The Amazing Test Match Crime
Adrian Alington
Contents
Introduction
The Crime is Hatched
Cricket-Lovers all
Proceedings of a Super-Criminal
The Proposal
The Eve of the Match
Plan A
Week-End Tension
Plan B
Extract from the Diary of Sawn-Off Carlo
Escape
Plan C
Aftermath
Wedding Bells
Extract from the Diary of Sawn-Off Carlo
Footnotes
“The Bad Men—no information obtainable.”
From the dossiers of half the police-headquarters in Europe
Introduction
I thought that I had read all the best cricket novels – England Their England by A. G. Macdonell, The Cricket Match by Hugh de Selincourt, Mike by P. G. Wodehouse, That Test Match by Sir Home Gordon, A Sky-Blue Life by Maurice Moisevitsch, Mortimer Also by Jo Rice, and two thrillers: Death Before Wicket by Nancy Spain and Testkill by Ted Dexter. But The Amazing Test Match Crime is one out of the bag. It was first published by Chatto and Windus in 1939, and is now happily republished. I admit I had never heard of Adrian Alington, author of some fifteen books. It seems that he was a nephew of the more famous Dr Cyril Alington, headmaster of Eton in my time and later Dean of Durham, who also wrote books including Mr Evans – a Cricketer – a detective story.
There is no evidence that Adrian Alington even played cricket but I am sure he must have done so. He certainly knew all about the game and everyone and everything associated with it. Even more certain is that he loved it. His book is an affectionate parody of those who play, watch and administer cricket and even those who broadcast it. I can quite honestly say that I have never laughed so much at a book since I read about that classic cricket match in England Their England. But that was only a small section of a book. This time my laughter and chuckles have continued for nearly two hundred and fifty pages – from the very first over through to close of play.
The story is a simple one. An international gang called The Bad Men plan to disrupt the British Empire by interfering with the fifth and vital Test in a series between England and Imperia. The leader of the gang is The Professor, a small man with a large round head which contains a great criminal brain. He knows nothing about cricket and so mugs it up by reading The Principles of Sound Batmanship by L. E. G. Glance. He tries out his new-found knowledge on cricket-loving strangers by inserting into the conversation phrases like ‘Long live Sir Sutcliffe’, or ‘What sweeter music than the crack of the willow despatching the leather to the ropes across the green tapis.’ His two assistants are a gum-chewing Damon Runyan character called Sawn-off Carlo, big, burly and a gangster of the lowest type, and Ralph the Disappointment, who was sacked from his public school for drinking port and later joined the Foreign Legion.
So much for the baddies, and already I suspect you will have discerned Mr Alington’s great gift for creating character. The goodies are based at the village of Wattlecombe Ducis in Glebeshire, the home of Sir Timothy Blood – ’erect, distinguished, with a noble white moustache, the Doyen of the game’. He is the father of England’s captain, Norman Blood, ‘dark, handsome and an athlete to his finger-prints’. Another villager is Joe Prestwick, a spin bowler for Glebeshire and tipped to play for England at the Oval Test. But his parents are ‘rough peasants’ who ‘live in Stark Cottage and wring a bare living from the soil’. As a result poor Joe cannot afford a belt and has to play in his braces, when suddenly called on to play against Baghurst Parva, because the blacksmith has been kicked by a horse. Joe takes all ten wickets for one run, and Monica, the daughter of the saintly and scholarly old vicar, who loves him, buys him a belt. Joe falls in love with her too, and the saintly old vicar interrupts his reading of the 1907 Wisden to give his blessing to their marriage, provided Joe plays for England. . .
And there I must leave you in suspense. I hope I have whetted your appetite. How and when will the gang strike? Will the vicar allow Joe to marry Monica? Does England win? Is the British Empire disrupted? All I can say is ‘Read on’. I am sure that you – like me – will find it the funniest cricket book you have ever read – and also the most lovable, with its gentle digs at all and sundry in the cricket world.
