Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

And I smiled at him and he smiled back at me. Nice fellow.

And I watched him as he worked. As he tended to the distilling tubes and the purification thuribles and the anti-oxidisation sprongs and the catalytic cross-transducers.

Not to mention the megatronic tropositors, which I never did, for to have done so would have been impolite. But it was all very state-of-the-art.

‘My sister,’ said the alchemically inclined one. ‘She is the reason for you being here, I suspect.’

He handed me the aspersorium and I held it. The right way up.

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. ‘Why would your sister ask us to visit you?’

‘Ah, you are as subtle as I might have expected, Mr Woodbine. You seek to catch me out with your cunning wordplay.’

‘I assure you that I do not,’ I assured him. And I handed back his transistorised aspersorium.

‘She is very highly strung,’ said the aspiring alchemist. ‘Since the death of our parents there is only her and myself. The last of the Perbrights. My father’s will divided the estate equally between us. Should one of us die, or something of a similar nature, the entire fortune would then pass to the other.’

‘I understand that the family’s fortunes are somewhat depleted,’ I said. ‘Could I hold the grum-widget now, please?’

And I was handed the grum-widget.

‘My sister gets ideas into her head, you see, Mr Woodbine – that I am trying to kill her, or that I am not myself, but some impostor, that I am trying to have her committed to a mental institution so that I might claim the fortune.’

‘But I understand that there is no fortune,’ I said.

‘It is not a monetary fortune. There is no money. There is an inheritance, but nothing I need explain here and now.’

I shook my head. ‘I am becoming a little confused,’ I said. ‘You are saying that if one of you were to be committed to a lunatic asylum, the other would inherit. And your sister’s behaviour – and I admit, yes, she did ask us here – her behaviour, not believing that you are the real you, might well be construed as a psychiatric condition that will lead her into a mental institution.’

‘Intriguing, isn’t it, Mr Woodbine? Her accusations against me load the dice against her. What do you make of that?’ And he now took up a slap-nosed doohickey. And as I had never seen one of those before, I was at a loss to know which way up it was supposed to be held.

‘So,’ said our host, ‘is there anything you wish to ask me? Some personal details of Pongo Perbright’s life that only Pongo would know about?’

I gave my fedora a scratching. I rather wished that I’d pre-planned a question or two. I could have asked Lola to tell me some personal details. It would have been pretty conclusive evidence one way or the other.

‘There was one thing,’ I said, as it now (and this was a flash of inspiration on my part) occurred to me that I could do this the other way round: ask him first, then check his answer with Lola. ‘Pongo had a favourite toy when he was very young. What was it and what was his pet name for it?’

‘It was a trowel,’ said Pongo. ‘And it still is. And its pet name is Trowel.’

I looked at Andy, who shrugged.

‘I don’t think I need take up any more of your time, sir,’ I said. ‘I think that perhaps this is a family affair that should be kept within the family.’

‘You are astuteness personified.’ And Pongo Perbright stuck out his hand once more for a shake. And I shook it firmly and Andy and I squeezed from the circular lab.

We returned to the music room and Lola was waiting for us there. I didn’t really know what to say to her apart from asking about Pongo’s favourite toy and I thought I would hold on to that for a while, so as to come across as really clever when I dropped it into the conversation. So when she offered to make Andy and me some coffee, as Sacheveral had still not returned, I took her up on the offer. And while she was away I spoke to Andy.

‘What do you make of all this?’ I asked him.

‘They’re both barking,’ was Andy’s conclusion. ‘But that’s toffs for you.’

‘He seems like a very nice fellow,’ I said. ‘But then she seems like a very nice lady and one who is clearly in love with me, but afraid to show her feelings. But if one is out to get the other, then I don’t know which one it might be.’

‘I bet you’d rather side with her,’ said Andy.

‘Well…’ And I shrugged. ‘But he was a nice fellow, wasn’t he? Cool haircut.’

‘Very cool haircut,’ said Andy. ‘Just like mine.’

‘Just like yours?’ And I laughed. ‘Yours is a girly haircut, all short on the top and rattails down the sides and back.’

‘It is the latest style,’ said Andy. ‘And I invented it. I call it the mullet. After the fish. Although I don’t remember why.’

‘Well, Pongo’s was nothing like yours. His was all slicked-back behind his ears. Very stylish, as was his moustache.’

‘Moustache?’ said Andy. ‘He didn’t have a moustache.’

‘He had a Clark Gable,’ I said. ‘If you are hoping to become a private eye like me, you will have to hone your observational skills. Take in the small details. That’s very important.’

‘He did not have a moustache,’ said Andy. ‘He had a mullet and no moustache. Little blokes like him can’t wear moustaches. It makes them look like Hitler.’

‘Little blokes?’ I said. ‘He was tall, that Pongo. He was easily as tall as me.’

‘Get away,’ and Andy laughed. ‘He was positively dwarf-like. But in a nice way. I really took to him.’

‘Tall, short, moustache, no moustache?’

And I looked at Andy and he in turn looked at me.

And then Lola returned with a tray-load of coffee, and this tray-load included biscuits, too.

She set down her tray-load upon the permanent table and then looked at Andy and me, who were still looking at each other.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked of me.

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all. If I were to ask you to describe the fellow upstairs, who you claim is not your brother, but according to you looks identical to your brother, how would you describe him?’

Lola shrugged, prettily. ‘Medium height?’ she said.

‘Anything else?’

And Lola shrugged again. ‘Apart from his huge red beard I can’t think of anything particularly striking about him,’ she said.

‘So what do you make of all that?’ I asked Andy.

We were home now, having travelled back from the Perbright residence upon a number 65 bus, and we were now sitting down in our sitting room. Andy sat in the visitors’ chair and I upon the Persian pouffe. And I poked at the fire with a poker that I had removed from the brass companion set that was topped by a fine brass galleon in full sail.

‘I think we’re dealing with an alien here,’ said Andy. ‘A shape-changing alien.’

I shook my head at such stuff and nonsense. ‘Your answer to everything is always, “it’s an alien”. You said that last time and it wasn’t really aliens, was it?’

‘No,’ said Andy. ‘It was zombies last time. But your point is?’

‘That it’s unlikely to be an alien.’

‘We don’t have too many other options. He could be one of the fairy-folk, I suppose. They can disguise their true forms. They cast the Glamour upon you.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ I said.

‘You think so?’ Andy asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I do not! But it’s an odd one, isn’t it? He appeared differently to each of us. I wonder if you got a hundred people to look at him whether they’d all see someone different.’

‘Perhaps there’s nothing strange about it at all,’ said Andy. Perhaps it’s perfectly natural and we’re all like that. People see each other differently. All people. Which is why the unlikeliest people fall in love with each other. Where you might see a big fat munter of a woman, the man in love sees a Raquel Welch lookalike.’