David Dean - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

“The Mem. And what about Mrs. Whipple?”

“Deny all knowledge,” said Loopy. “Tell ’em to sling their hooks.”

“There’s the Mem’s W. I. lot, for one thing. They’re a nosey bunch. They’ll be wanting to know what’s happened to her.”

“Easy. You say she’s gone off,” said Loopy, “gone off for a little break. To see an old friend. Who’s sickly. Unto death. Something lingering. Don’t know when she’ll be back, sickly lingering friend doesn’t have a telephone. Don’t bang the door on yer way out.”

“Ah,” said Jimbo. “Yes, I suppose. But there’s her car.”

Loopy tapped his nose.

“Leave it to me,” he said. “Know a bloke.”

Good old Loopy. There was a chap you could really depend on.

But Jimbo was still uneasy. People would be bound to come asking questions. He said so.

Loopy looked at him seriously. The wandering eye was more errant than ever.

“Only one way to deal with peepers and pryers,” he said. “Give ’em short shrift. Tell ’em to bugger off. If some enemy ever comes sliding round here, pretending to know me, or pretending to be me, it’s been known, they’re tricky little sods, you see ’em off the property at the end of a fowling piece.”

“Enemy?” said Jimbo, confused. “What sort of enemy would that be, Loopy?”

“Been in some strange spots, done some odd things for the Old Country. You can’t do that without running across some touchy sorts, easily vexed, some of them. Quite possible some of them might pop round to do me down and do the Old Country down. If they do, see ’em off, Jimbo, there’s a good man.”

“Right,” said Jimbo, more confused than ever, but willing to help a chum out. “Right, old chap.”

He slept in one of the spare rooms that night. The thought of sleeping in the master bedroom gave him the ab-dabs. He had an uncomfortable night. The sheets were cold and a little damp, and thoughts swirled around in his head until in the early hours they began to swirl round like water going down a plughole and the simple soldier slept.

When he rose the next morning, the house was deserted. There was no sign of Loopy. And he wondered distractedly why there was no sign or sound of the Mem until the memories of the previous night swept over him.

He made some tea and ate some toast in the kitchen without enthusiasm. He wandered upstairs to get dressed, entering the large bedroom with trepidation. He found, as he opened the wardrobe, that all the Mem’s clothes had disappeared. Her half was a void jangling with empty clothes hangers.

“All the Mem’s frocks,” he said, “gone, every last one. Rum do, that.” And when he later patrolled the house, he found that everything of the Mem’s had gone. Everything. All her bits and pieces from the dressing table and the bathroom. Even her Morris had gone from the garage, he realised when he went out to get some air.

He went to find Loopy, but found that the door to the Blue Room had acquired the largest padlock Jimbo had ever seen. The door was also now decorated with a metal plate, apparently the property of Electricite de France, which told him to Defense d’Entrer. He did exactly as he was told.

Loopy did not reappear for three days. But when he walked up the drive at three o’clock in the afternoon and let himself into the house, he found Jimbo still in dressing-gown and pyjamas sitting in an armchair. He had a heavy beard and his hair was dishevelled.

Loopy said, “I say, ol’ man, we’ve let ourselves go a bit, haven’t we?” He had abandoned the green suit in favour of a three-piece in natty maroon. He was also sporting a new watch that looked like a gold donut and his tie was secured by a pin with a horse’s head on it. The trilby was still present.

Jimbo had let himself go a bit. He’d had an absolutely rotten three days, wandering about the house, pacing the empty rooms with no one to talk to except himself, which he had begun to do quite a lot and quite early on. He had also had a horrible shock. A postcard had arrived, that very morning, bearing a sunny picture of Weston-super-Mare. The writing on the card, which was difficult to read in places since it had been smudged by a circular mark, perhaps from a wet glass, read: “Dear Jimbo, I have run away from you to Join A Sect. Do not try to find me or it will be the Worse for you. They have given me the Love you have always Denyed me you rotten bastard. Do Not Try To Find Me. All my Love, Hetty Garside (The Mem). PS. Give my best to old Loopy who is a rough diamond but a good sort.”

As Jimbo read this, his brain was trying to climb up the inside of his skull. What in the world could this mean? The Mem didn’t know anybody in Weston-super-Mare. What’s more, she couldn’t stand the place. And what sort of sect could you find anyway in Weston-super-Mare? He had spent the rest of the day in a confused half-trance.

He now showed the postcard to Loopy, who looked it over, and then looked at him.

“Well, that sort of puts the lid on it, doesn’t it, ol’ man?” said Loopy. “Enough there to satisfy any peeping prying bastards who come sniffing around. I’d say you’re in the clear, ol’ man.”

Jimbo nodded and stared at the card again, shaking his head.

“It’s just a bit of a shock, Loopy, that’s all. I mean, Weston-super-Mare of all places.”

Loopy considered him for a long moment.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “well, there’s no accounting for tastes, is there? As the bishop said to the actress. Now, I think it’s off to the ablutions with you, Jimbo. Can’t have you lounging about idle on parade like this. Meantime, I’ll knock together a good helping of Stromboli. That’ll put the lead back in yer pencil. Yer need feeding up a bit.”

Jimbo looked at his face in the bathroom mirror. He did need feeding up a bit, he thought. His cheeks had lost their former chubbiness, there were circles under his eyes, and his moustache had run riot. He would have to pull himself together. He would also have to do something about the rather worrying fits of involuntary, high-pitched laughter which had come on quite suddenly and inexplicably two days before. Just the very thought of these giggling fits brought on a fresh bout of cackling, until he spoke sharply to himself, regarded the other Jimbo sternly in the mirror, came to attention, and prepared to shave.

In the days that followed, life at Dar-es-Salaam settled down into an even if rather outlandish pattern. Jimbo found that life with Loopy rather suited him. Loopy did the cooking, consisting principally of variations on Stromboli and another equally sullen dish called Idi Amin’s Revenge, while Jimbo went shopping for whatever vittles were needed and yet another case of Martell. Their evenings were spent cosily in the sitting room over a bottle of brandy, playing a card game that Loopy favoured called Dead Rats, which was played with three and a half decks of cards and had Byzantine rules that Jimbo never fully understood, which cost him dear.

They were, Jimbo often thought, like any other old couple. Except, of course, for the odd occasion when Jimbo fell to giggling and had to be slapped out of it. But they accommodated these little upsets.

“Goo’ night, ol’ man,” Loopy would say at the end of one of their evenings, weaving his way up to the Blue Room.

“Sleep well, Loopy,” Jimbo would affectionately say, leaving him at the head of the stairs to head for the master bedroom, quietly burping Stromboli and musing that he didn’t know what he’d have done without dear old Loopy to help him through the dark days following the Mem’s sudden departure. Weston-super-Mare. Of all places.

Several days later, Jimbo came back from town and a lunch with his broker at the Traveller’s Club during which he had, over the steak and kidney, unaccountably fallen to shrieking with helpless laughter, while his mortified lunch partner tried his best to dematerialise and the other members and their guests eyed him nervously and tried to estimate the distance to the door.