The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(17)

I went to bed and read a naughty book until I fell asleep, which was soon. You can’t get good naughty books any more, there aren’t the craftsmen nowadays, you see. Those Swedish ones with coloured photographs are the worst, don’t you think? Like illustrations to a handbook of gynaecology.

Mrs Spon woke me up, charging into my bedroom in a red, wet-look trouser suit; she looked like a washable Scarlet Woman. I hid under the bedclothes until she promised she was only here to play Gin Rummy. She plays a lovely game of Gin but has terrible luck, poor dear; I usually win six or seven pounds off her but then she’s had a fortune from me at interior decorating. (It is my invariable practice, when playing Gin Rummy, to leave one card accidentally in the box: it is amazing how much edge you can get from the knowledge that there is, for example, no nine of spades in the pack.)

After a while she complained of the cold as she always does – I will not have central heating, it ruins one’s antique furniture and dries up one’s tubes. So she got into bed beside me, as she always does (look, she must be sixty for God’s sake), and we played ‘gotcha’ for a while between hands. Then she rang for Jock who brought a naked sword to put between us and a lot of hot pastrami sandwiches on garlicky bread. We were drinking Valpolicella, hell on the bowels but delicious and so cheap. I won six or seven pounds from her; it was such a lovely evening; tears start to my eyes as I recall it. It is no use treasuring these moments as they occur, it spoils them; they are only for remembering.

When she had gone, after one last ‘gotcha’, Jock brought me my bedtime rations: whisky, milk, chicken sandwiches and aluminium hydroxide for the ulcer.

‘Jock,’ I said, after thanking him civilly, ‘we must do something about nasty Perce, Mr O’Flaherty’s little git.’

‘I already done it, Mr Charlie. ’Smorning, before you was up.’

‘Did you really, Jock? My word, you think of everything. Did you hurt him very much?’

‘Yes, Mr Charlie.’

‘Oh dear. Not …?’

‘Nah. Nuffing that a good dentist couldn’t put right in a coupla munce. And, uh, I don’t reckon he’ll feel like doing any courting for a bit, either, see what I mean.’

‘Poor little chap,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said Jock. ‘Goodnight, Mr Charlie.’

‘One other thing,’ I said crisply. ‘I am disturbed at the state of hygiene in the canary’s cage. Could you see that it’s cleaned out soon, please?’

‘I already done it, Mr Charlie. While you was out at lunch.’

‘Oh. Everything all right?’

‘Yeah. ’Course.’

‘Oh, well, thanks, Jock. Goodnight.’

I didn’t sleep very well that night.

If either Krampf or Gloag had departed from the agreed plan I could have borne it with fortitude, but two idiots in a team of three seemed excessive. I had told Hockbottle Gloag when he first approached me that I had no intention of helping him to blackmail his august Chum – introducing Hockers to Krampf was as far as I was prepared to go. Later, when Krampf had suggested to me that the photograph could be used, not for coarse money squeezing, but for facilitating the export, to him, of hot works of art, I had let him wring from me my slow consent, but only on condition that I should write the script, and play both the lead and the comic relief. But, as Schnozzle Durante never tired of saying, ‘Everybody wants to get in on the act.’ Gloag had already paid the price for this foot-light fever and it looked as though Krampf was at least getting a pro forma invoice.





6





Still, what if I approach the august sphere

Named now with only one name, disentwine

That under-current soft and argentine

From its fierce mate …?





Sordello





The telephone woke me at a most inconvenient hour on Monday. A honeyed American voice asked if it could speak to Mr Mortdecai’s secretary.

‘One moooment please,’ I crooned, ‘I’ll put you throooo.’ I stuffed the telephone under my pillow and lit a cigarette, musing the while. Finally I rang for Jock, briefed him and gave him the telephone. Holding it between hairy thumb and forefinger, pinky delicately crooked, he fluted, ‘Mr Mortdecai’s seckritry ’ere.’ Then he got the giggles – disastrous after yesterday’s feast of beans – and so did I and the telephone got dropped; the Honeyed American Voice must have thought it all most peculiar. It turned out that it – the H.A.V. – was a Colonel Blucher’s secretary at the American Embassy, and that Colonel Blucher would like to see Mr Mortdecai at ten o’clock. Jock, properly shocked, said that there was no chance of Mr Mortdecai being out of bed at that hour and that he never received gentlemen in bed. (More giggles.) The voice, no whit less honeyed, said that, well, Colonel Blucher had in fact envisaged Mr. Mortdecai calling on him and would ten thirty be more convenient. Jock fought a stout rearguard action – in a curious way he’s rather proud to work for anyone as slothful as me – and finally they struck a bargain for noon.

As soon as Jock put the instrument down I lifted it again and dialed the Embassy (499 9000, if you want to know). One of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard answered – a furry, milky contralto which made my coccyx curl into ringlets. It quite distinctly said: