The Woodingdean Chameleon
'Who is your favourite fictional detective?' Hugo Rune asked me one morning in July as we sat taking in our breakfast.
I use the expression 'taking in our breakfast' because upon this morning it was truly something to behold.
Our regular cook, Mrs Rook, who normally provided our morning repast, had recently absconded with the silver cutlery and cruet set, leaving Mr Rune a bitter note that spoke of 'drunkenness and cruelty' and the failure to furnish her with wages.
Hugo Rune had therefore been forced to take on a new breakfast cook, and this person had appeared the previous day in the comely shape of Jade, a Taiwanese mail-order bride whom Mr Rune had somehow managed to acquire on a three-month tree-trial sale-or-return kind of caper. She was presently serving us as maid – Jade the maid, I suppose. Whether Mr Rune intended to engage her skills in the bedroom, I know not, for it would have been indiscreet of me to have enquired. But as to her skills with the skillet, these we were presently taking in, because they were prodigious.
I peeped over the Jenga-style stack of sausages that rose from my plate and said, 'Pardon?' to Mr Rune.
'Who is your favourite fictional detective?' the All-Knowing One enquired of me again, which aroused certain doubts in me regarding his all-knowingness.
'Ah,' said I, and I rummaged in the pocket of the new grey linen suit that had also lately arrived through mail order and drew out a paperback book. Upon its cover was the lurid depiction of a scantily clad blonde lying prone in an alleyway, whilst a brooding figure in fedora and trench-coat stood above her in the shadows. The tide of the book was: DEAD DAMES DON'T DANCE A Lazlo Woodbine Thriller The author of the book was a chap named P. P. Penrose. 'Lazlo Woodbine,' I said to Mr Rune and I tossed the book in his direction. He would probably have caught it had his vision not been obscured by a tower of toast.
'Lazlo who?' he asked, retrieving the book from the carpet.
'Woodbine,' I said. 'Some call him Laz. He was a nineteen-fifties American-genre private eye, the greatest of them all. He wore a trenchcoat and a fedora and always carried his trusty Smith and Wesson. And he only ever worked four locations, the maximum he considered that a genuine private eye should work: his seedy office, where clients came to call; a bar, where he "chewed the fat with the fat boy barman" and talked the now legendary toot, picked up leads and inevitably ran into the "dame that done him wrong"; an alleyway, where he got into sticky life-threatening situations; and a rooftop, where he had his final confrontation with the villain, who always took the big plunge to oblivion in the final chapter. Oh yes, and all this he did strictly in the first person.'
'Sounds positively appalling,' Mr Rune observed, nicking through the pages of the book.
'Not a bit of it,' I said, attacking my sausages. 'With Woodbine you can always expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a trail of corpses, no small degree of name mispronunciation and enough trenchcoat humour and ludicrous catchphrases to carry you through a month of rainy Thursdays.'
'Gratuitous sex,' said Mr Rune, thoughtfully, and he pocketed my book. 'Why do you ask?' I asked.
'Because I have to take a little trip. I will be away for a few days and I am going to leave the practice in your capable hands.' 'The practice?' I queried.
'The offices of Hugo Rune, the World's Foremost Metaphysical Detective, as is engraved upon the brass plaque on the front door below.'
'I fear that Mrs Rook absconded with your brass plaque also,' I said, with some regret. 'But I am not exactly certain of what you are asking me to do.'
'Come,' said Mr Rune, and he beckoned. I rose, with difficulty due to the tightness of my stomach, and joined him before his big framed map of Brighton, the one on which the figures of the Brighton Zodiac, the Brightonomicon, were brightly outlined over streets and roads and culs-de-sac and so forth. 'We have so far solved four cases,' said Mr Rune. ' You have solved them,' I said, 'if solved be the word. And you have always done so through possessing prior knowledge that was unknown to myself.'
'And so I am giving you the opportunity to prove yourself, as it were' 'I am not a detective,' I said. 'But you'd like to be.'
