by Simon Brett
The writer was far too canny an old bird to make elaborate shows of emotion, but a slight tic on his upper right-hand cheek showed that the question had relevance for him. Rather than answering, however, he just announced, ‘I think the weather is clement enough for us to take our cocktails outside.’
He was right. The sides of the terrace at the Villa Marzipan were shielded by glass screens and, with no wind to dilute it, the winter sun was surprisingly warm. An attractive houseboy of oriental origin brought out a tray with an array of most of the world’s liquors on it and asked which cocktails the writer’s guests would favour.
Blotto’s customary tipples were vintage wines and brandies, but he did recall the beneficial effects of something called a St Louis Steamhammer which had been mixed for him by a barman at the Savoy. Without much expectation that the houseboy would have heard of it, he said that’s what he’d like, and was gratified to have it immediately created for him.
Mimsy La Pim, though obviously asked before him, delayed ordering until she had seen what Blotto was opting for and then said she’d have the same. Twinks chose a Cobbler’s Awl, and Westmoreland Hubely asked for ‘My usual Martini, dry as a Muslim Christmas’.
They were soon joined for cocktails by a youngish man introduced by the writer as ‘Derek Gringe, my secretary’. Blotto couldn’t help observing that the newcomer’s accent and manners definitely marked him out as from the oikish classes. He also thought that Westmoreland Hubely and Derek Gringe’s conversation contained more whispering and giggling than he would have expected from a normal master/secretary relationship. Still, the writer hadn’t got any real breeding, only vast amounts of money, so perhaps his closeness to someone only a couple of rungs down the social ladder was not so remarkable, after all.
Blotto noticed that his sister kept trying to get back on to the subject of La Puce, but each time she raised it, Westmoreland Hubely managed gracefully to steer the conversation round to other topics. Most of which were indiscreet anecdotes about the various crowned heads and luminaries of the arts world who had been his previous houseguests. Twinks conjectured which of their own Lyminster family quirks and oddities would provide gossip-fodder to be sniggered over with Derek Gringe after they had departed the Villa Marzipan.
Blotto didn’t think anything of the sort. Conjecture had never been his strong suit. He just shared soupy looks with Mimsy La Pim, while the St Louis Steamhammers quietly fricasséed their brains.
From Westmoreland Hubely’s behaviour Twinks deduced that he knew a lot more about the identity of La Puce than he was prepared to divulge.
20
A Top-Secret Conversation
After a second round of cocktails another oriental houseboy, at least as beautiful as the first, came out on to the terrace to announce that luncheon was served. Derek Gringe led the ladies into the house, but Westmoreland Hubely, after peremptorily dismissing the two houseboys, said to Blotto, ‘Wait a moment. There’s something important I want to talk to you about, Devereux.’
‘Please call me Blotto. Everyone does,’ said Blotto. He was rather excited at being detained in this way. Granted, it would deprive him for a few moments of the sight of Mimsy La Pim, but that minus had to be measured against the great plus of getting closer to the stolen Ruperts. Maybe, Blotto reasoned, Westmoreland Hubely, assuming (incorrectly) the male to be the senior partner in the siblings’ investigative team, was intending to share with him what he knew about La Puce. That’d be pure creamy éclair. Blotto always relished the idea of passing on to his sister vital information that he’d found out off his own bat. It was rarely that he could get one over on Twinks. He might even find himself employing that childhood expression of oneupmanship: ‘So snubbins to you, Twinks!’
He thought it was promising that Westmoreland Hubely asked him to sit down on a lounging sofa and also that the writer sat so close to him, suggesting that the information about to be imparted was top-secret stuff.
‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ whispered the older man.
This too was promising. ‘Well, come on, uncage the ferrets,’ said Blotto.
‘You’re one of the most attractive young men I’ve ever seen.’
‘Oh, don’t talk such toffee.’
‘You know,’ Westmoreland Hubely whispered on, ‘a lot of us go through life pretending to be something we’re not, hiding our real identity under some mask of convention.’ So caught up was he in what he was saying, the writer had unwittingly placed his hand on Blotto’s knee as he asked, ‘You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Blotto?’
