Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King's Daughter

by Simon Brett

  ‘As I suggested, I used the services of Harvey, milady.’

  ‘And she was able to find out the information I requested?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘I hope in the course of her investigations she was not obliged to do anything that went against her nature.’

  ‘No, milady. Rather the reverse.’

  ‘So she managed to gain access to the bedrooms of both Grittelhoff twins?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘I am impressed by her skills. Particularly since both of the brothers make their living as bodyguards.’

  ‘Let us say, milady, that Harvey managed to make both of them lower their guards. And, as for their bodies –’

  ‘I don’t think it is necessary for me to know all the details, Grimshaw.’

  ‘No, milady.’

  ‘I mentioned that I did not wish either of the Grittelhoff brothers to be aware that the other was also being . . . what shall I say – paid attention? Was Harvey able to achieve that?’

  ‘She was, milady.’

  ‘She is a woman of remarkable skills, Grimshaw.’

  ‘Oh, indeed.’ The spectre of a smile crept across the butler’s face. ‘And considerable versatility.’

  ‘And did she also manage to gain access to the intervening bedroom – the one formerly occupied by Captain Schtoltz?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And from there she produced the sample I requested?’

  Wordlessly, Grimshaw handed over a small envelope.

  ‘And then while she was in the rooms of the two gentlemen . . .’

  Grimshaw produced two more envelopes. On one was firmly written the word ‘Bogdan’, on the other ‘Zoltan’.

  ‘Thank you.’ Twinks looked down at her prizes with a moment of doubt. ‘I hope my conjectures are correct . . .’

  ‘They invariably are, milady.’

  ‘Yes, but in this case . . . I have never before dealt with identical twins. It is possible that in everything, not only their physical characteristics, but also their tastes, there is no distinction to be found between them.’

  Grimshaw emitted a small cough of disagreement. Twinks looked at him quizzically. ‘According to Harvey, milady, the gentlemen were not identical in every way.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ For a moment Twinks was tempted to ask for more detail of the housemaid’s night-time activities. But breeding triumphed over prurience. ‘That will be all, thank you, Grimshaw. Could you ask my brother Devereux to join me here?’

  ‘Of course, milady.’ And the butler hastened off to fulfil that commission and then to find Harvey. He was enthusiastic to hear all the details of the housemaid’s night-time activities. For him, prurience always triumphed over breeding.

  Blotto had been pleased to receive Twinks’s summons. He wasn’t having a great day. The excesses of the night before – particularly the noxious Splintz – had left him with a very woolly morning head and a mouth tasting like a septic tank. But that day none of his normal means of dealing with such a condition were available to him. It wasn’t the cricket season. There was no hunting arranged within three counties of Tawcester Towers. And he couldn’t even fall back on his customary longstop resource of going out with his Purdey and blasting a few pheasants to blazes. If he wanted to go shooting, honour would demand that he should invite the house’s guests, and by the time all the Mitteleuropians had got themselves together – and stopped for meals – he would have gone off the whole idea.

  Worse than that, thought Blotto gloomily, I haven’t even got an adventure at the moment. Well, he had of course, but Blotto, not being a boddo of very retentive memory, had forgotten all about it. So he was doubly chuffed when Grimshaw’s summons reminded him of the mysterious death of Captain Schtoltz. He zapped post-haste to his sister’s dressing room.

  ‘So, old bloater,’ he asked on arrival, ‘what’s the bizz-buzz? Have you pieced the whole rombooley together? Have you fingered our murderer?’

  Twinks smiled confidently. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m there, yes. Don’t know whether the case would stand up in a British court of justice yet, but I can’t see good old St Peter letting the stencher into Heaven.’

  ‘So are you going to tell me who it is?’

  ‘No, I am not, Blotto me old gumdrop. You’re going to have to listen to how I worked it out first.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he conceded quickly. He was quite familiar with his sister’s modus operandi when she was on a case, and content to be amazed by her brilliance.

  ‘This is what happened on the evening of Captain Schtoltz’s death . . .’ Twinks still had her scraps of evidence spread out on the tissue paper, and she indicated each one as its role in the story became relevant. ‘At about six o’clock he was in his bedroom . . .’

