The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(105)

‘Mr Mortdecai,’ he said after a demoralizing interval, ‘are you a discreet man? No, prease do not repry, that was not a question but a warning. A rittre more Grenrivet? Good. I keep it for speciah occasions.’ Those words ‘speciah occasions’ hung delicately in the air between us.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘my friend has agreed that I should tell you enough to exprain a rittle of our work – just enough to encourage you not to pray any more games with goods worth a great sum of money. The conditions are that you do not mention this conversation to your derightful rady wife; that you do not speak of it to any American Coroners you may happen to know (yes, we know about that but we bereave your rady wife does not) and, of course, you make no expranations to your Embassy friend in Washington, who is, forgive me, prease, a fool. In any case, his office is bugged.’

‘Tut!’ I said, frowningly. He raised a hand.

‘We did not bug it’ he said reprovingly. ‘The Americans did. They are even sirrier than the Engrish. We bug their bugs after they have instorred them. Much cheaper.

‘Now, prease pay attention more crosery. If you were to tell any of these people what I shall now tell you, three very powerful organizations would be offended with you. Offended.’

I sighed. How life repeats itself, to be sure. *

‘Do go on,’ I murmured nonchalantly. My hands were sticky with sweat again.

‘First, your rady wife is very fond of you but in such circumstances she would have to rate you “insecure” and pass you over to her people for disposah. Fiona, the dog-girl at the Correge, would bury you. Probabry your wife has enough infruence to ensure that you would be dead before buriah; I do not know.’

I did not shudder, I never let foreigners see me shudder, but he must have seen that the beads of sweat were popping out of my forehead like ping-pong balls.

‘Next, once you had given this information to a certain American Coroner, you would now be expendabah and he could prease many of his superiors – who have never approved of his keeping you arive – by “terminating you with extreme prejudice” as he would say. Naturarry, you would be interrogated first and this would hurt.’

‘Quite,’ I quavered. I don’t mind telling you that I detest being hurt.

‘Last, you would now be an enemy, in the third crass, of my own organization.’

‘Only third class?’ I asked in the indignant tones which Queen Victoria surely used when she received the Abyssinian Order of Chastity, Second Class; ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means we would not kill you.’

‘Oh, good.’

A muscle in his face twitched, almost as though he were a British cavalry officer who is trying to puzzle out whether someone has made a joke and, if so, whether or not it would be good form to smile.

‘No,’ he went on, having clearly dismissed any intention of smiling, ‘We would not kill you. We do not kill enemies of the third crass. But after a rittle time you would be asking us most poritery for death. We would not feel able to obrige. After another two or three days – this would depend on your stamina and vitarity – let us say two days – we would rerease you conveniently crose to a rairway-bridge. With a white walking-stick – you would of course by then have lost your sight – which would be taped to what would remain of your hand, and a tendorrar note between your teeth. Sorry, yes, gums – you would no ronger have any teeth, naturarry.’

‘Naturarry,’ I said bravely.

‘The ten dorrars would be for you to give to some indigent passerby who would help you to a convenient part of the rairway-bridge: you would be anxious for such help by then, you understand.’

I pulled myself together, remembering that I was, after all, partly British. We British do not cringe in the presence of the heathen, nor are we daunted by foreign threats. (Well, all right, Suez was a special case, wasn’t it?)

‘Mr Ree,’ I said, as crisply as the words allowed, ‘pray tell me something. Is it true that Chinese, ah, persons, consider themselves to be constipated if they do not achieve at least two motions of the bowels each weekday? I have read this somewhere and I long to know whether it be true.’ He considered this for quite half a minute, looking as nonplussed as his inscrutability would permit.

‘Yes,’ he said after the stated half-minute, ‘yes, this is true. But I cannot see why you should ask such a thing. Are there not matters of almost equal importance … ?’

‘I ask,’ I said, maintaining the British crispness, ‘because I fear for your health. It seems to me that a good deal of surplus, ah, effluent has been escaping from your mouth during the past few minutes. Your digestive tract seems to have lost all sense of direction. In short, if you will forgive me, I begin to find your talk tedious.’

‘Ah,’ he said.

‘On the other hand,’ I continued, ‘your points are well taken; indeed I have been in accord with you for some ten minutes. If you will now tell me, in your own words, as much of the truth as your masters have empowered you to tell, then you may depend upon it that I shall impart it to no one. First, I am a man of my word. Second, I am not brave.’

‘Ah,’ he said again. ‘But, Mr Mortdecai, our dossier on you must be at fault, for it states that you can lie like a prostitute and are capable of quite absurd bravery on occasion. But it also says that you are sensible, a virtue often mistaken for cowardice.’