‘Oh yes. I read your semaphore.’
‘Good.’ For some reason the writer’s hand was now stroking Blotto’s knee.
‘What you’re talking about, Mr Hubely, is La Puce.’
‘What?’
‘You’re telling me how La Puce hides his real identity under a mask of convention.’
‘No, no. Are you being deliberately obtuse?’
Blotto denied the accusation. He’d never in his life encountered the necessity of being deliberately obtuse.
‘Let me approach this from another angle,’ said Westmoreland Hubely. ‘You went to English public school, didn’t you?’
‘Tickey-tockey.’
‘Then you must know what I’m talking about. When you were in your dorm …’
‘Didn’t have dorms at Eton.’
‘All right. When you were in the changing rooms after games, you must have known that some of the boys got up to things which … well, were regarded as illegal.’
‘Ah.’ Understanding dawned on Blotto. ‘On the same page with you now.’
‘You understand what I’m saying?’
‘Yes, I do, by Denzil!’
‘Good.’ Westmoreland Hubely’s unconscious stroking of Blotto’s thigh had become more vigorous.
‘Yes.’ Blotto nodded. ‘You’re saying that La Puce went to Eton. Bit outside the rule-book, that. I mean, one liked to think the kind of boddos one shared muffins with at Eton were—’
‘No, no, no!’ the writer cried in exasperation. ‘What I’m saying is that there’s a side of your nature that you’ve never admitted to, a side which perhaps you don’t think exists, but which I can see is blatantly there in your personality.’
‘Ah.’ Blotto was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘I think I’m on the same page with you now, Mr Hubely.’
‘Good. And what I’m saying is that the right person … let’s say me … could awaken that side of your personality … and you would feel much better, much less frustrated, if I were to awaken it.’
‘Do you really think you could?’ asked Blotto eagerly.
‘I’m sure I could,’ breathed Westmoreland Hubely, whose hand was still thigh-stroking, while his other arm had somehow got itself round the younger man’s neck. So, Blotto realized, what they were talking about really was top-secret stuff.
‘That’d really be the lark’s larynx!’ said Blotto excitedly.
‘So are you ready to have that other side of your nature unlocked?’
‘I certainly am. I always rather suspected that I did have this other side of my nature, you know. Others of my muffin-toasters at Eton seemed to accept it without donning their worry-boots, but for me it was always a tough rusk to chew. So how exactly are you going to do the unlocking? What is it I have to do?’
‘You have to come to a party that I’m giving here at Villa Marzipan this evening. And you have to come ready to abandon all your inhibitions, prepared for anything.’
‘Good ticket!’
‘And I can promise you an encounter that will change your whole outlook on life.’
‘Hoopee-doopee!’
Westmoreland Hubely removed his hand and arm from Blotto’s anatomy and said wryly, ‘Fulfilment is always the sweeter for being deferred.’
Blotto reckoned another ‘Hoopee-doopee!’ was probably the best response to that.
‘And now,’ said the writer, ‘let’s
join the ladies – in which category of course …’ he sniggered, ‘I also include Derek.’
Blotto hadn’t a mouse-squeak of an idea what that meant, but he knew for certain that it was lunchtime. And that he was spoffingly hungry.
The meal was a bit of a strain for Blotto. Not that the food wasn’t excellent, and impeccably served by more beautiful oriental houseboys. It was just that he was desperate to tell Twinks about his conversation with Westmoreland Hubely, and he couldn’t do that until they were alone.
So while the writer and his secretary continued to shred the reputations of actors, actresses, kings and queens (particularly queens), Blotto had to contain his excitement. The only compensation was that, seated opposite Mimsy La Pim, he was able to spend the entire meal gazing at his new object of adoration.
They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. The bond they had instantly formed was too deep for words. But at one point, in a lull in the general conversation, Blotto did observe, ‘You know, Mimsy, I’m really surprised to see your lips are red.’
‘Gee, why’s that?’
