Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess Read online

  ‘Of course the Belgian police were at their wits’ end – not that they had to go very far to reach them – and they begged – no, they implored – me to cast my beady little eye over the scene of the crime. Well, I’d intended my time at Ostend to be complete relaxation – after all I’d just solved the Case of the Patagonian Three-Legged Jaguar – but they were so insistent – almost pathetic in their entreaties – that I said I would. The first thing I noticed – which of course nobody else had picked up – was that the top had never been on the bottle of ink. In fact it belonged to a different bottle of ink completely, which had been substituted for the one on the Countess’s escritoire. It took only a sniff of the ink for me to recognize the distinctive aroma of a poison extracted from the sap of the Upholas tree by the Aspoko tribesmen deep in the heart of the Amazonian jungle. As I’m sure you know, Upholas resin is fatal not only when ingested, but also if it gets into the bloodstream through an open wound, however small. A scratch by a bramble, even a pinprick could prove fatal if it was touched by the poison. Suddenly it was clear to me why the short-sighted Countess’s nail brush had been replaced by a cheese grater, causing those minuscule abrasions on the fingers of her left – left, I say, her writing hand. The Belgian police could not believe how quickly I was able to point a finger at the perpetrator of this . . .’

  And so he droned on. Blotto shuddered inwardly. Being stuck at Snitterings really was the flea’s armpit. Even without the threat of a simpering Laetitia hovering on the edge of his peripheral vision. The normally heart-warming prospect of hunting on the Saturday didn’t cheer him up that much. The hunting wouldn’t be as good as it was at Tawcester Towers – nowhere was it as good as it was at Tawcester Towers. And no animal the Snitterings stables might come up with could match the majesty of Mephistopheles.

  Everything about the weekend was so predictable. Particularly the presence of the repellent Troubadour Bligh. The first few times he’d gone to a weekend house party at a stately home where there was a know-it-all polymathic amateur sleuth present, Blotto had been quite excited when the murder finally happened. Now, as an entertainment, it was as commonplace as Musical Chairs at a tots’ birthday party. Blotto could hardly summon up the energy to cast an eye round the dinner guests, wondering which one of them would be bumped off. Mind you, when his scrutiny landed on the Duke’s school chums, he could think of a few suitable candidates.

  His look around the table had the unfortunate, but entirely predictable, effect of making him catch Laetitia’s eye. She clearly thought this was deliberate, and simpered winsomely. Now, in Blotto’s view, there were very few women in the world who could get away with winsomeness, and Laetitia Melmont belonged firmly to that vast majority who couldn’t. His only comfort was that it would soon be time for the ladies to withdraw. Thank God for that tradition. At least it dictated that men and women should have some respite from each other’s company.

  But the cheer he took from that was short-lived. He couldn’t even look forward to the welcome release of a few quiet brandies in the billiard room after the ladies retired. In all probability the loathsome Troubadour Bligh would adjourn there too. And, even if he didn’t, the Duke’s cronies would no doubt make the atmosphere insufferable with their reminiscences of torturing new bugs, and their off-colour jokes about that Great Unknown Territory – women. Then it would only be a matter of time before they started throwing billiard balls at the Snitterings fine collection of Old Masters.

  Blotto felt extremely vinegared off.

  The Friday lived up to the ghastliness of the Thursday evening. There was nothing for Blotto to do. November was the wrong time of year for cricket, and from what the other guests were saying, he gathered there wouldn’t have been a match even in the summer. The Duke’s pusillanimous dislike of the game at Harrow had stayed with him for life, and his cronies were equally antipathetic. This disturbed Blotto. He could never really trust a man who didn’t like cricket.

  There was tennis, however. Really a summer game, but the Snitterings groundsmen had kept the grass of the courts in fine trim. Though of course he and Twinks played to international standard, Blotto had always dismissed tennis as a ‘woman’s game’. Still, better than nothing. A vigorous half-dozen sets might help to dissipate the unaccustomed gloom that was building within him.

  But, unfortunately, Laetitia was present when the idea of tennis was proposed. ‘Oh, how scrumplicious!’ she boomed. ‘We can take on all comers in the Mixed Doubles, can’t we, Blotto?’