'Well, actually I would,' I said. 'I have certainly enjoyed myself during the time I have spent with you, although it has thus far been fraught with peril and the wages are nothing to write home about, even if I knew where my home was. Although if I did, I would still have nothing to write home about regarding wages.'
'I think you have all the makings of a truly great detective,' said Mr Rune, although I have a feeling that he said it to divert my conversation away from the subject of my wages.
'A truly great detective, eh?' said I, taking this remark at face value, because I liked the way that it smiled upon me. 'And so the next case is yours.' 'And the next case is…?' 'Pick one of the figures of the Zodiac. Go ahead, point one out.' 'Any one?' 'Other than those that we have already dealt with.'
'Naturally.' As this was clearly ludicrous, I pointed to a figure at random. 'That one,' I said, 'the one that looks like a banana with the mumps.'
'The Woodingdean Chameleon,' said Mr Rune. 'A very bold choice. Do you truly feel up to the challenge?' I looked up at him. 'You are having a bubble,' said I. 'A bubble?' said the Mumbo Gumshoe. 'A bubble bath. You are having a laugh.' 'I can assure you, this is no laughing matter.'
'But there is no case,' I said. 'Just because I pick out a figure at random… I mean, through considered choice… that does not mean that there is a case to solve. That is not the way things work.'
'It's the way I do business,' said Mr Rune. 'You chose correctly. The case will come to you.'
'Nonsense,' I said. 'I could have chosen any figure on the Zodiac' 'I think not,' said Hugo Rune. 'Think so,' said I.
'Not,' said Hugo Rune and he opened his hand and presented me with the single badge that he held in it.
And on that badge was printed something that left me in no doubt as to the veracity of his words. Hugo Rune packed a pigskin valise, instructed me to keep my 'grubby mitts' off Jade, waved me his farewells with his stout stick, marched downstairs and out of the front door and hailed for himself a cab.
The driver's name, Mr Rune mentioned later, was Colin, and he was a staunch supporter of a football team called West Bromwich Albion, to which side he pledged a filial affiliation that no man could put asunder, even should this man have Cerberus, the many-headed canine guardian of the underworld, on a chain with him and he, Colin, backed into a corner. Colin may well have held to certain metaphysical beliefs that he was more than willing to share with his fare. As to whether he did, and what the eventual outcome of this would have been when it was Mr Rune who occupied the rear seats of his cab, I cannot say with any degree of precision because Mr Rune never told me. I would be prepared to chance my arm at a guess, though. I sat myself down in Mr Rune's favourite armchair and loosened the lower buttons of my waistcoat. I pondered momentarily whether Jade would indeed be prepared to make herself sexually available to another, younger, potential spouse, but I felt somewhat bloated and not quite up to the effort. And as I sat and drummed my fingers and whistled a ditty, it did cross my mind that I really did fancy trying my hand at a bit of detective work. Mr Rune would be really impressed if he returned to discover that I had cracked the Curious Case of the Woodingdean Chameleon. Of course, there would have to be such a case. And this I considered unlikely.
I stroked the badge that now adorned my lapel. Producing it had probably been sleight of hand – Paul Daniels did that sort of thing all the time, pushing Debbie Magee through a letterbox, swallowing gerbils and making Tower Bridge disappear. Had I not read somewhere that it was Paul Daniels who had started the war in Vietnam to win a bet with David Copperfield?*
But all that aside, I really did fancy trying my hand at a bit of the old crime detection. Do it the way Laz had done it, back in the fifties, when a man had to do what a man had to do. And walk those mean streets alone. And, I thought, And! There was a trenchcoat and a fedora hanging in the wardrobe of my bedroom. And I was pretty sure that they were my size. In fact, I knew that they were my size because I had tried them on more than once and paced up and down in front of the wardrobe mirror, 'making shapes' and being Laz.
Because, to coin a phrase that I would not normally use, gimme a break here, I was a teenager!
