Somewhere in the musty files of the Elizabethan secret service—probably tucked away between that forgotten note from old John Forster describing how he found a cypher message among the effects of a vagrant Scottish dentist,* and one of Walsingham’s shopping lists (“one browne loafe; one pottle sacke, decaffynated; aspirinne; one new feather for hatte”)—there ought to be an à la carte menu from the Dungeon Grill, dated Februarie iii, 159—. Old and tattered now, its gilt edging sadly tarnished, its sauce stains long faded, its entrees almost indecipherable (and probably indigestible unless you fancy singed sheepe’s heid wi’ nettle gravy), it is naetheless a document of mind-boggling historical interest, for if we peer closely at the back cover, what do we find? Yes, there, between the blood-stain and the political graffiti “Free Wille o’ Kinmont nowe!,” we discern a hastily jotted memorandum:
A. NOBBLE, HYS PROBLEMS
Item, disguize apparel for ye Ladye Dakers and Gilderoye
Item, transport—Charltons?
Item, what to doe wi’ B. Basset, impostor, and ye Dwarffe?
Item, will head offis paye for dammidge to Donjon Grille?
Item, ditto, sauna?
Item, floweres and comfits for Ladye D., when occasion serves, lest that Scottishe git steal a marche uppon mee!
From which we deduce that our hero was nothing if not systematic in planning his great counter-strike against Operation Heretic. Starting with Item One, he pointed out that if their impersonations were to stand an earthly, Gilderoy and Godiva must wear appropriate costumes—but while Gilderoy reluctantly agreed to don the impostor’s tweed trunk hose, etc., and her ladyship consented to the blonde wig since her fiery tresses would have been an instant giveaway, she indignantly rejected the scanty leather braces and tasselled boots of the somnolent lady wrestler.
“For one thing, fie! ’tis shameless,” she demurred primly, “and for another, while I vaunt not my charms, if I go out in that lot and a platinum hairpiece, I’ll start a riot! Think again, Double-Nought Noble!”
Which he did, to such brilliant effect that two minutes later he was scooting out surreptitiously via the city dump to the nearby playhouse, where the strolling thespians were still partying to celebrate having presented their double bill of Titus Andronicus and My Wyfe’s Familie and got away with it. Cunningly posing as a Warner’s talent scout, Archie ingratiated himself with the Welsh leading man and his agent, discoursed largely of contracts, cuts o’ gross profits, and swimming pools, listened with feigned rapture to the Taffy’s recitation from Under Milke Wode, and conned them into lending him feminine attire, a make-up kit, a false beard, and a tinsel crown, which he thought would give Gilderoy that authentic regal touch—and if you think all that is improbable, you’ve never seen a Burbank operator in action.
Item Two (transport) was a snip. Garscadden was still chomping contentedly in the multi-storey stable, and it was no bother to the Charltons, now sternly summoned by Archie from the sauna where they had been playing steam polo on exercise bikes, to nip out and pinch several steeds (their own being still hungover) from the city’s overnight horse parks, and bring them to the kitchen entrance of the Thynkynge Man’s Strumpet through streets now deserted save for the usual piles of drunks and corpses. Godiva, in the Priest’s Hole Suite’s vanitory unit, where Kylie was helping to attire her in the borrowed theatrical finery, overheard our hero’s brisk commands to the reivers, and could not but admire his mastery in bending such coarse and fractious ruffians to his will by sheer personal magnetism and the threat of snitching to UPRAT if they played not ball.
