I grabbed Razzy’s pink bedside telephone as it rang at seven-thirty in the morning.
‘Hello, angel face–’
‘Grimsdyke? Spratt here.’
‘Oh, good morning, sir. Thank you for a very charming dinner–’
‘Anything likely to keep you in your practice this afternoon?’
I thought quickly, for that hour of the morning.
‘I’ve a couple of routine diabetics to see–’
‘Presumably they can wait until the evening. I wish you to accompany me to the Zoo.’
‘The Zoo, sir?’
‘You heard perfectly well what I said.’
The old boy struck me as rather bad-tempered.
‘Owing to her performance yesterday the Bishop’s lady professes herself too ill to take her children, who have been screaming their blasted heads off all night at the prospect of being disappointed. The Bishop apparently can’t be seen in public anywhere on Sundays. Or so he tells me. My wife therefore thinks that I should play the nursemaid.’
I supposed that morning even Sir Lancelot hadn’t the courage to refuse.
‘I would much appreciate it if you would come to give me moral support, Grimsdyke.’
‘As a matter of fact, sir,’ I hedged, ‘it might all be rather difficult–’
‘Kindly be at my house at two o’clock sharp,’ said Sir Lancelot, and rang off.
This didn’t leave much alternative to telephoning Ophelia about eleven and scrubbing the tea. She didn’t seem broken hearted. In fact, she giggled a good bit and made a rather rude joke about the baboons. Then it started pouring with rain and the wind turned raw enough to give the penguins frostbite, so on the whole it was a pretty miserable Grimsdyke who drove down Oxford Street again that afternoon.
Sir Lancelot was already at the front door, dressed in a knickerbocker suit and a deerstalker hat, which I supposed he thought the correct costume for visiting Zoos.
‘I was wondering if you were going to funk the whole outing,’ he greeted me. ‘I shouldn’t have blamed you. I only wish I had the nerve to do so myself. Now I suppose “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”. I shall summon the brats.’
A few minutes later I was able to make a closer inspection of the Bishop’s two youngest.
Hilda was a pale thin girl suffering from crooked eyes and crooked teeth, both of which were undergoing rather ostentatious clinical correction. Randolph was short and dark, with a nasty scowl and a general air of wanting to go and blow something up. I was rather at a loss to open the conversation, because I’m never at my best with children. I don’t think Sir Lancelot was either, but he always solved the problem simply by refusing to admit they existed, and treating anyone past the age of weaning just like another adult.
‘You children will kindly jump into the back of my car and we can get started,’ he commanded. ‘If either of you feels the slightest inclination to vomit you are to inform me at once.’
‘So kind of you to take them, my dear Lancelot.’ The Bishop appeared in the doorway. ‘My poor wife is still far from herself. It is turning into some form of migraine, I fear. Most distressing. But it would be such a shame to disappoint the little darlings, wouldn’t it? Now if you’ll excuse me, I shall get back to the fire. The weather is extremely treacherous these winter days, don’t you think?’
We left, Sir Lancelot slamming all the car doors in turn.
‘How I am to bring myself to spend three whole weeks under the same roof as that feller without developing acute paranoid schizophrenia is totally beyond my comprehension,’ he exploded, pressing a button to put the children out of earshot behind the glass partition of his Rolls. ‘Not content with his wife making a first-class exhibition of herself in front of my guests yesterday evening, he ruins my breakfast this morning by describing minutely all his symptoms during the night. “I never closed my eyes for a second”, he said. And I could hear him snoring his head off till the milk arrived.’
‘I suppose even clerics are a bit easy with the Ninth Commandment when it comes to telling their doctors how little they sleep,’ I suggested.
The surgeon snorted. ‘I don’t want so much as a word about him in my biography, understand? My own family is bad enough, but Maud’s is the ruddy limit.’
He blew the horn as he narrowly missed turning a cyclist into an orthopaedic case in the middle of the Marylebone Road.
‘Perhaps I should have informed you about my relations a little more fully,’ Sir Lancelot continued in a calmer voice, as we nosed into Regent’s Park. ‘I am one of five brothers, none of whom has been on speaking terms since the measles. Two I should prefer not to mention. Of the others, my youngest brother George ran away to sea at an early age after a misunderstanding with the Vicar over the choir funds. Though I am glad to say he has subsequently redeemed himself to some measure by becoming – Damnation! It’s starting to snow.’
‘Perhaps we should put it off till next week?’ I suggested. There was still time to hold Ophelia’s hand over the teacakes.
‘Certainly not. I refuse to have next Sunday utterly ruined as well. Now come along you children,’ commanded Sir Lancelot, lowering the partition as we drew up before the Zoo gates. ‘Button your coats and blow your noses and we’ll be off.’
We stepped out of the car.
The snow was settling on Sir Lancelot’s Ulster and started to run down my neck in that nasty mocking way it has. It had just struck me that nobody else could possibly be so idiotic to visit the Zoo on an afternoon like that, when I noticed a chap waiting by the turnstile. He was a small, seedy-looking fellow in an old mackintosh and a bowler, with a floppy moustache and gold-rimmed glasses and carrying an attaché case. Just as we formed up behind him I was a bit startled to see him give a little jump and start retreating backwards down the pavement.
‘After you, my dear sir, after you,’ boomed Sir Lancelot.
The little man hesitated a moment, then chucked some silver at the gateman and clicked rapidly inside.
‘We seemed to have rather staggered the other visitor,’ I remarked, as we followed.
‘And can’t you believe it?’ replied Sir Lancelot shortly. ‘Now, you two – what do you want to look at first? Eh? Damnation! Didn’t you go before you left home? Grimsdyke!’
‘Sir?’
