Blotto, Twinks and the Maharajah's Jewel

Book 10: Blotto Twinks

by Simon Brett

Genres: Humor & Satire; Amateur Sleuth

Synopsis

'A new Simon Brett is an event for mystery fans' P. D. James

'Murder most enjoyable' Colin Dexter

Anyone for cricket - and a spot of burglary?

An idle conversation on the merits of the glorious game with an old Etonian chum is just the excuse Blotto needs to put himself forward for a cricket tour to foreign climes... and so begins the next adventure for our intrepid duo, where the action takes them to India where, as everyone knows, the finest cricket players hail from - as well as the world's most skilled jewel thieves...

The Dowager Duchess has no problems in letting her two children go to the subcontinent as having her beautiful daughter Twinks married off to a massively rich Maharaja offers the Dowager Duchess the prospect of a permanent solution to the cash-draining maintenance of the Tawcester Towers plumbing.

So Twinks joins Blotto on a steamer bound for India, one that is full of young woman desperate to marry well there - only once having encountered the dashing Blotto, a lot of them fancy the idea of getting married before they reach their destination. And, unbeknownst to the siblings, also on the ship is the international jewel thief Archie Montmorency, passing himself off as one of Blotto's cricketing entourage. His real mission though is to steal the diamond which adorns the turban the Maharajah of Koorbleimee . . .

Praise for Simon Brett

'One of British crime's most assured craftsmen . . . Crime writing just like in the good old days, and perfect entertainment' Guardian

'Few crime writers are so enchantingly gifted' Sunday Times

'Simon Brett writes stunning detective stories. I would recommend them to anyone' Jilly Cooper

Release date: January 21, 2021

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 240

Sample

‘Do you know the Nawab of Patatah?’ asked Ponky, whose surname, though spelt ‘L-a-r-r-e-i-g-h-f-f-r-i-e-b-o-l-l-a-u-x’, was pronounced, as anyone in his Old Etonian social circle (in other words, anyone who mattered) knew, ‘Larue’.

‘No, sorry,’ said Blotto. He was always ready to admit ignorance, which meant that, given the sieve-like quality of his brain, his life contained a great many such admissions. ‘I can never remember songs. And I’m a real empty revolver when it comes to tunes. Ears made of the finest Cornish tin, I’m afraid.’

‘We’re not on the same page,’ said Ponky. ‘The Nawab of Patatah was actually one of our fellow muffin-toasters at Eton.’

‘Oh, we’re talking about a boddo, not a song, are we?’

‘Yes. Surely you remember him? His school trunk was encrusted in diamonds.’

‘Not tinkling any tinkerbells, I’m afraid,’ said Blotto.

‘He was rich beyond the dreams of avarice.’

Blotto shook his head. ‘Don’t know her either.’

‘Who?’

‘This Avarice droplet who does the dreaming.’

‘Also, he had dark skin,’ said Ponky. Such details might have been noticed in the predominantly white Anglo-Saxon environment of Eton before the Great War.

But Blotto again shook his fine head of blond hair. ‘Nothing rattling in the old memory box, I’m afraid.’

‘He did play cricket,’ Ponky offered.

Enlightenment spread immediately across Blotto’s patrician features. ‘Oh, that Nawab of Patatah!’ he cried. ‘Once carried his bat with an unbeaten hundred and two in the Eton and Harrow match.’

‘That’s the Johnnie!’ Ponky confirmed. ‘Tiddle my pom!’ He lay back, lanky, goggle-eyed and chinless, a representative product of the British public school system. Ponky Larreighffriebollaux permanently wore the expression of someone who had just been informed that his great-grandfather was a tadpole.

‘Ah, yes,’ Blotto continued. ‘I’ve popped the partridge in the right pigeonhole now. Mind you, I never called him the Nitwit of Pyjamas or whatever it was you said.’

‘No?’

‘No. I always called him “Foursie”.’

