Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King's Daughter

by Simon Brett

  ‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ said Blotto. ‘So I won’t have to change my name? No spoffing funny noses or false moustaches?’

  ‘No, the fact that you are who you are will ensure your welcome at the court of the Usurping King Vlatislav.’

  ‘Good ticket.’ Blotto was relieved. Remembering his own identity had always been a bit of a struggle. Remembering somebody else’s might just be too much of a challenge.

  ‘Besides,’ the Margrave von Humpenstaupen went on, smoothing out any residual wrinkles in the Englishman’s conscience, ‘you will not actually be being a gun-runner. You will only be pretending to be a gun-runner.’

  ‘Oh, right, that’ll be absolutely beezer.’ Blotto cast a dubious eye on the machine gun. ‘If I’m going to be pushing this spoffing contraption to the Usurping King, I’m going to have to know how it works, aren’t I?’

  ‘Have no anxiety,’ the Margrave replied. ‘Its operation is extremely simple. You point it at your enemies, press this button here and – poof – they are lying on the ground bleeding.’

  ‘Oh, maybe I should have a go.’ Blotto moved towards the gun with enthusiasm.

  ‘I think not. Depending of course on how much you value the furniture and fittings in this elegant room.’

  ‘Oh, get your drift. Yes, Mater might get a bit frosty if I smashed this place up.’

  ‘Besides,’ said the ex-King, ‘you do not need to worry about the mechanics of the weapon. Your chauffeur Corky Froggett is fully up to date on its operation.’

  ‘He would be.’ Blotto grinned. ‘Anything that involves killing people, Corky’s your boddo. All right, I’ll pretend to be a gun-runner for you.’

  ‘Excellent. It is the perfect cover story,’ ex-King Sigismund enthused. ‘It is guaranteed to appeal to my vile brother. You will gain access to the innermost circles of his court at Zling.’

  ‘Oh, good. I hope he speaks English.’

  ‘Very little. I was the brother who spent his childhood at his studies. He was the brother who spent his pulling the wings off insects and small birds.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Blotto. ‘Now this could be a bit of a chock in the cogwheel. You see, when it comes to passing the time of day with a chap in Mitteleuropian . . . I’m about as much use as a panama hat to an Eskimo.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the Margrave von Humpenstaupen. ‘this too we have thought of. You will not be alone on your trip to Zling.’

  ‘No, I know that. Corky Froggett’s coming with me. But if you’re expecting him to be the star of the salons, splashing around the bons mots in Mitteleuropian . . . well, quite frankly . . . A lot of people can’t understand his English, let alone –’

  ‘No, I was not talking about your shover.’

  ‘Chauffeur, right.’

  The Margrave suddenly rose to his feet, crossed the room, and opened the door. As if he had been waiting for his cue, a slight young man, dressed in subservient black, entered.

  ‘Allow me to introduce your new manservant – who will also act as interpreter for you in Mitteleuropia – Klaus Schiffleich!’

  14

  Goodbye to Tawcester Towers

  Blotto didn’t want to cause any demarcation ructions with Grimshaw’s staff, so he let his usual manservant Tweedling prepare his clothes for packing. Klaus Schiffleich would take over his duties once they were on the road.

  His garments were neatly laid out in the dressing room for him to check through. This was merely a courtesy. Someone of Blotto’s class never looked to see what had been packed for him. If on his travels something was found to be missing, he simply saw to it that Grimshaw sacked the manservant responsible.

  But that evening there was one thing extra that he wanted packed – and packing it was a task he was prepared to undertake for himself. Although the suggestion had been summarily rejected by the ex-King and the Margrave von Humpenstaupen, Blotto still thought his idea for taming the combative nature of the Mitteleuropians was a good one.

