Xolotl Strikes! Read online

  Title Page

  XOLOTL STRIKES!

  A Hector Mortlake Adventure

  William Stafford

  Publisher Information

  Xolotl Strikes!

  Published in 2015 by Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  The right of William Stafford to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Copyright © 2015 William Stafford

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Dedication

  For Lee

  Chapter One

  “Will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?” The allusion was lost on my man Cuthbert but he caught the gist.

  “That’s the last one, guv,” he said in the Cockney accent that betrayed his place of origin. I had to admit I was relieved to hear it, both the words and the accent that delivered them. It had been a long day giving interviews to half the population of New York City, it seemed, who would then scurry away to file their copy so that the other half could read all about it. By ‘it’ I mean me and my new book, which was going down something of a storm in the colonies - if I may call them that still; I suppose I may not.

  I loosened my starched collar. “Dinner then?”

  “It’s all arranged, guv. I thought you might like it up in your room,” and then he added with a wink, “and the dinner and all.”

  I reddened. Even though we were alone in the ballroom of the Grand Central Hotel, I could not have suggestive remarks of that nature out in the open.

  “I am famished,” I had to own. “While I dine, you may run my bath.”

  “Hurrah!”

  “And then, while I bathe, you may run out for the evening editions. Some of the interviews I gave this morning might have appeared in print.”

  Cuthbert’s handsome face fell. Clearly, he had envisioned a more participatory role in my bath time. With shoulders slumped in a display of disappointment, he went to summon the lift, or ‘elevator’ as the natives call it. Well, there would be none of that while I was in town. I regard myself as something of an ambassador for the English language. Since winning their independence, the Americans have lapsed in their adherence to the mother tongue. Sometimes, a fellow would be forgiven for thinking they were making it up as they went along.

  We rode up to the penthouse suite - I had insisted on the best rooms the establishment had to offer and to my surprise, my publisher had readily agreed. I had expected a bit of a scramble and had prepared my argument, unnecessarily as it turned out. “Listen, old duck,” I had rehearsed in my mind, “I’ve made you a pretty penny with my Water Nymph story and it’s only fitting that I should be couched in luxury so I may dream up another money-spinner.”

  But, as I have intimated, the old duck was acquiescent to a fault. It seemed he couldn’t get me out of the country fast enough.

  The cruise liner across the Atlantic had been a tedious affair. Cuthbert and I had barely surfaced from our cabin, tossed as we were by the choppy waters. And then, last night, we docked, catching only a glimpse of that enormous statue the Frenchies had donated a while back. A terrifying woman with blank eyes and a pointed crown, holding aloft a torch. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I would have sent it back sharpish - the bally thing had already turned a lurid shade of green. What a liberty!

  And then today, after an abominable breakfast of pancakes and syrup (I ask you!) it had been an interminable round of interviews and the taking of photographs. After a while, all the questions began to blur into one and I could hear my own answers sounding increasingly flat, the humour draining out of them like air from a puncture. I perked up a little after luncheon, during an all-too-brief half-hour’s respite from interrogation, enjoying Cuthbert’s ‘banana surprise’.

  But now, with the dinner gong long returned to silence, I was in need of something more fortifying. It can be very draining, you know, talking about oneself all the livelong. I put paid to what the locals call a foot-long while Cuthbert filled the tub in the adjacent room.

  “I’ll just pop out then, shall I?” my valet jerked his thumb toward the door that led to the corridor and the rest of the United States beyond. “Unless, you need me to give you a hand...”

  I shook my head, then, dabbing at the crumbs around my mouth with a napkin, I instructed him not to dawdle or get distracted and to return forthwith. I might never say so to his lovely face but every time he leaves my sight, I feel a pang of anguish that I shall never set eyes on him again. We have been through so much together although a year ago we were unacquainted - if you want to know about that, I suppose you will have to invest in a copy of the book I was expending a great deal of time and energy on promoting.

  And, I suppose, there is something of insecurity and jealousy in my thinking. I am terrified that he will lose interest in me - I am an older man of thirty to his twenty-two summers. I do not wish to consider a time when I might have to continue alone without Cuthbert working under me.

  “Sir...” he lingered under the lintel, “you won’t pull the plug, will you, sir?”

  “And why not?”

  “I was thinking I should like to get in too, sir. After you, of course.”

  “Very well.”

  “I’d best pop off then, sir.”

  “I think you better had.”

  He smiled, that lopsided, irresistible smile and brought me to the brink of submission to his wishes and allowing him to go to work on me with the loofah. Then with a wink that was altogether inappropriate, he pulled the door after him and was gone.

  I was alone - save for the memory of my nanny’s voice, warning me of the perils of submersion so soon after a repast, but I dismissed that ghost as one might an errant wisp of cigar smoke, with a wave of my hand.

