Кирил Бонфильоли - The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

Instead of answering, I dealt him a poker-faced hand of credentials. First the Warden’s letter, then the Duke’s and finally, when his eyebrows were already raised to where he had once kept his hairline, my warrant as Detective Inspector. I have never seen a man boggle so vehemently; I began to fear for his health.

‘Charlie,’ he said at length, ‘when last heard of you were an art-dealer; don’t attempt to deny it. Why, of a sudden, have you gone over to the right side of the law?’

‘Look, I honestly can’t tell you now – perhaps ever. In any case, if what I suspect is as nasty as I fear, you are far better knowing nothing about it. What I need is some unlikely but simple help from you, combined with as much lack of curiosity as you can muster. Are you on?’

‘Well, of course. Ask away.’

‘How many reasonably capable young Greek scholars could you lay hands on in, say, a couple of days? Six? Eight?’

‘Eight should present no difficulty.’

‘Now then, observe: I cut these Xerox copies of Greek manuscript into eight irregular, random-shaped pieces, numbering each and jotting down the position of each piece in this notebook. Now I number each of these larger envelopes and insert a piece in each, along with a smaller envelope, also numbered. I seal the larger envelopes. Now your task is to issue one envelope to each scholar in private , telling him some rubbish about a bet you have with someone at Queen’s. They are to construe their fragments, saying not a word to anyone. To confuse the issue, you might say that they should guess at the missing parts of any mangled words. They must return their fragments by College messenger, sealed in the smaller envelopes. I appreciate that this all seems a trifle daft but you have my word that it is both necessary and bloody serious. I’ll call back in, say, three days. OK, Tom?’

‘OK, Charlie,’ he said, shaking a glum and puzzled head. It is not everyone who is lucky enough to know a distinguished Grecian who can be relied upon utterly; I felt rich in his friendship. Walking back to College I also felt several stones lighter around the shoulders. Then, suddenly, I felt several tons heavier around the conscience, for I had, after all, left my staunch chum in possession of what might well be a danger to him if, for instance, any pairs of large men had been spying on my movements. I sped back to All Souls Lodge and demanded petulantly why Dr Rowse was not in his rooms when he knew I was coming, I’d written to him.

‘He’s in Cornwall, sir,’ said the porter. I stamped a petulant foot and minced away. Dirk Bogarde couldn’t have done it better.

At Scone Lodge I found Fred struggling into his mackintosh with all the signs of a porter who is going off duty.

‘Evening, sir; that horse of yours won ’safternoon.’ Hell’s foundations seemed to quiver; the natural order of things was standing on its head and wiggling its toes.

‘Are you jesting with me, Fred?’ I asked severely.

‘No, sir. Eleven to two plus the place money, minus the betting-tax, let’s see …’

‘Don’t tell me, Fred, this has come too late in life for me to cope with at short notice. Put the winnings on some other chunk of pet food for me tomorrow – some creature which cannot conceivably win; I am too stricken in years to change my ways and start winning. But meanwhile’ – for I saw the disappointment on the honest fellow’s face – ‘meanwhile, pray let me buy you a great pot of ale at the White Horse and give you a sound thrashing at shove-ha’penny, what? Eh?’ He beamed, for he yields to none in the matter of ale-quaffing, while his prowess at shove-ha’penny is legendary.

The White Horse in the Broad is the Mecca of ha’penny-shovers; I had quite forgotten how fast its Guinness-burnished shove-h. board is, so I had lost three games at one pint per game before I could recapture the smooth, oiled wristiness required. Fate was tittering in its sleeve, though, for just as I prepared to trounce Fred on the fourth game (for in my salad days I had been a formidable shover of such coins) he reminded me that it was a Guest Night at High Table and that I would have to get my skates on if I wished to be suitably dinner-jacketed in time.

