by Simon Brett
She explained, but her brother got a bit lost in all the details of measuring distances between staples, changes of atmospheric pressure and counting step lengths. Not for the first time Blotto reminded himself that he shouldn’t ask Twinks questions like that. No need for explanations. Just listen to whatever she said and assume it was right. Which it always was.
Eventually their torch revealed a variation in the even continuity of the surrounding walls. The unending stone was interrupted by a metal frame set into it. Brother and sister paused when they got there and Twinks ran the torchbeam over the new feature. Closer inspection revealed that the frame was double, forming slots either side and top and bottom.
‘What does that brainbox of yours make of this?’ asked Blotto.
‘I think it’s probably some kind of doorway, built on the lines of a portcullis. Big metal shutter comes down, fitting into the slots – and cutting off access from the well.’
‘Do you reckon it’s still working?’
Twinks drew her torchbeam closer. The metal frame showed a few spots of rust and salt corrosion, but was basically clean. ‘Think it could be,’ she said.
When they stepped through the portal, they found themselves in a less cramped space where they could both stand up. Though still carved out of the living rock, the passage was a lot bigger, and along one side they saw a row of heavy metal doors with square grilles on them. Out of one of these light trickled.
Blotto moved across to look through the grille. What he saw there brought a surge of elation to his manly bosom.
That elation arose from the fact that, inside the room beyond the grille, he could see Mimsy La Pim. She was strapped to a bed as firmly as she had ever been to a railway line in one of her movies.
‘Mimsy!’ he cried. ‘We are here to rescue you!’
25
Escape?
To Blotto’s surprise, when he tried the door handle it yielded immediately to his touch. He found himself in a brightly lit room, whose three facing walls appeared to be made of glass, though through them only darkness was visible.
At the sound of the door opening, the trussed-up film star let out a little scream.
‘Don’t don your worry-boots,’ shouted her rescuer. ‘It’s me, Blotto. And Twinks and me’ll have you free in less time than a schoolboy stays in a cold bath.’
‘My hero!’ said Mimsy La Pim. It was an expression that she had used frequently in her acting career. But this was the first time she’d said it out loud. Normally she mouthed the words and then they appeared on a caption.
Blotto took in how his beloved had been immobilized. The bed on which she lay – and indeed the one beside it – was rather like a hospital trolley, with purpose-built leather straps attached to its sides. These had been firmly buckled round Mimsy’s neck, waist, wrists and ankles. And she had been dressed in some kind of hospital gown, as though awaiting an operation. What kind of evil operation that might be, Blotto did not care to contemplate.
As he started the business of releasing his beloved, Blotto asked, ‘Who’s the stencher who’s done this to you?’
‘Gee, I think he’s someone from Ireland,’ replied Mimsy La Pim.
‘What makes you think that?’ asked Blotto, struggling with the taut leather.
‘I was in a movie set in Ireland, and in it someone was stolen away by the “little people” and never seen again. So, because we’re so near Ireland, that’s what must have happened to me.’
‘We’re not very near Ireland,’ objected Twinks, who had come in to help with the unstrapping process.
‘We are too,’ said Mimsy. ‘We’re in France and that’s in Europe. So’s Ireland. They’re both in Europe.’
‘Yes, but Europe is quite a big place.’
‘It isn’t,’ Mimsy objected. ‘Not compared to the US of A.’
Twinks forbore from taking issue with that assertion. ‘Anyway,’ she asked, ‘what was it you were saying about the “little people”?’
‘It was the “little people” who stole me away from the Villa Marzipan. Just like in the movie.’
‘Those were not “little people”,’ said Twinks patiently.
‘They were too. They didn’t come no higher than my waist. And if that’s not little, I’d like to know what is.’
‘I meant they were not “little people” in the sense of being leprechauns. They were midgets, employed by La Puce.’
‘Oh,’ said Mimsy La Pim, taking a moment to try to assimilate this information.