‘“Foursie”? Why?’

‘Because he kept hitting fours.’

‘Ah.’

‘If he’d kept hitting sixes,’ Blotto elaborated, ‘I would have called him “Sixie”.’

Ponky Larreighffriebollaux nodded at the unarguable logic of this. He thought he could contribute something to the discussion. ‘And if he’d kept hitting tens, you’d have called him “Tensie”.’

‘Good ticket,’ Blotto agreed readily. Then he was struck by something which a person more versed in the works of Shakespeare would have recognised as ‘a pale cast of thought’. ‘Except you can’t hit a ten in cricket.’

‘No,’ Ponky conceded. ‘You’ve pinged the partridge there, Blotters.’

Blotto, more formally known as Devereux Lyminster, younger son of the late Duke of Tawcester and younger brother of the current one, lay contentedly back on the greensward at the edge of the Tawcester Towers cricket pitch. It had been a good day, the annual match between the home team and Ponky’s occasional line-up called the Peripherals. Most of Ponky’s boddoes were old muffin-toasters from Eton, whose every googly and cover drive Blotto had studied since he first donned long white trousers. Though his own team was made up mostly of Tawcester Towers domestic staff, with the chauffeur Corky Froggett as wicketkeeper, Blotto, as ever, had led them to victory. His own contribution of an unbeaten total of two hundred and thirteen runs, together with bowling figures of eight for forty-three, had obviously helped, but Blotto wasn’t the kind to see sport in terms of personal achievement. It was the team effort that meant everything to him.

He looked through half-closed eyes, lids reddened by sunlight, at the scene before him and reflected how fortunate he was to live in the most beautiful countryside in the world. (There was a great deal of the world that he hadn’t actually seen, but Blotto felt supremely confident that no other vista could hold a candle to the splendours of the Tawcester Towers estate. It was one of many things that he felt supremely confident about. Such an outlook was just one of the advantages of being born into the British aristocracy.)

It was an evening in late summer. The heat of the day still hung on the breeze that gently rustled the leaves of ancestral oaks. Swallows climbed and swooped in the sky, feeling there was no point in flying South while the weather in England remained so clement. (Indeed, if they’d had any sense, they never would have flown South at all. Abroad was never as nice as home.) Blotto, while not recognising the reference, would have agreed wholeheartedly with Robert Browning’s observation that ‘God’s in His heaven – All’s right with the world!’

‘Anyway . . .’ said Ponky diffidently, ‘I asked if you knew the Nawab of Patatah . . .’

‘Yes,’ Blotto agreed. ‘And we established that I did.’

‘But, actually, Blotto, me old Victoria Sponge, I wasn’t just asking if you knew him . . .’

‘No?’

‘No. I was asking if you knew him with a view to my saying something about him . . .’

‘Oh,’ said Blotto, utterly bewildered.

‘Sort of initiating a conversation about him . . .’

This only confused Blotto further. All the word ‘initiating’ brought to his mind was unsavoury recollections from early days at Eton of heads being pushed down into toilet bowls while the chain was pulled.

‘Well,’ Ponky went on, ‘the fact is, the Nawab of Patatah was recently in this country, pongling round various cricket pitches and playing the odd game . . .’

‘Toad-in-the-hole!’ said Blotto. ‘Was he?’

‘Yes. He’s on his way back home now. Sailed from Southampton last week. But I met him at a match we played against the Oxford Occasionals and we got talking. And – tiddle my pom! – he’s only invited me to take a Peripherals Eleven to play a series of return matches out there.’

‘“Out there”?’

‘In India, Blotto, me old tub of tooth powder.’

‘“In India”? But surely, Ponky, the Indians don’t play cricket in the winter, do they? They must get as cold as bare feet on an iceberg.’

‘No, they do play and they don’t get cold. You see, Blotters, the Indians have different seasons from us.’

