by Simon Brett
The Professor preened himself at the compliment, running fingers through his unruly hair. At that moment a discreet knock on the door announced the arrival of the college butler with the soup course. Once they had balanced their bowls on precarious piles of papers and were sipping away at the rather excellent consommé à la tortue, Holofernes continued, ‘Well, the solution to my problem turned out to be your sister. She, you see, had the specialised knowledge that I lacked. She knew the aristocracy. She knew exactly how people of your breeding work. In no time, working together, we had found the missing minor royal’s illegitimate son.’
Twinks giggled at the recollection. ‘Yes, it was quite a complex case, wasn’t it? I’ll never forget the cross-dressing bishop.’
‘Complex it was maybe, Twinks, but we still solved it in double-quick time. And that’s because I was working with you. Well, Blotto, since that time I have had many more requests from Scotland Yard for assistance and in most cases I’ve been able to oblige. But my efficiency is never so great as when I am working with your sister.’
‘Good ticket,’ said Blotto.
‘And yet, though very often I ask her to come and help me out, very rarely is she available for such service.’
‘Well, you know,’ Twinks said in her defence, ‘a gel does have a rather splendissimo social life to keep up – hunt balls, all that kind of rombooley – so it’s sometimes hard to—’
‘This is all nonsense, Twinks,’ said the Professor brusquely. ‘You told me that the reason you couldn’t spare time to work with me was that you were busy with other investigations, on which you were working with your brother.’
‘Oh, yes, well there is a smidgeonette of truth in that, Razzy.’
‘So,’ Professor Erasmus Holofernes concluded triumphantly, ‘that must mean that, rather than working with me, you would rather work with someone whose intellect is more impressive than my own – in other words, your brother!’
Twinks found herself resorting to one of Blotto’s ‘Well, erm . . .’s.
The Professor turned to face Blotto. ‘So I am intrigued by you, of course. For me to have sitting in my room one of the greatest intellects in the world is . . . as you can imagine . . . a very exciting moment.’
‘Good ticket,’ said Blotto a trifle nervously.
‘So tell me . . . is your intellect the product of a very fine education or is it innate?’
‘In eight what?’ asked Blotto.
‘Please don’t be frivolous, Blotto.’
‘I wasn’t being frivolous. I was just asking a straight question and—’
But Holofernes was not about to be interrupted. ‘I have been doing some work on the nature of genius, which I will soon be publishing, and I am intrigued by the origins of the phenomenon. In your case do you think it’s congenital?’
Blotto blushed. Talking about ‘genitals’ might be all right in the locker room after a good game of cricket, but it didn’t quite tick the clock when there was a lady present. Fortunately the awkwardness of the moment was diffused by the appearance of the college butler with the fish course, sole de Douvres à la meunière, which he filleted for them.
If Blotto had hoped that this interruption would divert the Professor from his line of investigation he was out of luck. As soon as the college butler had left the room, Holofernes went on, ‘Tell me – were your special qualities recognised early, Blotto? At school did your teachers hail you as a genius?’
At last – a question that was easy to answer. ‘No,’ said Blotto firmly.
Holofernes nodded. ‘It’s often the case. Few teachers have the capacity to recognise the truly exceptional. Mind you, in my case once they did see the light, once they realised the huge disparity between my results and those of the rest of the class, there were occasions when I was put in another room, so that I was not forced to work at the same pace as the rest of my classmates.’
‘Yes, that happened to me quite a lot too,’ said Blotto.
‘The reason I’m so interested,’ the Professor continued, ‘is in comparing my own experiences with yours. Being a genius is not without its drawbacks, particularly when one is growing up and at school. Blotto, did you ever feel that your unusual level of intelligence put a barrier between you and your classmates?’
‘No,’ he was able to reply quite truthfully.
‘Was jealousy ever expressed of your intellectual prowess?’
Another easy one. ‘No.’
‘Might I also ask, Blotto – and I speak as someone who also grew up with an extremely gifted sister – whether there was ever any rivalry between you and Twinks?’
