The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(39)
A peon fluttered in and harangued her in the vile argot which passes for Spanish in those parts. She turned to me, well-bred surprise civilly concealed.
‘A Se?or Strapp has arrived,’ she said wonderingly, ‘and says that he must see you at once. He says that you expect him …?’
I boggled a moment, about to deny all knowledge of any Strapps, before the penny dropped and the mental W.C. door flew open.
‘Ah, yes, of course,’ I cried, ‘that’s old Jock! Quite forgotten. Silly of me. My servant, sort of. Should have told you he was meeting me here. He’ll really be no trouble, just a heap of bedding and a bone to gnaw. Should have warned you. Sorry.’
Even as I babbled, Jock’s massy frame filled the doorway, his ill-hewn ashlar head weaving from side to side, eyes blinking at the light. I gave a glad cry and he returned a one-fang grin.
‘Jock!’ I cried, ‘I am so glad you could come.’ (Johanna, inexplicably, giggled.) ‘I trust you are well, Jock and, er, fit?’ He caught my drift and blinked affirmatively. ‘Go and get washed and fed, Jock, then meet me here, please, in half an hour. We are leaving.’
He shambled off, led by a she-peon, and Johanna rounded on me.
‘How can you be leaving? Do you not love me? What have I done? Are we not to be married?’ This was my day for gaping – I did it again. While I gaped she continued her amazing tirade.
‘Do you think I give myself like an animal to every man I meet? Did you not realize last night that you are my first and only passion, that I belong to you, that I am your woman?’
Huckleberry Finn’s words sprang to my mind: ‘The statements was interesting but tough,’ but this was no time for breezy quoting – she looked as though one wrong answer would send her galloping up to the boudoir for her Dragoon Colts. My jaws unlocked themselves and I began to drivel fast, as though drivelling for my life.
‘Never dreamed … didn’t dare hope … plaything of an idle hour … too old … too fat … burned out … bemused … haven’t had my tea … in terrible danger here … ’ That last bit seemed to interest her: I had to give a clumsily edited version of my grounds for fear; such as Martlands, Buicks, Bluchers and Brauns, to name but a few.
‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘Yes, in the circumstances perhaps you had better leave for the moment. When you are safe, get in touch with me and I will come to you and we shall be happy ever after. Take the Rolls Royce – and anything in it – it is my engagement present to you.’
‘Good God,’ I quavered, aghast, ‘you can’t give me that, I mean, worth a fortune, quite ridiculous.’
‘I already have a fortune,’ she said, simply. ‘Also, I love you. Please not to insult me by refusing. Try to understand that I am yours and so, naturally, everything I have is yours too.’
‘Gaw Blimey,’ I thought. Clearly, I was being ridiculed in some complicated way – and for unguessed-at reasons – or was I? The glint in her eye was dangerous, genuinely.
‘Ah, well, in that case,’ I said, ‘there is one thing I really have to have for my own safety – it’s a sort of photographic negative, I fancy, and perhaps some prints of – well –’
‘Of two deviates playing at bulldozers? I know it. The faces have been cut out of the print but my husband says that one of them is the nasty Mr Gloag and the other the brother-in-law of your –’
‘Yes, yes,’ I broke in. ‘That’s it. The very thing. No use to you, you know. Your husband was only going to use it to get diplomatic bag facilities for stolen pictures and even that was too dangerous. Even for him. I mean, look at him.’
She looked at me curiously for a while then led the way to Krampf’s study, which was a riot of undigested wealth, a cinema usherette’s nightmare of Tsarskoe Selo. When I tell you that the central attraction – the Main Feature, so to speak – was an enormous, nude, hairy trollop by Henner which hung against Louis XIV boiseries and was lit by two of the most awful Tiffany lamps I have ever seen, then I think I have said all. Mrs Spon would have catted right there, on the Aubusson.
‘Merde,’ I said, awestruck.
She nodded gravely. ‘It is beautiful, is it not. I designed it for him when we were first married, when I still thought I loved him.’
She led the way through to Krampf’s private bog, where a fine Bouguereau – if you like Bouguereau – twinkled saucy titties and bums down into the still waters of a porcelain bidet which might have been designed for Catherine the Great in one of her more salty moods. The picture, cunningly, did not conceal a safe, but a carved panel just beside it did. Johanna had to diddle it in all sorts of complicated ways before it swung open to reveal groaning shelves of great coarse currency notes – I’ve never seen such a vulgar sight – as well as passbooks from the banks of all the world and a number of leather-covered suitcase handles. (I did not have to heft these to know that they were made of platinum, for I had given Krampf the notion myself. It’s a good wheeze, the customs haven’t got on to it yet. You’re welcome, I shan’t need it again.) She opened a drawer concealed in the side wall of the safe and tossed a parcel of envelopes to me.
‘What you want should be in there,’ she said indifferently and went to perch delicately on the edge of the bidet. I riffled through the package reverently. One envelope contained insurance policies beyond the dreams of avarice, another a mass of wills and codicils, another held simply a list of names with coded references against each. (Knowing Krampf’s predilections, there was probably a fortune in that list alone, if one spent a little time on it, but I am not a brave man.) The next envelope was full of smaller envelopes, each one bearing a rare foreign stamp in the top right-hand corner: rich and devious readers will recognize the dodge – you simply stick an ordinary new postage stamp over the rarity and post it to yourself or your agent in some foreign capital. It is the easiest way of moving heavy spending money about the world without losing too much in commission.