by Simon Brett
‘So let me make this absolutely clear,’ said the Dowager Duchess in a tone of conclusion. ‘As soon as we get a valuation of the sarcophagus from the British Museum expert, we are going to sell the thing for as much bally money as we can get for it. And, Blotto and Twinks, I categorically forbid you to attempt to take it back to Egypt!’
Both the siblings were restless as they sat over cocoa in Twinks’s boudoir.
‘Well, the Mater laid down the law like a Turkish carpet,’ said Blotto.
‘Didn’t she just?’
‘So a quick pongle over to Egypt’s off the menu.’
Twinks sighed ‘I suppose it is.’
‘What do you mean – suppose? The Mater’s told us we can’t go. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Is it, though?’
‘What?’
‘“All there is to it”. I’ve a feeling there might be another fish on the line.’
‘What fish?’
‘Well, on the one hand we have the fact that the Mater tells us we can’t go, so we don’t go . . .’
‘Ye-es,’ Blotto agreed cautiously, so far managing to keep up with his sister’s reasoning.
‘And on the other hand we have the possibility that, even though the Mater’s told us we can’t go, we go anyway.’
Blotto was thunderstruck. ‘Well, I’ll be snickered, Twinks. You do come up with some goods. Are you suggesting we should go directly against the Mater’s instructions?’
‘Yes.’
Blotto was lost for words. The proposed course of action was unthinkable. From the nursery onwards one rule had obtained at Tawcester Towers: Blotto and Twinks never failed to follow their mother’s instructions.
‘What’s the worst she could do?’ asked Twinks, sounding more nonchalant than she actually felt.
Blotto remained silent, contemplating the many worsts that their mother could do. Though not normally very hot on the imagination front, on this occasion his mind came up with an immediate plethora of distressing and painful possibilities.
Something similar must have been passing through Twinks’s finely tuned brain, because she sounded even less certain as she said, ‘Well, maybe it won’t come to that.’
‘You see another route through the woods?’
‘Not slap off the counter, no.’
‘Well, how won’t it come to that then, Twinks me old carriage clock?’
‘I mean there’s still a chance that the assaults on poor old Corky have stopped.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Razzy might be right on the mustard with what he was saying about the evil spirits biding their time, just toying with us, but on the other hand they might think they’ve already given Corky enough of a slap on the wrist and pulled their troops back.’
Blotto beamed. ‘Do you think that’s what’s happened?’
Twinks grimaced wryly. ‘I’d like to think so, but I’m not convinced. I get the impression that the creatures who’re guarding Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop in the Afterlife are a pretty vindictive lot. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of the little stenchers.’
‘Hope you’re wrong,’ said Blotto. ‘To have more of that guff going on really would be the flea’s armpit. I’ll feel in trimmer rig when that spoffing sarcophagus is out of the house. That little slimer Mr McGloam said he should get rid of it within the week, didn’t he?’
Twinks nodded.
‘And that should put an end to Corky’s troubles for good and all.’
‘I wonder . . .’ To Blotto’s surprise Twinks giggled before she went on, ‘Of course if McGloam does get the sarcophagus out of the house and up to the British Museum, there’s a strong chance that he’ll be the next person to open it.’
By his standards, Blotto caught on remarkably quickly to her implication. ‘Oh, you mean the Plagues of Egypt will be visited on him instead?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Beezer wheeze! Serve the little Scottish thimble-jiggler right.’ He looked relieved. The end of their ordeal was in sight. ‘Just get the sarcophagus out of Tawcester Towers and we’ll be rolling on camomile lawns.’
‘Grandissimo!’ Twinks grinned with something closer to her customary sunny confidence. ‘Just so long as Corky doesn’t show the smallest twingle of a boil developing . . . Have you checked this morning whether he’s still off the doctor’s list?’
‘Erm . . .’
Twinks had known her brother for a long time and could read him like the books that he so rarely read. ‘Blotto, you have been checking with him regularly about the boils, haven’t you?’
‘Well, erm . . .’
