My Uncle Oswald(41)

He stared at the obscene rubbery thing. He read the letter and recognized his signature.

“You bounder!” he cried. “You tricked me!”

“You assaulted a lady.”

“Who typed this?”

“I did.”

He stood there taking it all in.

“All right,” he said. “But what happened to me? I went absolutely crazy. What in God’s name did you do?”

“You had a double dose of Cantharis vesicatoria sudanii,” I said. “The old Blister Beetle. Powerful stuff that.”

He stared at me, comprehension dawning on his face. “So that’s what it was,” he said. “Inside the bloody chocolate, I suppose.”

“Naturally. And if you swallowed it, then so will the King of the Belgians and the Prince of Wales and Mr. Joseph Conrad and all the rest of them.”

He started pacing up and down the lab, albeit a trifle gingerly. “I told you once before, Cornelius,” he said, “that you are a totally unscrupulous fellow.”

“Absolutely,” I said, grinning.

“Do you know what that woman did to me?”

“I can make a pretty good guess.”

“She’s a witch! She’s a--a vampire! She’s disgusting!”

“you seemed to like her well enough,” I said, pointing to the thing on the bench.

“I was drugged!”

“You raped her. You raped her like an animal. you were the disgusting one.”

“That was the Blister Beetle.”

“Of course it was,” I said. “But when Mr. Marcel Proust rapes her like an animal, or King Alfonso of Spain, will they know they’ve had the Blister Beetle?”

He didn’t answer me.

“They most certainly will not,” I said. “They may well wonder what the hell came over them, just as you did. But they’ll never know the answer, and in the end they’ll simply have to put it down to the incredible attractiveness of the girl. That’s all they can put it down to. Right?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“They will be embarrassed at having raped her, just as you are. They will be very contrite, just as you are. They will want to hush the whole thing up, just as you do. In other words, they will give us no more trouble. We skidaddle with the signed notepaper and the precious sperm and that will be the end of it.”

“You are a rapscallion of the first water, Cornelius. You are an unmitigated scoundrel.”

“I know,” I said, grinning again. But the logic of my argument was irrefutable. The plan was watertight. A. R. Woresley, who was certainly no fool, was beginning to realize this. I could see him weakening.

“What about that girl?” he said. “Who was she?”

“She’s the third member of our organization. She’s our official teaser.”

“Some teaser,” he said.

“That’s why I chose her.”

“I shall be embarrassed, Cornelius, if I have to meet her again.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “She’s a great girl. You’ll like her very much. She happens to like you, too.”

“Rubbish. What makes you think that?”

“She said you were absolutely and positively the greatest. She said that from now on she wants all her men to be like you.”

“She said that? Did she actually say that, Cornelius?”

“Word for word.”

A. R. Woresley beamed.

“She said you made all other men look like eunuchs,” I said, ramming it home.

A. R. Woresley’s whole face began to glow with pleasure. “You are not pulling my leg, are you, Cornelius?”

“Ask her yourself when you see her.”

“Well well well,” he said, beaming away and preening his horrible moustache lightly with the back of his fingers.

“Well well well,” he said again. “And may I ask what her name is, this remarkable young lady?”

“Yasmin Howcomely. She’s half Persian.”

“How interesting.”

“You must have been terrific,” I said.

“I have my moments, Cornelius,” he said. “Ah yes indeed, I certainly have my moments.” He seemed to have forgotten about the Blister Beetle. He wanted all the credit himself now and I let him have it.

“She can’t wait to meet you again.”

“Splendid,” he said, rubbing his hands. “And she’s going to be a part of our little organization, you say?”

“Absolutely. You’ll be seeing a lot of her from now on.”

“Good,” he said. “Goody good.”

And thus A. R. Woresley joined the firm. It was as easy as that. What’s more, he was a man of his word.

He agreed to withhold publication of his discovery. He agreed to assist Yasmin and me in every possible way.