The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

by Kyril Bonfiglioli

  Instead of turning Dryden’s Rice Krispies to ashes in his mouth and receiving the dreaded reproachful stare in my natal stuffing, I could now greet him with a cheery and eupeptic ‘YES’ and urge him to try the cherry jam.

  I checked the items off again, for I have never had difficulty in counting up to three, and the answer came out the same. There had been no flaw in my reasoning.

  ‘Eureka!’ I cried, just as Jock entered with the blessed tea.

  ‘I what?’ he asked. I fixed him with a keen, hawk-like gaze, such as you might once have seen darted from beneath a deer-stalker in Baker Street.

  ‘Watson!’ I cried, donning my new persona as the Master of Disguise.

  ‘Well, The Sound of Music’s still on at the Regal, of course, and I think the Odeon is showing—’

  ‘Very well, Jock; that will do. Let me put it this way: there is not a moment to spare, the game’s afoot!’

  This time he only gave me a pitying look and eased a cup of tea into my fevered fingers. As I inhaled the Broken Orange Pekoe Tips through my soup strainer, I fixed him again with the hawk-like.

  ‘Have you your old service revolver in the pocket of your ulster?’

  ‘Well I got me old Luger in the drawer in the kitchen table.’

  ‘Then call me a cab!’

  ‘Awright, Mr Charlie: you’re a taxi.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t hardly call you ’ansom with that bleeding moustache, could I?’ With that he started to stagger about the room, helpless with guffaws and cannoning into pieces of fragile furniture as antique as his jest. The door opened and Jock’s last guffaw was still-born behind his single tooth, for there stood Johanna, in thin array, after a pleasant guise, looking rather like Lady Macbeth on her first honeymoon.

  ‘Ah! There you are, my dear,’ I said, waving an airy teacup. ‘I was just about to come and tell you that Jock and I are off to Oxford.’

  ‘Oh no you’re not.’ I raised myself into a haughty sitting-posture and my tones became icy.

  ‘Oh yes I jolly well am.’

  ‘You may go wherever you wish, Charlie dear, you are your own master; but Jock stays. He has promised the Rector to give his well-known rendering of On the Good Ship Lollipop at the Parish Hall on Thursday. You shall not deprive him of his moment of glory, nor disappoint those of his friends who have been investing heavily in rotten eggs and mouldering oranges.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ I said through clenched and smouldering teeth. ‘Jock, I have decided to travel with Dr Dryden alone; you shall remain here and mind the shop. Kindly pack a light suitcase for me.’

  ‘I already did that, Charlie dear,’ said Johanna. ‘Last night. I put in that quaint old MA’s gown of yours, was that right? Hunh?’

  If the Good Lord had meant us to walk, He wouldn’t have given us aeroplanes, would He, that’s what I always say; but I sometimes suspect that He did intend me to walk – for the good of my waistline, perhaps – because every time I entrust myself to an airline something quite beastly happens, as though to rebuke my hardihood. On this particular after-luncheon flight it was a lightning strike of aircrews. The airline had roped into service a tumble-down old plane driven by twisted elastic, with a crew of renegade blacklegs to steer it. The Captain or driver, an ageing fatty with a Canadian accent, came into the cabin just before take-off to bid us welcome in person, explaining that he couldn’t find the switch to the public-address system. He told us to be of good cheer, he had driven one of these kites before – in World War II. Blood ran cold in many a vein, but worse was to come: since there were no air-hostesses to be had, even for cash, no nourishing drinks could be served during the flight. Dryden and I look’d at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a DC–7 in Jersey Airport.

