and as he did so George swung his right arm and he hit Pantaloon plumb on the point of the nose. I saw George leaning forward on the punch, all his weight behind it, and the whole of Pantaloon appeared somehow to lift slightly off the ground and to float backwards for two or three feet until the facade of the Penguin Club stopped him. All this happened very quickly, and then George was in the car beside me and we were off and I could hear the doorman blowing a whistle behind us.

  'We've done it!' George gasped. He was excited and out of breath. 'I hit him good! Did you see how good I hit him!'

  It was snowing hard now and I drove fast and made many sudden turnings and I knew no one would catch us in this snowstorm.

  'Son of a bitch almost went through the wall I hit him so hard.'

  'Well done, George,' I said. 'Nice work, George.'

  'And did you see him lift? Did you see him lift right up off the ground?'

  'Womberg will be pleased,' I said.

  'And Gollogly, and the Hines woman.'

  'They'll all be pleased,' I said. 'Watch the money coming in.'

  'There's a car behind us!' George shouted. 'It's following us! It's right on our tail! Drive like mad!'

  'Impossible!' I said. 'They couldn't have picked us up already. It's just another car going somewhere.' I turned sharply to the right.

  'He's still with us,' George said. 'Keep turning. We'll lose him soon.'

  'How the hell can we lose a police-car in a nineteen thirty-four Chev,' I said. 'I'm going to stop.'

  'Keep going!' George shouted. 'You're doing fine.'

  'I'm going to stop,' I said. 'It'll only make them mad if we go on.'

  George protested fiercely but I knew it was no good and I pulled in to the side of the road. The other car swerved out and went past us and skidded to a standstill in front of us.

  'Quick,' George said. 'Let's beat it.' He had the door open and he was ready to run.

  'Don't be a fool,' I said. 'Stay where you are. You can't get away now.'

  A voice from outside said, 'All right boys, what's the hurry?'

  'No hurry,' I answered. 'We're just going home.'

  'Yea?'

  'Oh yes, we're just on our way home now.'

  The man poked his head in through the window on my side, and he looked at me, then at George, then at me again.

  'It's a nasty night,' George said. 'We're just trying to reach home before the streets get all snowed up.'

  'Well,' the man said, 'you can take it easy. I just thought I'd like to give you this right away.' He dropped a wad of banknotes on to my lap. 'I'm Gollogly,' he added, 'Wilbur H. Gollogly,' and he stood out there in the snow grinning at us, stamping his feet and rubb
ing his hands to keep them warm. 'I got your wire and I watched the whole thing from across the street. You did a fine job. I'm paying you double. It was worth it. Funniest thing I ever seen. Goodbye boys. Watch your steps. They'll be after you now. Get out of town if I were you. Goodbye.' And before we could say anything, he was gone.

  When finally we got back to our room I started packing at once.

  'You crazy?' George said. 'We've only got to wait a few hours and we receive five hundred dollars each from Womberg and the Hines woman. Then we'll have two thousand altogether and we can go anywhere we want.'

  So we spent the next day waiting in our room and reading the papers, one of which had a whole column on the front page headed, 'Brutal assault on famous columnist'. But sure enough the late afternoon post brought us two letters and there was five hundred dollars in each.

  And right now, at this moment, we are sitting in a Pullman car, drinking Scotch whisky and heading south for a place where there is always sunshine and where the horses are running every day. We are immensely wealthy and George keeps saying that if we put the whole of our two thousand dollars on a horse at ten to one we shall make another twenty thousand and we will be able to retire. 'We will have a house at Palm Beach,' he says, 'and we will entertain upon a lavish scale. Beautiful socialites will loll around the edge of our swimming pool sipping cool drinks, and after a while we will perhaps put another large sum of money upon another horse and we shall become wealthier still. Possibly we will become tired of Palm Beach and then we will move around in a leisurely manner among the playgrounds of the rich. Monte Carlo and places like that. Like the Ali Khan and the Duke of Windsor. We will become prominent members of the international set and film stars will smile at us and head-waiters will bow to us and perhaps, in time to come, perhaps we might even get ourselves mentioned in Lionel Pantaloon's column.'

  'That would be something,' I said.

  'Wouldn't it just,' he answered happily. 'Wouldn't that just be something.'

  The Butler

  As soon as George Cleaver had made his first million, he and Mrs Cleaver moved out of their small suburban villa into an elegant London house. They acquired a French chef called Monsieur Estragon and an English butler called Tibbs, both wildly expensive. With the help of these two experts, the Cleavers set out to climb the social ladder and began to give dinner parties several times a week on a lavish scale.

  But these dinners never seemed quite to come off. There was no animation, no spark to set the conversation alight, no style at all. Yet the food was superb and the service faultless.

  'What the heck's wrong with our parties, Tibbs?' Mr Cleaver said to the butler. 'Why don't nobody never loosen up and let themselves go?'

  Tibbs inclined his head to one side and looked at the ceiling. 'I hope, sir, you will not be offended if I offer a small suggestion.'

  'What is it?'

  'It's the wine, sir.'

  'What about the wine?'

  'Well, sir, Monsieur Estragon serves superb food. Superb food should be accompanied by superb wine. But you serve them a cheap and very odious Spanish red.'

  'Then why in heaven's name didn't you say so before, you twit?' cried Mr Cleaver. 'I'm not short of money. I'll give them the best flipping wine in the world if that's what they want! What is the best wine in the world?'

  'Claret, sir,' the butler replied, 'from the greatest chateaux in Bordeaux - Lafite. Latour, Haut-Brion, Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild and Chevel Blanc. And from only the very greatest vintage years, which are, in my opinion, 1906, 1914, 1929 and 1945. Cheval Blanc was also magnificent in 1895 and 1921, and Haut-Brion in 1906.'

