Spontoon Island
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29 October 2007
| "Valentines Dazed"
by E.O. Costello, M. Mitchell Marmel, & Walter D. Reimer All characters © their respective creators (Oh, dear.) (Have you run out of coffee, Sir?) (No. I've run into a chunk of narrative that's dashed embarrassing.) (Are you worried as to who might object, Sir?) (In a manner of speaking, Lodge, yes. I shall have to be exceedingly careful. On second thoughts, Lodge, a fresh pot of coffee, if you will. The little grey cells of song and story need stimulation.) (Very good, Sir.) *****
On the way up, I made a joke about etchings, but I don't think Willow heard me at all. She had her eyes closed, and she was flagging, which was a sign of some internal debate, the subject of which I was afraid to ask. Truth be told, I was getting a little nervous, and I was having some trouble finding my key. I had knocked, but for some reason... *****
(Lodge!) (Sir?) (Where *were* you that night?) (I had other matters to attend to, Sir.) (But you didn't tell me you were going out.) (I believe, Sir, that I may have overlooked asking you for permission. I regret the oversight, Sir.) (Good heavens.) *****
...for some reason, Lodge appeared to have vanished. Anyway, as I was saying, I was attempting to put a key, which for some reason had grown to the size of a cricket bat, into the lock, which for some reason had shrunk to the size of pimento, when I felt what at first seemed to be a violent jolt of electricity coming from the mains. It turned out to be, at second thought, the fingers that were attached to Willow's paw. Willow also gave a peculiar, soft snort. Now, don't get me wrong. We anthrops speak the same language and all. Well, at least most of the time. However, most of us still retain some of the aural cues of our ancestors deep in the mists of time. One of them is the aforementioned soft snort, which coming from a doe, signifies something beyond what you hear in ordinary conversation with Inocenta de Ciervos. It took a great deal of effort to stop myself from becoming Reginald 1,000,000 B.C. An effort that was largely wasted when Willow indicated (in more modern cervine argot), that Reginald was being made the old Offer He Couldn't Refuse. It wasn't so much the look in her eyes, as the fact that she got the door open, collected me by my white tie, and dragged me inside. The next two or three minutes proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when a Minkerton's operative sets her mind on a course of action, she will take that action with great vigor, no matter what the obstacles. In this case, the minor matter of buttons. And no, this did not require whiskey or cigarettes, or the Third Degree, either. Still, I felt that that gentlebuck in me demanded that some level of the decencies be observed. "Um...Willow?" "Yes, beloved?" "Are you...I mean, dash it all, are you..." This was approximately as far as I got before I was forcibly tackled and silenced in a manner that raises a blush just thinking about it. I assumed I had the answer, and acted accordingly. *****
I really had no notion of the time, in no small measure because Willow had removed my watch and tossed it somewhere. It took quite a bit for the room to stop spinning and settle into place. Mark you, the room was spinning in a way that I had never experienced before, and this is from a chap who's been drunk on at least four continents. Unlike all the previous times, this spinning was accompanied by glorious calliope-type music. The feeling was exactly like being on some wonderful, private merry-go-round. I was sorry when the tune stopped. The first sensation that I wasn't at the fairgrounds anymore was a soft lick on my nose, which tickled. I blinked around to find a pair of eyes a few inches from mine, a pair of lips murmuring something a few inches from my ears, and a pair of paws that had taken possession and were in no mood to relinquish what they had conquered. To be honest, I wasn't listening to what she was saying. The calliope had started up anew, and the lights began to whirl all over again, around and around. This time, it seemed to last all night. *****
I awoke the next morning, with my head spinning. My head was clear and didn't ache, though there were spots on my back that ached dreadfully. Most alarming was the scent of deer musk. Only about half of it was mine. The awful ramifications set my tail flagging and ears drooping when I was blindsided by a smooch and a murmured pleasantry. The donor of the smooch was Willow, who was perched on the side of the bed in a peach terrycloth robe. Judging from the way she was wearing it, that was about it, as far as wardrobe went. I think I stammered something about dreams, and felt a wave of heat all over my face. Which was pretty remarkable, as I soon discovered that my wardrobe was absent. Willow, for her part, seemed languidly aware of this fact. She decided my outfit was better, and slipped back under the sheets. I decided it would be a good time to try to settle my nerves by sticking the phiz under a faucet, and I stammered out some joke about Lodge getting a bonus while I headed off. Looking in the mirror, I saw a buck that was one part pleased, and one part alarmed. Well, the first part is not to be wondered at. I mean, a buck's a buck for a' that, as the man said, and judging from the faint echoes of merry-go-round music that were ringing in my head, I must have had a good time. The alarm came from the obvious quarters. What were others going to say? Mummy? The Sire? Good Lord, Father Merino. There was a definite air of the Old Testament about that ram that made me decidedly nervous. I remember what happened to those chaps in Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was a little more than the old "winds light to variable" routine. Somewhere in the back of the brain-pan, there was someone shaking their head and going "tsk-tsk." The voice was getting louder as the minutes ticked by, and more cold water on the antlers only dimmed the voice slightly. *****
