Mrs Pargeter 05; Mrs Pargeter’s Plot

Mrs Pargeter was affronted by the idea. “Oh no. Lady Entwistle’s got more money than sense. Keeps complaining she doesn’t know what to do with the stuff.”

“Sounds a perfect mark for an unscrupulous conman…”

“Exactly. That’s the aim of the exercise. Lady Entwistle is a real sitting duck. Much younger than her late husband, needless to say. Oh no, she was a bimbo before the word was invented. And she’s dead common.” A smile crept over Mrs Pargeter’s generous features as she came up with the perfect background detail. “Yes,” she said, “her husband got knighted in Harold Wilson’s Resignation Honours List, that’s it.”

Truffler chuckled. “Well, you just be careful. Bloke you’re up against may have a veneer of civilization, but deep down he’s a real nasty mean villain.”

“Don’t worry,” said Mrs Pargeter. “I’ve dealt with a good few of them in my time.”

? Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ?

Nineteen

The foyer of Greene’s Hotel was a miracle of understated elegance. An eighteenth- century French chandelier spread beneficent light over antique oak furniture and delicate glassware. As Mrs Pargeter came out of the lift into this paradigm of grace, Hedgeclipper Clinton was emerging from his office with a piece of paper and a puzzled expression. On his shoulder, Erasmus chattered excitedly. “Now what on earth can this mean?” said the manager, almost to himself.

“Problem?” asked Mrs Pargeter.

“Well, I don’t really know. I’ve just received this rather bizarre fax…”

He held the sheet across to her. There was no originating address or fax number, but across the top was a logo of a circular smiley face. Beneath this were the words: INSTAQUIP – THE PERFECT JOKE FOR EVERY OCCASION.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs Pargeter, thinking back to her recent conversation with Truffler Mason. “Oh dear.”

“What’s up?”

“Well, I’m not sure, but… just let me read it.”

With foreboding, her eyes reverted to the page. “How many lightbulbs does it take to change a man?” she read.

Her mind framed yet another ‘Oh dear’ as she discovered the answer. “It depends whether the power’s on or not.”

There seemed little doubt about the fax’s provenance. The telltale signs were all there – a joke, or rather the structure of a joke, clearly the work of someone to whom jokes did not come instinctively. In fact, it read like an early effort of a student whose first language was not humour.

“Hedgeclipper,” Mrs Pargeter said gently, “you remember Fossilface O’Donahue?”

The memory was so strong that the manager didn’t even notice her use of his forbidden nickname. “I’m hardly likely to forget him in a hurry, am I? You don’t on the whole forget people who burst into your office, overpower you and tie you up, do you?”

“No. I gather you and he worked together some time back… when you both were involved in business dealings with my husband?”

“I wouldn’t say we ‘worked together’. We saw each other from time to time, but our relationship was not close. In fact, we hated the sight of each other. That bastard Fossilface bloody nearly got me killed, you know.”

“Really? How was that?”

“The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, that back in those days I had a nickname. Hedgeclipper. I think you’re probably aware of it.” Mrs Pargeter graciously inclined her head. “Yes, well, the fact is that I had that nickname for a reason. When I was working for your late husband, I often used to use hedgeclippers to… erm…” He seemed to be having difficulty in finishing his sentence.

Mrs Pargeter helped him out. “To prune hedges and that kind of thing?”

“And that kind of thing, yes,” he agreed, though in a manner that suggested his point had not been entirely clarified.

“I remember,” Mrs Pargeter went on, “you once came out and did all the front privet at our big house in Chigwell, didn’t you?”

“Yes, when I was lying low after that job in Tooting Bee and –”

“When you were having a well-earned rest,” Mrs Pargeter corrected him smoothly.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Hedgeclipper Clinton grimaced, once again having difficulty in coming up with the right formula of words. “Erm, well, what happened was… on one occasion I was about to set out on a job for your husband, which was going to involve my using the hedgeclippers in… er, a less horticultural context. The fact is, Mrs Pargeter, that though your husband had a lifelong abhorrence of violence…”

“Oh certainly,” the wide-eyed widow confirmed. “He was the gentlest of men. Would never knowingly have hurt a fly.”

“No, exactly. Not knowingly. And he always had remarkable control over precisely what he did and didn’t know, I found.”

“Yes.”

“I mean, on this occasion I’m talking about, I was going out with my Hedgeclippers to… well, not to beat about the bush –”

“To prune the bush, perhaps?” Mrs Pargeter suggested meekly.

“Not that either, in fact. No, I was to be there, with my hedgeclippers, to, as it were, prune the aspirations of our opponents. They were a somewhat ungentlemanly band of jewel thieves, and I was to be present at the encounter… to make them see things your late husband’s way… and – though of course I didn’t make a habit of such behaviour – I was even prepared to use violence if it became necessary…”

“Though I’m sure that was one part of the arrangement my husband didn’t know about.”

“No, I have no doubt he was very careful not to know about that part of the arrangement. Anyway, from the point of view of our side, my presence was very important. Our opponents were known to be armed with baseball bats, and there’s nothing so dispiriting to the malicious wielder of a baseball bat than to have it cut off at the handle by a judiciously manoeuvred set of hedgeclippers.”

“Yes.” Mrs Pargeter was thoughtful for a moment. “They must have been very powerful hedgeclippers you were using. I mean, cutting through the handle of a baseball bat is rather different from snipping off an unruly twig of privet.”

“That is certainly true, Mrs Pargeter. Erm, perhaps what we have here is a problem of nomenclature. I was nicknamed ‘Hedgeclipper’ because I did start my career by using exclusively hedgeclippers. The fact is that, by the stage in my career that we’re talking about, I had enlarged my repertoire of equipment. And though I still refer to the instrument as ‘hedgeclippers’, by then what I was actually using was… a chainsaw.”

“Oh.”

“A rather powerful, large, petrol-driven chainsaw…”

“Ah.”

“And it was my chainsaw that Fossilface O’Donahue sabotaged.”

“Oh dear. How did he do it?”

“Unbeknownst to me, he had emptied the petrol tank. With the unfortunate result that, when the tone of our meeting started to sour and, seeing eight men armed with baseball bats advancing on me, I pulled the ripcord to start my hedgeclippers…”

“… or chainsaw…”

“Or chainsaw, yes… nothing happened. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say what did happen was not what I had planned to happen… or indeed wished to happen.” He winced with recollected pain. “Not one of the happiest days of my life, Mrs Pargeter.”

“No, I can believe it. So,” she continued, piecing the scenario together, “the wrong that Fossilface O’Donahue did you concerns fuel, or power?”

“Yes,” Hedgeclipper Clinton concurred.