  Reverently, he reached into the bottom of a cupboard and extracted his cricket bat. That block of English willow had served him well, and bore its scars like a proud warrior. In spite of the loving and frequent libations of linseed oil with which it had been anointed, the surface was dented with the red marks of sixes past, the abrasions of googlies countered and yorkers parried. Blotto wasn’t much of a one for sentiment – didn’t do for boddos to be soppy – but the sight of his bat always stirred strong inarticulate sensations within his chest. The bat carried his memories – not only the great ones, like his unbeaten century in the Eton and Harrow match, but also of lesser moments. Every sweep and hook and drive of his cricketing career was etched into that noble wood. The bat was his life. He cared about it more than words could say. Blotto couldn’t ever imagine feeling the same kind of emotion for a woman.

  He placed it in the bottom of one of his valises. In the unpredictable world of Mitteleuropia he’d feel more secure knowing that he had his cricket bat with him.

  Blotto, Corky Froggett and Klaus Schiffleich were going to make an early start in the Lagonda the following morning. Tickets had been arranged for the ten o’clock ferry from Dover to Calais. So Blotto, who never had trouble sleeping but who needed his full nine hours, planned an early night.

  Before he turned in, though, he wanted to have a bit of a chinwag with his sister. Twinks was such a brainbox, he was sure she’d have a lot of good advice on what he should do in Mitteleuropia. He still felt a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be coming with him, though he fully accepted the Dowager Duchess’s point that Twinks shouldn’t be put at risk while there was still a chance of breeding from her. With Loofah’s efforts in that direction still drawing blanks (or rather girls, which came to the same thing) a male heir from some marriage contracted by their sister might yet – with a bit of jiggery-pokery from the lawyers – secure the family line.

  Though Blotto did not lack bravery – indeed he had always had a propensity to run blindly towards danger – he knew that, when it came to devious planning, he was a prize cauliflower. And he suspected that the rescue of ex-Princess Ethelinde from her usurping captors might be a job that required some devious planning. Which being the case, he was going to need a bit of a steer from his sister. Twinks’s brilliant mind was always full of beezer schemes. The secret extradition of a kidnap victim would be exactly her size of pyjamas, and she would undoubtedly be able to tell him the best way to achieve it.

  But, bizarrely, as he searched round Tawcester Towers that evening, there was no sign of Twinks. The Dowager Duchess hadn’t seen her. Nor had Grimshaw or any of his network of staff. Her personal maid had no idea where she might be, but did not think it could be far away as she had not been given instructions to pack anything and all her mistress’s clothes were in place in their wardrobes.

  Blotto was mildly frustrated at not being able to have his consultation with Twinks, but he wasn’t about to send out a search party for her. His sister, he knew, was her own woman. He also knew – though he tried to pretend he didn’t – that a lot of the chaps found Twinks dashed attractive. Though he could never imagine her to be anything other than chaste, he knew as well that some men were rotten stenchers, who might try to arrange clandestine encounters with an unchaperoned Twinks. This was not an area of her life that had ever been discussed in conversation between them, and Blotto was very happy that that arrangement should continue. Basically he reckoned that, if his sister was indulging in some kind of private life, then it wasn’t his place to probe.

  So he reconciled himself to not seeing Twinks until his return from Mitteleuropia, went to bed and sank into his customary untroubled sleep of the innocent.

  15

  Foreign Climes

  Blotto had never really seen the point of travelling. He had nothing against foreigners or foreign countries – awfully nice places and awfully nice boddos, he felt sure – but he had everything he needed in England. In the past there had been trips with school chums to
shuffle off wodges of spondulicks in the casinos of Paris and the French Riviera, which had all been quite jolly, but he’d never felt less than relief to get his feet back on home soil. Life became so much simpler when a chap was surrounded by people who spoke the King’s English.

  Still, he had no prejudices – or no more prejudices than anyone else of his background and education – and approached the forthcoming trip to Mitteleuropia with a mixture of curiosity and excitement, tempered of course by the understanding that he was upholding the family’s honour. And also the knowledge that, the sooner he could get back with ex-Princess Ethelinde, the sooner his mother’s duty of hospitality to the ex-King and his entourage would cease. Tawcester Towers would once again be the exclusive domain of its rightful owners. Fish and guests and all that . . .

  Still, he was setting out on an adventure, and if there was one thing that appealed to the Right Honourable Devereux Lyminster, it was an adventure. Going to foreign climes for recreation might be pointless, but going for an adventure was a different ticket altogether.