He looked puzzled. ‘Rivalry? Why should there ever be rivalry? When we were younger we liked different things. In the nursery I had lead soldiers, she had dolls. Then I had cricket and she had ponies. I suppose,’ Blotto recollected judiciously, ‘the only place where there was any rivalry was on the tennis court. I mean, obviously I’m bigger and stronger than Twinks, but she’s got an absolute whizz-bang of a first service and—’
‘No, no,’ the Professor interrupted. ‘I understand all that, but I was talking about intellectual rivalry. Was there ever any intellectual rivalry between you and your sister?’
‘Great Wilberforce, no!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, Professor, Twinks has got such a grade A brain-box that various international museums have asked her to donate it to them when she finally tumbles off the trailer . . . whereas I . . . well, I’ve often been told that if some stencher snaffled a brain cell out of my cranium, then I’d just have to manage on the one.’
‘You mean you’re not a genius?’ asked Erasmus Holofernes, aghast.
‘I’m so far from being a genius,’ Blotto replied with serene self-knowledge, ‘that the beaks at Eton, who marked our work with Greek letters – you know, alpha plus, beta double plus and so on – said I was the first pupil for whom they’d had to go down to omega minus.’
‘Oh,’ said a bewildered Professor Erasmus Holofernes.
‘But,’ said Twinks loyally, ‘he is very good at cricket.’
‘Ah,’ said a still-bewildered Professor Erasmus Holofernes.
‘Not only good at cricket, but good also at biffing any lumps of toadspawn who get in our way when we’re on one of our adventures. Blotto can defeat hordes of stenchers with nothing more than a cricket bat in his hand. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear.’
Her brother beamed and explained to the Professor, ‘There are quite a lot of other words whose meanings I don’t know either.’
Holofernes still looked troubled. ‘But I can’t understand, Twinks, how someone who does not have a mighty intellect can help you in that subtle business of deduction and ratiocination . . .’ (another word of which Blotto didn’t know the meaning) ‘. . . whereby a crime is solved.’
‘I do all that in my head, Razzy . . .’
‘Yes, my sister really is the lark’s larynx when it comes to solving crimes,’ Blotto contributed. ‘. . . but not all crimes can be solved – as you solve yours – without leaving a room,’ Twinks went on. ‘Often we have to travel on cases and when we do, more than once Blotto’s saved my chitterlings. In a clammy corner, he’s the absolute top of the milk.’
These expressions of mutual admiration seemed to convince Professor Erasmus Holofernes that the siblings did form a viable pair of investigators. So, after another interruption from the college butler as he brought in their three individual grouse with all the trimmings, he took a long swallow of the excellent college claret and asked, ‘So, Twinks my dear, what is the problem that has brought you here to me?’
12
Professor Holofernes Brings his Brain to Bear
There was a long silence after Blotto and Twinks – well, mostly Twinks, actually – had finished their narration. Holofernes took another slow swallow of his claret before announcing, ‘You have got yourselves into a very serious situation here.’
‘We were rather afraid we might have done,’ said
Twinks.
‘Thought it was probably a bit of a gluepot,’ admitted Blotto.
‘Presumably, Razzy, you do know the odd factette about Egyptology . . . ?’ asked Twinks.
‘I know about everything!’ replied Professor Erasmus Holofernes. ‘I am in correspondence with all of the major Egyptologists of the world.’ He gestured to one specific area of the landscape of paper that lay around him. ‘There I have all of their detailed findings.’
‘But I am right, aren’t I,’ ventured Twinks, ‘in assuming that what’s been happening to Corky Froggett does mirror the Plagues of Egypt?’
‘You are right. Certainly you are right. But that parallel does raise problems of its own.’
‘What kind of problems?’
The Professor ran a frustrated hand across his face, snagging on the tufts of hair he’d missed when shaving. ‘The first problem is one of timing.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, let us make another assumption . . . that the Plagues which have been visited on your chauffeur have been visited on him because he has violated the sacred peace of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop.’