‘Because in every film of yours I’ve seen they’ve been black.’
‘Yes, that’s funny,’ she said, ‘I’ve noticed that too. And yet when I look at myself in the mirror before filming – and after filming – they’re definitely red.’
‘That’s a rum baba,’ said Blotto. ‘Do you have any explanation for why it happens?’
‘Well,’ said Mimsy La Pim, ‘I’ve thought about it and I have got an explanation for it. You know how in the dark things look dark?’
‘Tickey-tockey.’
‘Well, the only times I’ve ever been in a cinematograph to see a movie, all the lights have been turned off.’
‘I’ve noticed that too,’ Blotto agreed.
‘So it’s no surprise that everything looks dark. And that’s why my lips look black. If they showed the films with the lights on, my lips’d look red.’
‘Toad-in-the-hole …’ Blotto was impressed by her logic and reasoning. What a wonderful piece of womanflesh! Not only was Mimsy La Pim a paragon of pulchritude, he now knew that she was highly intelligent too.
It was not until they were in the Lagonda with Corky Froggett driving them away from the Villa Marzipan that Blotto got a chance to tell Twinks his great news.
‘We’ve finally got some good guff on La Puce!’
‘Have we? Where from?’
‘Westmoreland Hubely. He told me on the terrace after you and Mimsy had gone in to lunch.’
His sister couldn’t help asking, ‘Why did he tell you?’
Blotto coughed modestly. ‘I think he made the assumption that I was the brains in our investigative team.’
A choice of reactions to this assertion came into Twinks’s mind, but she had too generous a spirit to voice any of them.
‘What’s more,’ Blotto went on excitedly, ‘soon I’m going to be brainier still!’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, Westmoreland Hubely said that I’d got another side of my nature that had never been properly expressed, but that he could unlock it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Isn’t that exciting?’
‘Well, I’m not entirely sure that—’
‘Don’t you see? What he could recognize – and what nobody else has ever recognized, least of all the beaks at Eton – is that I have a very powerful intellect. That’s what he was saying. And that’s what he’s proposing to unlock!’
‘Are you sure that’s what he meant?’ asked his sister dubiously.
‘As sure as the odds-on favourite in a one-horse race, Twinks me old cabbage patch. He meant that, once it was unlocked, my intellect would be way up there on a level with yours. Which was why,’ Blotto added modestly, ‘he passed on the information about La Puce to me rather than to you.’
‘Oh yes, La Puce. What did he say about the stencher?’
‘Westmoreland Hubely told me a couple of very interesting things about that particular lump of toadspawn. First – and this was a big surprise to me – the stencher went to Eton! Well, you could have knocked me down with a piece of tissue paper when I heard that. And second, La Puce will actually be at a party that Hubely’s giving at the Villa Marzipan this very evening!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘As sure as a lawyer’s bill arriving by return of post, Twinks me old backscratcher. And Hubely’s going to introduce La Puce to me! Yes, he promised me “an encounter that will change my whole outlook on life”!’
Once again Twinks found herself asking, ‘Are you sure that’s what he meant, Blotters?’
21
A Marvellous Party
There was a bit of a stye in the eye for Blotto when they got back to the Hôtel Majestic. Corky Froggett had seen to it that their luggage had been taken up to their suite, where it had been unpacked by the valet and housemaid appointed to them by the management. But when Blotto was going through his things, preparatory to dressing for Westmoreland Hubely’s party, he could find no sign of his precious cricket bat.
His first thought was to blame the valet, but an extensive interview with the hotel’s manager seemed to prove that no guilt could be attributed there. The valet, when summoned, clearly wouldn’t have recognized what a cricket bat was, let alone imagined that a battered piece of willow would have had any value.
Blotto checked with Corky Froggett, who had no recollection of having seen the bat when he packed the bags into the Lagonda in Paris. So perhaps it had been stolen from the Hôtel de Crillon.
Whatever had happened to it, the bat’s absence put a bit of a candle-snuffer on Blotto’s habitually cheery world-view. If they were up against the kind of stenchers who stole cricket bats, he and Twinks were going to have their work cut out on the Riviera.