  ‘Well, er, um . . .’ He tried desperately to invent an excuse, but he couldn’t without lying. And Blotto didn’t like lying. This was partly due to his being an English gentleman, but also because he had a fatal tendency to forget what lie he’d actually told and end up in some ghastly gluepot as a result.

  That’d be really hoopee-doopee!’ Laetitia went on. ‘I’m sure we’ll make a teriffulous pairing, Blotto.’ Her pale lashes twitched like moths caught in a spider’s web. ‘In tennis, as in everything else.’ On these last words she dropped her voice so low it could only be heard one county away.

  Blotto couldn’t come up with anything other than another ‘Well, er, um . . .’

  Now, he knew that not everyone could be as naturally gifted at sports as he and Twinks, but he’d never encountered anyone with as little instinct for tennis as Laetitia Melmont. Her favoured serve was a double fault, and it never seemed to occur to her to move towards where the ball was going to land. Even when the pill came straight at her, nine times out of ten she missed it. As a result, Blotto had to cover the whole court like a demented bluebottle to avoid their being thrashed. Fortunately he was a good enough player to compensate for his partner’s deficiencies and they managed to emerge as winners.

  What was embarrassing about the situation, though, was that Laetitia regarded every point he salvaged as an act of chivalry. He was her White Knight, doing everything for her. This put Blotto into something of a fire and frying pan dilemma. His natural sporting instinct made him rush for every ball like a cheetah on spikes, even though he knew that every successful retrieval was being interpreted by his partner as further proof of his love for her. He was as torn as a vegetarian cannibal.

  Meanwhile on the adjacent court, Twinks, in a tennis dress as diaphanous as thistledown, proceeded to give lessons in singles to the Duke’s old Harrovian chums. Each of them lumbered on to the court, confident of trouncing the slight figure at the other end. And each of them reckoned that a victory on the tennis court would give them some sort of seigneurial claims on their defeated opponent. Though none of the chaps had actually spent much time with girls, they all knew that there was nothing an attractive filly liked better than a sporting hero. Once they’d shown Twinks their prowess on the tennis court, she’d melt into their arms like a chocolate mousse in a hot marquee.

  As each of them in turn dragged their aching bodies off the court, of course something else had happened. It wasn’t only in their scores that love had featured so prominently, it was also in their hearts. They had all fallen madly in love with Twinks. It was inevitable. Her exertions had brought a new rosiness to her perfect cheeks, and her victories a new sparkle to her azure eyes. The Duke’s Harrovian chums could no more have resisted falling in love with her than ageing jockeys could resist bribes.

  And every one of them had as much chance of engaging Twinks’s affections as a greengrocer does of joining a gentlemen’s club.

  The Friday evening’s dinner was even more excruciating than the Thursday’s. Prompted no doubt by Laetitia, the Dowager Duchess of Melmont had arranged the placement so that her daughter was actually sitting next to Blotto. Now, to add to the attempted cow’s eyes directed at him throughout the meal, if he ever let his hand rest for more than a second on the crisp linen of the cloth he had to deal with a veal-like hand placed on top of it. And beneath the table one of Laetitia’s substantial legs kept trying to coil itself around his dress trousering. The horror of the situation struck Blotto dumb. />
  Since the Duke’s Old Harrovian chums spent the entire dinner gazing in soupy silence at his sister, conversation round the table flowed like congealed gravy. The Duke seemed to have caught his friends’ affliction. Mouth agape over his non-existent chin, his fish-eyes too were fixed on the object of their fantasies. Twinks herself was far too used to this happening to be fazed by it, but if no one was going to make conversation to her, she didn’t feel in the mood to make any back.

  As a result, the only voices that could be heard were those of the two Dowager Duchesses exchanging decorous insults.

  ‘How unfortunate, Evadne,’ the Dowager Duchess of Melmont would say, ‘that the Lyminster Rubies can’t be seen at their best, being so close in colour to your complexion.’

  ‘I’d rather have that, Pansy,’ the Dowager Duchess of Tawcester would respond, ‘than wear a pearl tiara that’s exactly the same colour as my hair.’

