by Simon Brett
MIMSY: March?
BLOTTO: The month.
MIMSY: Oh.
BLOTTO: It’s more than two months away.
MIMSY: Is it?
BLOTTO: Yes, it’s December now. Then you’ve got January and February before you get to March.
MIMSY: Have you?
BLOTTO: Yes. [silence] You do have the same months in America as we do here?
MIMSY: No.
BLOTTO: Oh?
MIMSY: Well, in America we have January and February. Here they have ‘janvier’ and ‘fevrier’.
BLOTTO: Ah, yes. When I said ‘here’, I meant England. When you’re English, ‘here’ is always England, regardless of wherever you may happen to be.
MIMSY: Ah.
BLOTTO: What about America? Is that ‘here’ for you?
MIMSY: No, that’s in America.
BLOTTO: Wow, you’re a bit of a brainbox, aren’t you, Mimsy?
MIMSY: Oh, shucks.
Further soupiness.
BLOTTO: Have you ever been to England?
MIMSY: No.
BLOTTO: Would you like to go there?
MIMSY: Sure.
BLOTTO: Good. Well, that’s agreed then.
Blotto was relieved at how easy it had all been. He felt sure he hadn’t needed to spell out all the details to her. Mimsy La Pim was going to come back with him to Tawcester Towers. There he could introduce her to Mephistopheles and to his collection of cricket bats. And, of course, to the Dowager Duchess. Blotto tried not to let his mind dwell on that particular hazard ahead.
Mimsy La Pim then got swept away from Blotto by a raucous group of Hollywood types. He was tempted to follow, but decided he didn’t need to. They’d had their important conversation and he could catch up with her later. Arranging to meet her back on the terrace in an hour’s time, he pongled off to look for Twinks.
She was to be found, inevitably, sitting at a table surrounded by amorous swains. What’s more, they were amorous swains Blotto recognized. Blocque and Tacquelle had recently arrived from Paris. So had Chuck Waggen and Scott Frea. And, looking as lugubriously lovelorn as ever, the Marquis of Bluntleigh was also of the party.
(The one member of their Paris entourage who wasn’t there was Dimpsy Wickett-Coote. Her nose had been put out of joint while Twinks had been around, but with her best friend absent she was resetting it by taking on industrial quantities of lovers. And her self-esteem, always pretty robust, was once again blossoming. Dimpsy decided that, much as she adored her best friend, their relationship might in future be more satisfactorily conducted by correspondence.)
At the Villa Marzipan Twinks caught her brother’s eye as he approached her group of admirers and she mouthed an interrogative ‘La Puce?’ Blotto shook his head. He had not yet seen Westmoreland Hubely that evening, so the encounter he was so looking forward to had to be postponed. Instead, he had to kill time by listening to the squabbles of his sister’s admirers.
‘But I cannot continue to paint you down here in the Midi,’ Eugène Blocque was protesting. ‘The light is totally different. For me to complete the chef d’oeuvre of Triangulisme, it will be necessary for you to accompany me back to Paris, where I can—’
He was interrupted by a bout of coughing, which gave his rival Gaston Tacquelle the opportunity to chip in. ‘You will not have this problem with me, ma belle Twinks. The genius of my painting is above such petty considerations as light. All I need to produce the chef d’oeuvre of Triangulisme is your naked body in front of me and—’
He too succumbed to the coughing, but the two painters’ competitive demonstration of the phtisie was interrupted by the insinuating voice of Derek Gringe. ‘Nasty tickles you’ve got there. I could introduce you to a very good doctor down here, English fellow called Dr Cooper. He’s very good on coughs – sorted out Westmoreland’s chest with no problems at all. Would you like me to give you his number?’
Both painters declined the offer. Through their spluttering they managed to assert that their phtisie was far too advanced for mere doctors to do anything for them. However good this Dr Cooper might be with chests, he would never have seen cases as serious as theirs. Then they resumed their coughing contest.
This opened up the field for Chuck Waggen and Scott Frea to move in on Twinks. ‘What do you say?’ asked the muscle-bound Chuck. ‘Suppose Scott and I have a drinking contest … and you’re the prize. The one who’s still standing at the end of the evening gets you.’