“Truly, while Gilderoy is something else, yet is this Noble no common man,” she sighed, and frowned distraught at the mirror. “Ah, sweet Kylie, how am I to choose? Nay, my judgment is all shot; I dither, I swither, I can’t decide—”
“No contest.” Designing Kylie, buttoning briskly, was prompt. “Go for Noble every time. Just your type, and after all, what’s Gilderoy but a male model who talks through his nose, and Scotch to boot, yugghh—”
“Not them, lackbrain!” railed Godiva. “This gown o’ green Flemish velvet—doth it not clash most foully wi’ accessories of scarlet fur? Should I wear the sequined farthingale? And what o’ the plumed bonnet wi’ bells on—or the yellow ermine toque and spangled veil? Oh, ’tis all too much! That I, thrice on the cover of Gloriana’s Glasse, should be lumbered with playhouse castoffs—”
“You’re going to a conspiracy, not Ascot,” Kylie reminded her. “Here, what about this psychedelic ruff all prettily set wi’ glass marbles and turquoise ribbons? Go on, why not? ’Tis just thy size, and the Wizard’s cave is sure to be pretty dark, anyway …”
Meanwhile, organised Noble, zipping through his schedule at speed, was disposing of Basset, Clnzh, and the impostor by ordering Oor Kid and a spare Robson to convey them to Thrashbatter, there to be mewed up in the cellar for the duration. “And guard ye them right jealously,” he enjoined Oor Kid, “for should th’impostor win free, our hopes might yet be marred. And keep thy paws off the Catford bimbo, understand, or UPRAT will get an earful on Monday morning. Another thing—you take orders from Mistress Delishe, who accompanies thee, she being unfitted for the rough stuff at Eildon, in that she is young, blonde, daffy, and plumply soft o’ limb … why are you licking your lips, Charlton?—if you’ve got crumbs in your beard, use a handkerchief, for heaven’s sake …”
Items Four and Five would have to await a court of inquiry, and Item Six he couldn’t do much about beyond dropping a stern hint to Gilderoy (who was in evil mood on account of the false beard and tinsel crown) not to take advantage of his proximity to Godiva in the forthcoming operation.
“Edventage? Don’t make me leff!” scoffed the gorgeous Gael. “Ai don’t need to take it, brother—Ai’ve got it. End if you don’t laike it, when this caper’s over we ken take up the debate where it was interrupted by yur friend wi’ the cosh and faive-o’clock shadow—of oll the ceddish tricks, bashing a chep from behaind—”
“With you, rattlemouth!” Archie’s teeth gritted in furious gnash. “Any time, any place, wi’ unbated tuck! But for the nonce, our mission … ye know the way to Eildon, I presume? There’s only one cave, clearly signposted, so even a Glasgow Academical can’t miss it … the Charltons and I will be right behind you, awaiting thy Mayday call—”
“Armed wi’ coshes, ez usual, Ai suppose … stinkard!”
“Scotch tyke!”
“English twitte!”
That wrapped up the planning stage … aye, and now ’tis time for heave and ho in earnest, for this is H-hour dawning as the first light creeps timidly o’er the red battlements of the scarred old city, blinks with distaste at the human debris snoring in the gutters, and starts to shine with obvious reluctance. The last vital decisions are taken: in the vanitory unit Godiva reaches a compromise (the yellow toque and the scarlet fur accessories, for what the hell, if you’ve got to go over the top, get airborne); Gilderoy wonders if he can get away with kerrying the tinsel crown, because he’s demned if he’ll wear it; at the kitchen entrance the Charltons are rubbing their stubble and slapping their calves as they warm up; Kylie listens eagerly to Archie, glancing sidelong at Oor Kid’s rugged profile and brawny thews as she asks wide-eyed: “And you say he’ll do everything I tell him? Gosh, happy birthday—I mean, right, okay, gotcha, Noble, yah …”; the three prisoners are brought swiftly down the back stairs and loaded into the hotel’s laundry-wain, two of them still stupefied (with love and drink, respectively), and Clnzh discreetly concealed in a pillow-case with a dead python in case he gets peckish on the way to Thrashbatter.
Well … here we go. Once again, as so often in its long and perilous story, the old country’s fate is on a knife-edge, and not for the first time (or the last) its only hope rests with a small band of determined head-cases. Not the kind to win graves in the Abbey or an entry in the D.N.B., but if you look carefully enough in the footnotes of history, you’ll find thousands like them, just as unlikely and every bit as eccentric: the crazy English optimist ready to bash on with dauntless enthusiasm and inspired lunacy; the proudly heedless heroine capable of prodigies with her nose in the air and her mind on something else; the Scotch adventurer whose careless bravado masks a skill and craft which make him a priceless (but unpredictable) ally; the blonde scatterbrain, overlooked, who may yet have the vital part to play; and, not least by any means, the uncouth frontier bandits who are only there for fear of losing their licences—and for the hell of it and anything they can pick up. (With luck, they’ll always be there.)
