by Simon Brett
It was the morning after the visit of Mr McGloam. The British Museum Egyptologist had left Tawcester Towers, saying that he would arrange transport within the next week to take the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop to his laboratory in London. There it would undergo a sequence of detailed tests to confirm his analysis that it was a genuine antiquity. Once those had been completed, Mr McGloam conceded rather grudgingly that he would attempt a valuation of the item.
His acerbic manner meant that he had departed from Tawcester Towers leaving Blotto and Twinks feeling more derided for having been fooled by the fake artefacts than cheered by the discovery of the sarcophagus.
But doomy feelings never lasted long with Blotto. He had woken the following morning in his customary state of benign and vacuous serenity. The container that was the final resting place of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop would, he felt absolutely certain, resolve the financial problems of Tawcester Towers. So, after a modest breakfast of porridge, eggs, bacon and devilled kidneys, followed by kedgeree, toast and marmalade, Blotto found his footsteps wending with a certain inevitability towards the garages.
Corky Froggett, the gold buttons on his dark blue uniform gleaming, gave the young master a military salute. Blotto had always regarded this customary greeting as something of a joke, but to Corky it was deadly serious. Though he appreciated the many benefits of his life at Tawcester Towers, deep down the chauffeur felt that civilian life was a poor substitute for being in the Army. Life had been so simple then, with the camaraderie of other men whose sole purpose, like his own, was to kill as many of the enemy as possible. For Corky Froggett the Armistice had come far too early; indeed he would have preferred it never to have come at all. War was his natural milieu and everything else a mild disappointment.
Blotto grinned amiably at his underling and without words went to lean against the garage door, light up a cigarette and watch the ceremony of the Lagonda-cleaning.
As ever the first of the processes was the least refined – the pouring of a bucket of water over the whole vehicle. As Corky raised his pail Blotto waited for the reassuring sploshing sound, followed by dripping on to the garage’s cement floor.
But as the contents of the bucket were ejected, something strange happened. Rather than the usual translucent jet striking the Lagonda’s bodywork, what came out of the bucket was bright red in colour. It spattered over the black soft-top and the gleaming blue paintwork.
‘Toad-in-the-hole!’ exclaimed Blotto as he moved forward to the car.
He touched the red fluid and put a finger to his nose to smell it.
There was no doubt. Rather than water, the contents of the bucket had been blood.
9
The Plagues of Corky Froggett
Needless to say, not a single red or white corpuscle was allowed to remain on the Lagonda’s gleaming surface. Corky Froggett spent the best part of the day ensuring that. He also removed every trace of blood from the garage floor and the offending bucket. Indeed many a murderer trying to clean up the scene of his crime would have envied the thoroughness of Corky’s skills.
At the end of the day Blotto rejoined the chauffeur to discuss what had happened.
‘It’s a bit of a rum baba, wouldn’t you say, Corky?’
‘Certainly is, milord.’
‘I mean, you didn’t have a mouse squeak of a notion you were going to find blood in the bucket, did you?’
‘Never occurred to me, milord. Not in a million years.’
‘So that would rule out the possibility that you smiggled the stuff in yourself?’
Corky Froggett looked deeply affronted. ‘Certainly would, milord.’
‘No, I didn’t mean you kind of did it on purpose. It’s just that I’ve heard of boddos doing the most fozzly things when they weren’t aware of them.’
‘Are you suggesting I am not compost mentis, milord?
‘No, no, not at all, Corky. It’s just Twinks was telling me the other day about some poor foreign pineapple called Fried I think it was . . . and he apparently has some crack-noodled theory that our minds sometimes make us do things and we don’t have a blind bezonger of an idea why we’re doing them.’
‘I can assure you, milord, that I always know exactly why I’m doing everything I do.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you do. But with this blood it just seems such a banana-shaped thing to happen, I feel there ought to be some explanation for it.’
‘Well, I don’t know what the explanation is,’ said Corky, still rather grumpy.