She immediately – and correctly – identified this as a no. ‘But you great crumb-bag! You promised you would! When did you last run Corky through the question machine?’
‘Erk . . .’
‘Oh, for the love of strawberries, Blotters! You mean you haven’t even asked him once?’
‘I have looked,’ said Blotto miserably.
‘“Looked”? What do you mean – “looked”?’
‘Well, each time I’ve toddled down to watch him clean the Lag, I’ve looked at his hands and face and he certainly hasn’t got any boils on them.’
‘But you haven’t quizzed him about the rest of his body?’
Blotto looked acutely embarrassed as he admitted that he hadn’t. ‘The thing is, Twinks, you don’t know what it’s like being a chappo. Oh, it’s all right for you girls. I know, when you cosy up with your chummettes you talk about everything . . .’ he blushed a deeper red ‘. . . even things to do with your bodies. But it’s different on the chappier side of fence. I mean, when a bunch of boddos like me get together – you know, even with the muffin-toasters you’ve been at school with . . . well, you talk about cricket, you talk about hunting, you can talk about wine if you like, or cars. But it’s well outside the rule book to talk about anything that matters.’
‘So,’ asked his sister coolly, ‘you would regard boils as things that matter – which they certainly do in this particular instance – and therefore not talk about them?’
‘It’s not easy. I’d feel a bit of a clip-clop asking about that kind of thing.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s kind of . . .’ Blotto would by now have won first prize in a Brightest Beetroot Competition. ‘With chappos . . . you know, it’s not quite the thing to ask chappos what goes on . . . under their clothes.’
‘“Under their clothes”?’
‘Yes, I mean, you know, I mean one doesn’t like to refer to things that are . . . sort of . . .’
‘Are you talking about bodies, Blotto?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose I am.’
‘All people have bodies. Even men.’
‘Yes, I know, but that doesn’t mean you can just, kind of, casually, talk about them.’
‘Are you telling me, Blotto, that you haven’t even mentioned the word “boil” to Corky?’
‘Well, no, of course I haven’t. I mean, what’s he going to think of me – particularly because he’s of the oikish classes and I’m . . . Well, it’d be really beyond the barbed wire for me just to pongle up to him casually and say, “Corky, me old squashed fly biscuit, do you by any chance have any boils?”’
‘But, Blotto, you know how important whether he’s got a boil or not is!’
‘Yes, yes, but . . .’ He could only repeat feebly, ‘You don’t know what it’s like being a chappo.’
Twinks shook her head in annoyance. ‘Do you want me to go down to the garages and ask Corky Froggett whether he’s got any boils?’ The tone of her voice was highly sarcastic. It was a tone that would have shamed any man into swallowing his scruples and going to do what was required of him.
‘Yes, please,’ said Blotto.
He kept a distance behind her and stood back shamefaced as his sister strode into the garage. Beside the Lagonda the chauffeur stood to attention as if on parade.
‘Corky,’ asked Twinks, ‘do you have any boils?’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes, milady,’ replied Corky Froggett.
16
A Question of Lying
‘He still doesn’t know,’ said Twinks as they walked back to the main house.
‘Doesn’t know what, me old fruitbat?’ asked Blotto, still rather red in the face.
‘Doesn’t know the significance of his boils.’
‘Oh?’
‘The fact that they’re part of a sequence. The fact that everything that’s happened to him, from the water turning to blood onwards, has been a visitation of the Plagues of Egypt.’
‘Ah. On the same page with you now. You’re talking about Corky.’
‘Yes,’ his sister confirmed.
‘Corky doesn’t know.’
‘You’ve potted the black there, Blotters.’
‘Do you think we should tell him now?’
‘No, keep the hood on the hawk for a bit longer.’
‘Tickey-tockey.’ Blotto was silent. He was still in a state of shock from his sister’s suggestion that they might disobey the Dowager Duchess. And he recognised the chain of logic. Twinks had said they’d have to return the sarcophagus to Egypt if Corky Froggett developed a boil. Corky Froggett had developed a boil, so . . . the implication was unavoidable. He waited for Twinks to speak.