Brian Johnston, London 1983
The Crime is Hatched
“The Big Shot is late,” said Sawn-off Carlo.
“He will come,” replied Ralph the Disappointment.
“Sure he’ll come, buddy. The Big Guy knows his onions.”
The situation of the café, outside which the two men sat, cannot be more closely described than by saying that it was in foreign parts. So much, indeed, was obvious, since local colour of a peculiarly foreign brand surrounded it upon all sides.
It was a scene such as Mr. N. Julius Guggenheim, the famous novelist, has so often described. Brilliant blue sea, about which costly motor-boats with aristocratic occupants dashed and roared. Dazzling white terrace with orange trees and palms luxuriantly flourishing at suitable intervals. A dazzling white town climbing upwards away from the sea, and as a background, distant snow-capped mountains.
Upon the terrace strolled a brilliantly attired throng composed of foreign noblemen, filmstars, adventuresses, financiers, spies of both sexes, secret service men, ambassadors, and international crooks. Snatches of miscellaneous conversation floated about in the dazzling sunlit air, as they strolled to and fro.
“But consider, mon cher duc, to abduct the Minister of Foreign Affairs will cost money—”
“Alors, my dear Lola, I give you three more days in which to secure the documents—”
“Her Supreme Highness will be wearing the pearls at the bal masqué tomorrow night—”
Mingling with the conversations came the strains of a band in dashing uniforms, playing the latest operetta.
The two men sitting at the little round table before the café presented a strange contrast. They were alike only in that they were both members of a gang for whom the police of half Europe were searching, the gang that was bitterly spoken of, whenever detectives came together, as the Bad Men. Already this gang had to its credit the assassination of the President of Guamelia and the blowing up of the National Bank of Gloritana, as well as a host of other major crimes. Always conspicuously upon the scene of the crime it left its signature, “The Bad Men”, scrawled in sprawling red letters. Nothing, however, was known of its members. Police dossiers all over Europe remained tantalizingly empty. Only it was realized and generally admitted that the brain behind this organization was of a subtlety and brilliance quite unprecedented in the annals of crime. It belonged, in short, to that rare being, a super-criminal.
Sawn-off Carlo, big, burly, a round soft hat on his head, his jaws moving continuously as he chewed gum, was a gangster of the lowest type, such as may be seen in many films of American life. He wore a gun strapped under each arm, though this was not so much because he needed them, as because he would have felt undressed without them. He watched the patrolling crowd with little interest. They seemed to him on the whole a phoney lot of palookas. These foreign burgs sure got a guy down. His was a simple enthusiastic nature and he thought often of his old mother who dwelt up a great many stairs in a bum apoitment-house way back in New Yoick.
His companion was English. It would be a pleasure to say that he was English to the backbone, but such, alas, was not the case. He was, in fact, as was indicated by the name by which he was known in many low quarters of the world, a renegade Englishman. Though born in the highest circles and educated at impeccable schools, Ralph the Disappointment had drifted
steadily downward. His was a story of steadily increasing shame. He had been expelled from a first-class preparatory school because the Headmaster (who was a snob) had overheard him teasing a Marquis about his boils. He had been expelled from the great public school of Harborough as the result of a far more desperate escapade. It was Ralph’s custom to climb out of his dormitory at night and drink port wine in a neighbouring public-house. One night he was surprised in this enterprise by the French master. Without a second’s hesitation Ralph shot the man down. Youthful psychology was not understood in those days and a serious view was taken of the offence. The murder of the French master was hushed up (modern languages were never considered of much account at Harborough), but the consumption of alcohol was too grave an offence to be overlooked. Ralph quitted the school in shame. His stern old father, heart-broken at the stigma which had come to smirch the family name, decreed that the boy must go abroad. His adoring mother, who lacked her husband’s iron character, protested:
“But if Ralph goes abroad what will become of him? He will only drift lower and lower.”