  It might have been thought that three men crossing Europe with a machine gun in the dicky of their Lagonda would attract the attention of border guards and Customs officers. But at a mere flash of Blotto’s British passport and the sight of his name all curiosity from such hirelings evaporated. Since the Middle Ages the bloodlines of the Dukes of Tawcester had intertwined incestuously with most of the royal houses of Europe, and even a younger son was still afforded appropriate deference by lackeys at national borders. One curious official at the Belgian frontier did ask the passengers what the blanket-wrapped object in the dicky was, but on being told it was an ‘Accrington-Murphy’, lost further interest.

  Conversation in the Lagonda bubbled along pleasantly enough. Blotto and Corky Froggett had been through so much together that there was never a lack of stuff to talk about. As they entered each new country Corky would reminisce fondly about how many of its nationals he had killed in battle, and Blotto would bemoan their lack of cricketing expertise.

  Klaus Schiffleich took a lesser part in the dialogue. For a start, he was a manservant, so obviously a certain distance had to be maintained. Also he was Mitteleuropian, which automatically diminished the conversational topics which he and his new master might share. But he was a benign, if slightly effete, presence in the Lagonda, and did contribute the occasional observation in his high-pitched, almost girlish, voice.

  And as a manservant he couldn’t be faulted. In fact Tweedling could have learnt a thing or two from Klaus Schiffleich. In the various hostelries at which the party stayed overnight, he slept dutifully on the landing in front of his master’s door, as a deterrent to larcenous landlords. And in the mornings hot water, clean linen and edible breakfasts were scrupulously procured. Blotto, who as a rule didn’t much notice domestics, found nothing in the young man’s services to complain about. And he knew that, once inside Mitteleuropia, when translation services would be required, Klaus Schiffleich would really come into his own.

  The only detail about his new manservant that offended his master was the fact that he wore perfume. Blotto had already expressed his opinion on that subject when the cologne of the Grittelhoff brothers had been discussed. There had to be something dashed peculiar about a chap who was offended by his own manly odour. Maybe something in a Mitteleuropian upbringing encouraged such namby-pamby self-indulgence. If they’d played cricket, you wouldn’t catch their young men wandering round like mobile tarts’ boudoirs. But clearly, in that matter, Klaus Schiffleich was a lost cause.

  What made the situation even more incongruous was the fact that the perfume he wore was very reminiscent of one that Blotto’s sister Twinks favoured.

  The manservant, however, did demonstrate his worth in other ways. It was he for instance who, as they approached the Mitteleuropian border, noticed the fact that they were being followed.

  ‘See the black car behind us,’ he said in his accented falsetto. ‘It has been tailing us all the way from Baden Gaden.’

  ‘What make is it?’ asked Blotto.

  ‘It’s a Klig. Vehicle of choice for the Mitteleuropian secret police.’

  ‘Do you want me to lose them, boss?’ asked Corky Froggett, revving up the Lagonda’s powerful engine in anticipation of a cross-country dash.

  ‘I’m not sure. What do you think, Schiffleich?’

  ‘They’re not doing us any harm,’ the young man replied. ‘And their presence suggests that the cable we sent from the telegraph office in Kuckowspitz got through.’

  ‘True,’ said Blotto. They had contacted the Mitteleuropian Ministry of the Interior to announce their imminent arrival in the country. And also revealed that they were carrying a prototype Accrington-Murphy with them.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about the surveillance,’ Klaus Schiffleich squeaked on. ‘They’re just letting us know they’re aware of our presence.’

  ‘And would that be common practice in your country?’

  ‘Oh yes, in Mitteleuropia the spies of the Usurping King Vlatislav are everywhere.’

  ‘So you don’t think the boddos in the car behind mean us any harm?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But, if they do, we’ll find out as soon as we reach the Mitteleuropian border post. If we get any trouble there, then we may have to fight our way out of it.’

  ‘For which very reason,’ Corky Froggett announced sonorously, ‘I have brought these with me.’ He opened the Lagonda’s glove compartment to reveal three highly polished automatic pistols.