‘No, no. Whole thing just seems so off the table, that’s all. I mean, I suppose the other explanation is that some thimble-jiggler swopped the contents of the old bucket while you weren’t watching.’
‘I am never not watching, milord.’
‘So there wasn’t a moment when some four-faced filcher could have slipped into the garage after you’d got all your globbins out and done the swop?’
‘No, milord.’ Though this was asserted with a good deal of vigour, it was not in fact true. Corky Froggett had been conducting a minor dalliance with one of the Tawcester Towers kitchen maids and she had had a brief moment of freedom that morning before clearing up the family’s breakfast. Taking the opportunity to visit the garage, she had joined Corky in the upstairs part for a brief, though mutually satisfying, encounter. But the chauffeur wasn’t about to mention that to the young master.
Blotto shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Well, it just is a real peculiosity,’ he said. A new idea lumbered slowly into his brain. ‘Unless, of course, the contents of the bucket were changed by magic . . . ?’
‘I don’t believe in magic,’ said Corky Froggett stiffly.
* * *
Amongst the many actions that Blotto’s brain was incapable of performing was brooding. Nor was it much good at fretting, agonising or regretting. All of which were very pleasant inabilities to have. As a result, he thought no more about the strange baptism of his Lagonda in blood. He omitted to mention the incident to his sister. In fact, he completely forgot about it and woke the next morning in his customary state of serene benignity. The October sunlight filtering through his bedroom windows echoed his cheery mood.
Blotto breakfasted much as on the previous day, putting away large portions of porridge, eggs, bacon and devilled kidneys. By way of variety he followed that not with kedgeree but with kippers. And he rounded the meal off again with toast and marmalade.
Then he strolled down towards the Tawcester Towers garages where, exactly as on the previous day – or indeed any other day you cared to mention – he found Corky Froggett’s cleaning equipment laid out in readiness for the great ceremony of Lagonda-cleaning. The chauffeur once again greeted him with a salute. Blotto once again leaned against the garage door and lit a cigarette.
This morning’s bucket contained no unwelcome surprises, though, before dousing the Lagonda, Corky did inspect its contents with some caution. Despite asserting that he didn’t believe in magic, he still had the haunted look of a man who feared that the water might transform itself into blood before his very eyes.
But his anxiety was misplaced. The water from the bucket soaked the Lagonda in a very satisfactory manner, enabling the chauffeur to move in with his chamois leathers and brushes and polishes to bring the exterior of the vehicle to the impeccably high standard that he demanded of it. As he went through the time-honoured ritual, Corky Froggett’s manner relaxed – or at least relaxed as far as he ever allowed anything, even the smallest bristle of his moustache, to relax.
The chauffeur completed his final double-check that no mote of dust had infiltrated the perfection of his cleaning, then turned and again saluted the young master. Blotto predictably enough said, ‘Nice work, Corky,’ and started his customary peregrination towards the stables.
But then he changed his mind. Looking around at the splendid autumnal scene, he announced, ‘You know, it’s such a bellbuzzer of a day I think I’ll take the Lag out for a bit of a whizzle.’
‘
Very good, milord. I take it you mean you will drive yourself?’
‘You’re bong on the nose there, Corky.’ Not noticing the slight disappointment on his chauffeur’s face, Blotto went on, ‘I’ll open up the spoffing throttle and leave every other road-user in my wake! It’s just the day for the Lag to show her pedigree. She’s such a breathsapper she’ll turn every eye on the King’s thoroughfare. She really is the lark’s larynx.’ It was rarely that Blotto waxed so eloquent, and of course the only other two subjects on which he would wax were Mephistopheles and his cricket bat. ‘I can’t wait to uncage the power of her chargers!’
‘Very good, milord,’ said Corky Froggett. And he opened the driver’s side door for the young master.
As he did so, something small and green jumped out of the car’s interior onto his shoulder. It was followed by more small green things springing towards him. So many that he had to hold up his hands to ward them off.
‘Great galumphing goatherds!’ cried Blotto. ‘What in the name of Denzil are those?’