I made off to the wardrobe and returned looking hot to trot. The trenchcoat's belt was somewhat tight across my swollen belly, but I would soon work off the bulge with some fist-fightin', pistol-totin', dame-diddlin' big-Dick action. Private Dick, of course, if you know what I mean, and I am sure that you do.
I struck a pose beside the window and awaited the arrival of the client who would soon appear, most likely in a state of extreme distress and in the shape of a beautiful dame, to beg me to take on a case.
At eleven of the morning clock, and fed up with waiting, I took myself next door to Fangio's bar, which today was called The Laughing Cadaver. Definitely not. Ed. Which I thought most appropriate.
I straightened my shoulders, cocked my fedora to that angle that is known as rakish, straightened the hem of my trenchcoat and entered the bar in the first person, in the guise and persona of Lazlo Woodbine, the world's greatest nineteen-fifties American-genre detective.
The lounge was long and low and lost in a dream that was forever yesterday. The chrome shone like oil beads on a Chevy's tail fin and the guy who stood behind the counter copped me a glance like he was whistling 'Dixie' through the wrong end of a clarinet. I crossed the bar with more aplomb than a pagan pedal-pusher at a podophiliac's picnic and acquainted myself with my favourite barstool.
'A bottle of Bud and a hot pastrami on rye,' I told Fangio the fat boy barman.
'Good evening, sir,' said Fangio, adjusting a wig of elaborate confection. 'Good evening?' said I. 'But it is morning.'
'It might be for you, sir,' said the wearer of the wig, 'but not for me – I have become a Dyslectic'
'You cannot become a Dyslectic,' I rightfully protested.*You either are one or you are not.'
'Well, I am one now,' said Fange, 'which rather proves my point, don't you think?'
'Okay,' said I, 'I will go along with this. How did you become a Dyslectic?'
'Answered an ad,' said Fangio, 'in the Weekly World News. It's a religious sect – fastest-growing religion in America. I've seen the Light of the Lard. I've been made Hull. And they give you a special enchanted omelette and everything.' And he pointed to something cheap and nasty and plastic that hung around his neck. 'That is not an omelette,' I said. 'That is an amulet.'
'See,' said Fange, 'it's working already. And I got a badge.' And he now pointed to something pinned upon his lapel. 'That is not a badge,' I said. 'It's a budgie.'
'That would explain why it squawked so much when I did the pinning on.' Oh, how we laughed. Till we stopped. 'Enough of this gay repartee,' said I. 'Are you implying that I'm a choirboy, sir?' 'Well,' said I, 'if the shirt fits, lift it.' 'That's easy for you to say, young Razzler.'
'Ah,' said I, 'it is not young Rizla any more, for while you are now a member of the Temple of Dyslexia, I-' 'It's the Tadpole of Dyslexia,' Fange corrected me.
'Quite so. Well, just as you are presently a member of that, J, for my part, am now a practising detective of the nineteen-fifties persuasion, hence the trenchcoat and fedora.' 'Ah,' said Fangio, 'so that's it. And there was me thinking that you were "having a bubble".' 'A laugh?' 'No, a bubble. From a dyslextic perspective, of course.' 'Any sign of my bottle of Bud and hot pastrami on rye?' I asked.
'None at all so far,' said Fangio. 'So, are you going out on your own, then? Have you been giving your arching morders by Mister Hugo Rune?'
'I do not think "arching morders" is dyslextic,' I said. 'I think you will find that to be a spoonerism.'
'Is it that time of year already?' Fange asked. 'I'll have to put the decorations up.' I mused upon that, but failed miserably in the attempt. Oh, how we laughed once more.
'So I am no longer to be referred to as Rizla,' I continued. 'I am now to be known as Lazlo Woodbine, private eye. Although actually, you being a practising Dyslectic will come in handy here, as one of the running gags in the Lazlo Woodbine books is that people always mispronounce his name.' Fange looked at me blankly. And he did it very well. 'They get the name Woodbine wrong,' I said. Fange shrugged. 'As you please, Mister Humphreys.' 'No,' I said, and sternly, too. 'Not like that. They might say "Mister Woodcock", or "Mister Woodpecker".' 'Or "Mister Woodlouse",' said Fange. 'Well, I suppose they might, but that is not very nice.'