‘You’re on,’ said Scott Frea before Twinks had an opportunity to respond. ‘We’re already well oiled,’ he announced as he slipped off his chair.
‘We’ve hardly started,’ said Chuck Waggen. ‘And I can drink you under the table any day.’
‘I already am under the table,’ replied Scott’s voice from under the table.
‘I am sorry that I appear not already to have made it clear,’ said Twinks, taking on the intonation of her mother the Dowager Duchess, ‘that I am not available to either of you gentlemen – and certainly not as some kind of prize in a drinking contest. I have more important reasons for being down here on the Riviera.’
‘Of course,’ the Marquis of Bluntleigh agreed. ‘But when you have dealt with the business that brought you down here, then maybe you can open your mind to thoughts of love. Do not forget that your mother the Dowager Duchess is very much in favour of our union.’ He reached inside his dinner jacket. ‘And to show what a Grade A breath-sapper I think you are I have written you another poem. In French again.’
Twinks was not so badly brought up as to refuse the tribute, so she took the proffered envelope and placed it in her reticule with vague promises to read it later.
‘Did you like the last one?’ asked the Marquis.
Neither was Twinks so badly brought up as to admit that she hadn’t a bat’s squeak of an idea what he was on about and risk crushing what appeared to be Buzzer Bluntleigh’s fragile confidence. So she borrowed a trick from her brother’s repertoire and just said, ‘Hoopee-doopee.’
This seemed to fit the pigeonhole, and the Marquis of Bluntleigh sat back, his hopes still intact. But if he had any illusions about the lack of competition in the Twinks Stakes, these were quickly dispelled.
‘I cannot live if you do not come back to Paris, so that I can finish the chef d’oeuvre of—’ Eugène Blocque began before his words were lost in more coughing.
‘Through my painting you will become acknowledged as the most beautiful woman in the—’ Coughing also cut off the end of Gaston Tacquelle’s sentence.
‘Suppose I wrestled a bull for you?’ suggested Chuck Waggen. ‘Then would you allow me to show my prowess? As a lover.’
‘Suppose I … wrote a really … sensitive book … about your tental murmoil?’ Scott Frea proposed from under the table.
‘I don’t have any mental turmoil,’ Twinks replied sharply.
‘No, but I could …’ He mumbled on, but nobody listened to him because the party’s host had just arrived at their table.
Westmoreland Hubely smiled the leathery smile of a crocodile at Blotto and asked, ‘Now, are you ready for that “encounter” we discussed earlier?’
‘Tickey-tockey,’ said Blotto, and followed the writer towards the staircase of the Villa Marzipan.
The room into which Westmoreland Hubely led Blotto was splendidly appointed, its space dominated by a massive double bed. Though the glass doors to the balcony had been closed, the blinds were not drawn, so they could see the same view of fishing boat lights on the Mediterranean as had been visible from the balcony below.
The writer closed the large door to the landing and double-locked it. ‘We do not want to be disturbed, do we?’
‘No, we don’t, by Denzil.’ Blotto was impressed by this serious level of security. Clearly what Westmoreland Hubely had to tell him about La Puce was very much inside-of-the-safe stuff.
‘Shall we start with a drink?’ his host suggested.
‘Tickey-tockey by me.’
&nb
sp; ‘Before luncheon you had a St Louis Steamhammer. Would another of those be agreeable?’
‘Again tickey-tockey. A sip of one of those spoffers and I feel like my brain’s been turned into a hand grenade from which some boddo’s just pulled out the pin. After a couple, I have no responsibility for my actions at all.’
‘Excellent,’ said Westmoreland Hubely in a silky voice, as he poured a large St Louis Steamhammer from a cocktail shaker and handed it across to Blotto. ‘I’ll go for a brandy. I always find brandy oils the wheels in these situations.’
‘Good ticket. I’m all in favour of oiled wheels,’ said Blotto.
Westmoreland Hubely sat on the large bed. ‘Maybe you’d like to sit beside me?’
Blotto did as instructed and took a long swallow from his glass. There was the customary two-second delay before the firework display detonated inside his head.
‘Closer,’ said Westmoreland Hubely. Blotto did as instructed. ‘Have you been excited since we arranged this encounter, Blotto?’
