by Simon Brett
Also by Simon Brett
Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter
Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess
Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012
Copyright © Simon Brett, 2012
The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78033-473-8 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-78033-475-2 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To Alastair and Sarah,
with congratulations on their wedding
1
A Bit of a Wet Blanket
Tawcester Towers, though a magnificent stately home in many respects, had always rather fallen down on its plumbing. Houseguests, usually arriving in the comforting expectation of a murder being committed and solved by a conveniently present polymathic amateur sleuth within the weekend, had to get used to strange nocturnal noises reverberating through the ancient structure. And though some of these noises could be put down to brandy-steeped fellow guests up to no good with chambermaids in the servants’ quarters, most of them were entirely attributable to the plumbing.
The house’s superannuated lead pipes were capable of a range of sounds which would put the average church organ to shame. Baths filling set up an ominous irregular clanking, similar to that made by a small contingent of sabre-rattling hussars. Baths emptying gave a passable impression of Chinamen being strangled by their own pigtails in Limehouse opium dens. While any guest incautious enough to flush one of the few water closets in the middle of the night would unleash a cacophony of coughing, gasping and spluttering that would not have sounded out of place in the advanced ward of a tuberculosis sanatorium.
And when, at four in the morning, some unfortunate skivvy fired up the Tawcester Towers boiler to heat water that would be cold again by the time it reached the house’s furthest bathrooms, the pipes set up a creaking, wheezing and gurgling that was indistinguishable from the laugh of the Dowager Duchess of Tawcester.
Very few of the houseguests, however, would be aware of the similarity, because the sound of the Dowager Duchess laughing was as rare in Tawcester Towers as the mating call of the Peruvian Booby. There were not many things in life she found amusing, except for patronizing servants and insulting people of her own rank. The heavily powdered immemorial granite from which her features had been carved rarely allowed its surface to be cracked by a smile.
Her younger son, the Honourable Devereux Lyminster, universally known to his equals as ‘Blotto’, was of a considerably cheerier disposition. Every morning when his manservant Tweedling drew back his bedroom curtains, the beams of the sun were met by an answering beam on Blotto’s impossibly handsome face. Its features were never clouded by a dark thought . . . and indeed rarely by a thought of any kind.
When the Almighty – or whoever organizes these things – created Blotto, He was somewhat parsimonious in His allocation of brains. But given all the other gifts the young man had been granted – birth into one of the foremost aristocratic families in the land, breathsapping good looks, exceptional skills at whichever sport he turned his hand to, and instinctive, unthinking bravery in the face of any danger – his deficiency in the brain department never bothered anyone. It certainly never bothered Blotto himself.
Besides, he had a sister whose abilities more than compensated for his own intellectual shortcomings. Lady Honoria Lyminster, universally known to her equals as ‘Twinks’, was as beautiful as her brother was handsome, and as brilliant as he was thick. It was a constant amazement to Blotto that her delicate head, under its bob of silky blonde hair, could generate so much brainpower. He could only think that his sister’s cranium was like one of those structures read of in fairy stories, whose interior is infinitely bigger than logic dictates is possible.
One sunny summer morning Blotto woke in the customary manner, to the clatter of curtain rings as Tweedling vouchsafed admission to the day. ‘Good morning, Tweedling,’ he mumbled.
‘Good morning, milord.’
This exchange was always the full extent of their matitudinal conversation. Though Blotto invariably woke in sunny mood, he was not at his most talkative first thing in the morning, a fact that Tweedling recognized and accepted. Had the young master wished to volunteer more words, the manservant would undoubtedly have responded to them, but that rarely happened. Tweedling’s unvarying morning ritual was to knock on Blotto’s bedroom door, enter without waiting for permission, draw back the curtains, exchange the above greetings, place the tea tray on the bedside table and exit sharply.
Some young men, Blotto knew, had deeper relationships with their manservants. They might discuss horse-racing tips, the prospects for the day’s hunting, the bizarre behaviours of houseguests, or the peccadillos of actresses. Blotto never had conversations of that kind with Tweedling. He regarded the manservant simply as a convenience in his life, a functional implement, perhaps slightly more versatile than a knife, fork or spoon, but otherwise not dissimilar.
That particular morning, as consciousness trickled back into the veins of his splendid frame, Blotto was aware of something rather unusual. His bedding was distinctly wet.
Now, he was used to damp sheets. They were a feature of bedrooms in English public schools and stately homes. Even at the height of summer a slight musty clamminess clung to all baronial bedding. It was one of those quintessential features of English life, like cold draughts and warm beer, which were expected and accepted by everyone except for mollycoddled Americans.
But Blotto’s bed that morning was suffering from more than a bracing dampness. His bolster, sheets, blankets and counterpane were all wringing wet.