'I'll let you know if I come up with anything worse. But if you don't mind, I'll have to interrupt this toot we're talking because I want to switch on the TV – the croquet is on at Lourdes.'
'Very good,' I said. 'You mean that the cricket is on at Lords:
'No,' said Fange, shaking his head and all but dislodging the wig that I had not as yet got around to ridiculing. 'I mean the croquet at Lourdes – the Benedictine Bears versus the Franciscan Foxes. Who really are foxes, if you know what I mean, and I'm sure that you do.' 'That is one of my catchphrases.'
'You should have mentioned that earlier.' And Fange went off and turned the TV on. 'Could I please have a bottle of Bud?'
'Oh, all right!' huffed Fangio. 'It's want want want with you.'
Fangio served me a bottle of Bud and a bowl of chewing fat. 'We're out of hot pastrami,' he explained. 'Now please stop talking. I want to watch the match.' I had never really considered croquet to be much of a spectator sport. And I certainly never knew that it was televised. Nor that it was quite so popular.
All of a sudden, the bar seemed to be full of supporters, most wearing the distinctive brown of the Benedictine strip. In fact, they wore numbered mini-habits, which I was informed were selling like hot cross buns at the local sports shops. Fangio's eyes were upon the match and he refused all requests for drinks, referring the requesters to a pair of female bar staff that he had taken on for the day. These bar staff were bikini-clad and wore snazzy papal mitres upon their bonny blonde bonces.
'Now he's the man!' cried Fangio, pointing to the TV screen as the camera zoomed in on a monk who was taking a mighty swing with his croquet mallet. 'Like the Wolf of Kabul wielding Clikki Ba.'
I shook my fedora. And wondered what the world might look like if you were standing upon your head and viewing it between the straps of a tart's handbag.
'That's Father Ernetti,' said Fangio. 'Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti.' 'That name rings a bell,' said I. 'No, you're thinking of Quasimodo.'
'No, I was not.' I watched the Benedictine Bear taking his swing. 'Oh and it's through the hoop!' cried the commentator. And the pub crowd went into a Vatican wave.
'Father Ernetti,' I mused to myself. 'I do know that name. Of course I do. According to Mr Rune, he is the creator of the Chronovision – the TV that broadcasts past events.' And aloud I said, 'It is him – he is the one.'
'Damn right,' said Fangio. 'He's a one-man lean, mean grilling machine.'
I shook my hat for a second time and applied my attentive faculties towards the television screen. Not only had I not realised that croquet was a spectator sport, but I had certainly not considered it to be such a violent spectator sport. It made ice hockey look almost refined. The monks, and indeed the nuns – for this was a mixed sport – went at each other like knives in the water, and water off a dead duck's back. 'Have you joined the Tadpole of Dyslexia?' asked Fange. 'No, I was merely thinking out loud.' 'Well, keep it down. We're trying to watch the match.' And I have to say that I quite enjoyed it, what with all the bloodshed and the swearing, which, although in Latin, still made its meaning obvious. And the skill, of course. We all applaud the skill in sport. We do not just enjoy the violence and mayhem. Or watch the Grand Prix hoping for a really spectacular crash. Well, not all of us. Do we?
And when the final whistle blew and the bar crowd erupted into cheers and the singing of the dirty version of 'Ave Maria' and Father Ernetti was carried shoulder-high around the pitch by the few of his team-mates who had not been stretchered off injured, I clapped somewhat myself and Hail-Maryed away with the best of them – the best of them being a chap called Kevin and his son, who had come down on the special bus.
'I have tickets to the final tomorrow,' said Fange. 'Excuse my failure to employ the Dyslextic dialect there.' 'What?' said I. 'Are you flying out to Lourdes?'
'Hardly. The final is to be held here. Tomorrow, at the sports stadium in Woodingdean.' 'The stadium is in Withdean,' I said. 'Exactly,' said Fangio. 'That's what I said.' I took my bottle of Bud and the bowl of chewing fat away to a side table that was not being overturned by joyful Benedictine supporters and pondered on my lot.
