Кирил Бонфильоли - The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery

‘Hoy, wait a moment, John; Schimpfen is Prof. of Mod. Slavonic Studies, surely? And Bronwen assured me, the night I met her, that her field was Sexual Sociometrics.’

‘Very likely, very likely: she was fond of her little jokes, you know.’

‘Little jokes ? Bronwen? Surely it is you who are joking, John; la Fellworthy had about as much sense of humour as a prison door.’

‘On the contrary; she had a marked sense of humour, although dry and unpalatable to many people, and her jokes were set to a time-fuse: like Edith Wharton’s ghost, you didn’t recognise them until afterwards. Naturally, this did not help to endear her to the Senior Common Room.’

‘No,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I can see that.’

‘What emerged from the Warden’s chat with Schimpfen was that Bronwen had quite ceased, this term, to consult with Schimpfen about her thesis, telling him lamely that she had become preoccupied with certain side-issues which had presented themselves during her work amongst the archives. She was vague and evasive about these but Schimpfen, who is by no means the drivelling old drunkard he pretends to be, formed an opinion that she had lighted upon something politically sensitive and was loth to discuss it with him. (He makes a great show of having no political views of his own, which means, of course, that he is either a Nazi or a Communist, does it not?)’

Having no political views myself, except a fixed belief that Attila the Hun was a milksop, I vouchsafed no more than a non-committal grunt. Well, I wasn’t going to risk a committal one, was I? Dryden peered at me dubiously, then continued.

‘The Warden, having mused furiously on this for much of the night, consulted with me the next morning. I urged him to take the whole ball of wax to the fuzz and spill his guts.’

‘John, wherever do you pick up this thieves’-cant?’

‘I believe I found the phrase in one of the novels you left with me this afternoon; it is the current argot , I understand. But now I come to the nub.’

‘No, John, it is a quarter past seven; let us instead go to the reviving tubs, taking with us an ice-cold drink apiece. Jock will anticipate your every want. Our simple country pleasures are few, but the keenest of them is wallowing in a scalding bath enriched with rare bath-essences (I recommend the Secret du Désert ), while clasping a thriller in the left hand and a tall, iced drink in the right. Tell you what, I shall even emulate old Ickenham and lend you my great sponge Joyeuse. Come.’

Stewing in my own juicy tub a few minutes later, I mused as furiously as any Warden of Scone whilst I soaped those parts of my person that I can still reach. Indeed, a passing window-cleaner might well have taken me for the very Master of Balliol himself, so deeply puckered was my lofty forehead. By the time that I was standing before the looking-glass, curry-combing the Great Bear, which by now almost concealed my weak mouth, I had come to several decisions, namely:

The circumstances of Bronwen’s departure from this Vale of Tears were, indeed, indisputably niffy – and the ‘nub’ which Dryden had promised to relate would, I felt sure, only confirm this verdict.

It would certainly be my pleasant duty to give him of my plenty in the way of advice, counsel and admonition: unstinted is what this advice, c. and a. would be, for my alma mater deserved no less of me.

However, any pleas for action, involvement, daring deeds and so forth were to be met with a firm nolle prosequi : desperate ventures are all very well for those who have neither chick nor child but I had a clear responsibility to my fledgling moustache – and there are no brushes, combs or Pomade Hongroise in the grave, we have this on the best authority. Had it been Johanna who had been zipped untimely, I would have left no stone unturned nor any avenue unexplored, but this defunct she-don had no claims upon my time; indeed, had her murderer entered the bathroom at that moment, blubbing out a signed confession in triplicate, I would probably have wrung his blood-boltered hand and asked him to stay for dinner.

Dryden, certainly, would grasp the opportunity of my well-known after-dinner affability to wheedle me into returning with him to Oxford but I would be prepared for this; wheedle as he might I would play the poltroon and plead many a call on my valuable time. ‘Cowardice, be thou my friend’ would be my watchword for the day.

I pressed the bell and when Jock appeared I asked him for a nutshell. He said that there was no such thing in the house, nor was there any point in sending out for one, since all honest nutshell-mongers would by now be caressing their wives behind shuttered shop-windows. It was therefore a merely notional nutshell into which I compressed the word ‘NO.’

When I say that dinner was a tapestry woven by a great artist out of every sea-fruit which Jersey can boast – from praires to ormers to spider-crabs; when I say, too, that this tapestry of finny and shelly-shocked denizens of the deep was served at the table of C. Mortdecai, then, mixed metaphors or not, I think I have said all. It was a dazed and happy Fellow of Scone that I steered into the drawing-room when the last curtain fell; he was clutching a cigar and a glass of brandy such as few dons can even spell, let alone afford. I was glad for his sake; I felt that a solid post-prandial stupor would fortify him against the trauma he was going to undergo when I slipped him the contents of the nutshell. I, too, was in a state approaching euphoria and quite prepared to let him have his head in the matter of nubs. Since his lucidity was once again a little scrambled I shall shake it up and sort it out into a less garbled and more dramatic form:

COP-SHOP, OXFORD

OFFICE OF DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR

(Detective Cheese Inspector is seated behind desk, up-stage centre. Enter Warden of Scone, prompt-side, down-stage.)

DCI:Ah, Warden, sit down, do. A cup of tea? No? Well now, to what do I owe the pleasure, as they say?

W of S:Kind of you to spare me some of your valuable time, DCI. I know you’re a busy man so I shall come directly to the point. It’s about Bronwen Fellworthy. (Shadow passes across DCI’s face.)

DCI: (Guardedly) Ah, yes; sad that, very. Yes.

W of S: (Business with spectacles, notebook etc., then relates new evidence, summarised in previous act.) So you see, DCI, that my colleague and I are now firmly of the opinion that this was murder.

DCI: (Heavily) Oh dear. Yes, you make a very convincing case, Warden. We certainly can’t rule out Foul Play now, can we?

W of S:You will, then, be redoubling your investigations, no doubt?

DCI:Well, er. No.

W of S:Eh? Sorry, I thought I heard you say, ‘Well, er. No.’

DCI:That’s right, sir. My very words. Verbatim. As a matter of fact there will be no investigation whatsoever.

(Bitterness has crept into his voice.)

This morning I received a telephone call from Head-quarters instructing me to close out the case. Since I did not know the caller I sent a telex to the highest echelon to which I have access, querying this astonishing order. I have just received a confirmatory telex phrased in a way which signifies that the order is not subject to comment and that I have no discriminatory powers in the matter. The signature, too, is coded to convey that the case is now under the umbrella of the Official Secrets Act, which means that I could be flung into my own nick even for this informal chat we are sharing.