Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera

by Simon Brett

  The room where they did finally stop was much more primitive. A circular space like a cell, its walls were bare, clean rock. Opposite the door through which they entered was a substantial closed one, its strong oak panels studded with metal bosses in the shape of fleurs-de-lys.

  There was no furniture or adornment of any kind. Except for a large bouquet of flowers standing in an otherwise empty glass vase. And, hanging from a rivet driven into the wall, a beautiful white wedding dress.

  The midget with the more decorated uniform ordered Twinks to put it on.

  At first she resisted, but it soon became clear that if she didn’t undress herself her captors would do the job for her. So, commanding them to stand back, Twinks proceeded to change into the dress.

  She had no prudery about revealing her undergarments. The midget army of La Puce became as invisible to her as any of the Tawcester Towers domestics.

  Two things struck her as she donned the white dress. First, that it was a beautiful garment, made from the finest materials by the finest seamstresses. And second, that it fitted her so perfectly that she could have been measured for it.

  When she had completed dressing, the senior midget thrust the bouquet towards her. She took it with her left hand, making sure to keep her reticule in her right. Then the midget moved across and turned the heavy ring handle on the studded door.

  It opened to reveal a small but exquisitely beautiful candlelit chapel. The splendour of its altar and the excesses of its statuary suggested it was a Catholic chapel, and this was confirmed by the smell of incense that emanated from the interior.

  Standing in front of the altar was a priest in elaborate robes and a black biretta.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said in English. ‘Welcome, you who are about to become the bride of La Puce.’

  28

  The Plague!

  On very rare occasions Blotto had really good ideas. They were always of a practical nature, never flights of intellectual fancy. And fortunately he’d had one of his good ideas when he was being pinioned to his hospital trolley by the midget army. He had taken the sensible precaution of unbuckling the strap of his wristwatch and ensuring that the leather restraint was pulled tight over that part of his wrist. By flexing the muscles of his arm he had eased the wristwatch off, thus rendering his leather ligature loose enough for him to slip out his hand.

  And for the first time in Blotto’s life, a second good idea followed hard on the heels of the first one. In the seconds before he was swamped by super-rats, he reached into his blazer pocket and produced his sacred relic, the Brie that Mimsy La Pim had been eating at the Villa Marzipan. Deftly, he smeared it over the other leather straps that bound him.

  Now the fondness of rodents for cheese is proverbial and extolled the world over by manufacturers of mousetraps. So, offered the choice of fresh young human bodies and overripe Brie, La Puce’s super-rats had no hesitation. Their mouths reached for the precious flavour and their sharp teeth tore through the leather straps impregnated with it.

  Within seconds Blotto was free! Once again he thought wistfully of what he could have done with his cricket bat in his hand … Still, it wasn’t the moment for regrets. He’d have to make do with whatever weapons were to hand. Grabbing the tail of a particularly large rat, he whirled it round his head with his left hand, sending other rats smashing against the glass walls of the cell. Meanwhile, with his right hand he unbuckled the restraints that tied Mimsy La Pim to her bed.

  In a moment she too was free! Not waiting for a caption, again she breathed the words: ‘My hero!’

  They had seen no exit from their cell into La Puce’s observation room, but through the grille of the door by which they’d entered, a thin light challenged the darkness. Fortunately, the midget army had not locked up after them, so within moments Blotto and Mimsy La Pim were out in the passage.

  The film star had never seen anyone as handsome as Blotto at that moment. His blue eyes sparkling with honesty and chivalry, he cried out: ‘Come on, we must shift like a pair of cheetahs on spikes and rescue Twinks!’

  29

  A Villain Unmasked!

  ‘You will wait here,’ commanded the priest, ‘until we are joined by the man you are to marry.’

  Twinks had no option but to obey. She was held tight by the midget army in her position before the altar.