In fine old Minkerton's style, I was cheerfully interrogated over breakfast. Willow had cleverly lulled me into a sense of security with the scones and orange juice before extracting the information as to my past love life. Now, it may come as a shock to most of you, especially those of you who remember the whole affair with the muntjac, but Reginald's little black book is, in fact, unsullied. This would seem remarkable, given the fact that I had a fairly generous-sized ration of doubloons and a keenly developed sense of fun over the years, but it's a fact. Somewhat mysteriously, over the years, assorted femmefurs that seemed to be on the verge of a voyage of discovery regarding Yours Truly would be sidetracked. I received sudden and urgent telephone calls in the most remarkable places. Once, in New Guinea, I received a message that I was urgently wanted on the telephone. Which turned out to be in Port Moresby, a day's journey away. *And* was a wrong number, at that. So in spite of the appearances produced by a vegetarian diet and plenty of exercise (and if you don't believe me, look at that drawing of me in the sand fort, back when that blasted Kitten was after me), Willow was at one with stout Crowtez’s lads, looking with a wild surmise as upon a peak in Darien with the form of Yours Truly. Well, maybe not wild surmise, perhaps that's the wrong expression. Anyway, it was dashed awkward to confess this. *****
(I beg your pardon, Sir?) (Yes, Lodge?) (It was Bullboa who first saw the Pacific, not Crowtez. The poet was in error.) (Duly noted, Lodge. Have him take 100 lines, "I shall not muck up history for the same of the rime scheme." Now, to continue.) (Very good, Sir.) *****
I tried to change the subject back to where we had been, at dinner last night. To wit, what was eating Willow. Willow looked at me sadly for a while, and then closed her eyes, thinking. I was munching on a scone when a strange voice intruded. "The only way...is to begin at the beginning. Good morning, Reggie. My name...my name is Grace Victoria Stagg." *****
Well, this was a poser, and make no mistake. The uneaten half of the scone dropped to the plate as I looked up. I mean, not much had changed, at least on the surface. It was only when I looked into Willow...well, what I thought was Willow's eyes, that I noticed a difference. She was holding her head and her body at a different angle. (What's more, she had cinched up her dressing gown and was looking much more demure.) I thought where I had heard that accent before, and then it struck me. It was a New Haven accent. Where had I last heard that kind of an accent? From my well-known acquaintance, Inspector Franklin Stagg, Spontoon Islands Constabulary. The thought flashed like a heliograph: God Almighty, I was going to have a rozzer as a sire-in-law. You must understand. I like policefurs. They are very nice chaps. Taken in moderation. However, I have been on a first name basis with far too many chaps with badges to feel entirely comfortable with the species. If this was an act, it was worthy of an Academy Award, because I'm blowed if she didn't have the accent down, and Stagg's mannerisms down. It was the eyes, though, that immediately got me. The same sad, faraway look. The coffee and breakfast got cold as I was run through a potted autobiography, from Branford, to Collegiate, to the Revolution, when she said good-bye to her mummy and sisters, to where Willow had been "born," to what she did for Minkerton's, and coming here to the Spontoons. More to the immediate point, she told me about a lady who was in bad trouble with some gangsters after her, who wanted to hurt her and her kitten. This wasn't funny. This wasn't a green-backed Penguin book. This was the real thing. My usual defense mechanism, when confronted by this kind of trouble, is to do one of two things. The first is to run like my distant ancestors, tail flagging, which is what I did in Samoa. As Willow-Grace (Grace-Willow?) looked at me at sadly, I realized that if I considered myself a bounder for last night, I'd be thrice a bounder for abandoning her by running. I simply couldn't do that. It Wasn't Done. So the second defense mechanism kicked in. I made a joke about marrying her so as not to testify against her. The voice that responded was mid-Atlantic, which told me that Willow was back. She didn't respond to my joke. At least verbally. She figured out another way to express herself. *****
Willow didn't seem at all surprised that Lodge had laid out a safari dress, as well as, ahem, some other things, and she was examining them with an amused and pleased eye. For myself, I was a bit worried. Another ancestral urge kicked in. The urge to protect one's mate. I had done it before...well, sort of. She wasn't my mate, then. But you see what I'm driving at, no? Willow, upon hearing my earnest expressed desire to help her, sighed, putting down her things. She asked me to pass over her purse, which weighed a ton. I was wondering that age-old question: what does a doe carry in her purse? I was taken aback when a blink later, there was a large, murderous pistol pointed at me. Having demonstrated this part of her professional skill, she showed me a little secret: the purse also had a steel plate in it. Aha! My guess had been right. Still, the ears drooped, as I continued to feel useless. Willow, seeing me looking at my hooves, put down her purse and sat beside me. "Listen, Reggie. A simple question: which doe would you rather have, me, or Inocenta de Ciervos?" "Good God! What a question!" I gripped the doe paw firmly, indicating that no change in choices was in the offing. The notion of switching over filled me with fear. Willow got the hint, and smiled. "Look, Reggie. There are a lot of moving parts in all of this. We've got to keep up appearances on the one paw, and sidetrack the investigation of Les by Minkerton's on the other paw." "But Willow, he's a Minkerton's...err, "op," I think you say." Willow smirked. "Bernie Phlute has, let's just say, a certain reputation in the firm. I think he's been sent here to see if he can carry out the investigation with his usual level of competence." "Which is?" "He'd need both wings, a flashlight and the entire staff of Hagstrom's to find his tail feathers." "Ah." "That's where you come in, Reggie." "Oh?" Willow took one paw in both of hers. "Reggie, I don't care what you do, but you've got to figure out a way to still keep Bernie Phlute occupied. I don't know for how much longer, but you've got to do it. And something else: take whatever steps are necessary, up to and including painting the town a few more coats." "Promise, Reggie?" I was struggling with an answer when I felt my ear being licked, and a pair of paws moving around. This was not playing fair on Willow's part, and I wanted to tell her so. But my voice was drowned out by the noise from the merry-go-round, which was spinning and going up-and-down so delightedly... *****
(Lodge?) (Sir?) (When did...errr...Grace Stagg introduce herself to you?) (Very soon after, how you put it sir, your morning merry-go-round ride. You were asleep, and she filled me in on certain details.) (Can this possibly be the truth, Lodge?) (I think, Sir, a furtive trip to the Lady Chapel at St. Anthony's would remove any doubt, Sir.) (Heaven help us.) next |