The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(107)
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all … ye need to know,,’ I said, dipping deep into the Grecian Urn.
‘Sorry?’
‘Keats.’
‘Kits?’
‘Yes – it means little pussies.’
‘Ah. I can arrange … ’
‘Please do not go to any such trouble; I was simply accepting that I had been given what information you were permitted to give me.’
‘I have been frank with you, Mr Mortdecai. You bereave that, I hope.’
‘Of course. Santa Claus lives. You shall have your icing sugar. Meet me in Washington tomorrow?’
17 Charlie passes on some perilous groceries and receives a zonk with less than his habitual meekness
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion.
The Princess
‘What-ho, Charlie!’ cried Humphrey as I was ushered in to his tastefully-decorated sanctum or office in the Embassy next day.
‘What-ho, what-ho, Humpers!’ I retorted courteously. We swapped a few more civilities, freely using the useful phrase ‘what-ho’. It saves one thinking, you see, and saves one the chore of trying to remember whether the other chap is married, divorced, queer or whatever. Best of all, it saves one from the peril of asking after the chap’s parents. Humphrey, you see, is the scion of a pretty antique Irish family, which means that at least one of his nearest and dearest is chained up in a cellar, living on dry bread and biting the heads off rats for pastime.
Moreover, this what-hoing gave Humphrey the opportunity to draw from his pocket a calling-card upon which, neatly typed, were the words THIS PLACE IS BUGGED. I nodded vigorously in what he probably thought was comprehension but which I intended as agreement; guilty knowledge if you like.
‘Too early for a drink, I suppose?’ he asked, glancing at his watch.
‘On the contrary, damn’ nearly too late,’ I said, glancing needlessly at mine. ‘Wheel on the life-giving fluids without delay.’ He went to a cupboard, unlocked it and drew out the two fat envelopes I had sent him, raising his eyebrows and saying, ‘Scotch or Bourbon?’
‘Both,’ I quipped merrily.
‘Greedy sod,’ he laughed, handing me both packages, followed by a huge brandy and soda which was, in fact, what he knew I would be needing at that time of day. (These chaps don’t get into Intelligence merely on charm; never mind what the after-shave manufacturers say.)
We Woostered away for a while, giggling silently at the thought of grim-jawed FBI men and beetle-browed CIA men frantically sending out ‘Code Orange-Five Trace Orders’ on such ornaments of the Drones Club as Ooffy Prosser and Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps. (Indeed, one hopes that they took ‘Drones Club’ to be the code name for ‘The Firm’s’ new London ‘safe-house’ – and, who knows, it may well be for all I know.)
While we idly bandied these Woosterisms – and he and I are confirmed bandiers of such things – he slid a scribbling-pad across the desk and I scribbled on it enough news to pay him richly for his kindness. To be exact, I wrote down everything I knew that I knew Colonel Blucher knew, if I make myself clear, together with a couple of other snippets which would put him ahead of the game and give him something to trade with Blucher. I selected with care a few bits to omit: he wouldn’t have believed them and, in any case, they concerned my personal safety. (‘Idle, intelligent, devious; a survivor,’ read the summary of my character on my last school report and I have not changed; I am no butterfly.)
After another invigorating suck at the brandy-tit we parted with many a friendly message to Freddie Widgeon and Honoria Glossop. As he courteously ushered me to the door he paused beside what he no doubt knew to be a well-bugged standard lamp and whispered hoarsely, ‘Charlie, don’t believe a word old Mulliner says.’ I gasped but mumbled assent, grinning inaudibly.
Mr Ree was waiting at the rendezvous as advertised, staring politely into space like a man doing long-division sums in his head. Or working out a fool-proof way of murdering his wife. He offered me a drink but his heart was evidently not in the offer and I, too, was more anxious to do business than to quaff. Frankly, I would rather carry an Irish-made time-bomb around the streets than a package of heroin. If that’s what it was.
We walked around the block to a spot chosen by Mr Ree where he was sure that we could not be overseen by stupid, bumbling, British Intelligence blokes. (It will be a sad day for the world when the Oriental gent realizes that Western bumbling is only Eastern guile in a different idiom. Well, a lot of it, anyway.) We sidled into an entry. He opened a capacious briefcase. I slipped a fat envelope into it. He gave me a fraction of a bow and a long, steady look before popping into a large, vulgar, black limousine which had been idling beside a fire-plug under the indulgent eye of a well-paid policeman. I did not much relish the long, steady look from Mr Ree; it was the sort of look which seems to say, ‘Mortdecai, this stuff had better be what it’s supposed to be: we have ways of making you scream.’ I waved a nonchalant hand, confident that the churning acid in my stomach could not be seen by the naked eye. Then I studied the scrap of paper he had pressed into my hand. It was not, as I hoped, a munificent piece of walking-about money: it was better, much better. It read ‘MESSAGE FROM WIFE BEGINS QUARTZ-DECAY IMPLANT JUST A JOKE COMMA FEAR NOT COMMA PLEASE DONT BE CROSS LOVE HANNA STOP ENDS.’