  Blotto caught another burst of frog-eye from Laetitia. He winced inwardly and tried to stop the wince from showing outwardly. As he felt the toes of a large foot tickle his leg above his sock suspenders, he began to think of the next day’s hunting in a more favourable light. The sport might not be up to what was available at Tawcester Towers, but at least he’d heard Laetitia say firmly that she didn’t like hunting and wouldn’t be participating. He would get some time away from her cloying presence. At least that was something to look forward to.

  But even as he had this comforting thought, he felt the blast of her voice in his ear. ‘You know I said I always hated hunting . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I always have, but I think that’s simply because I’ve never done it in the right company.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m sure if I went hunting with you, Blotto, I’d really enjoy it.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you –’

  ‘No, my mind’s made up. I am going hunting with you tomorrow.’

  The outward wince which he had been restraining all evening shuddered across Blotto’s face.

  He hadn’t slept well either night at Snitterings. The room he’d been allocated was not one of the best. The front-facing bedrooms of the house commanded a splendid view over miles of unspoilt Melmontshire countryside. Blotto had got one at the back. The only view it commanded was of the stables, the garages, the kitchen garden and the outdoor privies (still used by the estate workers, who were not allowed to bring their muddy, clumping hobnails inside the house proper).

  The room was tall, gaunt and chilly. Though the autumn days were warm, by night cold draughts infiltrated their way into Snitterings through ill-fitting window frames, slid along the cracks under doors and joined together into malevolent winds which moaned through the corridors and galleries of the place. The bedding in Blotto’s bedroom smelt musty with damp.

  Nor throughout the night was there ever a moment’s silence. Snitterings was an old house and its component parts creaked like the limbs of an ancient man. Any running of a tap or flushing of a lavatory was the cue for a fifteen-minute concerto of clanging, drumming and gurgling. From the bedrooms of both Dowager Duchesses, rivals even in their snoring, the sound as of approaching earthquakes rumbled through the house. Sometimes Blotto’s sleep would be disturbed by the shriek of a chambermaid, whose bedroom had been invaded by one of the Duke’s Old Harrovian cronies (fortunately too drunk to offer any threat to the girl). And of course after five in the morning, when the staff rose, the clattering, clanking and banging from downstairs made further repose impossible.

  It didn’t seem like it, but Blotto must have slept a little, because at some point he woke up. And he woke up with a stuffed head and a streaming nose. Two nights in the damp sheets of Snitterings had given him a cold.

  Now normally he wouldn’t even have considered such a trifle. Blotto did not indulge in fripperies like pain. After all, hadn’t he once steered the Eton First Eleven to victory with an unbeaten hundred and seventeen, only to discover later that he’d done it with a broken ankle? Hadn’t he won the Two Hundred Yards Dash with four cracked ribs? A trifle like a cold was never going to keep Blotto from a day’s hunting.

  So he leapt out of bed with his customary vigour, anticipating the delights of the breakfast chafing dishes downstairs. He remembered his mother’s old adage: stuff a cold and starve a fever. Time for him to get stuffing. But then he stopped. An idea was burgeoning in his brain.

  From long experience, he gave it time to burgeon. Ideas never flashed into Blotto’s brain; they glowed there slowly under a lot of clinker.

  But when this one finally did burst into flame, he had to admit it was a real buzzbanger. He had a cold – what a spoffing great gift! He would do what other people did in that situation. He would announce that he was indisposed and therefore could not go hunting.

  But he’d do it cunningly. If he broke the news too early, Laetitia Melmont might seize the opportunity to make a similar announcement, though without the excuse of a cold. And he’d have to spend the whole day with her chasing him around the corridors of Snitterings.

  So he dressed in hunting gear and duly went downstairs to stuff his cold. Kedgeree, bacon, sausages, kidneys, scrambled eggs, toast and marmalade – he ate the lot. And fortunately his presence at the breakfast table didn’t coincide with Laetitia’s. Though he did have to suffer further puerile braying from the Duke’s Old Harrovians. Still, it wasn’t going to be for long. Though they didn’t possess the nuanced skills required by cricket, they all liked the simpler pleasures of seeing animals killed, so they were all going off hunting. The solitary day ahead of him became even more attractive.