'You'll go blind doing that,' said a lady in a straw hat, who was passing by en route to the female toilets.
I obviously had to get to the Withdean Stadium and speak to this Father Ernetti – Mr Rune would surely expect me to do no less than this – although what exactly I would say to the good father, I did not know. Talk croquet and sort of work up to his Time TV, perhaps. And then a truly terrible thought struck me, like a dendrophiliac's dongler at an autopederast's arboretum, for I had slipped somewhat from the Woodbine idiom. What if the evil Count Otto Black knew that Father Ernetti was on his way to Brighton? Would he not seek to contact the monk? Count Otto wanted the Chronovision for his own evil ends. Would he not perhaps seek to acquire its creator? Kidnap him, torture him into providing the plans?
'This is deep,' I said. 'This is very deep. And very dark, too.' 'And it will give you hairs on the palms of your hands,' said the lady in the straw hat, who was returning from the toilet.
4I am on the case here,' I said to myself when she had passed me by. 'This all makes sense. The Woodingdean Chameleon. Well, Fangio confused Withdean with Woodingdean, but that is near enough. And chameleons are masters of camouflage and Count Otto Black will surely disguise or camouflage himself in order to capture Father Ernetti. I have only been a detective for a couple of hours and I damn near have this case already solved.'
The bar was all but deserted once again, the croquet fans having returned either to their places of work, or to the mother who bore them. And but for an Oriental and a salesman travelling in tobaccos, there was only me and the fat boy, Fangio.
I returned to the bar counter, taking with me the chewing-fat bowl, and ordered another bottle of Bud.
'And don't think that I don't remember that you never paid me for the first bottle,' said Fangio, presenting me with same.
'About these tickets you have for tomorrow,' I said, with more savoir-faire than a salirophiliac at a sperm bank's summer sale. 'You did say tickets, did you not?'
'I might have said "rickets",' said Fange. 'Or if I didn't, I probably should. Or property shed, or pebbly shroud – the permutations are endless.'
'I would like one of those tickets,' I said, and I cast him the kind of smile that would win you a first prize at Crufts.
'You can't have one,' said Fangio. 'One is for me and the other for my fiancee Norma. For we are soon to be joined in wholly monotony.'
'You do not have a fiancee,' I informed the befuddled barkeep. 'You once had a black and white cat called Ginger that deserted you, if I recall correctly, after you shaded in its white parts with felt-tip pen in an attempt to win the blackest cat competition that the Goth Licence sponsored for the Brighton Festival.'
'I do too have a fiancee,' said Fangio. 'That's her over there.' And he pointed with the stick he used for stirring.
I followed the direction being pointed out to me by the stick that the barman used for driving cattle to market on a winter's morning.* 'My Norma,' said Fangio, proudly.
I shook my hatted head for the third, and hopefully last, time that day. 'Fangio,' I said, 'that is not your fiancee Norma. That is one of the lady-boys of Bangkok, who pitched their tent here during the Festival.'
'Then I have been betrayed by my Dyslexia,' wailed Fangio, affecting a face of vast distress. 'One of the lady-boys of Bangkok? I thought he was one of the blousy lays of Babcock.'
'Easy mistake to make,' I said, 'if you are stupid. Now, about that ticket.' I recollect that Fangio put up a respectable struggle to retain his croquet ticket. I issued silken words of persuasion. And then harsher words when he still failed to comply. And I recollect also that finally I had to strike down the fat boy with the chewing-fat bowl, because sometimes words are simply not enough.
And it was a long, hard search for those tickets. I went through all his pockets. And the drawer of the cash register.
It finally came to light when, in a right old sulk, I kicked the unconscious barman in the head and they turned out to be hidden under his wig. 'Mr Rune will be so proud of me,' I said as I left the bar. And I felt certain that he would. * Cocktails, probably. * An easy mistake to make.