‘Do they? Well, I’m totally crab-whacked. That really is a bit of a rum baba. What’s wrong with the old spring-summer-autumn-winter routine? It’s worked all right for us for a good few millennia.’

‘No, you’re still shinnying up the wrong drainpipe.’ Ponky tried to explain. ‘In India, they do have the same seasons as us, but just have them different times of the year.’

‘Why, in the name of snitchrags, would anyone do that?’

‘It’s because of the climate. In the winter it’s warm in India. And they couldn’t have their cricket season at the same time as us, because of the monsoon.’

Blotto’s furrowed patrician brow now showed such befuddlement that Ponky decided to cut to the chase. ‘Blotters, you just take my word for it – out there, cricket will be played right through the winter. And all I’m asking is: would you be up for beating the blithers out of a few balls in India?’

‘Would I, by Denzil? Nothing would tickle the old trouser-press better!’

‘So, you’re up for it? You’ll sign on the dotted?’

The answer was so obvious that Blotto just asked, ‘Is the King German?’

But then a cloudlet of doubt shadowed that same patrician brow. The doubt was prompted by a recollection of the Tawcester Towers plumbing. While an untutored observer might wonder about the relationship between cricket and plumbing, anyone inside Blotto’s family circle would instantly recognise the problem.

Tawcester Towers, in common with many English stately homes, prided itself on tradition. The fact that little had changed on the estate since one of William the Conqueror’s co-conquerors had witnessed the laying of the building’s foundation stone, was regarded very much as a plus rather than a minus. What had been good enough in the eleventh century should be more than adequate for the twentieth. In Blotto’s circle, there was still a definite twinge of regret about the ending of the feudal system.

Change came slowly to places like Tawcester Towers. The convenience of electricity had been grudgingly allowed on to the premises, but the expense of updating the ancient pile’s ancestral plumbing was a constant source of anxiety. Ripping out the whole system and replacing it with 1920s state-of-the-art piping and radiators was beyond the dreams of that ancient Greek king whom Blotto always referred to as Creosote.

As a result, a series of botched repairs and short-term fixes ensured that the plumbing was a constant drain on the Tawcester Towers resources. And a recent flood on the premises, which had put the kitchen out of commission for a month, meant that Blotto was in no position to contemplate expensive foreign travel for no more lucrative purpose than the playing of cricket.

But quite how he should spell out this problem to Ponky Larreighffriebollaux presented another difficulty. Nothing was worse form for people of their class, particularly people who had been fellow muffin-toasters at Eton, than talking about money. And the situation was even worse in the case of Ponky who, although he never talked about it, was well known to have the old jingle-jangle pouring out of his ears and every other available orifice. To mention to him that things were a little tight in the trousering department would be way beyond the barbed wire.

Blotto tried to think what excuse he could come up with to get him out of the current gluepot. He wasn’t good at trying to think. He wasn’t good at thinking either, come to that. He wished his infinitely brainy sister Twinks was on the scene to help him out. She was a whale on having spoffing good ideas of how to get a boddo out of a hole.

But she wasn’t there. She’d watched some of the cricket and then pongled off into the house. Probably now in her boudoir, employed at one of her leisure activities . . . like translating Dante’s Divine Comedy into Urdu. Blotto would have to sort this thing out on his own.

He racked his brains. It didn’t take long. There never had been much there to rack. He focused his mind (such as it was) back on their days at Eton. What had been the only excuse then for a boddo not to do something?

Injury! Yes, that was it – injury.

‘Sorry to put lumps in your custard, Ponky me old sausage skin, but I’m afraid I can’t take the Indian commission.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Crocked my kneecap.’

‘When was this? It didn’t seem to affect you out on the pitch. You were playing like a Grade A foundation stone.’

‘Yes, well . . . It hasn’t happened yet.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked a bewildered Ponky.

‘Crocking the old kneecap. The moment of crockdom hasn’t yet arrived.’

