The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(142)

‘That is probably one of the oldest stories in the world,’ I told him, for indeed it is.

I was too tired to take a shower that night: all I wanted was to go to boo-boo’s. I brushed my teeth, of course. As I did so I realized why the nice chap at the Pistol and Rifle Club had been so keen on introducing me to the chap who would cast bullets in anything.

Silver was what he had had in mind.





6





I said ‘she must be swift and white,

And subtly warm, and half perverse,

And sweet, like sharp soft fruit to bite,

And like a snake’s love lithe and fierce.’

Men have guessed worse.





Felise





We had another conference the next morning. Sonia, it seemed, was bearing up and getting about a little, but Violet’s case was worse: she had quite stopped speaking and, although she followed you with her eyes, she moved no other part of herself. Sam had got one spoonful of Brand’s celebrated Calves’ Foot Jelly into her; the second time she had bitten the spoon. After that she wouldn’t open her mouth at all. The doctor had mumbled about some sort of psychotic withdrawal which he himself clearly wasn’t on very good terms with, and had given her another generous needleful of sedative.

‘He didn’t quite say “go on taking the tablets”,’ said Sam, ‘but you could see the words on the tip of his tongue. If she hasn’t snapped out of it tomorrow I’m getting a second opinion.’

We all nodded and made kindly murmuring sounds, except George who said ‘bloody swine’ several times.

Sam asked me if I could recommend a good pistol and how should he go about getting one. I told him, and advised a good vintage piece which would be an investment. He didn’t seem too interested in that aspect, he wanted something which could be depended upon to punch large and painful holes into rapists.

‘Calm yourself,’ I urged. ‘The best and most modern pistol won’t make even a tiny hole in anyone at whom it is not accurately pointed. Most pistols are only for frightening people and making loud noises. The thing is to have it handy. Chaps like you and me only need a pistol perhaps once in our lives’ – I wasn’t being quite truthful there – ‘but then we want it in a great hurry indeed. Take my advice and buy a capable, vintage one which you can make a profit on when all this has died down. There is, for instance, a very splendid old Mauser 7.65 mm not five miles away, which can be bought for ￡150; it’s the sort with a wooden scabbard which clips onto the pistol-butt to form a stock and transforms it into a small carbine. It is a most reliable pistol and if you can point it straight it will knock an ox over at half a mile. It is also rather a beautiful object in an ugly sort of way.’ He grumbled a bit but took my advice and the Mauserchap’s telephone number.

‘Yes, yes,’ said George, ‘that’s all very well about the small-arms issue but this is supposed to be an O-Group and we should be doing an Appreciation of the Situation.’

(Those of you who haven’t had the luck to serve in the Army should be told that an O-Group is a conference called by an infantry leader below field rank who is finally facing the fact that he is lost and wants his junior officers and senior NCOs to admit that they, too, are lost. An O-Group is always held out of ear-shot of the men, naturally, although the men have known that their officers were lost hours before the O-Group is summoned; their idea of a good officer is simply one who calls an O-Group at a time when they want tea. Soldiers, up to and, sometimes, including the rank of major, are capital chaps: join now – you’re too late to have a crack at the Japs but the Irish are good for years yet.)

‘I have here,’ said George in an efficient sort of voice, ‘a list of all nubile women within a mile’s radius of this house. I propose we lie out at night, turn and turn about, watching their houses and ready to blow the arse off the filthy hog when he next tries to, er, strike.’

‘George,’ I said gently. ‘George? Who furnished you with this list?’

‘The Centenier – he spent hours with his Vingteniers drawing it up.’ I let one of those long silences develop, so that all of us could see the daftness of that. Then I said:

‘Good. Yes. But we are only three, you know, and have premises and wives of our own to guard – and we don’t really know the terrain awfully intimately. More to the point, if you kill a chap even in your own house nowadays, with one of his fists in your safe and the other in your wife, you’re facing a murder charge and the court will be told by hired psychiatrists that the offender is a poor, disturbed lad who has been upset by a nasty film he saw at the Odeon last week but he’s a lovely son to his old mother. Old mothers are marvellous in the witness box, born actors every one, they can even make policemen weep, I’ve seen it, it’s as good as the television. They would give you a very bad time.’

George snarled and gargled a while; he wasn’t very cogent but we got the impression that, if he were let loose for a few hours with a Vickers Medium Machine-Gun, the world would be a better place and all potential rapists would be queuing up in Cathedral Closes, applying for jobs as counter-tenors.

Sam and I watched him curiously: I think we both felt that this was not the quiet, capable George we both knew and, in some sort, respected – the George whose most interesting feature was his dullness. We put it down, I suppose, to his recent ordeal and Sam doubtless, although he was showing a surprisingly better front to the world, had a fellow-feeling for him. (I myself gave up having fellow-feelings in my last term at school because I was working hard for University entrance; I like to think that I am a prude at heart.)