  The plane lifted off in a spirited fashion, the clatter of its elderly engines almost drowned by the buzz of prayer from those passengers who were not already occupied with the stout brown paper bags provided. The air was as full of pockets as a conjurer’s coat and the fears of the timorous were not allayed when the Captain again strolled into the cabin, picking his nose and suggesting that it might be a good idea to keep seat-belts fastened throughout the flight. I paid him no heed, I had decided from the outset not to unfasten mine; moreover, I felt strongly that he would have been more usefully employed in his cockpit, watching the altimeter and ailerons and things of that sort. Dryden, meanwhile, had drawn out from the slot before him a tattered card of advice to passengers about life-jackets and passed it to me, making enquiring noises with his eyebrows. It was in Italian, doubtless part of a job-lot picked up cheap after the War. He pointed urgently at it. The words ran ‘La Cintura di Salvataggio se Trova Doppo la Poltrone.’ I could not make him hear, for the starboard wing was screeching like a captive hawk, intent on Unilateral Independence, so I scribbled a free translation: ‘The Belly-band of Salvation Finds Itself Under the Poltroon.’ This seemed to give him naught for his comfort but my attention was elsewhere, for a raw-boned blonde in the seat to my right, her eyes clenched, had an iron grip on my thigh and was sinking a thumbnail in to the cuticle at every bump or lurch.

  The next time that an idiot tells you it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, you may tell him from me, with a full heart, that he should be posing for an illustration in a Manual of Gynaecology. Arriving is lovely, take my word for it, especially when the pilot of your aircraft has made three passes over Heathrow while he rummages for the undercarriage lever and lands at last in a series of frog-hops and a cloud of burning rubber. He was at the gang-plank as we alighted, becking and bobbing and hoping that we had enjoyed our flight. Dryden gave him a glassy stare; I shot a glance at the faded ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Cross on his breast. It was a glance that spoke volumes.

  John and I broke into a dignified canter towards the bar but Fate was still tittering into its sleeve; an olive-hued barman eyed our progress narrowly and slammed the grille across his wares just as we were about to breast the tape. I’m sure it made his day.

  The bus wafted us to Reading softly, speedily. (Why are airline buses so much better than airline planes? Why, why?) Dryden and I were almost reconciled to public transport until, at Reading station, we were decanted into the medieval squalor of a train – not the usual pigsty on wheels but a pigsty which had, that very day, carried a football-crowd. Horresco referens. Soon, however, the symmetrical Oxford gasworks hove in sight, then the propelling-pencil shape of Nuffield College, both breathing the last enchantments of the Middle Ages and promising an early sight of many another dreaming spire.

  There was a taxi. It was not raining. At Scone we used the last of our strength to mount the stairs to Dryden’s set of rooms, our withered tongues rustling inside our mouths and our courage sustained by the sure knowledge that gallipots of the pure, blushful Haig and Haig awaited us if we could but win our way to them. We burst in, fell upon the nutritious fluid with beastly snarls – Hogarth or Rowlandson would have whipped out their sketchbooks in a trice. We beamed at each other as our bloodstreams chuckled with pleasure like parched brooks welcoming a freshet.

  ‘Now, John,’ I said when the cacti had been rinsed away, ‘as you know, I usually have a little zizz at about this time of day; you know, “Tir’d Nature’s sweet restorer” and so on. Doctors recommend it.’

  ‘And so do I, dear boy. Let me take you to your rooms. The Camerarius has agreed that you shall have Bronwen’s set; I daresay you’d like to search for clues, eh? Ah, and this sounds like my scout – come in Turner, you remember Mr Mortdecai? – perhaps you’ll be good enough to take him over to Ms Fellworthy’s set. Nothing has been disturbed, Mortdecai, no-one has been in the rooms except a policeman looking for suicide notes and Turner changing the bed-linen.’

  ‘And the two men from the Ministry,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  ‘And the bloke from the telephones,’ said Turner.

  ‘Really,’ said Dryden vaguely.

/>   ‘Really?’ said I interestedly.

  ‘Turner will call you at six; we are invited to take sherry at the Warden’s Lodgings at a quarter to seven. Have a pleasant nap.’

  Bronwen’s quarters were pretty Spartan except that she had evidently spent all her spare pennies on books: old and valuable leather bindings and new, expensive cloth ones were in great profusion. The only sign of feminine occupancy on the surface was a huge, pink, fluffy piggy-wig on the bed: a nightdress-case of the worst kind. Out of character, I thought; Bronwen had not struck me as a woman to be coy about her frillies. If any. However, at that moment I was more preoccupied with ‘the bloke from the telephones.’ Bronwen’s instrument was of the newest variety, where you punch the number out with buttons instead of diddling a dial. My Army course on Hemiptera or bugs, twenty years ago, had not prepared me for such things. I undid it as best I could and studied its entrails but it contained nothing bug-like that I could see. What I did see, on the carpet below, was a shred of fine copper wire which might or might not mean something. Deciding to postpone my search in favour of my cinq-à-sept – for the most sophisticated bug could hardly learn anything from my melodious snores – I removed a few items of the gents’ natty from my person and composed myself to sleep.