Which she did, just as they were entering the main doors of Tawcester Towers.
‘So it looks like it’s Egypt for us,’ she said ruefully.
‘Good ticket,’ said Blotto, though he wasn’t really feeling that positive about the situation.
‘I think we’ll have to.’ Twinks sounded as unkeen on the idea as he felt.
‘The Mater’ll be properly vinegared off. I hate to think how she’ll react to someone not doing as she’s told them to do.’
‘Nobody knows,’ said Twinks, and her delicate shoulders succumbed to a shudder. ‘It’s never happened before. And, what’s more, I think we’re going to have to lie to the Aged P, as well.’
‘Lie to her?’ echoed an appalled Blotto.
‘Yes. Assuming we’re going in the Lagonda . . .’
‘Which of course we are.’ Blotto took a pretty dim view of ‘abroad’. Everything he required of life – cricket, hunting, Twinks – was to be found on the doorstep of Tawcester Towers. And foreigners were, generally speaking, a strange array of specimens. Blotto was not unsympathetic to them. He realised their lives were difficult, blighted by the disappointment of slowly discovering that they hadn’t been born British, and he thought a lot of them coped with that appalling disadvantage pretty well (certainly better than he would have done, had he experienced the misfortune of being in their brogues). But the unalterable fact remained that foreign countries and foreign people were foreign. No way round that.
As a result, whenever Blotto did have to leave his beloved country, he tried to surround himself with as many things as possible that reminded him of his idyllic life at Tawcester Towers. So travelling to Egypt in the Lagonda would be absolutely essential. And Blotto would make sure that his cricket bat was safely stored in the car. Pity he’d have to leave Mephistopheles behind, but he recognised the impracticality of taking his hunter to the desert.
Then of course he’d have Twinks with him, to dilute the pervasive foreignness. And Corky Froggett would have to come too. Now the Boils had arrived, they’d have to keep the chauffeur safe from Hail and Locusts. He was a bit hazy about the mechanics of how the Plagues worked, but he recognised that the nearer to Egypt they got, the greater might be the likelihood of encountering Locusts.
‘But what’s this bizz-buzz about lying to the Mater?’ Blotto asked Twinks.
‘We’ve got to get the sarcophagus down from the attic,’ she explained. ‘And that’s not like a hanky you can just slip into a reticule. It’s the size of a wardrobe and considerably heavier. The whole house is going to know when that’s being moved. Which means we need some cover story as to why we’re shifting it.’
‘So that the Mater doesn’t think we’re actually taking it to Egypt?’
‘Bong on the nose, Blotto. Needn’t be a big lie, not one of those murdy black ones. Something more on the greyish side.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘I know! We’ll tell her we’ve heard from Mr McGloam and he’s coming down the day after tomorrow to collect the sarcophagus. She’ll swallow that like a trout takes a damsel. To the Mater’s mind, the sooner the thing gets to the British Museum, the sooner the process of selling it can begin.’
Blotto shuddered. ‘Sorry, Twinks me old butter-pat mould. It’s just the thought of . . . lying to the Mater.’
‘I know, Blotters.’ And his sister looked rather magnificent as she announced, ‘But when the sabre rattles it’s the old warhorse who snorts.’
‘Tickey-tockey,’ said Blotto, totally mystified.
17
A Secret Getaway
Moving the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop from the Tawcester Towers attics down to the garages was never going to be an easy task, but at least that part of the plan worked fine from the security point of view. The Dowager Duchess was inevitably roused by the sounds and sights of a large number of her domestic staff manhandling the thing down the stairs, with a lot of oohing and aahing about the human-like form painted on its cover. But she readily accepted her daughter’s assurance that the reason for all this upheaval was because Mr McGloam from the British Museum was going to collect it in a couple of days’ time. Cheered by the prospect of the imminent resolution of the family’s financial crisis, the Dowager Duchess put on her stoutest tweeds, picked up her hunting shotgun, whistled for some dogs, and went out to blast a few partridge to oblivion.