‘Frogs, milord,’ replied Corky Froggett.
The chauffeur spent much of the remainder of that day removing every trace of amphibian infestation from the leather upholstery of the Lagonda. Blotto spent much of the remainder of that day hunting on Mephistopheles. As a result he completely forgot about the frogs. Nor did he mention them to Twinks.
The next morning, after his customary breakfast (varied only by the introduction of smoked haddock and poached egg rather than kedgeree or kippers), he wended his way back to the garages. As expected, Corky Froggett had the tools of his trade laid out prior to the cleaning of the Lagonda. But the chauffeur himself was behaving in an uncharacteristic manner.
One thing one could always say about Corky Froggett was that he knew how to keep still. Hours of standing on sentry duty, peering out into no-man’s-land in the hope of seeing some stray Boche he could shoot, had taught him the habit of immobility. And in his everyday life he strenuously avoided gratuitous motion. Below stairs he was sometimes even nicknamed ‘The Statue’.
It was therefore with considerable surprise that when Blotto entered the garage he found his chauffeur virtually writhing. The man seemed to be in considerable discomfort, twitching his limbs about and scratching at his body with a vigour that threatened to unsettle the perfect creases of his uniform.
‘What’s the bizzbuzz, Corky? What in the name of Wilberforce has got into you?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s got into me, milord – or at least into my uniform. A whole army of these bloody little perishers!’
Blotto did not recognise the object, held between thumb and forefinger, which the chauffeur proffered for his scrutiny. It was about the size of a seed and very close inspection revealed it to be some kind of legged insect.
‘What’s that when it’s got its spats on?’
‘A “chat”,’ replied Corky, using the Army slang word.
‘A “chat”?’ echoed a bewildered Blotto.
‘A louse, milord.’
‘Ah.’ No wonder Blotto didn’t recognise the thing. People of his class did not encounter lice. Like tripe, dripping and Cockney accents, they were reserved for the lower orders.
‘I got used to the little buggers while I was in the trenches and managed to stop scratching, but this lot I’ve got in my uniform . . . blimey, are they giving me some gyp!’ He scratched violently to emphasise his point.
‘But where have the little pinkers come from?’ asked Blotto.
‘That,’ said Corky Froggett vindictively, ‘is what I’d like to know.’
After breakfast the next morning (smoked salmon after the bacon and eggs) Blotto returned to the garage. Corky Froggett had dealt with his infestation of lice – or, to be more accurate, overnight his friendly kitchen maid had done that (among other things) for him.
But the moment they opened the door of the Lagonda, chauffeur and young master were immediately assailed from the interior by a buzzing swarm of huge horseflies, which homed in on their faces and stung them mercilessly.
As he batted the assailants away with both hands, Blotto shouted, ‘I’ve had it up to my ear lobes with all this! I’m going to ask Twinks to unravel the rigging!’
10
Twinks Makes Sense of Things
‘Don’t you remember anything from reading the Bible?’ asked Twinks.
‘No,’ said Blotto, who was above all things honest.
‘Didn’t you have religious education classes at Eton?’
‘I think we probably did,’ he replied judiciously, ‘but I sort of didn’t notice them.’ Again this was true. Much of Blotto’s education had passed by in a blur, beaks yattering away while he dreamed of being on the cricket field.
‘Religion has never meant much to you, has it, Blotters?’
‘No,’ he agreed. Then, by way of explanation, ‘Well, like you, I am Church of England, after all. So it shouldn’t mean much to us, should it?’
Twinks nodded. ‘True.’
Brother and sister were snug over mugs of cocoa in her boudoir. He had chronicled the strange events that had been happening to Corky Froggett and Twinks had instantly seen a pattern in them. Clearly, from what she had said, it had something to do with the Bible, and Blotto waited with every ear open for her to tell him what.
‘It’s the Plagues of Egypt,’ Twinks announced.
‘Oh?’
‘Have you ever heard of them?’
‘No.’