‘You think that is the reason?’
‘Why, Twinks? Don’t you?’
‘That was my first thought, but I’d feel better to have it confirmed by you, Razzy.’
‘I am sure it is a reasonable assumption for us to make at this stage of our investigations,’ said the Professor judiciously.
‘Rein in the roans for a moment!’ Blotto interrupted. ‘Are you saying all these murdy things have been happening to Corky simply because he lifted the lid off that sarcophyflipmadoodle?’
‘Well, that does seem the most likely explanation,’ said Twinks, ‘given what was written on the sarcophagus. You know, the Curse?’
‘Yes.’ Blotto nodded thoughtfully.
‘Why?’ asked Holofernes. ‘Hadn’t you considered the possibility of a connection between the two events?’
‘No,’ admitted Blotto, honest as ever.
The Professor nodded thoughtfully. He was clearly going to have to rethink his theories about the heredity of genius. The existence of Blotto had cast doubt on all of his recent conclusions.
‘You said there was a problemette about timing,’ Twinks prompted.
‘Yes,’ the Professor concurred. ‘You see, the biblical story of the Plagues of Egypt concerns Moses.’ Twinks nodded. ‘And Moses was reckoned by current research to have been born around 1525 BC. The common view is that the Pharaoh with whom Moses was described as being in conflict with in the Book of Genesis was Rameses, called “The Great”. His dates were approximately 1303 BC to 1213 BC.’
A glaze had spread over Blotto’s eyes. It was like being back in a history lesson at Eton while some beak droned on about the causes of the War of the Austrian Succession. As they had done so often then, his thoughts drifted to daring deeds on the cricket field.
Fortunately his sister was more attentive. ‘So what you’re saying, Razzy, is that for the sarcophagus to have on it a curse related to the biblical Plagues of Egypt, it must date from after Moses’s departure from Egypt with the Children of Israel?’
Professor Erasmus Holofernes nodded vigorously. It was such a pleasure to be in the company of an intellect comparable to his own. Pity about the brother, though.
‘I don’t see why that’s a problem, though,’ Twinks went on. ‘It would put the date of the sarcophagus firmly within the period of the New Kingdom, probably in the Nineteenth or Twentieth Dynasty, when Egypt was at its most powerful.’
Blotto had never before been aware of his sister’s likeness to a history beak. So he let his mind drift back to memories of carrying his bat through an Eton and Harrow match of long ago, until serendipitously there arrived another interruption in the form of the arrival of their bread-and-butter pudding.
But that didn’t put Holofernes off his stride. As soon as the door had closed behind the college butler, he continued. ‘The problem is that, had the sarcophagus come from a much earlier dynasty, of which records are much sketchier, I would not be worried about the unfamiliarity of the name of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop. But details of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom – and their dates – are pretty well known, and I have never heard a reference to one called Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop.’
Disappointment dulled the azure of Twinks’s eyes, as her hopes for a quick solution to the Tawcester Towers financial crisis were threatened. ‘Are you saying, Razzy, that the sarcophagus is a fake?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Mr McGloam, the expert from the British Museum, is convinced it’s genuine.’
‘I would not wish to challenge his opinion. A nasty little Scottish bounder by all accounts, but he certainly knows his Egyptology.’ He sighed. ‘I’m afraid it’s difficult for me, without having actually seen the sarcophagus, to pass judgement on its authenticity.’
‘But there’s no doubt about the authenticity of the unpleasant things that have been happening to our chauffeur.’
‘No, Twinks, I take that point as well.’ Holofernes tapped his hair-tufted chin thoughtfully. ‘It’ll be boils next, won’t it?’
‘What will be boils?’ asked Blotto, emerging from his trance.
‘The next Plague of Egypt. The Plague of Boils. So you keep an eye on your chauffeur chappie for any signs of boils.’
