The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(45)

What had I to lose? In any case, no one could hurt me too obscenely in front of a sweet little bosomy stenographer.

So he pressed a buzzer and in clunked the nastier of the two deputies, a pencil engulfed in one meaty fist, a shorthand pad in the other.

I may have squeaked – I don’t remember and it is not important. There is no doubt that I was distressed.

‘Are you unwell, Mr Mortdecai?’ asked the sheriff pleasantly.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Just a touch of proctalgia.’ He didn’t ask what it meant; just as well, really.

‘Statement by C. Mortdecai,’ he said crisply to the stenographic ruffian, ‘given at so and so on such and such a date before me, so and so, and witnessed by such and such another.’ With that he shot a finger out at me, like one of those capable television chaps. I did not hesitate: it was time to put on a bit of dog.

‘I did not kill Krampf,’ I said, ‘and I have no idea who did. I am a British diplomat and protest strongly against this disgraceful treatment. I suggest you either release me at once or allow me to telephone the nearest British Consul before you ruin your career irretrievably. Can you spell “irretrievably”?’ I asked over my shoulder at the stenographer. But he was no longer taking down my words, he was advancing toward me with the blackjack in his hairy paw. Before I could even cringe the door opened and two almost identical men entered.

This final Kafkaesque touch was too much for me: I succumbed to hysterical giggles. No one looked at me; the deputy was slinking out, the sheriff was looking at the two men’s credentials, the two men were looking through the sheriff. Then the sheriff slunk out. I pulled myself together.

‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ I asked, still giggling like a little mad thing. They were very polite, pretended not to hear me, sat down side by side behind the sheriff’s desk. They were astonishingly alike; the same suits, the same haircuts, the same neat briefcases and the same slight bulges under the nattily tailored left armpits. They looked like Colonel Blucher’s younger brothers. They were probably rather alarming people in their quiet way. I pulled myself together and stopped giggling. I could tell Jock didn’t like them, he had started breathing through his nose, a sure sign.

One of them pulled out a little wire recorder, tested it briefly, switched it off and sat back, folding his arms. The other pulled out a slim manila file, read the contents with mild interest and sat back, folding his arms. They didn’t look at each other once, they didn’t look at Jock. First they looked at the ceiling for a while, as though it was something of a novelty, then they looked at me as though I was nothing of the kind. They looked at me as though they saw a great many of me every day and felt none the richer for it. One of them, on some unseen cue, at last uttered,

‘Mr Mortdecai, we are members of a small Federal Agency of which you have never heard. We report directly to the Vice-President. We are in a position to help you. We have formed the opinion that you are in urgent need of help and we may say that this opinion has been formed after some extensive study of your recent activities, which seem to have been dumb.’

‘Oh, ah,’ I said feebly.

‘I should make it very clear that we are not interested in law enforcement as such; indeed, such an interest would often conflict with our specific duties.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you know a chap called Colonel Blucher? Or, if it comes to that, another chap named Martland?’

‘Mr Mortdecai, we feel we can best help you at this juncture by encouraging you to answer our questions rather than ask any of your own. A few right answers could get you out of here in ten minutes; wrong answers, or a whole lot of questions, would make us lose interest in you and we’d just kind of hand you back to the sheriff. Personally, and off the record, I would not, myself, care to be held for murder in this county, would you, Smith?’

Smith shook his head emphatically, lips tightened.

‘Ask away,’ I quavered, ‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘Well, that’s already being a little less than candid, Sir, but we’ll let it pass this time. Would you tell us first, please, what you did with the negative and prints of a certain photograph, formerly in the possession of Milton Krampf?’

(Did you know that in the olden days when a sailor died at sea and the sailmaker was sewing him up in his tarpaulin jacket, along with an anchor shackle, prior to committing him to the deep, that the last stitch was always ritually passed through the corpse’s nose? It was to give him his last chance to come to life and cry out. I felt like just such a sailor at that moment. I came to life and cried out. This last stitch had finally awakened me from the cataleptic trance I must have been in for days. Far, far too many people knew far, far too much about my little affairs: the game was up, all was known, God was not in his heaven, the snail was unthorned and C. Mortdecai was dans la purée noire. He had been dumb.)

‘What negative?’ I asked brightly.

They looked at each other wearily and began to gather their things together. I was still being dumb.

‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘Silly of me. The negative. Yes, of course. The photographic negative. Yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. As a matter of fact I burned it, much too dangerous to have about one.’

‘We are glad you said that, Sir, for we have reason to believe it is true. Indeed, we found traces of ash in a, uh, curious footbath in Mr Krampf’s private bathroom.’