Free The Mortdecai Trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli

honour a diplomatic
laissez-passer
in your name and on a temporary basis. There seems to be no intention to accredit you to the British Embassy in Washington or to any Legation or Consulate, and our
vis-à-vis
in your Foreign Office seems to know nothing about you. I may say we have received the impression that he cares less. Would you perhaps like to comment on this situation?’
    ‘Nope,’ I replied.
    This seemed to please him. He changed to another pen and stirred the folder about a bit more.
    ‘Mr Mortdecai, you will appreciate that I have to enter in my report the purpose of your visit to the United States.’
    ‘I am to deliver a valuable antique motor car under diplomatic seal,’ I said, ‘and I hope to do a little sightseeing in the South and West. I am very interested in the Old West,’ I added defiantly, smugly conscious of a card up my sleeve.
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said politely, ‘I read your article on “Nineteenth Century British Travellers to the American Frontier.” It was very very fascinating.’
    There was a distinct draft up my sleeve where the card had been, and a nasty feeling that someone had been doing a little research into C. Mortdecai.
    ‘We are puzzled,’ he went on, ‘that anyone should want to seal diplomatically an empty automobile. I take it that it will, in fact, be empty, Mr Mortdecai?’
    ‘It will contain my personal effects; viz., one case of gents’ natty suitings, one ditto of costly haberdashery, a canvas bag of books to suit every mood – none of them very obscene – and a supply of cigarettes and old Scotch whisky. I shall be happy to pay duty on the last if you prefer.’
    ‘Mr Mortdecai, if we accept your diplomatic status’ – did he linger a moment at that point? – ‘we shall of course respect itfully. But we have, as you know, this theoretical right to declare you
persona non grata
; although we exercise it very rarely toward representatives of your country.’
    ‘Yes,’ I babbled, ‘old Guy slipped through all right, didn’t he?’
    He pricked his ears; I bit my tongue.
    ‘Did you know Mr Burgess well?’ he asked, inspecting his pen closely for defects in its manufacture.
    ‘No no no,’ I cried, ‘no no no no no. Hardly ever met the feller. Probably had a jar of sherbet with him once in a while: I mean, you couldn’t live in the same city with Guy Burgess and not find yourself in the same bar sometimes, could you? Matter of statistics, I mean.’
    He opened the folder and read a few lines, raising one eyebrow in a disturbing way.
    ‘Have you ever been a member of the Communist or Anarchist parties, Mr Mortdecai?’
    ‘Good Lord no!’ I cried gaily, ‘filthy capitalist, me. Grind the workers’ faces, I say.’
    ‘When you were at school?’ he prompted gently.
    ‘Oh. Well, yes, I think I did take the Red side in the debating society at school once or twice. But in the Lower Sixth we all got either religion or Communism – it goes with acne you know. Vanishes as soon as you have proper sexual intercourse.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. I suddenly saw that he had acne. Strike two, as I believe they say over there. And how on earth had they dredged up all this dirt about me in a couple of days? A more unnerving thought:
had
it only been dredged in the last couple of days? The folder looked fat and well-handled as a Welsh barmaid. I wanted to go to the lavatory.
    The silence went on and on. I lit a cigarette to show how unperturbed I was but he was ready for that one, too. He pressed a button and told his secretary to ask the janitor for an ashtray. When she brought it she turned the air conditioner up as well. Strike three. My turn to pitch.
    ‘Colonel,’ I said crisply, ‘suppose I give you my word of honour as a nobleman’ –
that
was a spitball – ‘that I am totally uninterested in politics and that my mission has nothing to do with drugs, contraband, currency, white slavery, perversion or the Mafia, but that it does concern the