The wheels within Blotto’s brain clicked round slowly as he tried to produce an explanation for this phenomenon. He reassembled his recollections of the previous night, aware of the accidents that could be caused by alcoholic excess. But no, his conscience was clear on that score. His intake had been very modest – three or four scotch and sodas before dinner, a couple of bottles of claret with the meal, and then maybe half a dozen large brandies in the billiard room by way of digestifs. Nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing to overstrain the bladder of a healthy young man like Blotto.
Seeking another solution, he looked up towards the ceiling. He wasn’t aware of there having been torrential rain during the night, nor indeed of a hurricane tearing off the roof of Tawcester Towers, but he knew himself to be a heavy sleeper, so he supposed such eventualities were possible.
And looking upwards did reveal, if not an explanation of the inundation, then at least its source. The ceiling wa
s sagging and bellied out and, from a large tear in its fabric, water still dripped.
While he was still lying in his soggy sheets, taking in the extent of the damage, there was a sharp rat-a-tat on his door and, with a cry of ‘Hope you’re decent, me old bloater!’, Twinks burst into the room.
Blotto never tired of looking at his sister. As an entrant in the Pulchritude Stakes, her Starting Price would be at least a hundred to one on. She really was the lark’s larynx. In fact she was as beautiful as he was handsome, though of course Blotto never gave his own looks a second thought. It didn’t do for chaps to be aware of that kind of guff, not healthy. That was the sort of thing foreigner boddos did, like boasting about being good at cricket (not, of course, that they would have been good at cricket, because they were foreign).
That Twinks still looked beautiful that morning was no thanks to her couture. She wore Wellington boots and a man’s trench-coat. Her blonde bob was obscured by a yellow oilskin sou’wester. The only article of her more usual ensemble was the sequinned reticule that dangled from her slender wrist. Water dripped off her, puddling on the wooden boards of the bedroom floor.
She grinned cheerily at her soggy brother. ‘Looks like we’re in the same boat, me old biscuit barrel. Or actually it looks more like the boat we’re both in has capsized.’
‘It’s a bit of a chock in the cogwheel, isn’t it?’ said Blotto, whose brain had not yet quite lumbered into wakefulness. He looked up at the dripping hole above. ‘What’s the bizz-buzz on this, Twinks? Is it one of those forty-daysand-forty-nights raining jobs like the one that happened to that poor old pineapple in the Bible whose name escapes me? Should we start pairing up animals and collecting gopher wood to build an ark? Though I’m not sure where the nearest supplier of gopher wood is . . . or indeed what gopher wood is . . . Oh, broken biscuits, what is the name of the boddo I’m talking about?’
‘Noah.’
‘Of course. You’re bong on the nose there, Twinks.’
‘Anyway, Blotto me old tin tray, this is no job for Noah. What we’re up against here isn’t a natural disaster.’
‘Not of the raining for forty days and forty nights and pairing up animals kind?’
‘Absolutely not. The gluepot we’re currently in is entirely man-made. The plumbing system of Tawcester Towers has finally had enough. It’s given in its notice!’
‘So where’s all the spoffing water come from, by Denzil?’ asked Blotto. Plumbing was one of the many areas of life on which his information was a bit sketchy. It certainly hadn’t been on the curriculum when he’d been at Eton. Mind you, there were many subjects that had been on the curriculum there about which his knowledge was equally sketchy. Blotto’s brain wasn’t good at retaining information unrelated to hunting or cricket.
Twinks of course was just as skilled in plumbing as she was in everything else. In fact at that moment her dainty reticule contained a set of spanners, pipe-cutting and -bending tools, along with a tin of Plumber’s Mait, which would be equal to most minor repairs. But she had already deduced that the Tawcester Towers disaster would need professional assistance.
‘The water,’ she informed her brother, ‘that is currently drenching us comes from the tanks in the lofts at the top of the building. It is they that supply all of our domestic water.’
Blotto nodded thoughtfully. Not being given to abstruse philosophical enquiry, he had never thought to enquire as to where water came from. So far as he was concerned, you just turned on a tap and there it was. Rather like money, in that respect.
‘So this water that is currently drenching us,’ he said slowly, ‘has come through the lofts . . . through the floor above us and—’
‘Great whistling wallabies!’ his sister interrupted.
‘What’s up, Twinks?’
‘“The floor above us”! You know what’s on the floor above us, don’t you, Blotters?’
‘Water?’ he hazarded.
‘The Long Gallery!’ cried Twinks, as she rushed for the door. ‘The Long Gallery containing all of the family portraits!’
It was as she had feared. Water had soaked the portraits of all the Dukes of Tawcester (including the Gainsborough and Reynolds, which had been stolen by a criminal mastermind called La Puce and reclaimed by Blotto and Twinks in the face of many terrible dangers). Those two had depicted Rupert the Smug and Rupert the Incapable. (All of the Dukes of Tawcester had been called Rupert, and many had gathered suitable adjectives to their name, like Black Rupert and Rupert the Dull.)