‘So, when is it going to arrive?’

‘Between now and . . . erm, when you’re due to export the Peripherals to India.’

‘Ah.’ This explanation did not seem to lessen Ponky’s bewilderment. ‘How do you know?’

Blotto hadn’t prepared properly for these supplementary questions. ‘Erm . . .’ he said. ‘Because it’s happened before.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I get a fumacious twinge in my knee about . . . er, two months before it’s going to crock itself.’

‘And you’re feeling that twinge now?’

‘Yes. Just a little flicker of a twinge.’

‘Well, that’s a tick in the tickety-boo box,’ said Ponky.

Blotto’s fine brow furrowed. ‘Sorry, not on the same page, me old butter knife . . . ?’

‘The Peripherals take ship in a fortnight. Journey to Bombay round three weeks. Out there making with the willow on leather for a month, then back to Blighty. Your kneecap won’t crock till we’re on the return voyage.’

Rodents, said Blotto to himself, unable to share his old muffin-toaster’s enthusiasm.

‘Oh, do say you’ll join the cavalcade, Blotters,’ Ponky pleaded. ‘The Nawab of Patatah will be so disappointed not to get our best bellbuzzer of a batsman . . .’

‘Sorry, me old collar stud. I’d be worrying all the time about the kneecap crocking.’

‘. . . particularly since he’s offered to pay all the expenses of the trip.’

‘“All the expenses of the trip”?’ Blotto echoed, cautious about trusting his ears.

‘Yes, the whole shooting-match is going to be the Nawab of Patatah’s treat.’ Ponky looked with concern at his companion. ‘What’s that strange expression on your old tooth-trap, Blotters?’

‘It’s just my twinge untwingeing.’

‘What, you mean you will join the Peripherals’ tour to India?’

Blotto could have asked again whether the King was German. He didn’t. He just said, ‘Toad-in-the-hole!’

And, goodness, he meant it.

Ponky Larreighffriebollaux was very pleased that Blotto had consented to join his Peripherals tour. Disproportionately pleased. ‘Tiddle my pom!’ he kept saying. ‘This really is the panda’s panties! With you on the strength, Blotters, we’ll be rolling on camomile lawns! Assuming, that is, that they have camomile lawns in India.’

He kept saying things like this so often that even someone as slow of perception as Blotto started to suspect an overreaction. ‘I’m as tickled as a ticklish trout that you’re such a happy hedgehog, Ponky. But you don’t have to spill over the froth. This is only me agreeing to go on a cricket tour, not the second coming of the Memsahib.’

‘I think you possibly mean “Messiah”, Blotters.’

‘Ah yes, perhaps I do.’

‘“Memsahib” means something else. You’ll see a lot of them in India, though.’

‘Messiahs?’

‘No. Memsahibs.’

‘Ah. I’ll look forward to meeting them.’

‘Wouldn’t be so sure about that, Blotters.’

‘But, come on, Ponky, uncage the ferrets. Why are you so fizzulated that I’m on the tick-in?’

‘Erm . . .’ His old muffin-toaster looked slightly shamefaced. ‘Fact is, Blotters me old shoelace-threader, I was finding getting an eleven together a bit of a tough rusk to chew.’

‘Well, I’ll be jugged like a hare! Surely not? An all-expenses-paid cricket tour to India is the real meat and two veg with lashings of mustard. Any of our old muffin-toasters from Eton would give their left ventricle for a chance like that!’

Ponky Larreighffriebollaux shook his head sadly. ‘I’d have thought the same, Blotters, but you wouldn’t believe the fumacious gluepots that some of our best and bravest have got themselves into.’

‘Toad-in-the-hole! What, you mean trouble with the Boys in Blue?’

‘No. Well, a few have pongled off down that road, obviously. Whiffy O’Nostril is in Dartmoor at His Majesty’s pleasure for passing off leadpenny fivers at Ascot, and Bubby ffrench-Leeve is doing a stretch in Parkhurst for impersonating a policewoman, but that’s not what’s really thinned the ranks.’