“Naturally,” replied her husband, voicing the stern yet simple creed of his class. “That is what foreign parts are for.”
His mother’s prediction had come true. Ralph the Disappointment sank like a stone. At one time he joined the Foreign Legion, but here again he was a failure. It is significant that his companions did not call him Beau Ralph, as they would have done if he had been an Englishman of the right type, abroad in error. On the contrary they spoke of him cynically as “Ralph the Disappointment”.
It was Sergeant Renee Parbleu, that brutal bully who thought nothing of kicking an unpopular legionary to death, who threw this bitter name at him one day in the heart of the torrid desert. “Regardez, mes amis,” he had cried with a savage sneer, “Ralph the Disappointment!”
Immediately the name had stuck; it was repeated continuously in a variety of languages. It was strange, Ralph had thought, how this mixed collection of legionaries could recognize at sight a pukka fella, who had been falsely accused of something at home and would ultimately after incredible hardships be welcomed back with honour. They knew that he was not a pukka fella, but on the contrary a real bad fella, indeed a shockin’ fella. Even here amid this vast expanse of sand the stigma lay upon him.
Ultimately he had deserted from the Legion and continued on the downward path, meeting on his way with a number of discreditable adventures, which would fill volumes. And now here he was, a member of the dreaded Bad Men. Even his adoring mother could not have predicted anything quite so deplorable.
The two men sat mainly in silence waiting.
“Say, buddy,” said Sawn-off Carlo presently, in order to pass the time, “do I ever tell you how I put Al Camponoli on the spot?”
“Several times.”
“Aw, shucks, that’s tough. I guess it’s nice woik the way I get that guy’s aged mother sorrowing for her son. Do I tell you how I croak Theodore the Gink?”
“Yes.”
Sawn-off Carlo sank into disappointed silence. He was a gregarious soul; nothing delighted him more than these simple reminiscences of a happy past. He was damped by Ralph’s lack of response. Say, did that guy give you the dead pan or did he?
Presently the man they awaited was to be seen making his way through the crowd towards them. Even at a distance it was clear that here was no ordinary personality. He was a man of small stature, but upon his little body was perched a huge head with an immense dome-like forehead. Beneath it piercing eyes which looked on the world through great round spectacles. He was dressed like any other member of the crowd in white ducks and a yachting cap, but some strange magnetic force seemed to set him apart. In his hand he carried an attaché case.
“Here,” said Sawn-off Carlo, “comes the Big Guy.”
The approaching man, known to his subordinates as the Professor, was, it may be said at once, the leader for whom the police of half the world were searching. Nor were they wrong in attributing to him intellectual powers of an abnormal kind. A short summary of his career may not be out of place.
He had been born of peasant stock in a humble foreign village. At an extravagantly early age, however, he had shown his mettle. He had begun to speak long before the normal time, and his speech from the first was not as that of other children. For instead of the usual and eagerly anticipated references to his parents the infant Professor had opened his tiny mouth and uttered the startling syllables, “Square Root.” For a while after that he remained silent. When next, some weeks later, he spoke again, it was to utter his first complete sentence.
“Parallel lines,” he observed, removing his tiny thumb from his mouth, “though indefinitely prolonged, will never meet.”
Having thus spoken, he replaced his thumb in his mouth and lying back in his humble cot, relapsed once more into his childish thoughts.
Again at the age of three the Professor showed a further glimpse of his phenomenal intellectual grasp. A certain aunt of his, who was visiting his parents, fancied that she had a way with children. It was this good woman’s custom to lean over the cot, with murmurs of “Tootsy-wootsy, babykins” and similar ejaculations. It was an embarrassing moment for all concerned when the infant Professor remarked coldly:
“Please remove this woman with her absurd conversation. She is setting up inhibitions which will be with me through life.”