‘Anyway,’ said Blotto as he loosened the last restraint, ‘no time for chittle-chattle. We need to get you out of here.’
‘Oh, gee, yes. I’ve no idea where I am.’
The thought flashed through Twinks’s mind that ignorance of where she was was a permanent state with Mimsy La Pim, but she was far too well brought up to voice it. Instead she just said, ‘Yes, we’ll take you back to the Château d’Erimes.’
‘I don’t have any shattered dreams,’ objected Mimsy. ‘I’m American. Americans’ dreams always come true.’
Twinks, who was beginning to think that a little of Mimsy La Pim went a long way and that the prospect of having her as a sister-in-law was not an entirely appealing one, said, ‘Château d’Erimes is the home of the Marchioness of Bluntleigh.’
‘Gee, I thought he was called the Marquis.’
‘This is his mother.’
‘Wow.’
Mimsy La Pim was now standing up, facing Blotto. The soupiness of their expressions had reached a stage beyond mulligatawny.
‘Put a jumping cracker under it!’ said Twinks. ‘We must get you out of here as soon as possible.’ Her brother and his beloved remained transfixed like the two lions over the main gates of Tawcester Towers. ‘Move!’ his sister commanded and she bustled them out into the passage.
They were just about to go through the metal frame in the direction of the well and the life-saving silk thread, when Blotto stopped. ‘We can’t go back to the Marchioness like this.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked his sister.
‘Well, we told her we were going down to rescue her son, and we haven’t got the Marquis of Bluntleigh with us, have we?’
Mimsy La Pim looked around to be sure. Then she agreed, ‘No, we don’t.’
Twinks was torn. Part of her reckoned that getting Mimsy to freedom would be achievement enough. But she was also influenced by the long traditions of noblesse oblige.
‘We’ll have to fetch out the poor old greengage,’ said Blotto. ‘After all, he did go to Eton.’
That clinched it. They would have to go further into the subterranean network of passages to find Buzzer Blunt-leigh. They turned back.
Just as they did so, they heard an ominous and enormous clang from behind them. Blotto and Twinks turned as one to see the last shudder of the metal shutter that had slid down in its slots to cut off their way back to the Château d’Erimes.
Then they heard an evil laugh. It seemed to come from the room from which they had just released Mimsy La Pim. Blotto and Twinks stood on the threshold and looked inside.
The area behind the glass wall was now brightly illuminated, revealing what appeared to be some monstrous laboratory. Tangles of tubing led in every direction. Coloured fluids bubbled unnervingly in retorts. Lights flashed, steam seethed. Midget lab technicians moved busily about, mixing, measuring, monitoring.
And in the centre of this experimentation, dressed in a white coat and laughing at them, stood a figure whose scaly pinkish-brown face tapered down to a sharp-toothed point. Like the face of a flea.
They had finally met La Puce!
26
A Devilish Experiment
‘Seize them!’ commanded the muffled voice behind the insect face.
As if from nowhere, a gang of midgets in slime-green uniforms appeared and surrounded the three would-be escapees. Blotto managed to send half a dozen of them flying, but without his cricket bat he wasn’t at his most effective. Soon the three
of them were overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.
Once again they heard the evil laugh of La Puce. ‘So you walked conveniently into my trap,’ he said.
‘You mean the Marchioness was part of your plan too?’ asked Twinks.
‘Of course. For an operation like mine one needs friends in high places.’
‘And what in the name of Denzil is your operation?’ demanded Blotto. ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’
‘World domination. Neither more nor less than world domination,’ the voice replied in a tone of muffled complacency.
‘You have about as much chance of that as a housemaid has of entering the peerage,’ said Blotto.
‘Don’t you believe it. I am well on the way to the realization of my ambitions. And I would like to thank you for your help in getting me nearer that realization.’
‘Our help?’
‘Your generous donation of the Tawcester Towers’ Gainsborough and Reynolds.’
‘You four-faced filcher!’ cried Twinks. ‘So you were behind the theft?’