Brother and sister looked across the Long Gallery in despair. The water had stained and discoloured the paintings, causing the ancient canvases to sag, balloon and tear. This irreplaceable record of Tawcester family history lay in tatters.
‘Well, that’s a bit of a candle-snuffer,’ said Blotto.
2
A Summons to the Blue Morning Room
Practical affairs inside Tawcester Towers which concerned the wellbeing of the house’s residents and guests were organized by the butler Grimshaw and his limitless cohorts of housekeepers, cooks, footmen, maids of various grades, bootboys and other domestics too insignificant to be given titles.
Practical affairs outside Tawcester Towers were dealt with by an army of gardeners, grooms, farmhands, chauffeurs and an assortment of semi-literate yokels, under the iron hand of the Estate Manager, Mr McEnemy. He was a Scotsman of implacable pessimism, whose dourness could scour out from any cloud the last vestige of a silver lining. Since his duties also extended to maintenance of the fabric of Tawcester Towers, he was quickly summoned to assess the damage caused by the plumbing disaster.
As the Estate Manager moved from room to room his face lengthened and the note of grim satisfaction in his voice deepened. He was prone to Presbyterian visions of apocalyptic disasters, of fire, brimstone and floods of biblical proportions. A man who lived in perpetual anticipation of doom could not fail to be heartened by such a complete confirmation of his worst presentiments that the tour of Tawcester Towers’ interior offered that morning.
Blotto and Twinks accompanied him. Dealing with the Estate Manager was too lowly a task to come within the remit of their older brother. The current Duke of Tawcester, universally known to his equals as ‘Loofah’, did not deal with the minutiae of life. In fact, one would be hard put to think of anything he did deal with. Apart for his annual visit to the House of Lords on the day when they did an excellent Christmas lunch, Loofah’s main task in life was impregnating his wife the Duchess, universally known to her equals as ‘Sloggo’, with a child that wasn’t another girl. The male Tawcester line had to be continued, or else the dukedom would devolve to Loofah’s younger brother – and even Blotto himself recognized what a disaster that would be. It was not a role that he coveted. In fact he didn’t covet any role that might interrupt his priorities of hunting, cricket and a little light sleuthing.
As they came to the end of their tour of inspection, Mr McEnemy’s face was as long as that of a horse which had just been pipped at the post in the Grand National. ‘This,’ he pronounced with morbid glee, ‘is too big a job for any of my staff. I have handymen who can replace a ballcock or fit a new washer to a dripping tap, but work on this scale is beyond them. The entire plumbing system of Tawcester Towers will need to be replaced, root and branch.’
‘Surely you’d use pipes?’ said Blotto.
‘I dinna ken what you mean, milord.’
‘Well, replacing the pipes with roots and branches would be—’
‘I think Mr McEnemy was speaking metaphorically,’ said Twinks gently.
‘Ah.’ Her brother nodded his head, giving a very good – though misleading – impression of someone who knew what ‘metaphorically’ meant.
‘This is a job,’ Mr McEnemy announced, ‘that is going to cost thoosands and thoosands of poonds. And that’s before ye start to think of the restoration work on the paintings.’ He rubbed his hands together in gleeful despair.
From the nursery onwards a summons
by their mother to the Blue Morning Room had had ominous connotations for Blotto and Twinks. They always knew they had committed some serious violation of the cast-iron code by which the Dowager Duchess ensured that everything was conducted in Tawcester Towers. Their misdemeanour, they recognized, must have been a serious one . . . perhaps using the billiard room’s lights for target practice with one of the Duke’s shotguns . . . or playing hunting games in the Long Gallery on real horses . . . or talking about money . . . or even the cardinal sin of being pleasant to a member of the domestic staff. Any one of these and a million other peccadillos could bring down the wrath of the Dowager Duchess.
Her means of punishment was never corporal. She was confident that her offspring would receive the requisite amount of beating from nannies and governesses, and later from the nuns at Twinks’s convent and, for Blotto, the beaks at Eton. No, the Dowager Duchess’s disciplinary action was always verbal, but not a whit the less painful for that. The ability to diminish her inferiors and insult her equals had been passed down through the generations, and refined to new levels of viciousness with each one. The idea that she might temper this ingrained malignancy when dealing with her own children would have appalled her as much as the idea of cuddling them.
There were gradations in the Dowager Duchess’s verbal punishments, but the direst – the one that would have had the infant Blotto shaking in his silk knee-breeches – was the admission that she was ‘disappointed’ in her son’s behaviour.
Blotto and Twinks knew therefore what they were in for when, that day in the Blue Morning Room, their mother, seated in a Chippendale chair which contrived to look like a throne, announced, ‘I was very disappointed by what happened yesterday.’
Though no twisting of logic could attribute any blame to either of them for the state of the Tawcester Towers plumbing, both siblings felt an immediate pang of guilt. Their mother’s manner could have made them feel personal responsibility for Noah’s Flood, let alone the one in their own home.