Кирил Бонфильоли - The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

I mused despairingly – when, when was Jock going to appear with the tea-tray? – until, all of a sudden, a great light shone and I saw, as in a vision, all the bits of the puzzle falling into place:

I would quell Johanna’s proud s. by stalking off to Oxford after all, nevertheless, and in a marked manner. No longer would she be able so cruelly to titter at a Mortdecai whining through the lock of an all-too-stable door.

I would explain to her, as to an uncomprehending child, that the moustache she had spurned was now about to prove itself as a necessary adjunct for a Sleuth venturing forth on a desperate mission, perhaps never to return.

Instead of turning Dryden’s Rice Krispies to ashes in his mouth and receiving the dreaded reproachful stare in my natal stuffing, I could now greet him with a cheery and eupeptic ‘YES’ and urge him to try the cherry jam.

I checked the items off again, for I have never had difficulty in counting up to three, and the answer came out the same. There had been no flaw in my reasoning.

‘Eureka!’ I cried, just as Jock entered with the blessed tea.

‘I what ?’ he asked. I fixed him with a keen, hawk-like gaze, such as you might once have seen darted from beneath a deer-stalker in Baker Street.

‘Watson!’ I cried, donning my new persona as the Master of Disguise.

‘Well, The Sound of Music ’s still on at the Regal, of course, and I think the Odeon is showing—’

‘Very well, Jock; that will do. Let me put it this way: there is not a moment to spare, the game’s afoot!’

This time he only gave me a pitying look and eased a cup of tea into my fevered fingers. As I inhaled the Broken Orange Pekoe Tips through my soup strainer, I fixed him again with the hawk-like.

‘Have you your old service revolver in the pocket of your ulster?’

‘Well I got me old Luger in the drawer in the kitchen table.’

‘Then call me a cab!’

‘Awright, Mr Charlie: you’re a taxi.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, I couldn’t hardly call you ’ansom with that bleeding moustache, could I?’ With that he started to stagger about the room, helpless with guffaws and cannoning into pieces of fragile furniture as antique as his jest. The door opened and Jock’s last guffaw was still-born behind his single tooth, for there stood Johanna, in thin array, after a pleasant guise, looking rather like Lady Macbeth on her first honeymoon.

‘Ah! There you are, my dear,’ I said, waving an airy teacup. ‘I was just about to come and tell you that Jock and I are off to Oxford.’

‘Oh no you’re not.’ I raised myself into a haughty sitting-posture and my tones became icy.

‘Oh yes I jolly well am.’

‘ You may go wherever you wish, Charlie dear, you are your own master; but Jock stays. He has promised the Rector to give his well-known rendering of On the Good Ship Lollipop at the Parish Hall on Thursday. You shall not deprive him of his moment of glory, nor disappoint those of his friends who have been investing heavily in rotten eggs and mouldering oranges.’

‘Oh, very well,’ I said through clenched and smouldering teeth. ‘Jock, I have decided to travel with Dr Dryden alone; you shall remain here and mind the shop. Kindly pack a light suitcase for me.’

‘I already did that, Charlie dear,’ said Johanna. ‘Last night. I put in that quaint old MA’s gown of yours, was that right? Hunh?’

If the Good Lord had meant us to walk, He wouldn’t have given us aeroplanes, would He, that’s what I always say; but I sometimes suspect that He did intend me to walk – for the good of my waistline, perhaps – because every time I entrust myself to an airline something quite beastly happens, as though to rebuke my hardihood. On this particular after-luncheon flight it was a lightning strike of aircrews. The airline had roped into service a tumble-down old plane driven by twisted elastic, with a crew of renegade blacklegs to steer it. The Captain or driver, an ageing fatty with a Canadian accent, came into the cabin just before take-off to bid us welcome in person, explaining that he couldn’t find the switch to the public-address system. He told us to be of good cheer, he had driven one of these kites before – in World War II. Blood ran cold in many a vein, but worse was to come: since there were no air-hostesses to be had, even for cash, no nourishing drinks could be served during the flight. Dryden and I look’d at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a DC–7 in Jersey Airport.

The plane lifted off in a spirited fashion, the clatter of its elderly engines almost drowned by the buzz of prayer from those passengers who were not already occupied with the stout brown paper bags provided. The air was as full of pockets as a conjurer’s coat and the fears of the timorous were not allayed when the Captain again strolled into the cabin, picking his nose and suggesting that it might be a good idea to keep seat-belts fastened throughout the flight. I paid him no heed, I had decided from the outset not to unfasten mine; moreover, I felt strongly that he would have been more usefully employed in his cockpit, watching the altimeter and ailerons and things of that sort. Dryden, meanwhile, had drawn out from the slot before him a tattered card of advice to passengers about life-jackets and passed it to me, making enquiring noises with his eyebrows. It was in Italian, doubtless part of a job-lot picked up cheap after the War. He pointed urgently at it. The words ran ‘ La Cintura di Salvataggio se Trova Doppo la Poltrone .’ I could not make him hear, for the starboard wing was screeching like a captive hawk, intent on Unilateral Independence, so I scribbled a free translation: ‘The Belly-band of Salvation Finds Itself Under the Poltroon.’ This seemed to give him naught for his comfort but my attention was elsewhere, for a raw-boned blonde in the seat to my right, her eyes clenched, had an iron grip on my thigh and was sinking a thumbnail in to the cuticle at every bump or lurch.

The next time that an idiot tells you it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, you may tell him from me, with a full heart, that he should be posing for an illustration in a Manual of Gynaecology. Arriving is lovely , take my word for it, especially when the pilot of your aircraft has made three passes over Heathrow while he rummages for the undercarriage lever and lands at last in a series of frog-hops and a cloud of burning rubber. He was at the gang-plank as we alighted, becking and bobbing and hoping that we had enjoyed our flight. Dryden gave him a glassy stare; I shot a glance at the faded ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Cross on his breast. It was a glance that spoke volumes.

John and I broke into a dignified canter towards the bar but Fate was still tittering into its sleeve; an olive-hued barman eyed our progress narrowly and slammed the grille across his wares just as we were about to breast the tape. I’m sure it made his day.

The bus wafted us to Reading softly, speedily. (Why are airline buses so much better than airline planes? Why, why ?) Dryden and I were almost reconciled to public transport until, at Reading station, we were decanted into the medieval squalor of a train – not the usual pigsty on wheels but a pigsty which had, that very day, carried a football-crowd. Horresco referens . Soon, however, the symmetrical Oxford gasworks hove in sight, then the propelling-pencil shape of Nuffield College, both breathing the last enchantments of the Middle Ages and promising an early sight of many another dreaming spire.