The theft was a bad omen, and Blotto approached the evening that lay ahead with a degree of foreboding.
It was clearly true that Westmoreland Hubely did know everyone. Had the newspapers’ gossip columns contrived to infiltrate a photographer into the Villa Marzipan that evening, they would have stocked up with a decadesworth of scandal and tittle-tattle. Princesses misbehaved noisily with silent film stars. Princes and politicians compromised each other. Popular singers fraternized with archbishops. Ex-kings rubbed shoulders (among other things) with x-rated courtesans.
Alcohol, drugs and other services were generously supplied by beautiful oriental houseboys. There was a jazz band for those who wished to dance and an apparently infinite number of bedrooms for those who wanted to put their feet up (among other things).
But all Blotto wanted to do was to have his meeting with La Puce, recover the Gainsborough and Reynolds and get back to Tawcester Towers for Christmas.
Nor did he plan to return home alone. As well as Twinks and Corky Froggett, there was a third person he planned to have with him in the Lagonda. As soon as he’d arrived at Villa Marzipan he had sought out Mimsy La Pim. He found her on the sheltered terrace looking out at the lights of fishing boats bobbing about on the Mediterranean. She sat beside a table on which was a cheeseboard dominated by a full circle of Brie, from which she cut occasional segments.
Having found the object of his affections, Blotto then proceeded to have a very serious conversation with her. It went like this:
BLOTTO: Good evening.
MIMSY: Good evening.
BLOTTO: I see you’re still here.
MIMSY: Yes, I’m still here.
BLOTTO: Tickey-tockey. Because if you weren’t still here, I wouldn’t be talking to you, would I?
MIMSY: I guess not.
A silence ensued while they gazed soupily at each other.
MIMSY: There’s one thing I wanted to ask you, Blotto…
BLOTTO: Ask away, me old fruitbat.
MIMSY: What does your wife do?
BLOTTO: Do?
MIMSY: Yes. Don’t you understand the word?
BLOTTO: Yes. But not when it’s applied to women in my class. They don’t do
anything.
MIMSY: So your wife doesn’t have a job?
BLOTTO: Toad-in-the-hole, no. No wife of mine would ever have a job. That’d be totally beyond the barbed wire.
MIMSY [disappointed]: So where is your wife now?
BLOTTO: Nowhere.
MIMSY: How does she manage that?
BLOTTO: I don’t have a wife.
MIMSY [gratified]: Oh, gee…
More soupy silence.
BLOTTO: I suppose at some point you’ll have to pongle back to the old US of A?
MIMSY: Yes, I start making a new picture in March.
BLOTTO: Toad-in-the-hole … I didn’t know you were a painter too.
MIMSY: No, no. I don’t mean paint a picture. I mean act in a picture.
BLOTTO: Ah, read your semaphore. Stenchers tying you to railway lines and all that rombooley?
MIMSY: I guess so.
BLOTTO: It always puts lumps in my custard when I see those fumacious oiks doing that to you. I want to jump up on to the screen and coffinate the running sores.
MIMSY: Oh, gee, Blotto, that’s very sweet of you.
BLOTTO: I’ll want to coffinate them even more now I’ve actually clapped me peepers on you.
MIMSY: Oh, gee, Blotto…
Another soupy silence. Without breaking eye contact, Mimsy slices off another segment of Brie and puts it in her mouth.
MIMSY: I don’t know what this stuff is, but it sure tastes wonderful.
BLOTTO: It’s Brie.
MIMSY: Brie?
BLOTTO: It’s a cheese.
MIMSY: You’re joking me. This isn’t cheese.
BLOTTO: It is.
MIMSY: No, it isn’t. Cheese is yellow and solid like soap. At least it is where I come from.
BLOTTO: I promise you that Brie is cheese.
MIMSY: It can’t be. It tastes of something.
Blotto decides not to pursue this line of conversation. An even soupier silence ensues.
BLOTTO: Still, March is more than two months away.