  As he left the breakfast room he met his sister, splendid in her tenue de chasse. A day spent in the field with such a breathsapper was going to make the Duke’s cronies drool even more.

  ‘Twinks,’ Blotto whispered urgently, ‘I’m going to cut the hunting.’

  ‘Really?’ She had never expected to hear those words issue from her brother’s lips.

  ‘Suffering from a heavy cold. Not to mention rather a surfeit of the Laetitias.’

  ‘Ah.’ Twinks understood perfectly. ‘So why are you dressed like that?’

  ‘Part of a plan,’ he confided. His sister waited in trepidation. The track record of Blotto’s ‘plans’ was not without blemish. In fact, it was solid blemish from one wall to the other.

  ‘If Laetitia were to see me in mufti, she’d get a whiff that the Stilton’s iffy. So I’ve togged myself up and I’m going to wait till everyone else is mounted before the “Yoicks Tally-ho!” Then I’ll make my announcement.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘And I want you to help me, Twinks, me old bloater.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Engage Laetitia in conversation when she’s up on her nag. Ride off with her. Charm her with your chittle-chattle. Don’t let her notice that I’m hors d’oeuvre.’

  Twinks looked puzzled for a moment, then said gently, ‘I think you mean hors de combat, Blotto.’

  ‘Oh yes, right, whatever. Anyway, will you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course, Blotto. Don’t you worry, it’ll all be creamy éclair.’

  And it was. Twinks, as ever, played her role to perfection, and Blotto timed his announcement with comparable skill. Snitterings felt wonderfully empty after the hunting party had thundered away. The only above stairs people left were Blotto and the two Dowager Duchesses. The Dowager Duchess of Melmont was too infirm to go hunting, and the Dowager Duchess of Tawcester was still suffering from a slow-healing broken hip which necessitated the use of a walking stick. So the two of them also stayed in the house, relishing the prospect of trading further insults.

  When Blotto got back to his room after the hunting party had set off, he couldn’t believe how easy his escape had been. He moved across to the window, feeling a wonderful air of freedom. The hunters could be out for as much as eight hours. At least four, anyway. Four hours without the threat of Laetitia Melmont – there was a God, even if you were on
ly Church of England.

  He looked down to the Snitterings garages. Outside one Corky Froggett was labouring to add yet another layer of shine to the already perfect bodywork of the Tawcester Towers Rolls-Royce. The chauffeur had taken off his jacket and was working in shirtsleeves and braces though, given his upright bearing, Corky still looked as if he were in uniform. He caught his master’s eye and waved up cheerily. Blotto returned the salutation and moved away from the window.

  He felt rather good lying in his bed. The sheets weren’t so clammy in the daytime. He’d changed back into his pyjamas because that’s what he believed people who gave in to colds did. And he’d taken the precaution of asking the Snitterings butler Proops to send up a bottle of whisky and a soda syphon. He knew people recommended whisky to dry up colds. Autumn sun washed through the window over his coverlet. The day stretched pleasurably ahead of him.

  In such a situation some people might have suffered from boredom, might have felt the need to read a book or do a crossword puzzle. Not Blotto. Though The Hand of Fu Manchu was there on his bedside table, the effort of reading even that – he never did more than a page at a time anyway – seemed insuperable. He was content just to lie there, to let vacancy expand and fill up his mind.

  His happy reverie was broken by the sound of a tap on the door. Before he had time to grant permission, it opened to reveal Laetitia Melmont, looking even bigger in her hunting gear.

  ‘Hello, Blotto,’ she said, as she strode across to entrench herself on the side of his bed. ‘I heard you’re ill, and, just like Florence Nightingale, I’ve come to minister to you.’

  3

  A Compromising Situation

  Blotto felt as awkward as an Anglican in the Vatican. He may not have known much about women, but he knew that the stakes in his potential connection to Laetitia had suddenly just soared into the stratosphere. She was in his bedroom! An actual live, breathing woman was in the bedroom of the Honourable Devereux Lyminster! If anyone ever found out about that, he wouldn’t be thought Honourable at all. He’d be ruined. Matrimony would be the only possible way out.