  'Buy them all!' said Mr Cleaver. Fill the flipping cellar from top to bottom!'

  'I can try, sir,' the butler said. 'But wines like these are extremely rare and cost a fortune.'

  'I don't give a hoot what they cost!' said Mr Cleaver. 'Just go out and get them!'

  That was easier said than done. Nowhere in England or in France could Tibbs find any wine from 1895, 1906, 1914 or 1921. But he did manage to get hold of some twenty-nines and forty-fives. The bills for these wines were astronomical. They were in fact so huge that even Mr Cleaver began to sit up and take notice. And his interest quickly turned into outright enthusiasm when the butler suggested to him that a knowledge of wine was a very considerable social asset. Mr Cleaver bought books on the subject and read them from cover to cover. He also learned a great deal from Tibbs himself, who taught him, among other things, just how wine should properly be tasted. 'First, sir, you sniff it long and deep, with your nose right inside the top of the glass, like this. Then you take a mouthful and you open your lips a tiny bit and suck in air, letting the air bubble through the wine. Watch me do it. Then you roll it vigorously around your mouth. And finally you swallow it.'

  In due course, Mr Cleaver came to regard himself as an expert on wine, and inevitably he turned into a colossal bore. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he would announce at dinner, holding up his glass, 'this is a Margaux '29! The greatest year of the century! Fantastic bouquet! Smells of cowslips! And notice especially the after taste and how the tiny trace of tannin gives it that glorious astringent quality! Terrific, ain't it?'

  The guests would nod and sip and mumble a few praises, but that was all.

  'What's the matter with the silly twerps?' Mr Cleaver said to Tibbs after this had gone on for some time. 'Don't none of them appreciate a great wine?'

  The butler laid his head to one side and gazed upward. 'I think they would appreciate it, sir,' he said, 'if they were able to taste it. But they can't.'

  'What the heck d'you mean, they can't taste it?'

  'I believe, sir, that you have instructed Monsieur Estragon to put liberal quantities of vinegar in the salad-dressing.'

  'What's wrong with that? I like vinegar.'

  'Vinegar,' the butler said, 'is the enemy of wine. It destroys the palate. The dressing should be made of pure olive oil and a little lemon juice. Nothing else.'

  'Hogwash!' said Mr Cleaver.

  'As you wish, sir.'

  'I'll say it again, Tibbs. You're talking hogwash. The vinegar don't spoil my palate one bit.'

  'You are very fortunate, sir,' the butler murmured, backing out of the room.

  That night at dinner, the host began to mock his butler in front of the guests. 'Mister Tibbs,' he said, 'has been trying to tell me I can't taste my wine if I put vinegar in the salad-dressing. Right, Tibbs?'

  'Yes, sir,' Tibss replied gravely.

  'And I told him hogwash. Didn't I, Tibbs?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'This wine,' Mr Cleaver went on, raising his glass, 'tastes to me exactly like a Chateau Lafite '45, and what's more it is a Chateau Lafite '45.'

  Tibbs, the butler, stood very still and erect near the sideboard, his face pale. 'If you'll forgive me, sir,' he said, 'that is not a Lafite '45.'

  Mr Cleaver swung round in his chair and stared at the butler. 'What the heck d'you mean,' he said. 'There's the empty bottles beside you to prove it!'

  These great clarets, being old and full of sediment, were always decanted by Tibbs before dinner. They were served in cut-glass decanters, while the empty bottles, as is the custom, were placed on the sideboard. Right now, two empty bottles of Lafite '45 were standing on the sideboard for all to see.

  'The wine you are drinking, sir,' the butler said quietly, 'happens to be that cheap and rather odious Spanish red.'

  Mr Cleaver looked at the wine in his glass, then at the butler. The blood was coming to his face now, his skin was turning scarlet. 'You're lying, Tibbs!' he said.

  'No sir, I'm not lying,' the butler said. 'As a matter of fact, I have never served you any other wine but Spanish red since I've been here. It seemed to suit you very well.'

  'Don't believe him!' Mr Cleaver cried out to his guests. 'The man's gone made.'

  'Great wines,' the butler said, 'should be treated with reverence. It is bad enough to destroy the palate with three or four cocktails before dinne
r, as you people do, but when you slosh vinegar over your food into the bargain, then you might just as well be drinking dishwater.'

  Ten outraged faces around the table stared at the butler. He had caught them off balance. They were speechless.

  'This,' the butler said, reaching out and touching one of the empty bottles lovingly with his fingers, 'this is the last of the forty-fives. The twenty-nines have already been finished. But they were glorious wines. Monsieur Estragon and I enjoyed them immensely.'

  The butler bowed and walked quite slowly from the room. He crossed the hall and went out of the front door of the house into the street where Monsieur Estragon was already loading their suitcases into the boot of the small car which they owned together.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

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  The first two stories in this book are from Someone Like You,

  originally published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in 1954

  and republished by Michael Joseph Ltd in 1961. The third and fourth

  stories are from Kiss Kiss, first published by Michael Joseph Ltd

  in 1960, and the fifth is from The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,

  first published by Jonathan Cape in 1977

  This selection first published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 1980

  Published simultaneously in Penguin Books

  Copyright 1949, 1950 by Roald Dahl

  Copyright (c) Roald Dahl, 1958, 1959, 1973, 1977, 1980

  All rights reserved

  Acknowledgement is hereby made to The New Yorker and Playboy in which two of the stories included in this volume first appeared