  I made my way into the bathroom. The tiled floor was cold beneath my feet as I wriggled out of my tweeds and laid them on the chair Cuthbert had so thoughtfully provided. I lowered myself into the steaming water - the temperature would have satisfied Goldilocks - and tried to find something on which to fix my imagination rather than a recurrence of the horrors that had befallen my fellow travellers and I during our ill-fated sojourn at the Gasthaus du Lac.

  But there was no scaly claw to emerge from beneath the soapy suds. It seems that by writing out the story, I had exorcised the demon from my mind. Even so, I elected to recite out loud several of the ditties Nanny had taught me back in the nursery days.

  I lay back against the porcelain. The room, though elegantly appointed, was small and already dripping with condensation. The mirror opposite was clouded and the walls, tiled to match the floor, were wet and shrouded in mist.

  My rendition about the old man and his nick-nack paddywack lost some of its gusto as the bathwater worked its soothing properties on my limbs. I dipped a flannel in the depths between my knees and then laid it flat across my face. In the damp and darkness I was able to imagine old Morpheus himself beckoning me to him for an embrace.

  The bathroom disappeared and then reappeared with a jolt, as a sudden noise made me sit bolt upright. The flannel fell from my face with a splash.

  “Hello?” I called
out, not liking the tremolo in my voice for it betrayed the fear within me.

  Answer came there none. I listened, my ears pricked like those of any watchdog, but there was no sequel. Out in the suite, usurped silence resumed its reign.

  I pulled myself to my feet and stepped from the tub. I cinched a towel of luxurious cotton around my waist and padded to the door.

  I decided against calling out again, even to ask Cuthbert if he was present. I opted instead for listening.

  How quickly I began to shiver! I ascribe this to the sudden change in temperature rather than any hint of terror, I would have you understand. But whether you believe that or not, it soon became apparent that I could not stand there in perpetuity for I should catch my death from pneumonia or exposure or some such.

  Steeling myself, I kept one hand on the knot of my towel and with the other reached for the knob, which I twisted before pushing the door open just wide enough for me to intrude my damned fool head into the room beyond.

  All was in order - or so it seemed to my eyes, which darted around to all corners, rapidly taking in the scene. There was no sign of anyone present and the external door was as closed as it was the last I saw it. Encouraged, I pushed the door further and stepped out of the bathroom.

  I saw then the source of the noise but not the cause. The table on which I had laid my notebooks, ink and all, had been quite overturned. The blue-black liquid was seeping into the rug. I could picture my publisher’s face draining of colour just as the bottle was giving up its contents. The upset would upset him, right enough.

  I did my best to minimise the spillage, righting the bottle and placing sheets of paper on the puddle to soak up as much as was possible. As for the table, that would have to wait until Cuthbert’s return. I was not about to stoop to manual labour when I keep a hired hand to do all my heavy lifting.

  Who had done this? I could not help asking myself. The most cursory glance informed me the windows were shut and locked. Either, my brain suggested, the table flipped itself A over T or... or the table-flipper is still present!

  I froze - well, apart from the chattering of my teeth and every hair on my body stirring because I was freezing - and moved nothing but my eyes.

  They lit upon the toes of a pair of shoes poking out from under the hem of a long and heavy curtain. There was the culprit! He must have believed the suite to be empty and had begun to ransack the place - for what I do not know - and then he heard me nick-nacking and paddy-wacking in the tub and had concealed himself at once.

  The blighter!

  My eyes performed another quick tour of the room, seeking out something - anything! - I might use to defend myself. On the mantelpiece, a pair of silver candlesticks... One of those would do the trick. I stole across the room, my free hand outstretched to close around the shining shaft.

  With the weapon secured, I made my way across the carpet toward the curtain, taking care not to breathe audibly. I did not want the fellow to hear my approach. The element of surprise would work in my favour, I was sure of it.

  In front of the curtain, I was faced with a dilemma. I needed one hand to wield the candlestick. The other was securing the bath towel around my hips. It was this latter I would have to use to draw back the curtain and uncover the miscreant; I would just have to trust the knot would hold.

  I relinquished my handful of towel and, trembling more than I would have liked, reached for the curtain’s edge.

  “Ah-hah!” I cried, giving it one good yank. I swung the candlestick at where I imagined the intruder’s head to be only to be thrown off-balance when my blow met nothing but empty air.

  The fellow - a midget! - was at my feet, clawing and gibbering. I raised the candlestick aloft, preparing to bring it down resoundingly on the crown of his broad, flat cap, when behind me the door to the suite opened and Cuthbert stepped in, whistling a happy tune. The melody was abruptly curtailed and his armful of newspapers dropped to the floor as soon as he took in the sight of me, standing naked over a kneeling figure, with a candlestick ready to strike.

  “Oo-er,” he said.

  “Cuthbert!”

  The split second of distraction was all the interloper needed to effect his escape. He rushed at me headlong, winding me and sending me to my backside. Cuthbert, speeding to my aid, was unable to trap the fellow who was off, out into the corridor and long gone before I had found my feet and caught my breath.

