“Nervous, aren’t you?” I was probably white faced as well, and certainly having trouble keeping my legs steady. He might go on playing for hours, hoping to get me on my knees crying for mercy. The time had come to rush him, hoping for a wound rather than death. My idea was to push him across the line of fire from Jericho Jim, who had looked all the time as if not seeing the point of Malcolm’s self-indulgence.
Luckily the noise of the shot brought deliverance, and none too soon, because the remains of the window flew to even smaller pieces, and Dismal’s dark muscular bloodhound length came straight at the maniac’s back, throwing him and his shooter towards me with such force I had to leap clear, though I didn’t stay there long, because while Dismal chewed at Malcolm’s arm like the Hound of the Baskervilles who had been on short commons for a month, I picked the gun up, and Bill got Jericho Jim in such a half-nelson that from the petrification of his simple features I thought he was being choked to death.
“A spot of the old unarmed combat doesn’t come amiss,” Bill said. “I’d have had the shooters off them in two seconds, if I had been you. You were slow, Michael. I think you’d benefit from a refresher course.”
At Malcolm’s screams I pulled Dismal away, rags of jacket in his teeth. “You took your time. What the hell kept you?”
Bill kicked Jericho Jim down, to let him know his place. “Michael, I never expected you to fall into a trap like this. What were you thinking of? I saw you from the bushes through my binoculars, and couldn’t believe my eyes. And you ask what took me so long? Just take that shade of disapproval off your face, and I’ll tell you.”
He gave Jericho Jim another penalty kick and, as if to equalise, a heavy-duty one to Malcolm. “On the way up the hill Dismal caught a pheasant, and I was good-natured enough to let him finish it for his tea. You know how particular he is regarding his messing arrangements. Then I demobilised the intruders’ car parked by the front door. The best mechanic in the world won’t get that going again — but it took time.”
Moggerhanger’s tone when he called me over confirmed sixty years of distress suffered in the last couple of hours. I went to him with some sympathy at his ordeal, while Bill finished searching Malcolm and Jericho Jim, who because of the sudden blitzkreig, allowed him to do so without bother. He gave them a further taste of fist and boot, not that they didn’t deserve it, but mostly to make sure they’d be incapable of harming anyone for a few days. “It’s a case for taking no prisoners,” he winked at me. “I could shoot them while trying to escape, but it’s their luck we’re in a civilised country, and have to abide by the Geneva Convention.”
“The one Dismal’s eyeing so hungrily is our employer’s, son,” I told him, “so don’t give him too much stick.”
“Michael, I can’t abide spite. But what he’s done to Lord Moggerhanger is all the more reason to make the tike fear for his life.” He gave Malcolm another good buffet. “I’ve come across him a time or two in the past, and never liked him. He’s a total scumbag.”
Blood was running down Moggerhanger’s face from a mess of cuts and bruises, and I pulled Dismal away from trying to lick it better. “Get the first aid kit from the kitchen,” he said, “and take that damned dog with you.”
I got back with the medical box and a bowl of water, and told Bill to patch the gaffer up. “You’ve had plenty of experience doctoring walking wounded in the War. Maybe there’s some morphine in it.”
Moggerhanger overheard. “I don’t want any of that. You should know by now I don’t take drugs.”
Malcolm cried on the floor, hands attempting to reach every sore point at once. He’d probably never had such a pasting, not even from Moggerhanger, in spite of all he’d said.
Bill swabbed gently at the boss’s face, dabbed with iodine and plied with plasters. “You’ll be as right as rain soon, sir. They’re not Blighty one’s.”
“That may be so, you fake bloody soldier, but it’s giving me gyp.” He flinched at the treatment, but called me over. “I need a cigar, Michael, from the bureau over there. It used to be locked, but you can get in now.”
“What shall we do with the prisoners, sir?” Bill asked. “Or maybe I should do a bit of debriefing first.”
“Leave that to me. I’ll make them wish they’d never been born. But I owe you. I won’t forget.”
“Thank you, sir. Luckily we had our dog for shock troops.”
“Go easy on that iodine. I don’t want a bath in it.” After he’d lit his cigar, with a shaking hand that needed steadying by me, I went to Alice Whipplegate as she opened her lovely eyes. I leaned over, wondering whether to kickstart her with an orgasm, or give a few easy slaps for recovery. “I can feel myself coming out of it,” she said, “but I feel horribly sick. That vile sadist made me drink a bottle of whisky, or near enough.”
Bill, hearing this, put his medicaments down and strolled to give Malcolm another kick as he was halfway to his feet, so that he fell down again. “I’ll learn you, you tramp, treating a woman like that.”
Nature or nurture, I wouldn’t know, but Malcolm, who had some guts due to a long association with Moggerhanger, shouted: “I’ll get you for that. I’ll find you, wherever you are, you fucking pimp.”
“Fair enough,” Bill said, “but you just try. I’ll tell you where to look, before you start the long walk to London.” He gave him another. “You deserve to do every mile on your hands and knees.”
“Give the weasel some stick, by all means, but leave a bit of him for me.” I marvelled at Moggerhanger’s strength, as he managed the short walk, and shook a big fist with two rings on it at Malcolm’s face: “You ungrateful animal. After all I’ve done for you.” He landed a couple of heavy blows. “I’m in pain, and nobody gets away with that. I haven’t started on you yet.” I shivered to think what would happen when he became nasty — though he turned out to be more merciful than if Malcolm had been his real son.
Alice, weak on her feet, took my arm to stay upright as I walked her onto the terrace, leaving Bill to sort out the debris in the sitting room. “Thank God you came when you did,” she said, “or my liver would have gone bang. And God knows what Parkhurst would have got up to. He and Jericho were waiting when we got here. While Jericho pointed the gun at Lord Moggerhanger, Parkhurst knocked him about terribly. Then he threatened to kill me. I screamed, which was a mistake, because it only made him behave worse. He put on a fiendish look, and made me finish a bottle of whisky. I was so drunk I didn’t care what he did, as long as he didn’t rape me. And he might have done that if you hadn’t come. I owe you as well, as the boss said.”
Concealed by the bushes, a smell of damp soil and wet grass which I hoped might help to clear her faculties, she fell into my arms for a rewarding kiss, until breaking free to retch her guts up. I laid a hand at the small of her back, bending her well over for more throwings. “Get rid of it, then I’ll take you inside for some strong black coffee, like they do in the movies.” The sun, on its way down, showed through clouds drifting over the hills, and at her shivering I put my jacket across her shoulders.
I made coffee for everyone, and took a cup to the dining room, where Moggerhanger was sorting papers from his briefcase. Bill, having set Dismal to guard the prisoners, had done a tolerable job at clearing up. The Chippendales, one on three legs, were out of the fireplace, and the Staffordshire pot dogs (minus heads) languished on the shelf. The cabinet of precious china stood upright, cups back on hooks but every second one missing. A bookcase without its glass housed the racing almanacks, and the Landseer, neatly patched with sellotape, hung on the wall. Everything else had been swept up and placed in two large buckets on the terrace. “All ready,” Bill grinned, putting his jacket back on, “for the CO’s inspection.”