‘Then, for the love of strawberries, me old wingnut, tell me what has put lumps in your custard?’

‘Two terrible things, Blotters. The first is . . .’ Ponky Larreighffriebollaux shuddered ‘. . . marriage.’

An instinctive, parallel shudder ran through Blotto’s finely tuned body. ‘Marriage?’ he echoed fearfully. Then, appalled, ‘Not you?’

‘No, no. My wrists are still free of the handcuffs, but as for the rest . . .’ Ponky shook his head grimly. ‘I’m afraid the scourge of matrimony has cut a swathe through the brightest and best of our generation. A lot of the old thimbles with whom we used to share our youthful dreams and muffins have succumbed to . . .’ another shudder ‘. . . wives.’

Blotto matched his old chum shudder for shudder.

‘Some,’ Ponky went on, ‘have even got children.’

‘Surely,’ Blotto protested, ‘boddoes of our breeding don’t need to let details like that get in the way of their enjoyment? Throughout my childhood, my aged Ps showed no signs of being aware of my existence.’

‘That’s all changing,’ said Ponky dolefully. ‘A lot of our contemporaries feel that having wives and children are an impediment to going to play cricket in India for three months.’

‘The stenchers . . .’ Blotto breathed, in a state of shock.

‘But that’s not the worst thing . . .’ Ponky continued.

Blotto, whose imagination could not come up with the notion of a worse thing, steeled himself for the next revelation.

‘A distressing number of the boddoes I asked,’ said Ponky, ‘said they were unable to join the Peripherals in India . . . for reasons of work.’

‘Work?’ Blotto felt his very saliva sullied by the unfamiliar word.

‘Yes, me old windscreen wiper. I’m afraid a lot of our old muffin-toasters seem to have taken the commercial shilling.’

‘But why?’ asked a bewildered Blotto.

‘Because a lot of them are short of the old jingle-jangle.’

‘People of our breeding have always been short of the old jingle-jangle,’ Blotto asserted, ‘but that has never before driven us to work.’ He encrusted the word with disdain. ‘People like us live on inherited wealth.’

‘And when our inherited wealth runs out . . . ?’

‘Then we borrow more and build up more credit with tradespeople.’

‘But what happens when those tradespeople demand payment?’

‘We tell them to remember their place! That’s how things have always worked for the aristocracy, from the feudal system onwards.’

‘Hm,’ said Ponky with gloomy thoughtfulness. ‘I’ve a feeling things may be changing, Blotters.’

‘Don’t talk such utter globbins! You know what you sound like, Ponky me old horseshoe nail?’

‘No?’

‘A Socialist.’

Both men were silenced by the pronouncement of that terrible word. Blotto was profuse with his apologies. ‘Sorry, don’t know what came over me. Didn’t mean to say it out loud. Just shock at your talking about some of our muffin-toasters actually . . .’ He had a couple of runs at the word before he managed to articulate it ‘. . . working.’

‘I feel bad for mentioning it, Blotters me old Victoria Sponge.’

‘Don’t don your worry-boots. No icing off my birthday cake, Ponky.’

‘No, but . . .’

Blotto now felt more in control of himself. ‘When you talk about some of our muffin-toasters actually working, you mean managing their estates, don’t you, not actually going out to work?’

Ponky Larreighffriebollaux was unable to provide the reassurance his friend required. ‘No, I’m afraid some of them do go out to work.’

‘What, like common people . . . oikish sponge-worms like doctors and stockbrokers and solicitors?’

Ponky nodded ruefully.

‘Well, I’ll be kippered like a herring!’

‘Tiddle my pom!’ Ponky agreed. ‘It’s absolutely the flea’s armpit. A lot of the boddoes from the old school whom I’ve asked to join the jollities say their bosses won’t let them h. . .