  Though matrimony was not the preoccupation with her that it was for most girls of her age, even Twinks had from time to time pictured the day of her wedding. But none of the images she had entertained bore any relation to the situation in which she now found herself. They hadn’t included a Catholic priest, or an army of midgets, or indeed a chapel hollowed out of rocks in the South of France. And they certainly hadn’t included, in the role of groom, a criminal mastermind disguised as a giant flea.

  Twinks focused her mind on her reticule. There must be something amid its inexhaustible supplies that could help in her current predicament. But as she itemized the contents, none of them seemed to offer any escape from her approaching fate.

  She looked around the chapel and saw something that brought a new chill to her heart. Across the altar, displayed like the colours of some vanquished army, lay her brother’s cricket bat!

  Now she knew the full perfidy of the stenchers they were up against.

  Twinks tried to engage the priest in conversation. ‘Even if you do go through the mockery of a wedding service with me and La Puce, it will not be legal without my voicing my consent. And I’ll have my tongue pulled out with red-hot pliers before I give that consent!’

  ‘The marriage will be legal,’ said the priest complacently. ‘There will be enough witnesses here who will all swear blind that they heard you give your consent. Won’t there?’

  The midget army confirmed that they would act as witnesses.

  ‘So you will be married,’ said the priest. ‘And I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about the idea. There are many women whose cherished dream it would be to marry the most powerful man in the world.’

  ‘Well, I’m not one of those women!’ came the spirited response. ‘When I get married, it will be to someone of my choosing.’ For that moment she put from her mind any influence her mother the Dowager Duchess might have on such decisions. ‘I don’t consort with criminals!’

  ‘Criminals,’ said a muffled voice behind her, ‘are only defined by the laws they break. When I rule the world, I will define what is against the law. And I can assure you that, by that definition, I will never have committed a criminal act.’

  The restraining midgets relaxed their grip sufficiently for Twinks to turn and face her nemesis. La Puce had removed his white laboratory coat and was dressed in immaculate morning dress. Just like a proper bridegroom.

  ‘I will never marry you!’ cried Twinks magnificently.

  ‘Oh, but you will. You have no choice,’ said the muffled voice silkily. ‘And after a time you will begin to understand the benefits of our union. As the bubonic plague from my super-rats decimates the world’s population, you will come to realize how safe you are in my protective arms.’

  ‘Never!’ cried Twinks, with the bold certainty of one of Mimsy La Pim’s caption cards.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said La Puce. ‘You will be the perfect consort for me. Together we will rule the world! And now …’ he continued as he stepped forward, ‘let the wedding service begin.’

  The priest’s mouth was opened, but before any sacred words could emerge from it, a breathless midget appeared at the entrance of the chapel, crying, ‘The rats have all escaped! They are running down the passage that opens out by the sea!’

  This news did not seem to discomfit La Puce much. Calmly he said, ‘I do not wish them to go out into the world yet. I have planned their release for two days hence, and I never change my plans. Don’t worry, I will seal off the end of the tunnel and they can be herded back into their cells.’

  Reaching forward, La Puce took hold of one of the candlesticks on the altar and pulled i
t towards him. It was hinged like a lever and as he pulled, a distant sound of chains clanking and machinery whirring was heard. Letting go of the candlestick, he announced, ‘There, it is done. The metal shutter at the sea end of the tunnel is closed and the rats are trapped between that and the shutter which cuts off access to the Château d’Erimes.’

  He turned to the midget who had just bought the news of their escape. ‘You and your men can get them back into their cells.’

  ‘I am not sure we can do that, La Puce. The rats are very dangerous and are likely to turn on us and—’

  ‘Get them back into their cells!’

  More frightened by the wrath of his boss than the viciousness of the rats, the midget rushed off to obey the bellowed command.

  When La Puce next spoke, his voice was all insinuating intimacy. ‘And now let us return to the wedding service. This is a moment I have yearned for for a long time. A great moment – and an appropriate one – when the Honourable Honoria Lyminster, the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world, is united for ever to the most powerful man in the world. Father, let the wedding service commence!’