  VIII

  An open-ended straight

  Deceived is he by crafty train

  That meaneth no gile: and does remain

  Within the trap, without redress

  But for to love, lo, such a mistress,

  Whose cruelty nothing can refrain.

  What vaileth truth?

  ‘Ha, Mortdecai!’ cried the Warden cheerily as we were shown into the Lodgings.

  ‘Ah, Warden!’ I retorted wittily, surrendering my hand to his knuckle-crunch. (He is not a native son, you see, and no-one has explained to him that you don’t shake hands in Oxford.)

  ‘It is always good to see an Old Member,’ he said, fixing me with his compelling gaze. I was in no sort of mood to be fixed with compelling gazes.

  ‘Warden,’ I said, ‘you called me an Old Member when we last met, a year ago. I have spent much of the interim trying to decide whether this was a cruel jest or simply an unfortunate turn of phrase.’

  ‘Ho ho,’ he said obscurely, urging me toward the sideboard which groaned under many a low-priced bottle. ‘It is uncommonly good of you to come to our succour, Mortdecai,’ he murmured. ‘These people will go at precisely 7.15 and then you and I shall have a Little Chat. Hmm? Meanwhile, mingle a bit, eh?’ I looked at the choice of mingle-worthies: it was the same mixture as before. One brace of second-year undergraduates who were being be-sherried for copping their Firsts in Honour Moderations; one All Souls pansy staring into his sherry-glass as though someone had piddled in it; one rancid portrait-painter on the make; one American Visiting Professor in a tartan dinner-jacket trying to tell risqué stories to one of those women you only find in North Oxford; the American’s wife, whose dress had been designed in Paris by some poof with a keen sense of humour; a clever priest; an Astronomer Royal; and, of course, the obligatory black chap being courteous to one and all. I singled out the black chap to mingle with until 7.15 precisely when, sure enough, they all fled twittering like ghosts upon some dreadful summons. When the Warden of Scone asks you for drinks at ‘6.45 to 7.15’ he bloody well means ‘6.45 to 7.15.’ If you are still there at 7.16 he creeps down to his underground aviary and writes your name in a little black book, dipping his pen in bat’s blood.

  When we were alone, he fished a key out of a silver tea-urn and opened a cupboard containing much better bottles than those which were shaming the sideboard.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said unblushingly as we settled into armchairs and sipped. ‘Now, I understand from Dryden that you are more or less up-to-date about the Fellworthy business? John has explained all in his inimitable way?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Did you ever meet her?’

  ‘Yes. And frankly, I have to say that she was perhaps the only wholly unacceptable woman I have encountered in a long and varied experience.’

  ‘Yes. That was not an unusual reaction to her lack of charm. Between ourselves, the Old Guard in Concilium voted her in en bloc just to teach us radicals a lesson, I suspect. Devilish clever of them, I’m bound to admit.’

  ‘Yes indeed, especially now that her departure has been so unsavoury, if your suspicious are correct. As I’m sure they are,’ I added, for Wardens of Scone are never wrong, even when they are wrong. Especially when they are wrong, as a matter of fact. I mean, can you imagine the Pope saying to his Cardinals, ‘Look here, you chaps, I’ve been having second thoughts about this birth-control business …’

  ‘Well,’ he (the Warden) went on, ‘at the moment only you and John and I know all the grounds for supposing that it was no accident; a few of the others in the Senior Common Room know bits, of course, but I’ve asked them to keep mum. Which reminds me, while you’re here you are a guest of the SCR; of course, sign for anything you want, I’ll get the Bursar to settle your battels and other bills through the Eleemosynary Fund or something.’

  ‘Most kind,’ I said, a little stiffly.

  ‘And I’ll put it about that you’re a sort of temporary guest Fellow, doing something vague in connection with our Police Studentships. Yes, sociology, that’s the ticket; sociologists can ask all sorts of odd questions, no-one pays them any attention.’