‘Not only that one, but a co-ordinated programme of thefts of Old Masters from all of Europe. It is the sale of those paintings that will finance my successful progress to world domination.’
‘But the two Ruperts are our ancestors,’ protested Blotto.
‘It is not their subjects that give the portraits value,’ said La Puce disdainfully. ‘It is who painted them that matters. The names of Gainsborough and Reynolds carry far more weight in the world than those of two minor Dukes.’
‘Minor Dukes?’ echoed Blotto. He tried to burst free to attack the lump of toadspawn who could so impugn the Lyminster family honour, but the swarm of uniformed midgets held him firm.
‘Yes,’ continued the complacent master criminal, ‘it is the proceeds from art that will fund my experimentation.’
It was Twinks’s turn to do the echoing. ‘Experimentation? What kind of murdey game are you up to?’
‘A very cunning one,’ replied La Puce. ‘I have abducted the world’s best scientists to work with me on my schemes. The laboratory you see here is just one of many in my underground empire. Nothing can halt the advance of science.’
‘Nothing can halt the advance of good science,’ said Twinks rather magnificently, ‘but human beings all over the world can rise up to defeat the advance of bad science.’
‘I fear not,’ said La Puce. ‘Because soon there will not be enough human beings in the world to frustrate my plans.’
‘What fumacious devilment are you planning?’ demanded Blotto.
But his question prompted only another evil laugh and the assertion that: ‘You will find out soon enough.’ Then La Puce barked out a command to his army of midgets. ‘Strap the dark-haired girl back on to her deathbed. And do the same with the man.’
‘What about the fair-haired girl?’ asked one of the midgets.
‘For her a different fate awaits. A much happier fate. I plan to be very generous to the fair-haired girl.’
‘I don’t want your generosity!’ snapped Twinks. ‘If Blotto and Mimsy are about to be killed, then I want to share the same fate as them.’
‘Ah,’ said La Puce. ‘Were you not taught by your nanny in the nursery the old adage that “I want never gets”? You may want whatever you wish to, Twinks, but the decision about what you actually get is mine and mine alone. Strap down the other two!’ he commanded the midgets.
Once again no amount of struggling could defeat the numerical supremacy of the midget army. Soon Blotto and Mimsy La Pim were pinioned by the leather straps to their parallel beds, awaiting whatever fate La Puce chose to decree for them.
But Twinks’s defiance had not been crushed. ‘Your science is useless!’ she cried, moving back into magnificent mode. ‘It cannot work against the powers of good!’
‘Oh no?’ La Puce appeared to be amused by her continuing resistance. ‘Would you not say that the transformation of my head into that of a giant flea was a triumph of science?’
‘No. I would say that was evidence that you purchased a Giant Flea Mask (Product Number 2374J) from Professor Shazamm’s Joke and Novelty Shop in London’s Charing Cross Road.’
A moment of rather peeved silence told Twinks that she had hit the mark. La Puce did not respond to her accusation, instead changing the subject and shouting, ‘Bring the fair-haired one in here … while I explain to the other two the fate that awaits them!’
Resistance was once again futile as Twinks was frogmarched into the laboratory area and pushed down into a chair to look through the glass at her helpless brother and the equally helpless Mimsy La Pim.
‘So let me tell you what is going to happen to these two unfortunates …’ The muffled voice of La Puce paused, relishing the silence. He was in charge and he was going to reveal his evil machinations at his own pace.
‘Now the main problem facing anyone attempting world domination is the sheer number of people in that world. Millions upon millions of them, and each extra million represents an increased problem of control. Therefore the first essential for anyone hoping for world domination is to reduce the number of people he has to control, to reduce the population of the world.
‘So if, like me, you have an interest in history, you will ask yourself: What, over the years, has had the greatest effect on world population? War, you might say. Famine. Earthquakes, floods, other natural disasters. But the impact of all of those pales into insignificance when compared to … the Plague!
