The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(173)

‘I am doing precisely that at this moment. Is there anything else?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Good-bye, then.’

‘Good-bye, George.’

The thought of hot buttered crumpets took me by the throat like a tigress: I was racked with desire for them. I strolled into the kitchen, where I found Jock sticking photographs of Shirley Temple into his scrap-book.

‘Jock,’ I said casually, ‘do you suppose there are any hot buttered crumpets in the house?’ He glowered at me.

‘You know perfickly well what Mrs Mortdecai said about hot buttered crumpets, Mr Charlie. “Better without them” is what she said you was.’

‘But this is a special case,’ I whined. ‘I need those crumpets, can’t you see that?’

His face remained stony.

‘Tell you what, Jock; you forget to mention hot buttered crumpets to Mrs Mortdecai and I’ll forget to mention about you pinching her caviare. Kissing goes by favour, you know.’ He sighed.

‘You catch on quick, Mr Charlie.’

I drew up a chair, rubbing my hands like any lawyer.

For some arcane reason the crumpets they sell in Jersey tend to come in packets of seven, which means that when two crumpet-eaters are gathered together there is a rather sordid gobbling-race for he who finishes his third crumpet before his contender has a natural right to the fourth. We were both well into our third – it looked like being a photo-finish – when the door-bell rang and Jock arose, glumly wiping the melted butter off his chin. It is at times like these that breeding shows. After a rapid mental battle I divided the remaining crumpet into two almost equal halves.

Jock returned, flashed a glance at the muffineer, and announced that some gentlemen from the Press were in the lobby and should he show them into the drawing-room.

The gentlemen of the Press proved to be one personable young woman from the Jersey Evening Post, clearly bursting with intelligence, one world-weary young photographer and one large, sad, well-bred chap representing wireless and television. I dealt out glasses of ardent spirits with the deftness of a Mississippi steamboat gambler, then made a deal with them.

‘Keep the national press off our backs,’ was the burden of my song, ‘and you shall have, exclusively, all the information and photographs you can reasonably expect. Fail me in this and I shall close my doors upon you and Tell All to the Sunday People.’

Three shudders followed this, then three fervent nods.

In carefully rehearsed words I told them quite a lot of the truth, bearing down heavily on the fact that the offender was clearly a witchmaster and that it was well known that the Messe de S. Sécaire could not fail to draw his teeth and rob him of his mystic powers if he were a true witch and that, if he persisted in his evil-doing, certain of his physical powers would also be grievously afflicted.

Then I darted over to the other half of the house and borrowed from my landlord a large, smelly pipe and a small, smelly poodle. With the one clenched between my teeth (yes, the pipe) and the other snuggled in my arms, I allowed them to take photographs of benign old Mortdecai in his favourite armchair and benigner old Mortdecai pottering about in the garden. They went away quite satisfied. I fled to the bathroom and got rid of the taste of the pipe with mouthwash, changed my clothes and told Jock to send the poodle-polluted suit to the cleaners or, if beyond redemption, to the poor.

Nothing else of any note happened that day except the exquisite curry, thoughout which I played records of Wagner: he goes beautifully with curry, the only use I’ve ever found for him. Sam left early and I too was ready for my bed, as I always am after a night in the cells. I heard Johanna come in from her bridge-party but she went straight to her room, so I suppose she had lost. I lay awake for a long time, thinking of poor little Eric Tichborne and feeling like a pagan suckled in a creed outworn. I dare say you know the feeling, especially if your wife sometimes goes to bed without saying good night.





13





Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;

But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,

Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,

And then they would haunt thee in heaven:

Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,

And the loves that complete and control

All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows

That wear out the soul.





Dolores





I spend the morning and much of the afternoon in bed, moping and pretending to be poorly. Jock brought me no less than three successive cups of his delicious beef-tea, not to mention a sandwich or two from time to time. Johanna tried to take my temperature.

‘Oh no you don’t!’ I cried.

‘But we always take it like that in the States.’

I was saved by the bell of the telephone: the Attorney-General’s staff wanted to know about my citizenship status. Then it rang again: it was George, whose advocate had been terrifying him. I told him that my solicitor was a much better terrifier and a faster – he had done all his terrifying the previous day. Then it rang again and I told the Chief Superintendent’s clerk that, no I couldn’t pop down to the Station, I was suffering from a tertiary ague.

This sort of thing went on. There will, I think, be telephones in Hell.

What I was waiting for was the Jersey Evening Post, for a good press was essential to the efficacy of our scheme and might well be useful when things came to be considered in Court.