  And so it did. Pinioned as she was, Twinks could only listen as the liturgical process unrolled. When it came to responding to the three questions in the Rite of Marriage about the freedom of her choice, her faithfulness to her husband and her intention to bring up her children in the Catholic faith, she kept her mouth firmly shut. But on each occasion, behind her she heard the massed voices of the midgets saying in unison, ‘Yes, we heard her answer.’

  When it came to the moment for the ring to be placed on her finger, La Puce gestured to the midget guards to release Twinks’s left arm. She wasn’t going to waste an opportunity like that. In a movement almost too fast to be seen, she grabbed the pointed end of La Puce’s mask and whipped it off his face.

  She looked inside it and triumphantly read what was written on a small label there. ‘See, I knew I was right. It’s a Giant Flea Mask (Product Number 2374J) from Professor Shazamm’s Joke and Novelty Shop in London’s Charing Cross Road!’

  Then she looked up into the eyes of the Marquis of Bluntleigh.

  30

  The Rodents’ Revenge

  ‘You!’ said Twinks in a voice of ice-cold fury. ‘You were behind the whole thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Buzzer Bluntleigh with a sardonic smile.

  ‘But why? Why did you go through all that flipmadoodle of pretending to be an amorous swain?’

  ‘Because I was an amorous swain. I’ve been in love since I first clapped my peepers on you, Twinks.’

  She was so used to receiving protestations of this kind that she hardly even heard it. ‘But why go through all that chivalry rombooley, all that mooning and mawking, writing terrible poems—?’

  ‘They weren’t terrible poems,’ said the Marquis, offended.

  ‘Yes, they were. Total bilge-water.’

  ‘But I thought—’

  ‘Anyway, why go through all that when, as you’ve just proved, you could capture me by force?’

  ‘Because I am chivalrous, Twinks. I was brought up to do things the right way. I went to Eton, after all. And I wanted you to become my wife in the proper way, with the full agreement of your family. It was only when I finally recognized that was never going to happen that I resorted to force.’

  ‘But all that pathetic guff, drooping around like a lovesick lily. What did you think you’d achieve by all that?’

  ‘I thought it was the way to your heart.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t, by Denzil! And believe me, none of it has done you a groatsworth of good. I’ll never marry you.’

  ‘I think technically,’ said the priest, ‘you just have married him.’

  ‘Don’t talk such toffee! I never gave my consent to anything!’

  ‘Oh yes, you did,’ intoned the midget army. ‘We heard you. You’re married all right.’

  ‘And in a moment,’ said the Marquis of Bluntleigh, ‘you will have my ring on your finger.’

  ‘Never!’

  But despite her protestations, Twinks was not strong enough to resist. Midget hands seized her left hand and forced it up towards the waiting gold band. Flesh and precious metal had almost made contact when a voice behind them was heard to say, ‘Hello, Twinks me old buttered muffin, what’s the bizz-buzz?’

  Bride and groom turned together at the sound to see Blotto and Mimsy La Pim, both grinning hugely.

  ‘Beezer to find you, Twinks! And you, Buzzer. Beezer to see you too!’ Blotto moved forward to take the Marquis by the hand. The Marquis smiled back. ‘I was afraid my sister had fallen into the clutches of La Puce.’

  ‘He is La Puce!’ hissed Twinks.

  ‘Don’t talk such guff!’ said her brother. ‘He went to Eton. Boddos who go to Eton don’t disguise themselves as Giant Fleas and become criminal masterminds.’

  ‘No, of course we don’t,’ Buzzer Bluntleigh agreed.

  ‘Yes, they do!’ Twinks’s quick mind thought of the one thing that would convince Blotto of the Marquis’s villainy. ‘Look at what’s on the altar!’

  She’d made the right call. With a cry of ‘You were the stencher who snaffled it!’, Blotto seized his cricket bat and turned on its purloiner.

  Mimsy La Pim looked at the bat in puzzlement. ‘Gee, what’s that?’ she asked.

  But Blotto was too incensed to provide her with an immediate answer. Instead, he shouted at Buzzer Blunt-leigh, ‘You lump of toadspawn! Anyone who steals another boddo’s cricket bat instantly gives up all rights to the title of Old Etonian!’

  The smile evaporated from the Marquis of Bluntleigh’s face and he shouted to his midget army, ‘Seize them!’

  The little men ran forward, but they were no match for a Blotto armed with his cricket bat and an unassailable sense of his own righteousness. Using the full repertory of strokes that had brought him such glory on the playing fields of Eton, he belaboured the approaching midgets and soon had them on the back foot. They were quickly joined by the Marquis of Bluntleigh as, in the face of the flailing cricket bat, their progress turned to a rout.

  Twinks and Mimsy La Pim followed behind Blotto, watching his feats with matching adoration.

  Back through the living quarters La Puce’s army was driven, and back through the maze of laboratories. Midgets slipped and stumbled against each other, getting bruised and battered in the confusion of their retreat. Eventually the army and their leader escaped from the clubbing cricket bat into the passage that ran from the closed Château d’Erimes exit to the closed seashore exit.

  And there in the passage they encountered the supersized rodents created by the evil experiments of La Puce. Now a cornered rat is proverbially vicious and the super-rats, having found both ends of the tunnel sealed, felt decidedly cornered. Their animal instincts left them no alternative but to turn on the people whom they blamed for that cornering.

  The Marquis of Bluntleigh and his midget army stood no chance against the ravening horde of rats.

  Behind the safety of a glass wall Twinks decided that, if she had actually been married, then she’d been so quickly widowed that it would never be worth mentioning the fact to anyone.

  31

  The Proper Authorities

  Careful exploration of the network of La Puce’s laboratories was a rather bizarre experience. Blotto and Twinks had been worried that, though the uniformed army of midgets had been neutralized by the super-rats, the research team of white-coated ones might turn on them. But as brother and sister moved from the scene of one ghastly experiment to another, none of the staff so much as looked up to acknowledge their presence. The midget researchers had been conditioned through some evil system of brain manipulation to focus all of their concentration on furthering La Puce’s evil ambitions.

  This was of course good news for Blotto and Twinks and enabled them to conduct their searches without anxiety. Stowed away in the subterranean labyrinth they found many unexpected objects, including neatly fo
lded hot-air balloons, which explained how the Gainsborough and Reynolds had been spirited away from the top of Notre-Dame.

  They also found files full of personnel records of La Puce’s network of international art thieves. The Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Sales-Malincourt (whose real names turned out to be the rather more prosaic Thierry and Marie Dupont) of course featured in these documents, but they were only two among many and the aristocratic sleuths began to comprehend the scope of La Puce’s operations.

  In the files Blotto and Twinks found paperwork that revealed what had happened with the booby-trap in Notre-Dame. They had misunderstood the message received at the Hôtel de Crillon. Blotto had been the one intended to go to the South Tower. La Puce had never wanted to eliminate the woman he planned to marry. Blotto was the one intended to step on the sabotaged trapdoor. Had he done so, of course, not being in possession of a reticule containing a housewife and extra-strong silken thread, he would have plummeted to his death.

  The most important of their discoveries, though, was made in a high warehouse hollowed out of the rock, where they found a treasure trove of Old Masters, the loot from almost every major art theft of the past decade. Address tickets and dates on the frames of the works showed that they were all due to be delivered to their illicit buyers on the following day. They had stopped La Puce’s wicked plans just in time. Backed up by the money from the sales of those paintings, and with his packs of plague-bearing super-rats ready to be unleashed, nothing could have obstructed his plans for world domination.