‘The Black Death killed a third of the population of Europe, but the Plague that I am developing will make those statistics look paltry. Now I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the bubonic plague is carried by the fleas which infest rats. And let me tell you, down here in my laboratories I have bred a very special kind of rat.’
As he spoke, La Puce flicked a switch and light appeared behind the two glass side walls of Blotto and Mimsy’s prison. It took a moment for them and Twinks to register that the seething mass of grey and pink thus revealed was in fact individual rats, crawling over each other and baring their yellowed teeth against the restraint of the glass. With realization of what they were came recognition of the fact that they were not ordinary rats. They were super-rats, the smallest of which was the size of a badger.
Before they had time to put on their brave faces, Blotto and Twinks’s eyes registered terror. Mimsy La Pim didn’t bother with putting on a brave face; she stayed with the expression of terror.
La Puce laughed at their discomfiture. ‘Yes, and of course if the rats are that big, imagine the size of the fleas on them! Imagine the effects of a bite from such a flea! But no, you will not have to imagine. I would not put you to so much trouble. I will instead arrange a demonstration for you. It is the demonstration I had planned to use Mimsy La Pim for, but now I am fortunate to have a second … what shall I call it … guinea pig? Now I will be able to monitor the symptoms of bubonic plague on both the female and male body!’
He waved to his green-uniformed midget army. ‘Clear the room … unless you too wish to be part of my experiment.’
His acolytes needed no second invitation. Falling over themselves in a manner not dissimilar to the giant rats, they scuttled out into the corridor, locking the prison door behind them.
Twinks looked contemptuously at their tormentor. ‘You’ll never get away with this, you stencher!’ she said.
La Puce chuckled again. ‘But I have already got away with it, the important part, anyway. There are just a few more details that I need to sort out, and then I will unleash my particularly fatal strain of bubonic plague on to the unsuspecting world!’
‘If that’s what you’re planning, then the least you can do is let me through into the room, so that my brother and I can die together.’
The insect head shook. ‘No, no. I know a little of how cunning you are, Twinks. If I let you join Blotto, you might devise some scheme to thwart my ambitions. Besides,’ he went on, the muffled voice taking on an even more s
inister tone, ‘I do not wish you to die in there, Twinks. I have other plans for you.’
‘If you think I am going to fit in with any plans of yours, then—’
‘Silence her!’ shouted La Puce, and four midget lab technicians came forward to do as he told them. ‘You know where to take her.’
Gagged and helpless, Twinks was dragged out of the laboratory, out of sight of her brother and Mimsy La Pim.
‘Now,’ said La Puce, ‘I think it is time for you two and my super-rats to get better acquainted.’
As he spoke, he pressed a switch and, in pure synchronicity, the two glass walls either side of the prison were raised, allowing the super-rats to burst in and swarm over everything inside the room.
Including the beds on which lay the immobilized bodies of Blotto and Mimsy La Pim.
La Puce then departed his observation room, returning it to its former darkness. The echo of his evil laugh lingered in his wake.
27
A Fate Worse Than Death
Though none of her abductors reached higher than her waist, Twinks was not strong enough to resist them. Two midgets clung on to each of her wrists, while the bulk of them pushed from behind. One, whose uniform boasted more decoration than the others, strode ahead to open the doors.
And there were a lot of doors. As she was hustled through, Twinks began to get some concept of the scale of La Puce’s operation. Laboratory opened out into laboratory and in none of them did the tiny white-coated technicians look up from their work for a moment at the strange cavalcade. In some of the laboratories chemical experiments bubbled and fizzed; in others, sparks and blazes of electricity zapped between pieces of apparatus; in some, caged rats of various sizes were being tested and vivisected. And through the glass walls of each laboratory they crossed were revealed other laboratories, stretching away as far as the eye could see.
Eventually the laboratories gave way to a lavish living area, a kind of mansion carved out of the living rock. Twinks was escorted through a cavernous hallway. Doors they passed opened out to luxuriously appointed drawing rooms, but the relentless onward pushing of her midget guards showed they hadn’t yet reached their destination.