The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(12)

‘Martland,’ I said after a time, ‘did you say that your hirelings followed me to Spinoza’s this morning?’

‘That’s right.’ Crisply, much too crisply. He was definitely feeling his oats again.

‘Jock, Mr Martland is telling me fibs. Smack him, please.’

Jock drifted out of the shadows, gently relieved Martland of his glass and bent down to stare benignly into his face. Martland stared back, wide-eyed, his mouth opening a little. A mistake that, the open mouth. Jock’s great hand swung round in a half circle and struck Martland’s cheek with a loud report.

Martland sailed over the arm of the sofa and fetched up against the wainscot. He sat there a while; his little eyes dripping tears of hatred and funk. His mouth, closed now, writhed – he was counting his teeth, I expect.

‘I think that perhaps that was silly of me,’ I said. ‘I mean, killing you is safe enough, it sort of ties things up for good, doesn’t it, but just hurting you will only make you vengeful.’ I let him think about that for a time, to get the nasty implications. He thought about it. He got them.

At last he cranked a sickly smirk on to his face – beastly sight, that – and came and sat down again.

‘I shan’t bear a grudge, Charlie. I dare say you feel I deserve a bit of a bashing after this morning. Not yourself yet, I mean to say.’

‘There is something in what you say,’ I said, truthfully, for there was something in what he said. ‘I have had a long day, full of mopery and mayhem. If I stay up any longer I am likely to make a serious error of judgment. Goodnight.’ With this I swept out of the room. Martland’s mouth was open again as I closed the door.

A brief, delicious session under the warm shower, a whisk of costly dentifrice around the old ivory castles, a puff of Johnson’s Baby Powder here and there, a dive between the sheets and I was my own man again. Krampf’s idiotic departure from his script worried me, perhaps more than the attempt on my own life now, but I felt that there was nothing which could not more profitably be worried about on the morrow which is, as is well known, another day.

I rinsed the cares from my mind with a few pages of Firbank and swam gently and tenderly down into sleep. Sleep is not, with me, a mere switching off: it is a very positive pleasure to be supped and savoured with expertise. It was a good night; sleep pampered me like a familiar, salty mistress who yet always has a new delight with which to surprise her jaded lover.

My blisters, too, were much better.





4





Morning’s at seven,

The hill-side’s dew-pearled,





Pippa Passes





I carolled at Jock as he aroused me, but my heart wasn’t really in the statement. Morning was in fact at ten, as usual, and Upper Brook Street was merely wet. It was a gritty, drizzling, clammy day and the sky was the colour of mouse dirt. Pippa would have stayed in bed and no snail in his senses would have climbed a thorn. My cup of tea, which usually droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, tasted like a vulture’s crutch. The canary looked constipated and gave me a surly glance instead of the customary stave or two of song.

‘Mr Martland’s downstairs, Mr Charlie. Bin waiting half an hour.’

I snarled and drew a fold of silk sheet over my head, burrowing down back into the womby warmth where no one can hurt you.

‘You ought to see his moosh, where I hit him, it’s a treat, honest. All colours.’

That fetched me. The day had at least one treat to offer. Against my better judgment I got up.

A mouth wash, half a dexedrine, a morsel of anchovy toast and a Charvet dressing-gown – all in the order named – and I was ready to deal with any number of Martlands.

‘Lead me to this Martland,’ I ordered.

I must say he did look lovely; it wasn’t just the rich autumnal tints on his swollen moosh, it was the play of expressions over it which enchanted me. You may compile your own list of these; I have no heart for it just now. The one which matters for this narrative was the last: a kind of sheepish false bonhomie with a careful dash of wryness, like two drops of Worcester sauce in a plate of gravy soup.

He bounced up and strode toward me, face first, hand outstretched for a manly grip.

‘Friends again, Charlie?’ he mumbled.

It was my turn to drop the lower jaw – I broke out in a sweat of embarrassment and shame for the man. Well, I mean. I made a sort of gruff, gargling noise which seemed to satisfy him for he dropped my hand and settled back cosily on to the sofa. To hide my nonplussedness I ordered Jock to make coffee for us.

We waited for the coffee in silence, more or less. Martland tried a weather gambit – he’s one of those people who always know when the latest V-shaped depression is likely to emerge from its roost over Iceland. I explained kindly that until I had drunk coffee of a morning I was a poor judge of meteorology.

(What is the origin of this strange British preoccupation with the weather? How can adult male Empire-builders gravely discuss whether or no it is raining, has rained or is likely to rain? Can you imagine the most barren-minded Parisian, Viennese or Berliner demeaning himself by talking such piffle? ‘Ils sont fous ces Bretons,’ says Obelix, rightly. I suppose it is really just another manifestation of the Englishman’s fantasy about the soil. The most urbane cit is, in his inner heart, a yeoman farmer and yearns for leather gaiters and a shotgun.)