Кирил Бонфильоли - The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

‘You bowel fruit!’ I exclaimed.

‘What?’

‘I meant, you foul brute! And what of your first wife?’

‘Bronwen?’

‘No, Doctor – Agnes.’

‘Ah. Agnes. Dear Agnes. She died in a tragic motoring accident, as I recall …’

‘Let’s not beat about the bush, Fellworthy,’ I said, making pretty patterns in the air with my syringe. It seemed to do the trick.

‘Agnes was well-insured and intensely irritating. A most hazardous combination, especially in marriage. Furthermore, she was epileptic. In the laboratory, I discovered how to induce an epileptic fit with a flicker-light oscillating at exactly the right frequency. For six months, I studied her every movement. She was a creature of habit, you see. She would always take the car at exactly 25mph down our drive. So I built a nice high fence with posts at just the right intervals, sent her out shopping one evening when the sun was bright but low – and ker-bang! The perfect crime!’ Fellworthy emitted a triumphant smile.

I had heard enough. ‘Perfect no more,’ I commented. ‘Even the General Medical Council might blanch at allowing a doctor to murder both his wives. Your evil has brought you only the prospect of prolonged incarceration in a urine-soaked cell with just a psychopathic sex-beast for company. But I can promise you this, Dr Fellworthy. If you come clean now, I may be able to secure you an upgrade in your accommodation. Club Class will ensure that your cell is soaked not with urine but with the great smell of Brut aftershave.’

‘Not that! Anything but that!’ stuttered the doctor.

‘Very well,’ I said, seizing my opportunity. ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, I shall guarantee that your cell will be doused in Brut aftershave three times a day, rising to four times on Sundays and Bank Holidays. Now, Doctor, spit it out – why did you murder Bronwen?’

‘It was my hamsters – she took a shine to my hamsters – she hated the experimentation, hated it! But I was not going to have that woman stand between me and—’

‘Tummy-rot!’ I interjected. ‘Baloney-balooney! You killed Bronwen because her research had led her to uncover the truth about you.’

‘No – it was my hamsters! My beloved hamsters!’

‘She had discovered there was a survivor of that massacre. A survivor not from the victims – but from their persecutors!’

‘Hammy-hammy hamsters! She wanted to stop me playing with my hammy-hamsters!’ Fellworthy was sobbing like a baby. I’ve never seen such a gush. If I had been of a more sporting inclination, I might have felt tempted to roll off his head in a barrel.

‘Bugger the hammy-hamsters!’ I said. ‘You were the survivor, weren’t you?’

‘She never liked kiwi fruit anyway,’ he blurted. ‘Much preferred pineapple. I told her there was no future in pineapple, but would she listen? Would she?’

‘She confronted you with her discovery. You made her promise she would never tell a soul, and that her research would cease forthwith. Nevertheless, you had those spectacles made just in case. And your foresight was rewarded, wasn’t it? After your trip to Jersey, your marriage fell apart and it was then that you discovered that the research money was still flooding into her account. Having uncovered the truth, she could not let it go! Her desire for academic fame and glory was greater than any loyalty to you – and looking at you now, Doctor, one can only applaud her sense of priority!’

‘You’re wrong! You’re wrong! She never approved of genetic modification! She was a vegetarian, near as dammit! Legs on her kiwi fruit – even small ones – would have upset her!’

‘But you knew your Soviet masters would never have allowed this news to get out – they promised to kill you in some particularly excruciating fashion if you didn’t stop her. So you chose your time carefully, reached for the novelty specs, and Bob’s your uncle – she was gone!’

‘Fruity little hamsters! Hammy little fruitsters!’ he continued. I realised then that he was never going to come clean.

‘It’s the Brut-filled cell for you, my man. Excuse me while I step over Petal and call the Chief Constable. Do you know him? A Duke, of course. And one of the better ones.’

It must have been while my mind was floating back to the effortless superiority of his Grace that Fellworthy grabbed at his own skinny little moustache, pulled it clean off his face, hurled it into his mouth, swallowed it and perished in hideous agony right before our very eyes.

Holmes shook his head. ‘Cyanide tablets hidden behind a false moustache,’ he muttered, disapprovingly. ‘The oldest trick in the book, eh, sir?’

‘Which book?’ I hissed.

When Jock spotted me across the concourse at Jersey airport his great, battered face contorted itself into a frightful snarl, causing innocent bystanders to scatter like sheep and huddle in corners, clutching their infants. I well knew that this one-fanged grimace was meant as a cheery grin but it still never fails to frighten even me. The effect was enhanced by the black patch over the empty eye-socket. As I approached he remembered that I have often told him not to wear such a patch when women and children are about; there were stifled shrieks from the terrified populace as he tore it off, fished his glass eye out of a trouser pocket, spat on it and rammed it home. Back to front.

‘Nice to see you, Mr Charlie,’ he growled.

‘And it is nice to see your honest face, Jock, as refreshing as a glass of cool water.’

‘You got a bloody lovely memory, Mr Charlie.’

‘Eh?’

‘I mean, fancy you remembering what cold water tastes like.’ And he unleashed the grin again.

The journey home was uneventful, if you call it uneventful to be jounced about in a Rolls driven at 70 mph through the narrow, winding lanes of an island whose speed limit is 40.

‘That excrement on your mush is growing away nice, Mr Charlie.’

‘Thank you. Arising out of that, how are the canary’s bowels?’

‘Oh, he’s back in top form, passing lovely little motions, regular as clockwork. I put him back on the red pepper and rum diet, always works the oracle. I sometimes reckon he holds back on purpose, just to get his grog.’

‘Well, go steady with it: I’m not having drunken canaries cursing and belching and trolling dirty songs when the Rector calls.’

‘Yeah. Did you find out who clobbered the schoolmarm and that?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Get bashed up much?’

‘Once or twice. People never seem to tire of beating me about the head.’

‘Arr,’ he said enigmatically.

‘Madam at home?’

‘Yeah. Come back yesdee. Her and Cookie are making you a special surprise dinner for tonight.’ I raised a mental eyebrow – this did not sound like the sullen virago who had sped me to Oxford unkist.

Indeed, as I decanted myself from the car it was a smiling, loving wife who ran to greet me, taking my hands in hers and devouring my face – except for the moustached area – with huge, brimming eyes.

‘Oh, Charlie Charlie Charlie!’ she cried, as is her wont.

‘There there there,’ I said gruffly, folding her into my arms but taking care that our faces should be side-by-side rather than vis-à-vis, for obvious reasons. Soon I was in my personal armchair, my favourite blue velvet smoking-jacket and a matching pair of Morocco slippers, beaming at the glass of brandy which, with her own hands, she had placed within my easy reach.