But now, as we tighten our girths, look to our weapons, adjust our toques, surreptitiously drop tinsel crowns in the dustbin, tell Oor Kid that Robson can drive and it’s ever so cosy in the back … and Archie casts a final steel-eyed glance over his ill-assorted command, it’s time for those brief but heartfelt farewells so dear to the island race in time of peril …
“ ’Bye, Goddy, take care, and I’m awfully sorry about the rag-doll … no, really, the blonde wig and yellow chapeau go smashingly together, no kid …” “You’re sure? You little bitch, you’re smirking. No, come on, do I look okay, straight up? Oh God, this scarlet fur’s a disaster …” “Well, happy hunting, Gilderoy—we have our differences, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go into the jungle with …” “ ‘With,’ quotha? Ai’m going to be a helluva long way in front o’ thee, Sessenach—but it’s ollways the way, if there’s dirty wurk, send for the Jocks …” “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that … ah, sweet lady, how well red-green-and-yellow become thee—may I cadge one of those turquoise ribbons as a guerdon …? Ah … I didn’t mean all of them, actually … oh, well, thanks awfully—see, there they go into my bosom, next to my fond heart …”
Touching, reader, is it not? But as Gilderoy on fleet Garscadden and Godiva on nimble palfrey wheel away through one of those convenient posterns which are always unguarded in the best romances, with Kylie fluttering anxious kerchief and Archie swearing softly as he tries to stuff several yards of haberdashery inside his shirt, it’s time to zoom aloft and see what’s happening elsewhere. Merrie Carlisle may be feeling anything but, and won’t get over its hangover for hours, but the rest of the Borderland is buzzing like a bee-hive, and nowhere busier than in that gloomy rockbound chamber under the Eildons, where the Wizard hugs bony elbows and turns the warlock foreman into Paul Newman (that’s how good he’s feeling, the vile necromancer) ere returning to gloat over the images which he conjures up in his cauldron, for now he is hep to every detail of our heroic principals’ schedule, and wants to be sure that all his rotten snares are in place …
First, he looks in on Frey Bentos who, his habit newly laundered tho’ unironed, has been gamely trying to thumb a ride as he heads north to Scotland through the Debatable Land, and getting nowhere in that unchristened country. Hay-wains and ox-carts rocket past, ignoring his cries of “Pax vobiscum, buddy!” and his board marked “Eildon”; pack-horses leave him choking in their exhaust fumes, their riders deaf to his excommunications; and finally the Wizard, from policy rather than pity, dispatches a witch-ridden mini-broom to pick him up, making a note to charge it to the unhappy Dominican’s account …
Next, the cauldron shows Lord Anguish, trews and ginger whiskers flying in the wind as he rides furiously down Liddesdale, his foam-flecked charger in overdrive as it skids past peel towers and bastels, horse and rider leaving a stench of molten rubber and whisky fumes in their wake. Astonished Armstrongs and bewildered Beattys, to say nothing of startled Storeys and exclaiming Elliots, returning from night forays, hastily swerve their stolen herds on to the hard shoulder as the tartan tornado sweeps by, ignoring their cries of “Joy-rider!” “Get the polis!” and “Is it a bird? Is it a banshee? No, it’s Supertrews!” For Lord Anguish, his flanks heaving and his sporran smoking, is bent on a desperate mission—well, it must be desperate to bring him to Liddesdale, the foulest robbers’ roost in Europe, where even the toddlers have records and the very sheep go in fours.
But wait, you say—wasn’t Anguish’s job to enlist Bangtail’s Boys to do the actual Jim-snatching part of the conspiracy? So shouldn’t he be in Teviotdale, or wherever, recruiting the heavies? Dead right, but as you recall, Archie signed off Bangtail in Chapter One, leaving the Boys at a loss as they wended slowly homeward with their miserable plunder of felines and poultry. So Lord Anguish, poor slob, arrived just in time for Bangtail’s funeral, his happy cry of “Awright, youse yins, get fell in!” dying on his lips at the sight of the open grave, with Slackarse, Fire-the-Sheep, Blacklugs, Grunt, and Wandered Tom singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” while the cats and chickens stood with bowed heads, some of them weeping openly.
Half-stewed though he was, Scotland’s premier sot and traitor realised that there would be no action from the Boys until they had received counselling and given valedictory interviews to the tabloids. Desperate, he remembered the Nixons as rascals ripe for any mischief, so, pausing only to vodka his horse and pick up a couple of cashmere cardigans in Hawick (never miss the chance), he rode pell-mell for Liddesdale and that peeling beetle (sorry, beetling peel) where old Sir Prising Nixon was at that very moment being advised that Trouserless Will’s blackmail raid had finally returned from Gungemyre, and was exclaiming in pop-eyed amaze: “Daffodils? Where? I don’t believe it …!”
