Кирил Бонфильоли - The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

There was a taxi. It was not raining. At Scone we used the last of our strength to mount the stairs to Dryden’s set of rooms, our withered tongues rustling inside our mouths and our courage sustained by the sure knowledge that gallipots of the pure, blushful Haig and Haig awaited us if we could but win our way to them. We burst in, fell upon the nutritious fluid with beastly snarls – Hogarth or Rowlandson would have whipped out their sketchbooks in a trice. We beamed at each other as our bloodstreams chuckled with pleasure like parched brooks welcoming a freshet.

‘Now, John,’ I said when the cacti had been rinsed away, ‘as you know, I usually have a little zizz at about this time of day; you know, “Tir’d Nature’s sweet restorer” and so on. Doctors recommend it.’

‘And so do I, dear boy. Let me take you to your rooms. The Camerarius has agreed that you shall have Bronwen’s set; I daresay you’d like to search for clues , eh? Ah, and this sounds like my scout – come in Turner, you remember Mr Mortdecai? – perhaps you’ll be good enough to take him over to Ms Fellworthy’s set. Nothing has been disturbed, Mortdecai, no-one has been in the rooms except a policeman looking for suicide notes and Turner changing the bed-linen.’

‘And the two men from the Ministry,’ I said.

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘And the bloke from the telephones,’ said Turner.

‘Really,’ said Dryden vaguely.

‘Really?’ said I interestedly.

‘Turner will call you at six; we are invited to take sherry at the Warden’s Lodgings at a quarter to seven. Have a pleasant nap.’

Bronwen’s quarters were pretty Spartan except that she had evidently spent all her spare pennies on books: old and valuable leather bindings and new, expensive cloth ones were in great profusion. The only sign of feminine occupancy on the surface was a huge, pink, fluffy piggy-wig on the bed: a nightdress-case of the worst kind. Out of character, I thought; Bronwen had not struck me as a woman to be coy about her frillies. If any. However, at that moment I was more preoccupied with ‘the bloke from the telephones.’ Bronwen’s instrument was of the newest variety, where you punch the number out with buttons instead of diddling a dial. My Army course on Hemiptera or bugs, twenty years ago, had not prepared me for such things. I undid it as best I could and studied its entrails but it contained nothing bug-like that I could see. What I did see, on the carpet below, was a shred of fine copper wire which might or might not mean something. Deciding to postpone my search in favour of my cinq-à-sept – for the most sophisticated bug could hardly learn anything from my melodious snores – I removed a few items of the gents’ natty from my person and composed myself to sleep.

‘Ha, Mortdecai!’ cried the Warden cheerily as we were shown into the Lodgings.

‘Ah, Warden!’ I retorted wittily, surrendering my hand to his knuckle-crunch. (He is not a native son, you see, and no-one has explained to him that you don’t shake hands in Oxford.)

‘It is always good to see an Old Member,’ he said, fixing me with his compelling gaze. I was in no sort of mood to be fixed with compelling gazes.

‘Warden,’ I said, ‘you called me an Old Member when we last met, a year ago. I have spent much of the interim trying to decide whether this was a cruel jest or simply an unfortunate turn of phrase.’

‘Ho ho,’ he said obscurely, urging me toward the sideboard which groaned under many a low-priced bottle. ‘It is uncommonly good of you to come to our succour, Mortdecai,’ he murmured. ‘These people will go at precisely 7.15 and then you and I shall have a Little Chat. Hmm? Meanwhile, mingle a bit, eh?’ I looked at the choice of mingle-worthies: it was the same mixture as before. One brace of second-year undergraduates who were being be-sherried for copping their Firsts in Honour Moderations; one All Souls pansy staring into his sherry-glass as though someone had piddled in it; one rancid portrait-painter on the make; one American Visiting Professor in a tartan dinner-jacket trying to tell risqué stories to one of those women you only find in North Oxford; the American’s wife, whose dress had been designed in Paris by some poof with a keen sense of humour; a clever priest; an Astronomer Royal; and, of course, the obligatory black chap being courteous to one and all. I singled out the black chap to mingle with until 7.15 precisely when, sure enough, they all fled twittering like ghosts upon some dreadful summons. When the Warden of Scone asks you for drinks at ‘6.45 to 7.15’ he bloody well means ‘6.45 to 7.15.’ If you are still there at 7.16 he creeps down to his underground aviary and writes your name in a little black book, dipping his pen in bat’s blood.

When we were alone, he fished a key out of a silver tea-urn and opened a cupboard containing much better bottles than those which were shaming the sideboard.

‘ That’s better,’ he said unblushingly as we settled into armchairs and sipped. ‘Now, I understand from Dryden that you are more or less up-to-date about the Fellworthy business? John has explained all in his inimitable way?’

‘I think so.’

‘Did you ever meet her?’

‘Yes. And frankly, I have to say that she was perhaps the only wholly unacceptable woman I have encountered in a long and varied experience.’

‘Yes. That was not an unusual reaction to her lack of charm. Between ourselves, the Old Guard in Concilium voted her in en bloc just to teach us radicals a lesson, I suspect. Devilish clever of them, I’m bound to admit.’

‘Yes indeed, especially now that her departure has been so unsavoury, if your suspicious are correct. As I’m sure they are,’ I added, for Wardens of Scone are never wrong, even when they are wrong. Especially when they are wrong, as a matter of fact. I mean, can you imagine the Pope saying to his Cardinals, ‘Look here, you chaps, I’ve been having second thoughts about this birth-control business …’

‘Well,’ he (the Warden) went on, ‘at the moment only you and John and I know all the grounds for supposing that it was no accident; a few of the others in the Senior Common Room know bits, of course, but I’ve asked them to keep mum. Which reminds me, while you’re here you are a guest of the SCR; of course, sign for anything you want, I’ll get the Bursar to settle your battels and other bills through the Eleemosynary Fund or something.’

‘Most kind,’ I said, a little stiffly.

‘And I’ll put it about that you’re a sort of temporary guest Fellow, doing something vague in connection with our Police Studentships. Yes, sociology, that’s the ticket; sociologists can ask all sorts of odd questions, no-one pays them any attention.’

‘But really , Warden …’

‘Don’t look so injured, my dear chap; all sorts of people are going in for sociology nowadays, it’ll soon be quite respectable, just like economics was before Wilson. And it’s only for a little while. It’s what you chaps would call a “cover story” – is that the term?’

‘I believe so,’ I grunted, little mollified. He refilled my glass soothingly and led me into his private dining-room, where the sideboard was laden with many a succulent foodstuff.

‘I thought that you might not want to face High Table food so soon after the fleshpots of Jersey – and you’ve only half an hour before the Duke’s car comes for you.’