‘Well, Blotto me old backbrush, it’s all there in the book of Exodus.’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh yes. You see, the Pharaoh had enslaved the People of Israel.’
‘Had he, by Denzil? What a stencher! Was this recently?’
‘No, it was at the time of Moses.’
‘Ah.’
‘Which is a long time ago.’
‘Right.’
‘In Egypt.’
‘Tickey-tockey.’
‘You see, Blotters, the People of Israel were keen to get away from Egypt.’
‘Well, you can understand that, can’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s abroad, isn’t it? I mean, anyone with their head screwed on the right way round would rather be in England, wouldn’t they?’
‘The People of Israel didn’t want to be in England.’
‘Didn’t they? Well, that’s a rum baba. Where did they want to be?’
‘Israel.’
‘How very peculiar.’
‘They were being enslaved, remember? By the Pharaoh?’
Blotto nodded as the recollection came back to him. ‘Good ticket.’
‘So you see the People of Israel had a sort of contest with the Pharaoh’s priests.’
‘What, all the People of Israel?’
‘No, just Moses really.’
‘Ah.’
‘And he had Aaron.’
‘You mean he wore a wig?’
‘No, not “hair on”. “Aaron”. Aaron was Moses’s brother and he was a priest.’
‘Right. On the same page now, Twinks.’
‘And Aaron had this kind of contest with the Pharaoh’s sorcerers. He did sort of magic tricks.’
‘What, like that poor pineapple who came to one of my birthday parties in the nursery and produced billiard balls out of my ear?’ It was a childhood memory that had made a deep impression on Blotto. He had spent some weeks afterwards poking matchsticks into his ears in the hope of producing more billiard balls.
‘That kind of thing,’ said Twinks judiciously, ‘but maybe a bit more sophisticated. What Aaron did was to summon up the Plagues of Egypt, in the hope that the Pharaoh’d get so vinegared off that he’d let the People of Israel go home.’
Blotto nodded slowly. He was getting a bit lost. ‘But what’s all this to do with that poor old greengage Corky Froggett?’
‘I was getting to that.’
‘Well, shift your shimmy, me old box of tooth powder.’
It wasn’t often that Twinks got annoyed by her brother, but that remark did cause a minor tightening of her beautiful lips. She enjoyed telling stories at her own pace. ‘The first Plague that Aaron summoned up was the Plague of Blood.’
‘And how did that work?’
‘Aaron turned the waters of the Nile to blood.’
‘Did he, by Denzil?’
‘All the fish died.’
‘Well, they would, wouldn’t they?’
‘And there was a terrible stink.’
‘I’m sure there was.’
‘But then Pharaoh’s sorcerers showed they could turn water into blood too. So Aaron summoned up another Plague.’
‘And what was it this time?
‘The Plague of Frogs. Do you see the pattern emerging, Blotters?’
‘No,’ her brother admitted.
‘The entire land of Egypt was overrun by frogs. But the Pharaoh’s sorcerers also made frogs appear.’
‘There must have been a lot of frogs about the shop,’ said Blotto. And he then made one of his rare attempts at a joke. ‘Like living in Paris – her-her.’
Twinks chose to ignore that. ‘And when all the frogs were killed and gathered up in piles, there was another great stink.’
‘Well, there would be.’
‘And the next two Plagues Aaron summoned up were the Plague of Lice and the Plague of Flies.’
‘Boddo had a nasty imagination, didn’t he?’
‘Maybe. But you do see the pattern now, don’t you, Blotters?’
‘No.’
‘Well, think.’ Her brother’s brow furrowed as he tried to follow her instruction. ‘You just told me what had happened to Corky, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ But Blotto still sounded bewildered.
‘First, the water in his bucket changed to blood . . .’
‘Mm . . .’
‘Just as in the Plague of Blood. Then the Lagonda was filled with frogs . . . just as in the Plague of Frogs. Then Corky became infested with lice . . . just as in the Plague of Lice. Then when he opened the car door, you were attacked by flies . . . just as in . . . ?’