We draw a veil over him and the fast-approaching Lord Anguish, and join the Wizard for another peek at the cauldron … and again we suck in startled breath, for if Lord Anguish careering down Liddesdale was a shock, what are we to make of Don Collapso, armed cap-a-pie and marching along the Solway sands with a band of swarthy chaps in morions at his heels, singing “It’s a long way to Barcelona”? Let’s recap … surely this Collapso ought by now to be in the hunting retinue of James VI (nigh Peebles), getting ready to lure His Majesty astray so that he can be heisted and the impostor substituted in accordance with the Wizard’s diabolic plan (see this page–this page)? You bet he ought, but with the impostor in the bag, the Wizard has had to rethink his strategy, and the first step in his revised plan has been to despatch Don Collapso by supersonic warlock-broom to that mini-Armada which, you remember (and if you don’t remember, try this page), has been tooling around the Sol-way Firth manned by Mediterranean football hooligans posing as peaceful shrimp-shooters, the swine. And that is why a round two score of them, with the disgusting Don C. calling the step, flourishing his rapier and shouting “Adalante, bravos!” and “Empujar sobre!” (which is “Push on!” in Spanish*) are heading into the story, tho’ what fell villainy they purpose we can only guess …
One thing’s for sure—the odds against Archie Force are getting perilously long. Gosh, if only they knew what they were walking into …
“But they don’t, heh-heh!” cackled the Wizard, chewing his bony gloves in excitement as he continued his cauldron scan, homing in on our intrepid principals in turn—Godiva and Gilderoy followed at a distance of a few miles by Archie and the Charltons, all heading north by devious, untravelled ways; and Kylie’s laundry-wain making due east for Thrashbatter Tower. “See how they blunder into my web!” gloated the malevolent sorcerer. “Poor, feeble, simple English cretins—”
“British cretins, if ye don’t mind!” objected the warlock foreman, who sported an SNP badge, and was promptly turned from Paul Newman into Quasimodo for his insolence. “Oh, here, mac, that’s a bluidy liberty!” he muttered in medieval French, but the Wizard was intent on the screen, gloating repulsively as he noted that, for various reasons, the morale of his intended victims was already showing signs of wear … as thus:
LADY GODIVA, her haughty spirit bruised by the knowledge that she was appearing in public in an outfit that would have caused hoots of mirth even on the Clothes Show, had suffered a further shock when Gilderoy, making light conversation as they cantered along, let slip that the Dacre Diamonds had passed into the Scottish exchequer, from whose bourne no bijouterie returns; consequently love-hate feelings for him at the moment were roughly five per cent infatuation, eighty per cent sheer loathing, and fifteen per cent don’t know; even her palfrey was giving him dirty looks;
GILDEROY, not unnaturally, was cheesed and frustrated, wondering if he should try to kiss her into adoration again, and calculating doubtfully whether Olivia would have succumbed to Errol if he’d been wearing tweed trunk hose and moth-eaten sideburns;
ARCHIE, far behind them, was having to play his UPRAT threat to the hilt, for the Charltons were growling mutinously at the prospect of entering Scotland without reiving visas or collision insurance; there were even ugly mutters about danger money and nonemeat vouchers, and our hero’s brow was dark and his knees grimly flexed as he parried their moody lance thrusts and reminded them sharply that they were meant to be riding to attention;
KYLIE, who had hoped to discover en route to Thrashbatter just how far she could arouse the animal passion of Oor Kid without having to pull the communication cord, had found her style cramped (literally) by the presence in the laundry-wain of a drying-out impostor, a lady wrestler in a noisy trance, and an agitated pillow-case whence came yowls suggestive of a pygmy who didn’t care for dead python, or vice versa.
“Everything on schedule and alle systems goe!” chuckled the Wizard as he scanned the cauldron and cocked a satisfied ear to the distant whine and splutter of a mini-broom engine being switched off at the cave entrance overhead, signifying the arrival of Frey Bentos. The Wizard brought up one final picture on his liquid screen and rather wished he hadn’t, for this was real PG stuff—James VI frowsting in bed (nigh Peebles) and looking like a hibernating orang-utan in a night-cap as he dreamed contentedly of his forthcoming hunt, Latin, gluttony, syrupy wines, witch barbecues, and the Noe Smoaking signs which he intended to put up all over Scotland. The Wizard switched off, irritably restored to warlock shape the shambling hunchback who was pestering him for a set of church bells to swing on, and began sticking pins in a campaign map of the border … and if we sneak a quick peek over his shoulder we can get a final fix on everyone.