  ‘How do you know it was six o’clock?’

  ‘Because by half-past six all the rest of the Mitteleuropian party were downstairs drinking pre-prandial champagne.’

  ‘Good ticket, Twinks.’

  ‘Captain Schtoltz was, however, himself having a drink in his room.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Twinks pointed to the matchstick stub. ‘Do you see how little of this is left?’ Her brother nodded. ‘If it had only been used to light one cigar it would not have burnt down so far. So clearly it was used to light two. Captain Schtoltz had company.’

  ‘Toad-in-the-hole, Twinks, what a brainbox you are!’

  ‘My conjecture is substantiated by this . . .’ She indicated the tiny flake of tobacco. ‘The cigar from which this comes is a flamboyantly large one of European manufacture. It is in fact from the type known as a Transcarpathian Emperor, probably bought at Melanevsky’s Specialist Tobacco Shop on the Vartlav Parade in Zling. But that is only part of its significance. The flake came from the end of the cigar which Captain Schtoltz had in his mouth – it was slightly damp, which is why it clung to his lapel. And, as well as the characteristic almond smell of the cyanide that killed him, there is on the flake a distinctive aroma of Splintz, suggesting that that was the beverage into which the poison was decanted. And, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, Blotto, no Mitteleuropian would ever risk the bad luck attendant on drinking Splintz on his own.’

  ‘So there was some other boddo with him . . .?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Who?’

  Twinks raised her hand to stop his questions. She was going to spell out her conclusions at her own pace, and didn’t want to miss out any step in her tortuous journey of logic.

  ‘The cyanide would have killed Captain Schtoltz almost immediately –’

  ‘Just a sec, Twinks me old muffin. How can you be sure that the poor pineapple was killed in his own bedroom?’

  ‘Look at these.’ She indicated two pieces of carpet fibre on her tissue paper. One she had removed from the crevice in the murder victim’s shoe. The other was the sample that Harvey had extracted, according to instructions, from the room used by Captain Schtoltz.

  ‘Both pieces, as you can see, are from the same carpet. It’s a Turkish fine-weave, probably manufactured in the workshop of the Hassan brothers in the village of Akgürglu just to the north of Izmir, and almost definitely originally bought from the emporium of their cousin Mustapha Khalid on the Golden Alley of the main Istanbul souk. Not that any of that’s important. The important thing is that both samples came from the same carpet.’

  ‘But surely,’ said. Blotto, relishing one of those wonderful, rare moments when he actually saw a flaw in his sister’s reasoning, ‘if the poor old thimble had been staying in the room for a couple of days, there’s no great surprise to find a bit of the carpet on his shoe?’

  ‘It is not the simple fact that it’s from the same carpet that’s important,’ said Twinks evenly. ‘It is the smell on the sample from his shoe that defines both the timing and the place of his murder.’

  ‘Ah.’ Blotto was deflated. In retrospect, he comforted himself, it
really had been too good to be true, the thought of catching his sister out when it came to a matter of investigation.

  ‘This fibre smells of Splintz, so it must have been picked up at the moment of the victim’s death, when some of his drink was spilled during the convulsions which the cyanide would have sent through his body.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Blotto. ‘Right.’

  ‘So,’ Twinks continued magisterially, ‘Captain Schtoltz was poisoned in his bedroom. His body was then manhandled to the window, against whose ledge a button of his jacket scraped . . .’ She pointed to another of her exhibits. ‘. . . dislodging this flake of white paint. The dead man was dropped to the flowerbed, where I found indentations made by his falling body, and where the engraving on his signet ring picked up this particle of chalk.

  ‘His murderer then went downstairs to the library, opened the french windows and dragged the body inside, during which process the Captain’s trouser turn-up gathered this sliver of leather, which had flaked off the binding of one of the books in the shelves above. In fact, the book from which the sliver came was Tacitus’s De origine et situ Germanorum.

  ‘Captain Schtoltz’s body was then left by the murderer in the middle of the library floor . . . where, Blotto me old gumdrop, you found it.’