‘I’ll say. Couldn’t get the old brain on any other track all afternoon.’
‘Good.’ Once again the writer’s hand was on his guest’s knee. Bit of a rum baba, thought Blotto. Must be some kind of involuntary tic, like those boddos whose faces keep screwing up. Often caused by shell shock, he’d heard. He wondered whether Westmoreland Hubely had had a nasty basinful during the last little dust-up with Jerry.
Blotto took another draught of St Louis Steamhammer. Jumping crackers started doing a Charleston inside his cranium. ‘Anyway, Mr Hubely,’ he said, ‘you were going to tell me about people hiding their true identity beneath a different exterior …’
‘I most certainly was.’
‘Do you know many people who do that?’
‘You’d be surprised how many there are, Blotto.’
‘Like who, though? Could you give me a name?’
‘Well, the classic example down here on the Riviera would be Derek Gringe.’
Blotto was astounded. ‘Derek Gringe your secretary?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’d never have believed it.’
‘Really? Most people who meet him think it’s pretty damned obvious.’
‘Well, I can’t thank you enough, Mr Hubely.’ Blotto rose to his feet.
‘No, but wait—’
‘Sorry, I must go and tell Twinks.’
Blotto turned the two keys in the lock and opened the door to the landing. ‘Thanks again,’ he cried out as he left. ‘You’re a Grade A foundation stone, Mr Hubely.’
Rum do, thought Blotto. Why, when he’s just done his fellow man such a good deed, was the expression on the writer’s face one of disappointment?
It took him quite a while to find Twinks amidst the gyrating and intertwined bodies that littered the Villa Marzipan. Which was frustrating, because he was longing to tell her about the huge advance he’d made in their investigation. Off his own bat.
Once he’d finally tracked her down and told her that the mysterious La Puce was none other than Derek Gringe, he was a bit underwhelmed by her reaction.
‘Are you sure that’s what Westmoreland Hubely meant, Blotters?’
‘Of course I am. He couldn’t have made it clearer.’
‘But I can’t see Derek Gringe as an international criminal mastermind.’
‘That’s the clever thing about it, you see. He hides his true identity under a spoffing front.’
‘Hm …’
He still didn’t get the impression that his sister believed him.
‘Shall we go and confront the stencher?’
‘No, I’d rather have more proof that he actually is La Puce.’
Blotto had never known Twinks so underwhelmed by a breakthrough in an investigation. But then he reasoned she was probably jealous. It wasn’t often that he was the one who cracked a case open. He’d follow up with her later. He knew she’d come round to the idea.
But at that moment a look at his watch told him he was late for his rendezvous with Mimsy La Pim, so he rushed away. When he had got to the appointed place on the terrace, there was no sign of her. Just the Brie, now reduced to one thin segment.
Blotto kicked himself for being late and spent the rest of the night searching the Villa Marzipan for the beautiful film star. The search involved some moments of deep embarrassment as he opened a variety of bedroom doors.
But by the time streaks of a pinkish dawn were beginning to reflect on the surface of the Mediterranean, Blotto was forced to accept the unpalatable truth.
Mimsy La Pim had vanished.
22
Another Disappearance!
The dawn also brought to Blotto a great doubt as to whether he had correctly identified La Puce. What had seemed so credible in Westmoreland Hubely’s bedroom was now decreasingly convincing. There was something about Derek Gringe that ill-suited him to the role of criminal mastermind.
And when Blotto confronted the very hungover secretary the next morning the idea seemed even more remote. The further their conversation developed, the more glad Blotto was that he hadn’t actually voiced the accusation. Derek Gringe was creepy, but not evil. Apart from anything else, he had spent the entire previous year at the Villa Marzipan, so he hadn’t had much opportunity to organize the dangers that had confronted Blotto and Twinks in Paris.
What’s more, he had a very solid alibi for the night of the party. He had apparently spent it in the company of one of the oriental houseboys. Though why, Blotto could not begin to imagine.
Nor could he imagine why Westmoreland Hubely had pointed the finger of suspicion towards his secretary the previous evening. Maybe, thought Blotto, Twinks was right. Maybe I did misunderstand what the writer had been saying. Though if he hadn’t been saying that Derek Gringe was La Puce, then what on earth had he been saying? Life was sometimes very confusing if you were Blotto.