That’s Carlisle at the bottom, with Eildon about fifty miles north through country which is wild and nasty even by Tudor standards, as Godiva is discovering as she and Gilderoy press on into it, with Archie and the Charltons in their wake. Just over the hill Lord Anguish is spurring down Liddesdale, farther south Kylie is nearing Thrashbatter, and from the west comes a whiff of garlic where Don Collapso and his gang are marching inland from the Solway. The exact location of the slugabed King James is irrelevant, since his hunt doesn’t take place until tomorrow, when he will have drooled his way to within striking distance of our plot, assuming his attendants have got him out of bed by then, and sober.
So that’s everyone on course, but it’s going to take them all day to get where they’re going, and we have no intention of following them step by step, beguiling your impatience with reassurances that it won’t be long now, the story’s bottoming out, the plot mechanism’s in place and running smoothly, and our nail-biting, cliff-hanging, all-action finale will soon be busting out all over—nay, we can’t wait that long, it must be fast-forward wi’ a vengeance, bridging the tedious hours, turning the accomplishment of lunch, tea, and supper into a stopwatch, leaping smartly o’er Time’s chasm and coming to earth with a whoosh and a thud twelve hours hence …
… to find ourselves suddenly plunged into clammy darkness that enfolds us like a black shroud, and all around is eerie, deathly silence, broken only by the faint whimper of benighted stoats, the grumbling of badgers that can’t find their burrows, and the fitful moaning of the fell wind. Somewhere, over the hills and far away, 4 a.m. is chiming from the clocks of gate-locked towns, snug and secure, but we can’t hear them, for this is the desolate heart of the grim Borderland, with nothing but fog and filthy air for miles, and we long for the sound of a human voice, even if it’s only the distant bickering of an impatient highwayman and a raging noblewoman who has just put her dainty foot in something wet and awful, and wants to know where they are and why the hell they’re having to lead their goddam horses … but never mind them—what is that fright-some vision that blights our sight—yonder, over there, through the goblin-haunted mirk … aye, ’tis the outline of three sinister hills, lit by the baleful glow of hellish subterranean fires issuing from the craggy jaws of a most discouraging cave above whose sepulchral arch is graven in letters of sulphurous smoke the dread legend: “Eildon. Get in layne …”
Yes, this is it … we ‘re there.
“Ai’m sorry, but Ai’m not in the hebit of kerrying tissues on naight forays! A ghastly oversaight, no doubt, but Ai didn’t expect to hev to shoeshine an urrl’s dotter who hedn’t the sense to look whair she’s wocking! If yur shoon are menky, scrub them with gress or somewhat—”
“Grass, marry come up! I’d not touch ’em wi’ industrial gloves! And if thou wert a gentleman, I’d not have to! Ah, me, this is what comes of associating with minor public schoolboys—”
(Infatuation nought per cent, loathing one hundred per cent. It’s dark, you see, and without visual or body contact Gilderoy’s charm depends on his voice, which isn’t exactly loaded with sex-appeal at the moment.)
“Oll raight, oll raight! Sit still end Ai’ll see what Ai ken do … och, goodness, ’tis not menky at oll! It’s just wotter!”
A tremulous sigh from the gloom rewarded him. “Ah, that touch … those strong, thieving fingers on my foot … so gentle, so vile … nay, unhand me! Nay, don’t … go on handing …”
“Godaiva!” Impatience fled, and his voice throbbed like a motor mower. “Ah, furgive me, mai own—whay are we quor-rulling? The touch of thy silken enkle inflames me! Give me yur lips, enchentress … where are they? Ach, demn, Ai kent see a blested thing—”
“Here, here—thou arrant wretch! Ah-h, oh-h …” For a moment the night was filled by snoggish sighs ere they plunked apart. “Nay, again, again … dear bounder! Ah, how I detest thee … wow! My head swims …”
“Maine, too. Nay, though it be torchur to desist, we must, lest we become love-puggled, for clear wits we must hev for what laies ahead … see, the yonning mouth of thet ghestly kev-ern beckons us to duty—”
“Gosh, yes, and I’m wearing this godawful get-up! Oh, well, let’s get on with it … but stay—should we not await Noble’s arrival, to liaise about admin and distress signals?”