  Twinks smiled with satisfaction, as if her narrative were complete. Her brother fell for the tease and asked with some desperation, ‘So who was the murderer?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Twinks, as though she had genuinely forgotten to supply that detail. Then she pointed to the curl of dyed wool that had been found trapped in the jewelled insignia on Captain Schtoltz’s chest. ‘Here is the clue that answers that question for us. This also smells of Splintz, not to mention cyanide, so we know that it was trapped at the moment of the victim’s death. Reconstructing that moment, I would estimate that, as Captain Schtoltz realized that he had been poisoned, he leapt forward to attack his killer. It was then that his jewelled insignia snagged on the murderer’s uniform, detaching this curl of wool. The fabric is a blue woollen twill supplied by the tailors Grünbaum & Pesch of Kathedralstrasse in Zling . . . an emporium patronized by the Grittelhoff brothers.’

  ‘So it was one of them!’ said Blotto gleefully.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But which one?’

  Twinks again indicated the curl of wool. ‘As well as the smells of Splintz and cyanide, there is a third aroma on this shred of fabric. That of a man’s cologne.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed the Grittelhoffs use cologne. Filthy Continental habit! I always think that men should smell like men.’

  ‘I’d noticed that, Blotto.’

  ‘But there’s a bit of a chock in the cogwheel, Twinks, because both of the stenchers use the rotten skunk-juice, so how can you know –?’

  Twinks raised her hand for silence. ‘Yes, they both use cologne, but they do not use the same cologne.’ She indicated the scented handkerchiefs which Harvey had managed to extract from the two men’s rooms. ‘This is Vol de Nuit, manufactured by the parfumier Nicholas Rodette of the Champs Elysées in Paris . . . while this is Der Jäger, a fragrance sold exclusively by the Bonetti Barbershop at 417 Hedwigstrasse in Zling.’

  Blotto was almost panting by now. ‘So which is the cologne on the spoffing bit of wool? And which twin uses the spoffing stuff?’

  ‘The cologne on the bit of wool is Der Jäger.’ Twinks spoke slowly, relishing her revelation. ‘And the Grittelhoff brother who uses it is Bogdan.’

  ‘So he’s our murderer? Bogdan Grittelhoff killed Captain Schtoltz?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said his sister.

  ‘Toad-in-the-hole, Twinks, you are absolutely the lark’s larynx!’

  9

  Plans Afoot

  Some people might have been tempted at this point to go to the police with their information and have Bogdan Grittelhoff arrested for the murder of Captain Schtoltz. Then no doubt in time Pottinger could also have been arrested for plotting the kidnap of ex-Princess Ethelinde.

  This course of action, however, would have failed to take into consideration two important facts. One, it would go against every instinct of Twinks and Blotto as amateur investigators to bring in professional outsiders before the case was entirely sewn up. And two, the police in Tawcestershire were represented by Chief Inspector Trumbull and Sergeant Knatchbull. The chances of those two actually arresting the right people were so slender as to be negligible.

  So Twinks recommended a watching brief. The following day was the one when she was supposed to be going to Bond Street to visit her couturier, and it was then that Bogdan Grittelhoff and Pottinger were planning to seize the ex-Princess. So she made plans for the following day, and spelled them out in detail to Blotto.

  His part of the preparations was one that appealed to him. He had to go to the Tawcester Towers garages, and he always got a positive buzz from the atmosphere of the place. The cars themselves were pretty impressive – the Rolls-Royces, the Hispano-Suizas and his own personal favourite, which was one of the Lagondas. If some scientist johnnie ever managed to cross a tiger with a gazelle, then Blotto reckoned the resulting offspring would be pretty like the Lag. The car was brimming with personality and he always felt he read some personal message in the gaze of its huge headlamps. Hurtling the machine round blind corners of country lanes at speeds over a hundred brought Blotto almost the same thrill as hunting. In the latter scenario a fox was the quarry, in the former local peasants. Both experiences were exhilarating. In a car like the Lag, which got through fuel like a dipsomaniac on champers, a man really felt at one with nature.