Once the sarcophagus had reached the garages, the helpers from among the staff were dismissed and sent back to their usual tasks. None of them must be allowed actually to witness the concealing of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop in the Lagonda, or there was a serious danger that someone might snitch to the Dowager Duchess.
As a result it was left to Blotto and Corky Froggett to do the deed which, given the fact that the two of them together could hardly shift the sarcophagus off the ground, was not easy. Though both were men at a peak of exceptional fitness, the dead weight was too much for them. But in his garage Corky Froggett had a system of hoists, hooks and wheels which he used for tasks like lifting out and replacing car engines. Once they had managed to get levers under the artefact and lift it sufficiently to get chains round, the task became easier. In spite of the gearing of the hoist, both men had to strain every sinew to lift the sarcophagus up high enough to loom over the car beneath.
An incautious slip at that moment would undoubtedly have sent the dead weight crashing down, in the process reducing Blotto’s precious Lagonda to matchwood, but fortunately the danger was circumvented. Twinks had opened the vehicle’s secret compartment, which had been created courtesy of the Mafia, and she was about to guide the sarcophagus into its temporary resting place, when she said, ‘Can you rein in the roans for a moment there?’
‘What, you mean hold the spoffing thing up in mid-air?’ asked her brother, bringing all his weight to bear on the chain in his hands. Had Alfred Sprockett been there at that moment he would have been forced to observe that it wasn’t only working men who sweated.
‘Just for a momentette.’
Master and chauffeur clung on grimly as the potential wrecking ball of a sarcophagus spun around slowly above the precious Lagonda. Twinks put up a hand to steady it and peered at a decorated band just below the rim of the lid. ‘There are some more hieroglyphs,’ she announced. ‘On the side that was against the wall in the attic. Can you two just hang on for a moment?’
Blotto and Corky Froggett weren’t sure that they could. The weight was pulling their arms out of their sockets. But they were both too manly to admit any doubt on the matter. ‘Tickey-tockey,’ said Blotto.
Twinks took a small notebook and silver propelling pencil out of her sequinned reticule and spelled out the words as she wrote them down. ‘Anyone who wishes to escape the cur
se of Pharaoh Sinus Nefertop must first solve the Riddle of the Sphinx. Hm,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘now, as I remember, the Riddle of the Sphinx was about—’
‘Can we put off the word games till we’ve got this spoffing sarcophagus safely stowed?’ demanded Blotto in some desperation.
‘Oh, yes, of course we can.’ And Twinks guided the artefact into the Lagonda’s secret compartment. It fitted remarkably snugly. The space could have been designed to accommodate dead bodies (as indeed it had been).
Blotto and Corky collapsed on the floor in a heap of perspiring exhaustion. Twinks tapped at her perfect teeth with her propelling pencil. ‘Now the Riddle of the Sphinx . . .’ she mused.
‘Is it that one I used to like in the nursery?’ gasped Blotto. ‘Something about watches and prison guards and . . . I can’t remember what else?’
‘I think you’re referring to the riddle: What is the difference between a jeweller and a jailer?’
‘That’s the johnnie! I remember it well.’
‘So what’s the answer?’
‘Oh, I don’t remember that,’ Blotto admitted.
‘The answer is: One sells watches and the other watches cells. Come back to you, does it?’
‘Oh yes. It always was a buzzbanger. Did you hear that, Corky?’
‘Hear what, milord? I’m afraid I was concentrating on trying to get my breath back.’
‘Well, it’s this riddle, you see. Absolute buzzbanger. Are you ready for it, Corky?’
‘Yes, milord.’
‘What’s the difference between a watch-seller and a prison guard?’
‘I have no idea, milord.’
‘Well, it’s . . . um . . . it’s a . . . erm . . .’ Blotto looked perplexed. Short-term memory had never been his strong suit. Nor had long-term memory, come to that.
Twinks intervened. ‘It’s of no importance, Blotto. The riddle we’ve got to think about is the Riddle of the Sphinx.’
‘And do you know what that is?’