“Distress mai ess, if you’ll purdon th’expression. Hev Ai not mai trusty blade, Keeliecleaver, to unseam our foes, end thou et mai saide to inspaire end, et need, to clock them from behind wi’ ornaments? We can do wi’out Noble’s tardy aid … ah, but one more embrace, dear Godaiva, ere we split …”
“Just one, then, sweet cad! Encircle me wi’ thy defiling arms, but touch not my lips or I’ll flip …”
They cuddled, with yearning whimpers. Then, with Gilderoy bending at the knees and trying to slobber in Latin, and Godiva masking her beauty ‘neath the yellow toque’s spangled veil, and practising Cockney vowels, they stole forward over the swampy moor to the mouth of the sulphur-smoking cave, waiting until its lurid glare changed from red through amber to green. Slowly they entered hand in hand, the infernal light glinting on the marbles of her psychedelic ruff and casting weird shadows of tweed trunk hose on the dry-ice fog that closed behind them …
“Here they come, like mice to Danish Blue!” gloated the Wizard, as the two bizarre figures, one waddling and muttering: “Weeny, weedy, weeky, ye ken!” and the other like Zandra Rhodes in fancy dress, appeared on the cauldron-screen. Down the cavern’s sloping floor they came, trying not to notice the strange shapes and bright ghoulish eyes that haunted the shadows under the nitre-dripping roof, down and down, round darkling corners, past acid puddles green as colour-supplement desserts, and the Wizard heh-heh’d and snapped spidery fingers at the warlocks in overalls.
“Down cauldron! Chair-locks to condition puce! Transformers on tarry awhile! Now void my sight and await the high-sign—move!” The warlocks disappeared behind the sofa (the sofa?) and the Wizard assumed a pair of dark glasses and a benign expression as he turned to greet the approaching footsteps of wary Gray’s Inn trainers and cautious slingbacks.
The sight which met the eyes of Godiva and Gilderoy as they rounded the last bend was as big a shock to them as it probably is to you, gentle reader. No green smoke or gruesome lighting, no flickering sparks or seething cauldrons, but a warm and cosy snuggery such as any comfort-loving sorcerer might repair to in his quiet hours—Habitatte wallpaper with pentacle motif, china bats flying up the wall, mandrake root reclining chairs, toadskin sofa stuffed with lizard wool, henbane cigars in a mantichore-skull humidor, drinks cabinet with flasks and alembics in smoked glass, and low posset tables bearing back numbers of Thaumaturge and Spello magazines as well as (a shocking affectation on the Wizard’s part, but testifying to his literary taste, and a terrific talking-point) the first chapter of Don Quixote, in manuscript, with a scribbled note “Any good? Value yr opinion. As ever, Miguel.” And hurrying towards them, falling over the furniture in his haste and beaming like a benevolent Dr. Who, came the Wizard, conical smoking-hat on head, flourishing his evening wand in greeting.
“Thrice, thrice welcome, senor and senorita!” he babbled, overacting feverishly. “Here at last! Well, well, am I glad to see you!” He peered myopically at Gilderoy. “Fantastic, by Belial!
James VI doesn’t look more like James VI! You’re sure you’re not he? Heh-heh—just a little comedy there … But those knock-knees, that slobber, the whiskers—and you can do the accent, I wager!”
“Aye … umquhile,” croaked Gilderoy, essaying a light drool. “Aiblins … and whilk, the noo. Up the Hibs …”
“Astounding! And this is La fabulous, La legendary Infamosa! How I have longed for this moment! Ah, but permit me!” Glittering wildly, the Wizard lifted Godiva’s veil, and our heroine’s heart did a quick triple toe-loop as his dark glasses seemed to scorch her make-up. “Hellzooks, senorita, if thy guile and malice match thy beauty, I’m glad you’re on our side—but I can’t wait to see you without the peroxide head-doily,” he added craftily, and noted with wicked glee how her violet eyes paled in sudden fear. “But where is Frey Bentos and that cute little poison pixie of his?”
Here we go, thought Godiva, and assumed a Liza Doolittle whisper whose hoarseness was a rasping plea for glycerine and lemon.
