Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

“You mean they weren’t worth it?”

Dundridge chewed his lip. “I don’t know what they’re worth,” he muttered bitterly.

“Then you’ve still got them,” said Mr Ganglion. “Good. Good. Well I’ll soon tell you what I think of them.”

“I’d rather…” Dundridge began but Mr Ganglion insisted.

“The evidence,” he said, “let’s have a look at the evidence of blackmail. Most important.”

“They’re pretty awful,” said Dundridge.

“Bound to be,” said Mr Ganglion. “For a thousand pounds they must be quite revolting.”

“They are,” said Dundridge. Encouraged by Mr Ganglion’s broad-mindedness, he opened his briefcase and took out the envelope. “The thing is you’ve got to remember I was unconscious at the time.”

Mr Ganglion nodded understandingly. “Of course, my dear fellow, of course.” He reached out and took the envelope and opened it. “Good God,” he muttered as he looked at the first one. Dundridge squirmed in his chair and stared at the ceiling, and listened while Mr Ganglion thumbed through the photographs, grunting in an ecstasy of disgust and astonishment.

“Well?” he asked when Mr Ganglion sat back exhausted in his chair. The solicitor was staring at him incredulously.

“A thousand pounds? Is that really all they asked?” he said. Dundridge nodded. “Well, all I can say is that you got off damned lightly.”

“But I didn’t pay,” Dundridge reminded him. Mr Ganglion goggled at him.

“You didn’t? You mean to tell me you baulked at a mere thousand pounds after having…” he stopped at a loss for words while his finger wavered over a particularly revolting photograph.

“I couldn’t,” said Dundridge feeling hard done by.

“Couldn’t?”

“They never called me back. I had one phone call and I’ve been waiting for another.”

“I see,” said Mr Ganglion. He looked back at the photograph. “And you’ve no idea who this remarkable woman is?”

“None at all. I only met her the once.”

“Once is enough by the look of things,” Mr Ganglion said. “And no more phone calls? No letters?”

“Not until last night,” said Dundridge, “and then I got a message from the girl at the desk at the Regional Planning Board.”

“The girl at the desk at the Regional Planning Board,” said Mr Ganglion, eagerly reaching for a pencil. “And what’s her name?”

“She’s got nothing to do with it,” Dundridge said, “she was simply phoning to give me the message. It said Lady Maud Lynchwood had called and wanted me to know that she had some photographs of particular interest to me…” He stopped. Mr Ganglion had half-risen from his seat and was glaring at him furiously.

“Lady Maud?” he yelled. “You come in here with this set of the most revolting photographs I’ve ever set eyes on and have the audacity to tell me that Lady Maud Lynchwood has something to do with them. My God, sir, I’ve half a mind to horsewhip you. Lady Maud Lynchwood is one of our most respected clients, a dear sweet lady, a woman of the highest virtues, a member of one of the best families…” He fell back into his chair, speechless.

“But -” Dundridge began.

“But me no buts,” said Mr Ganglion, trembling with rage. “Get out of my office. If I have one more word out of you, sir, I shall institute proceedings for slander immediately. Do you hear me? One more word here or anywhere else. One breath of rumour from you and I won’t hesitate, do you hear me?”

Dundridge could still hear him fulminating as he dashed downstairs and into the street clutching his briefcase. It was only when he got back to his apartment that he realized he had left his photographs on Mr Ganglion’s desk. They could stay there for all he cared. He wasn’t going back for the beastly things.

Behind him Mr Ganglion simmered down. On the desk in front of him Dundridge and the masked woman lay frozen in two-dimensional contortions. Mr Ganglion adjusted his bifocals and studied them with interest. Then he put the photographs into the envelope and the envelope into his safe. The good name of the Handymans was safe with him. Mind you, come to think of it, he wouldn’t put anything past her. Remarkable woman, Maud, quite remarkable.

By the time they reached London Lady Maud had explained Blott’s new duties to him.

“You will hire a taxi and wait outside his flat until he comes out and then you will follow him wherever he goes. Particularly in the evening. I want to know where he spends his nights. If he goes into a block of flats, go in after him and make a note of the floor the lift stops at. Do you understand?”

Blott said he did.

“And on no account let him catch sight of you.” She studied him critically. In his dark grey suit Blott was practically unrecognizable anyway. Still, it was best to be careful. She would buy him a bowler at Harrods. “If you see him with a woman follow them wherever they go and if they separate follow the woman. We have got to find out who she is and where she lives.”

“And then we break in and take the photographs of them?” said Blott eagerly.

“Certainly not,” said Lady Maud. “When we find out who the woman is we’ll decide what we’re going to do.”

They took a taxi to an hotel in Kensington, stopping on the way to buy Blott’s bowler, and at five o’clock Blott was sitting in a taxi outside Sir Giles’ flat in Victoria.

“I suppose you know what you’re doing,” said the driver when they had been sitting there for an hour with the meter running. “This is costing you a packet.” Blott, with a hundred pounds in his pocket, said he knew what he was doing. He was enjoying himself watching the traffic go by and studying the pedestrians. He was in London, the capital of Great Britain, the heart of what had been the world’s greatest Empire, the seat of those great Kings and Queens he had read so much about and all the romance in Blott’s nature thrilled at the thought. What was even better he was tracking down him – Blott had never deigned to call him anything else – him and his mistress. He was doing Lady Maud a service after all.

At seven Sir Giles came out and drove to his Club for dinner. Behind him Blott’s taxi followed relentlessly. At eight he came out and drove across to St John’s Wood, Blott’s taxi still behind. He parked in Elm Road and went into a house while Blott stared out of the taxi and noticed that he pressed the second bell. As soon as Sir Giles had gone inside, Blott got out and walked across the road and took a note of the name on the doorbell. It read Mrs Forthby. Blott went back to the taxi.

“Mrs Forthby, Mrs Forthby,” said Lady Maud when Blott reported to her. “Elm Road.” She looked Mrs Forthby up in the telephone directory. “That’s very clever of you, Blott. Very clever indeed. And you say he didn’t come out?”

“No. But the taxi-driver wouldn’t wait any longer. He said it was time for his supper.”

“Never mind. You’ve done very well. Now the only thing to do is to find out what sort of woman she is. I would like to get to know Mrs Forthby a little better. I wonder how I can do that.”

“I can follow her,” said Blott.

“I don’t see what good that would do,” said Lady Maud. “And in any case how would you know her to follow?”

“She’s the only woman living in the house,” Blott said. “There’s a Mr Sykes on the top floor and a Mr Billington on the ground floor.”

“Excellent,” said Lady Maud. “You are an observant man. Now then how can I get to know her? There must be some way of arranging a meeting.”

“I could,” said Blott, adopting the voice of Sir Giles, “ring her up and pretend I was him and ask her to meet me somewhere…” he said.