  The other great attraction of the garages was that it gave Blotto a chance to speak to Corky Froggett. Corky wasn’t the senior chauffeur at Tawcester Towers, but he was the most important one. In the army he’d been a driver (as well as many other unspeakable things – in fact he was a highly trained killing machine), and his bearing was still military. His thickset, heavily muscled body pressed against the restraint of the black buttons on his black uniform, his high black boots were soldier’s boots, and he wore his black peaked cap as though it had a regimental badge on it. His face was the red of a Buckingham Palace guardsman, and a white moustache stood to attention beneath his cavernous nostrils. He gave the impression that all the other unseen hairs on his body were also standing to attention.

  ‘Ah, milord,’ he said as Blotto approached. His accent was all jellied eels and pearly kings. ‘What a pleasure to see you. Do you wish me to get the Lagonda into battle trim?’

  ‘No, not driving today, Corky. The Mater doesn’t want me too far off the prems while these spoffing Mitteleuropians are still around. Must say, I’m beginning to find a little of them goes a long way’ There was still a dull ache around his temples from the Splintz of the night before. ‘Something about guests and garlic . . . or is it guests and cheese . . .?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, milord.’

  ‘Do you like Mitteleuropians, Corky?’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge I’ve never killed any. So my initial inclination would be to give them the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Oh, good ticket. Very right and proper. As British people, “the benefit of the doubt” is the absolute minimum we should offer to . . . boddos like that. A lot of them are complete charmers. It’s just their bad luck to be born foreign.’

  ‘Yes, milord.’

  ‘Mind you, after three days, guests and . . . onions, was it?’ But the precise phrasing did not come back to him, so Blotto moved on. ‘They’ve presumably got cars with them, have they?’

  ‘Yes.’ Corky Froggett’s moustache bristled with distaste. ‘Four of those big Krummel-Laportes – built like tanks, drive like tanks. Three Basgatis and a couple of Frimmelstopf roadsters.’

  Blotto was instantly alert. ‘Oh, they’re pretty hot from the chocks, the Frimmelstopfs, aren’t they?’

  Corky’s head shook dismissively. ‘In the Lagonda you’d burn ’em off in half a mile – and still have tim
e to manicure your fingernails.’

  ‘Hm . . .’ A distant longing came into Blotto’s eyes. ‘Wouldn’t mind having a go at that one day . . .’

  ‘Maybe it can be arranged, milord.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ He shook himself out of his reverie. ‘Actually, what I’ve come to see you about, Corky, is a trip you’re slated in to do tomorrow . . .’

  ‘That would be driving the Lady Honoria to London, would it not?’

  ‘It would indeed. Now the thing is . . . I can rely on your discretion, can’t I?’

  ‘Were you to entrust me with a secret, milord, I would not reveal it if hot coals were sprinkled liberally over my extremities. I would not reveal it if my finger- and toenails were extracted one by one. I would not reveal it if red-hot branding irons were used to write the entire Sanskrit alphabet on the most sensitive parts of my anatomy. I would not reveal –’

  ‘All right, Corky, thought I could rely on you. I don’t think you’ll actually have to go through any of all that, but . . .’ Blotto thought briefly about what he had witnessed so far of the character of the Mitteleuropians. ‘Well, I suppose you might . . .’

  ‘It would be an honour, sir. And I guarantee your secret would remain intact.’

  ‘Very glad to know it. Now, as you say, Twinks is going up to Bond Street tomorrow to visit the old rag-stitcher, and I dare say what you’d normally do is get one of the Rolls-Royces spick and span, then drive it round to the front entrance of the Towers to pick her up . . .?’

  ‘That, I can confirm, is what I would normally do, milord.’

  ‘Right. Well, tomorrow I want you to do something slightly different . . .’

  The first part of the following day’s plan went like clockwork. Twinks appeared at breakfast wearing a deliciously short dress in salmon pink and made a great point of talking to the Mitteleuropian party about her forthcoming visit to Bond Street. She discussed with ex-Queen Klara and ex-Princess Ethelinde the relative merits of London and Paris as centres of fashion, and ensured that this conversation was conducted within the hearing of the Grittelhoff brothers. By now she had studied the two closely enough to be able to tell them apart (without recourse to Harvey’s more intimate knowledge). Zoltan had the vestige of a scar – no doubt from duelling – that bisected his right eyebrow, whereas Bogdan – or as she and Blotto now thought of him, the murderer – had a small mole on the lobe of his left ear.