You would not wish to read what I could write about that dinner: when you have chewed one dead dog, you have chewed them all. It was a demoralised napkin that I trooped into the Common Room for dessert and, later, a demoralised moustache which quivered at the glass of port I had to expose it to. (There’s a great deal to be said in favour of a cup of hemlock, you know; at least you drink it in confidence that you won’t have to drink the same on the following night.)

Dryden and I were propped dyspeptically against a sofa in the SCR when old Weiss came pottering up to us.

‘Ah, Tutor in Renaissance English Language and Literature,’ he said – for that is correct form in the better class of SCR.

‘Ah, Tutor in Greek Palaeography,’ rejoined Dryden more succinctly, ‘do you know Warden’s Fellow in Sociology? C. Mortdecai?’

‘Delighted, Mr er ah um,’ said Weiss, lending me a handful of fingers to shake (thus subtly suggesting that I couldn’t possibly be an Oxford man). ‘I daresay,’ he said vaguely, ‘that, with a name such as yours, you will be a keen reader of Civiltá Cattolica , will you not? The Jesuit newspaper, you know.’

‘I’m afraid not, really. Never mastered Vaticanese; it’s all Greek to me, ha ha.’ He let that pass, but those dead goldfish floated meaningfully behind the lenses.

‘A pity,’ he said. ‘Wonderful people, the Jesuits. So good at so many things: they can turn their hand to anything – tropical medicine, tergiversation, patristic theology, prevarication, there’s no end to their gifts. Someone said to me the other day that Civiltá Cattolica combined the profundity of Mr Hugh Hefner with the veracity of the Völkischer Beobachter ; rather good that, eh? Eh? Daresay you’ve read their edition of Acts and Documents of the Holy See Relative to the Second World War ? No? Oh, but you should; it’s quite a, ah, thriller , you might say. It was published in 1966, as I’m sure you know, and it’s fascinating on the subject of Polish diplomatic memoranda to Pius XII about the treatment of the Jews. Quite fascinating.’ And with that he drifted away, doubtless to enliven some other group. Dryden seemed mystified:

‘Weiss is not noted for his lucidity, nor for any great skill at small talk, but I have never heard him actually burble before. Whatever can he have meant?’

‘I don’t know, John,’ I said slowly, ‘but I rather think he meant something. In fact, he may have been suggesting that it was a pleasant evening for a solitary stroll. You will forgive me, won’t you? Perhaps I might call at your rooms for a nightcap later?’ I, too, drifted away – and out of the College, dumping my gown at the Lodge and borrowing a decayed waterproof to hide my resplendent dinner-jacket with its little red bouton of my Légion d’honneur (fifth class). Towards the Black Friars’ priory in St Giles is where I slunk – that street which could have been one of the loveliest in Europe if only … oh, never mind. The Black Friars kennelled behind the forbidding portals of their monkhouse are Dominicans, you understand: ‘ Domini Canes ’ – the Hounds of God. More to the point, they do not actually go out of their way to cuddle up to the Jesuits, their brothers in Christ. I don’t know why that is. What I do know is that if you happen to want a frank and open-hearted appraisal of some Jesuit publication you don’t pop over and ask the nearest Jesuit, do you? (Most priests are so bad at their jobs. Jesuits are far too good at theirs. I mean, you drop in on one and ask an innocent question about, say, Pausanias of Lydia and he simply tells you the answer, whereas what you were secretly hoping for was a brisk attack on your disbelief. If you are reduced to throwing yourself onto the carpet, kicking your legs and whimpering, he diffidently suggests that you might perhaps try going to church. Any church. He doesn’t say come back in a week, he doesn’t give you any little booklets or bondieuseries ; it’s the soft sell. My art-dealing father did it beautifully, raising the customer’s hackles by suggesting that he was not quite ready for a Bernini bust or that the pair of Nollekens were perhaps a little too grand for the customer’s collection as it stood. Furriers are good at this, too; when a rich old lady asks the price of a mink the furrier smiles pityingly, as though to suggest that she is shopping above her income. She buys the fur.)