“Flaming hell, guv’nor,” she husked, enunciating with care. “He cometh shortly, with—wiv, I should say—our bleeding luggage. God strike a light,” she added bravely, “what with the laryngitis, I am about jap-lacquered. Straight up.” And if that doesn’t blow our cover, she told herself miserably, nothing will.
But the Wizard was all apologetic concern. “But what am I thinking of? Certes, thou’rt cream-crackered after thy journey—sit, sit, I pray, gracious Infamosa—and do you, honest impostor, take the weight off those trunk hose.” Smarming, he ushered them to the recliners. “There, park thyselves, unlax, shed the shoon an ye will, and tell me, was’t brass monkeys on the Isle of Man ferry? Tut-tut! Now, try some of those pilot’s-thumb canapes—they’re delicious with hemlock dip—while I rustle up some soothing gargle, or a cockatricetail …”
Amber hope and violet doubt met in the glance which Gilderoy and Godiva exchanged—was’t possible their disguises were Wizard-proof? But even as they sank into the enveloping recliners, hope nosedived and alarm went rocketing, for the Wizard, swizzle-stick and shaker in hand, was watching them in a marked manner, and his tone was roopy wi’ sudden menace as he continued:
“Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin … But stay!” he cried, and triumph was in his cackle, “Here comes the belated Bentos—and without any luggage, unless these shades deceive me! What happened, Frey—trouble with the Customs?”
Terror froze Godiva’s toque and chilled Gilderoy’s false beard—for there, sidling out from behind the drinks cabinet, his habit sadly creased but his currant eyes fruity with malevolence, came the tall Dominican, inclining his tonsure in ironic greeting.
“Evenin’, folks,” crooned he, in honeyed Southern menace.
“My dancing chaplain!” gasped Godiva, and instinctively added: “You’re fired, libertine!”
“Och, demn, it’s a trep!” exclaimed Gilderoy.
“Push the button, mac!” bawled the Wizard.
And ere our twain could stir, hoops of griping steel shot out from all over the recliners, clamping their wrists, ankles, waists, farthingale, and trunk hose in ‘prisoning clutch, overalled warlocks sprang from behind the sofa crying: “Nyah-nyah-nyah!,” green smoke flecked wi’ crimson fire gushed from the skirting-boards to shrivel the Habitatte wallpaper, the china bats came to life and swooped squeaking o’er the victims’ heads, the posset tables clanged back to reveal the bubbling cauldron, and what with one thing and another, the value of the place on the housing market dropped at least fifty per cent in the twinkling of an eye.
But ’twas not the sudden transformation from snug bachelor digs to ooze-walled fiend’s den that caused Godiva’s lovely lips to part in roseate tremble, or Gilderoy to emit involuntary two-tone whistle—in fact, if the joint had changed into the Albert Hall they wouldn’t have noticed. Blind to all else, deaf even to the glottal gloating of the warlocks and Frey Bentos’s viciously blown raspberry, they stared stricken at the figure emerging from the dazzling orange explosion which had taken place between the cocktail shaker and the swizzle-stick.
For the Wizard had vanished, and in his place stood a female embodiment of evil who looked like a cross between Snake Woman and the Wicked Queen in Snow White. Clad in a low-cut evening sheath of black silk which appeared to have been applied to her voluptuous form with an aerosol spray, her sable tresses tumbling to shoulders whose whiteness, like that of her flawless features, had a curious greenish tinge, she stood undulating sensuously what time she smoothed her elbow-length gloves, posed with elegant hand on sinister hip, and regarded her captives from coal-black eyes whose pupils glinted fiery red. Her purple lips writhed in a smile of unutterable malevolence, and if she had invited the assembly to put the blame on Mame they would have assented without hesitation. She didn’t walk, she slank to a muted “Big Spender” drum accompaniment, slowly swirling her glossy coiffure, and came to a pulsating rest before the helpless chatelaine of Thrashbatter.
“So-o-o …” Her voice was a sort of contralto hiss, heavy with sneer, and Godiva knew instinctively that if ever she needed a baby-sitter, this one would barely make the short-list.
“So … thou’rt the presumptuous puss who would impersonate La Infamosa, ha? Well, take a good look at the real thing, sister, and eat your heart out. Or”—and she thrust her flawless bone-structure close to Godiva’s own, and bared gleaming gnashers in a threatening grimace—“perhaps I’ll do it for you!”