All he knew for sure was that Mimsy La Pim had vanished and he was no nearer identifying her abductor.
Blotto was distraught. Twinks had never seen him so distraught. On the rare previous occasions when he had had a night without sleep his first action of the following morning had been to take to his bed and catch up on the beauty stuff. Blotto couldn’t really function without his regular eight hours of unconsciousness (and actually he preferred to make it nine … or ten). But when they returned to the Hôtel Majestic after the party at the Villa Marzipan, he made no mention of beds or sleep or anything comfortingly soporific.
He just mooned around their suite like a hound who’s caught a fox and then had it snatched away from him by other hounds for the tearing-apart climax of the entertainment.
Twinks did her best to cheer him up. ‘It’s really larksissimo, Blotto me old trombone. It’s the next step in our investigation. I’ll bet a guinea to a groat that La Puce is behind Mimsy’s disappearance. So in a way we’ve got a new clue, haven’t we? And when you rescue her from La Puce, think how grateful she’ll be. She won’t be able to refuse you anything then.’
‘Yes, but suppose we don’t manage to rescue her …’
‘That doesn’t sound like you, Blotters. You’re usually full of derring-do, not derring-don’t. Is this the brother of mine who scored an unbeaten hundred and seventy-six in the Eton and Harrow match? Is this the Blotto who won the Two Hundred Yards Dash with four cracked ribs? You shouldn’t let a minor irritant like La Puce put lumps in your custard.’
But her cheering words had about as much effect as a silver candle-snuffer on the Great Fire of London. Blotto’s brow remained furrowed.
‘Oh, put a jumping cracker under it!’ her sister cajoled him. ‘Normally the prospect of rescuing a damsel in distress tickles your mustard like a hundred-to-one winner. Remember the larks you had freeing Ex-Princess Ethelinde. Not to mention Laetitia Melmont. Why’s Mimsy La Pim different from those two good old greengages?’
Blotto’s face sagged with apology and embarrassment as he mumbled, ‘Because I really care about her. So far as I�
�m concerned, Twinks, Mimsy La Pim is absolutely the lark’s larynx. I’m going to marry her.’
Twinks’s first thought was how the Dowager Duchess would greet the news that her son was planning to marry someone whose real name was Pookie Klunch. And who compounded that social lapse by being American! But she didn’t voice her reaction, instead saying, ‘Well, surely that’s all the more reason why you should shift your shimmy and rescue her.’
‘Yes, but suppose I fail? Suppose my attempts to save her put her in further jeopardy?’
‘That’s just a risk you have to take, Blotters. And, anyway …’ Twinks broke off and sniffed suspiciously. ‘Look, since we’ve been talking, Blotto, I’ve been aware of a very strange smell. Have you got a mouse-squeak of an idea what it is?’
‘It’s probably this.’ Blotto removed from his blazer pocket a thin parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper.
The smell that Twinks had mentioned was suddenly stronger. ‘Yes, that’s certainly it,’ she said, clamping thumb and forefinger on to her dainty nose. ‘What on earth is it?’
Blotto unwrapped the parcel and looked at its contents with melancholy reverence. ‘It’s Brie,’ he announced. ‘The Brie that Mimsy was eating when I last saw her on the terrace of the Villa Marzipan. I will keep it for ever. It may be the only thing of hers that I will ever possess.’
‘Of course it won’t be, Blotters,’ said his sister in the voice she’d used as Captain of Lacrosse at St Wilhelmina’s. ‘Oh come on, your face is as long as a vicar’s sermon. Of course you’ll rescue Mimsy. Remember who you are. Remember who we both are. We’re Lyminsters, and Lyminsters are never defeated!’
‘You’re bong on the nose there, Twinks.’ The latent fire in Blotto’s belly was beginning to rekindle. ‘Yes, of course we can rescue Mimsy.’
‘That’s more like my brave soldier! We can face up to anyone – even La Puce.’
‘Yes, it’s not the actual facing-up to La Puce that worries me. It’s the finding La Puce to face up to.’
‘You’re right, Blotters. What we need is a really important breakthrough on the case.’