  Blotto was dismayed. ‘Oh, I didn’t think we were going to use guns.’

  ‘I think we may need to, milord,’ said his chauffeur.

  ‘But I hate using a gun. It’s the coward’s weapon. If there’s a scrap looming, I’d much rather just ask the other boddo to put up his dukes and thrash the thing out, man to man, according to the old Marquess of Queensberry’s rules.’

  ‘I’m afraid, sir, that the Mitteleuropians are as ignorant of the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules as they are of the laws of cricket.’

  ‘Poor old thimbles. What kind of a life is that?’ Blotto was deeply moved. ‘And bad luck, Schiffleich. You must have had a really rotten time growing up in Mitteleuropia.’

  ‘I survived.’

  ‘Yes, but it can’t have been much more than survival . . . with no cricket . . . or boxing . . . and without even speaking English . . .’

  Corky Froggett decided it was time to halt this spiral down into the maudlin. ‘Anyway, given the fact that the Mitteleuropians don’t abide by the Marquess of Queens-berry rules, I think you should each have one of these.’ He handed across two of the guns and stuffed the third into the pocket of his black uniform.

  ‘For emergency use only,’ said Blotto firmly. ‘Just in case there’s any rodentry at the border.’

  But there wasn’t any. Though there were a large number of armed guards at the crossing, dressed in dark green uniforms with tall black helmets and looking capable of any atrocity, no weapon was raised against the new arrivals. The party in the Lagonda were not only expected, but also welcomed. It was the magic of the Accrington-Murphy that saw them through. Like all illegal regimes, the government of the Usurping King Vlatislav needed firepower to enforce its evil schemes.

  So, after the briefest exchange of courtesies and a waving-away of the proffered passports, the Lagonda was ushered into the Kingdom of Mitteleuropia. The fact that the black Klig was a government-sanctioned escort was confirmed when it was allowed through the checkpoint without even stopping. The huge car continued to follow some three hundred yards behind the Lagonda.

  Blotto’s first sight of Mitteleuropia was an impressive one. It was at times like these, encountering scenes of such beauty, that he wished he was more articulate. When he returned to Tawcester Towers all he would be able to tell his mother by way of description was that there were ‘lots of trees and mountains’. But that was a poor representation of the way the crenellations of almost black pine trees clim
bed steeply up from the roadway until they petered out where the Mitteleuropian Alps showed snow-covered tips like the peaks of over-whipped cream.

  In spite of its great beauty, there was something unsettling about the landscape. Late afternoon when they arrived, they got the impression that the sun had never irradiated the dark slopes that pressed down on them. Nature here did not seem benign, rather it was a malevolent force, forever encroaching, strangling the life from everything that lay in its path. Even Blotto, who wouldn’t have recognized the atmosphere of a place if it had jumped up and kicked him in the throat, could sense that Mitteleuropia was vaguely sinister.

  There were many bumpy side roads which spiralled off to get lost in the darkening woods, but the main thoroughfare to Zling was straight and well surfaced. They saw very few other vehicles on the way to the capital, and those they did were all horse-drawn. The only other motorized transport was the shadowing Klig behind them. As the forest thinned and the landscape flattened, small fields and primitive thatched huts were visible at the sides of the road. Blotto had his prejudice confirmed that Mitteleuropia was still a peasant economy, some fifty years behind the British Isles in all aspects of development.

  And when they could see their destination, Zling, spread out before them, it looked much more like a medieval than a modern city. The conurbation was built around a small hill, that stood out like a boil on the smooth skin of the plateau. On top of this promontory was a large slate-grey castle.

  Blotto pointed it out to Klaus Schiffleich and asked, ‘Is that the Berkenthingywhatsit that the ex-King kept going on about?’

  ‘No,’ the young manservant replied. ‘Berkenziepenkat-zenschloss is situated some fifty miles from Zling. What you see before you is the Korpzenschloss, traditional family seat of the Schtiffkohlers since the thirteenth century when King Sigismund the Bald defeated the Turks at the Battle of Glitsch.’

  ‘Oh, right, and is that where we’ll find King Vlatislav?’