‘Tickey-tockey,’ said Blotto. Then a thought came to him. ‘What happens if he’s got boils where I can’t see them?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Well, I mean, Corky’s always kitted out in his uniform, so the only bits of him I can normally see are his head and his hands – and not even his hands when he’s driving because he wears gloves. So if he gets a boil on his face or the back of his neck or his hands . . . well, it’s all creamy eclair. But if the poor pineapple gets a boil on another part of his anatomy . . . I mean, on the kind of places that boddos get boils . . . like on his . . . or on his . . . or . . . Well, how’m I going to find out about that?’
‘You ask him.’
‘Ah,’ said Blotto, grateful as ever for illumination. ‘Good ticket.’
‘Anyway, Razzy,’ said Twinks, ‘we need you to lace up your thinking boots. It seems to me a guinea to a groat that Corky Froggett’s upset the spirit of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop, and we need to get the poor thimble off the gaff before something really murdy happens to him.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Because after the Plague of Boils he’s still got Hail, Locusts, Darkness and then . . . the Death of the Firstborn.’
‘Which might,’ said Blotto in sepulchral tones, ‘affect my Lagonda.’
‘We must save Corky from all that,’ said Twinks.
‘Of course you must,’ the Professor agreed. ‘And, at the first sign of Mr Froggett developing a boil, however small, I am relying on you to telephone me immediately.’
‘Fair biddles, Razzy. Of course I will.’
At that point, after a respectful knock on the door, the college butler entered with their savoury of oysters wrapped in bacon, commonly known as ‘angels on horseback’ (except they weren’t really commonly known, because common people never got them). He enquired whether the Professor wished to join the other dons in the S.C.R. for port and brandy or if he would like that too served in his room. Holofernes chose the second option, and the college butler departed.
‘So, Razzy,’ said Twinks, looking at him with sunny confidence, ‘what do we do?’
‘Hm.’ He scratched through his wild and thinning hair. ‘It’s a conundrum.’
‘But how do we solve the conundrum?’
‘I don’t know.’
Twinks looked aghast. Never before had she heard those words uttered by Professor Erasmus Holofernes. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I do not.’
‘But . . . but . . . but . . .’ It was rarely that Twinks looked lost for words. The expression the shock brought to her face did not, in her brother’s opinion, suit her.
‘I’m going to have to do a lot of research,’ announced the Professor. ‘When I’ve finished I will write to you with my conclusions.’
And Blotto and Twinks had to be content with that. Still they enjoyed the Saint Raphael’s port and brandy.
13
Murmurs of Revolution
‘This is appalling!’ said the Dowager Duchess. ‘It shouldn’t be allowed!’
They were in the Blue Morning Room. Twinks had quickly finished the newspaper article to which her mother was referring. Blotto, never quite so quick on the reading front (he had been working his way through The Hand of Fu Manchu for some five years and hadn’t quite reached the end), was still deep in the text.
The offending item had been published in that week’s edition of the Tawcestershire Gazette. Normally such a rag would never have been allowed near the Dowager Duchess but, given the contents, the Tawcester Towers butler Grimshaw had felt it should be brought to her attention. The article was written by Alfred Sprockett and appeared to represent his manifesto for the forthcoming election.
It was pretty combustible stuff. Twinks could see why it would have given the Dowager Duchess the hump. The ideas were very much those that Sprockett had outlined at his rally in Tawsford Town Hall, but of course Twinks’s mother had never heard such thoughts expressed. Such thoughts were never expressed in polite society. Her shock was understandable.
To take a few sentences at random, the article put forward the view that: ‘The wealth of this country should be distributed equally to every single citizen’; ‘Inherited money is money stained with the blood and sweat of serfdom’; ‘Honesty is a quality to be found, not in the expensive perfumes of the landed classes, but in the sweat of working men’; ‘The revolution that will put an end to aristocratic privilege and provide justice for the poor cannot be far away.’
These broad precepts were not calculated to appeal to the likes of the Dowager Duchess, but she would have liked his polemic even less the more specific it became. The final paragraph must have been a red rag to anyone in whose veins blue blood flowed, and particularly one in whom it had flowed for so many generations.