  ‘But really, Warden …’

  ‘Don’t look so injured, my dear chap; all sorts of people are going in for sociology nowadays, it’ll soon be quite respectable, just like economics was before Wilson. And it’s only for a little while. It’s what you chaps would call a “cover story” – is that the term?’

  ‘I believe so,’ I grunted, little mollified. He refilled my glass soothingly and led me into his private dining-room, where the sideboard was laden with many a succulent foodstuff.

  ‘I thought that you might not want to face High Table food so soon after the fleshpots of Jersey – and you’ve only half an hour before the Duke’s car comes for you.’

  A lesser man would have lost control over the slab of game pie I was easing onto my plate. Jock would have said ‘Yer what?’ I only said, cooler than many a cucumber I could name, ‘Which Duke?’

  ‘Why, the Chief Constable of course.’

  ‘Oh good; for an awful moment I thought you meant Marlborough. But I thought all Chief Constables were professional policemen nowadays?’

  ‘They are, except ours I believe, and he’s being phased out, so to say, as soon as anyone plucks up the courage to tell him. It’s he that thought up and is funding these Police Studentships I mentioned earlier: we’re making him an honorary Fellow and arranging a D. Litt. or something of that sort for him. As a matter of fact,’ he went on sternly as he noticed my scornful eyebrow, ‘he is not as ridiculously unworthy of such an honour as most of the analphabets we’re obliged to give honorary degrees to; he’s something of a scholar in his own right and extremely brainy. I suppose that’s why they kicked him out of Trinity half a century ago.’

  A bell buzzed on a desk. He spoke into one of those boxes you speak into. ‘Thank you,’ was what he said; then, to me, ‘the car’s here. Oh, and here’s a letter from me asking all and sundry to be so good as to assist you in any way. Might prove useful. If any of the dons show coyness in answering your questions, just refer them to me. Goodnight and, ah, good hunting.’

  The limousine was only, I suppose, the Duke’s second-best Rolls, quite a year old, probably the one his wife went to the supermarket in. As soon as the ashtrays were full, he’d give it to his head keeper or a bishop or someone. Nevertheless, the radiator bore the ducal standard – furled, of course – and the doors were emblazoned with strawberry-leafed coronets. (Barons only have balls, did you know that? On their coronets.)

  Wafted to The Great House as silently as the spicèd breezes blowing through a well-kempt moustache, I was admitted by a footman who smelled of beer,
fielded by a butler who smelled of aftershave lotion and ushered into ’Is Grace’s study, which smelled of the sort of cigar which Dukes alone can aspire to. A quite preternaturally long Duke unfolded himself from his armchair like a carpenter’s rule; length after length clicked to the vertical until his gibbous forehead was swathed in the blue smoke which hung thickly at cornice-level.

  He took one and a half paces towards me – call it nine feet and a bit – and repeated the name vouchsafed by his butler.

  ‘Mortdecai,’ he enunciated carefully, interestedly. ‘Mortdecai. Mortdecai. How uncommonly kind of you to call, Mr Mortdecai. Yes, kind. Uncommonly. Are my people seeing to your horses?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, sir, you sent your own, ah, carriage for me.’

  ‘Did I really? How uncommonly … that’s to say, yes. Yes.’

  Our chat languished a bit. He bent and peered at me dispassionately, as one peers at a peach which may or may not be quite ready for picking. I did not shuffle my feet – I peered back unabashed, for I have been peered at by Crowned Heads.

  Suddenly he said: ‘You’ll forgive me for just a second, I’m sure?’

  I inclined the head forgivingly. He strode to one of those boxes you speak into which have a sort of cowling around them, designed to let you speak unheard. The muffling never works.

  ‘Secretary,’ he said. There was a pause. His head appeared above the cowling, did a spot more peering, then ducked in again.

  ‘Well, wake him up, wake him up.’

  Another manifestation of the head; the sad, incurious eyes.

  ‘Ah Johnson, there you are. Who is this feller Mortdecai? What does he want? Really. Indeed. Why wasn’t I told? D’you think I should give him a drink? Seems a very odd sort of cove, just stands there, hasn’t said a word all evening. Oh no, look here, you’re not to sulk, you know how it upsets me. Good.’ He strode back with a heron-like gait and loomed over me like a gantry.