  “Who was that then?” Cuthbert’s eyebrow was raised in suspicion.

  “I don’t bloody know,” I grumbled.

  “The minute my back’s turned...”

  “I honestly have no idea!” I protested.

  Cuthbert chuckled. “Only pulling your leg, guv.” He surveyed the disarray. “Oh, dear. You have made a mess between you.”

  “I can assure you the mess is all his and not mine!”

  Cuthbert chuckled again. “I think you ought to get dressed, sir, if you wants me to keep focussed. Now, I’ll straighten up this little lot while you go and get ready. Then I’ll have time to hop in the tub before we set off.”

  “Off?” I queried. “Off where?” I had been looking forward to a quiet evening in. The last thing I wanted was an excursion or a reason to have intercourse with Americans.

  “Up the Johnson,” he said, setting the overturned table aright with barely an effort. The sleeves of his tailcoat swelled with his biceps.

  “Up the what?”

  “The museum. You’re giving a talk, remember?”

  “I am?”

  “Yes! About your short stories.”

  “What short stories?”

  “The ones you collected during our last little adventure.”

  “Oh, those short stories. What on Earth am I supposed to say?”

  “I dunno, sir. Something about how you collected them. Setting them to paper for posterity. Making a record of the spoken word, sort of thing, I expect. That’s what it said in the letter of invitation.”

  “What blasted letter of invitation?”

  “It’s right here, sir, on the t-”

  But the letter of which Cuthbert spoke was nowhere to be found. We searched every inch of that suite most thoroughly until we both arrived at the same, inevitable conclusion.

  The intruder!

  The intruder had swiped my letter of invitation!

  * * *

  I was unable to furnish the hotel manager with a description of the thief beyond the broadness and flatness of his cap and the general, shapeless quality of his dark brown overcoat. Cuthbert too was equally useless. With a wink to me in the manager’s office, he confessed his gaze had been elsewhere and I felt my cheeks flush red and hot, and a lump came to my throat.

  The hotel manager - an oleaginous cove by the name of Jenkins - proved less than helpful.

  “How can this be?” I was on the verge of losing my temper and had raised my voice accordingly. “How can a person or persons unknown penetrate a man’s private sanctum in this manner?”

  Jenkins’s lips, like a brace of buttered slugs, pursed. The inference I took from that was that I had allowed the so-called intruder access to my quarters and now that my guest had purloined something, I was suddenly all outrage and moral indignation. Those puckered lips and the upwards curve of an eyebrow seemed to me to intimate that I somehow deserved to have been taken in by the stranger I had taken in. After all, Mr Mortlake, here at the Grand Central Hotel we are not running a molly house.

  I had never been so offended, albeit in my imagination. As ever, ’twas Cuthbert who sprang to my rescue.

  “Pardon me, Mr Mortlake sir,” my valiant valet went as far as to tug at his forelock. “Only I’ve just been having a confab with the gals what cleans the rooms. And one of ’em - Colleen, she said her name was - quite the prettiest young Irish lass I ever did see - she
said she thought she was in shtuck on account of misplacing her pass key and she was driven to distraction looking everywhere for it. And then there it was, sir, in her apron pocket when she was sure she must have been checked in there twenty times.”

  Jenkins harrumphed as if to say he’d be having words with Colleen the chambermaid with a view to expediting her dismissal. Cuthbert too must have deciphered the sound in the very same way because the continuation of his account had a discernible note of urgency.

  “Only you mustn’t go blaming the lass; lawks, no, you shouldn’t! I questioned her further and she can recall being jostled by a strange fellow. Small he was, she said, careered into her at the top of the stairs to the penthouse. And then, not fifteen minutes later, blowed if she wasn’t in a collision with the self-same fellow again, only he was in even more of a hurry this time. She would have given him a piece of her mind but he was off, sir, like a bloomin’ greyhound or whippet, sir.”

  “Hmm,” said Jenkins. “But was she able to describe this fellow so that I might alert my staff to be vigilant?”

  “Well, like I say, she says he was small in stature and wearing a flat cap, round and soft like a cowpat, and a brown overcoat that looked a few sizes too big for him.”

  “It’s evidently our man!” I concluded, awarding Jenkins a smug smile of triumph.

  “Hmm,” Jenkins repeated. He remained unconvinced. At my behest, Cuthbert slipped the man a ten-dollar bill, which he deftly transported to his pocket in a feat of prestidigitation. “Very well,” he said. “It’s not the maid’s fault. There is no harm done.”

  “Bless you, sir,” grinned Cuthbert. However, I was unsatisfied.

  “No harm done!” I echoed the manager’s words with an increase in both volume and feeling. “No harm done? The fiend has made off with my invitation to an event to the Johnsonian Museum. What’s to be done about that?”

  Jenkins - execrable cretin - had no answer to that but the ever-resourceful Cuthbert did not let me down.