It must be noted that at the time of this incident the Professor had not yet learned to read, and could not possibly have heard of Dr. Freud.
A career of the utmost honour was naturally predicted for this extraordinary child. And indeed, the earlier part of his life was brilliantly spent in academic surroundings. Scholastic honours of all kinds, the most exalted academic posts were his for the asking. Many works of the most startling profundity bore his name. But alas, the Professor with his phenomenal intellect found the companionship of even the most erudite and brilliant of his colleagues lacking in entertainment. It was he, who, after a five-hour chat with Einstein upon various mathematical topics, came away with the memorable words:
“The man is shallow.”
The climax came with the completion of his final work, The Essence of the Absolute. This had taken him four years of immense concentration, and when finished was found to be both unintelligible and unprintable. For the first time the Professor’s mighty intellect had soared into the realms of pure knowledge. With something akin to despair he realized that, however long he lived, he could never know more than he did now.
Suddenly academic haunts knew the Professor no more. No-one knew what had become of him, but to the general relief of his colleagues, who found his superhuman abilities extremely tiresome, he disappeared. No-one, of course, suspected that like Moriarty before him he had become an enemy of society, that he had at last found a congenial outlet for his phenomenal intellect in directing the activities of the Bad Men.
As he approached the table where the others sat, the Professor greeted them with every sign of astonishment. For among his other capabilities the man was a superb actor.
“My dear sirs! This is indeed a surprise.”
“Howdy, Boss,” replied Sawn-off Carlo amiably.
“You fool!” whispered the Professor savagely. “Have I not told you that we are to meet always as strangers?”
“Aw, Boss, there ain’t no G-men around in this bum burg.”
The Professor fixed upon him a terrible glance.
“It is better, my dear Carlo, to be a Bad Man than a dead man.”
With these words, uttered in a tone of appalling menace, the Professor seated himself at the table, and clapped his hands for the waiter. He ordered himself a café fine and lit a thin cigar. While waiting for it to be brought, he conversed loudly with his companions, at the same time shooting keen glances about him through his spectacles.
“One of the delights of foreign travel, my dear friends, is the possibility of chance meetings such as this. Here was I, strolling at leisure
through this fashionable resort, little dreaming that I was about to encounter my two old friends …”
Thus the three sat, to all seeming an innocent enough group of old friends. But when his coffee had been brought, the Professor suddenly dropped his loud and somewhat hearty tone. Leaning forward he spoke quietly and precisely.
“And now, my friends, we speak of business. You know why we are here?”
“Sure,” replied Sawn-off Carlo, “we’re going to muscle in on this ball-game racket.”
“You are as usual inaccurate,” said the Professor coldly. “In England, which is to be the scene of our operations, these contests are spoken of not as the ball-game, but as Matches of Crickets.”
Ralph the Disappointment, renegade Englishman though he was, could not help wincing slightly at the Professor’s mistake. He said nothing, however. The Professor continued.
“The operations upon which we are about to embark are, I think I may say, of a more far-reaching character than anything we have yet attempted. I flatter myself that though I have already assassinated a President—”
“Say, Boss,” protested Sawn-off Carlo, “who is it gives that sap the well-known stream of lead?”
The Professor waved his cigar impatiently.
“The actual assassination may have been your handiwork. The elaborate and carefully prepared plans, which made it possible, were, of course, mine.”
Carlo sighed in happy reminiscence.
“Say, does that punk holler when I give him the woiks? Oh boy.”
“Pray,” said the Professor coldly, “let me have no more interruptions. As I say, the operations before us are of the most far-reaching importance. They have as their object no less than a blow at the heart of that Empire of which our friend Ralph here is an unworthy member.”
Again Ralph the Disappointment winced, but did not interrupt.
“Who our employers are,” the Professor proceeded, “must remain a secret even from you, my friends. Let it suffice to say that International Interests of the first importance are involved. In consulting me these gentlemen have shown wisdom of a high order.”
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