‘You take charge of that side of the operations. As both these infants seem to be suffering from congenital hypoplasia of the bladder, I shall attempt to seek refuge from the elements in that kiosk until their symptoms are relieved.’
When we got back Sir Lancelot was shivering, and Randolph announced he wanted a ride on an elephant.
‘I doubt very much if you’ll find an elephant plying for hire this afternoon,’ his uncle told him loftily. ‘I am afraid you will have to content yourself with merely observing one of the creatures through the – in the name of heaven, Grimsdyke! Can’t you control him?’
The little horror let out a scream and started pummelling Sir Lancelot’s legs with his fists.
‘You, girl!’ he roared. ‘Don’t just stand there. You’re his big sister. Try and shut him up.’
Hilda pouted. ‘He’s been promised a ride on an elephant since his birthday.’
‘You can’t expect me to produce elephants out of a hat, you ugly little moron.’
‘I’ll tell my Mummy you called me that.’
‘All right, all right! I’ll see if I can find a ruddy elephant. In heaven’s name, detach this child from my overcoat.’
I obliged, by exerting surgical traction on his ear.
‘Now let us go and look at the monkeys.’
‘I don’t want to see any monkeys,’ announced the girl. ‘I want an ice-cream.’
‘Good God!’ Sir Lancelot wiped the snow from his face. ‘Ice cream!’
I had the bright idea of settling for a few bars of chocolate, and slipped all my loose change into a convenient slot-machine. This shut up the brats until we reached the monkey-house, which at least was nice and warm. But you know what monkeys are. The way they were carrying on even Sir Lancelot felt the children should be moved, and as they were both laughing their heads off I fancied we might have another scene. But fortunately Sir Lancelot could be a pretty crafty opponent, even for that pair.
‘Let us now,’ he announced mysteriously. ‘Go and visit the
Equus caballus
.’
From the way the kids started jumping up and down I suppose they expected some fabulous monster, probably with two heads. They looked pretty disappointed when faced with just a couple of ordinary ponies.
‘The evolution of the horse,’ began Sir Lancelot, before they had time to complain, ‘which developed from a small four-toed Eocene mammal, is both interesting and instructive.’
He then gave a short zoological lecture stuffed with Latin, which silenced them completely.
Sir Lancelot had only got as far as the
Mesohippus
when an odd movement caught my eye at the end of the pony house. It was the little chap in the bowler peeping at us round the corner.
‘Feller’s probably mad,’ grunted the surgeon when I mentioned this. ‘Though it’s a strange thing, Grimsdyke – I could swear I’ve seen him somewhere before.’
‘Probably one of your patients, sir?’
He shook his head. ‘I never forget an abdomen or a face. However, we have more than madmen to worry about. Now, you two children, we shall go and inspect the
Mus Rattus
.’
As we struggled down the Elephant Walk in driving snow towards the rodent house, I was a bit surprised to hear Sir Lancelot give a laugh.
‘Talking of faces, I’ve just remembered who the hairy baboon reminds me of. My brother George – the one who ran away to sea.’
The snow down my neck had reached my twelfth thoracic vertebra, so I could only rise to a polite murmur about imagining it on the bridge with a peaked cap and a telescope in a hurricane.
‘I can assure you my brother George has not suffered the slightest discomfort from the elements for years, except when he has forgotten his umbrella. He has an extremely agreeable office in the City, where he has risen to be Marine Superintendent of the Capricorn Shipping Line.’
I gave a start.
‘The Capricorn Line, sir?’
But before I could say any more Sir Lancelot gripped my arm.
‘Look at that! The feller in the bowler again.’
He was wiping snow from one of those big plans of the Zoo they put up here and there. With a little shriek, he shot out of sight behind the aviary.
‘I told you he was insane,’ snorted Sir Lancelot.
‘He certainly seems to be behaving rather oddly.’
‘So are we, being here at all in this weather. Now children, here is our next exhibit.’
‘What a swizz,’ complained Hilda, ‘they’re only rats.’
‘I assure you, young lady, that the dental structure of the rat is utterly fascinating.’
‘I want to see the lions,’ grumbled Randolph.
‘
Panthera leo
by all means. I believe they are kept over here.’
We pitched into the snow again. We were all four soaked to the skin, but I myself was glowing inside like a blast furnace. I’d had a terrific idea about Sir Lancelot’s brother, and I was just wondering how to work it out when there was that damn little man again, nipping round the antelopes and shooting into the lion house.
‘Grimsdyke!’
Sir Lancelot stopped.
‘Sir?’
‘I’m inclined to think there is more in this bowler-hatted feller than meets the eye.’
‘He may simply be rather fond of animals, sir?’
‘H’m. We shall nevertheless investigate. Now you two children.’ He glared at them. ‘Keep close behind me, and if you make so much as a squeak I’ll chuck you in the bear pit.’
We crept through the snow to the door of the lion house. We peeped inside. There was the little man with his attaché case open, throwing chunks of meat to a bunch of highly appreciative carnivores behind the bars.
‘By George!’ Sir Lancelot hissed in my ear. ‘Now I know who the feller reminds me of. Crippen!’
‘What, Crippen the murderer, sir?’
‘Of course Crippen the murderer! He’s exactly the same type – meek little man in a stiff collar and glasses, and as dangerous as hell. Good God, Grimsdyke! We’re witnessing the crime of the century.’
I didn’t quite follow all this.
‘Don’t be dense, boy! You chop up your wife, and what do you do with her? Why – feed her to the lions in the Zoo, of course!’
‘But he may just be having a bit of fun, like people with monkey nuts–’
‘Hi, there! You!’
I was a bit alarmed as Sir Lancelot strode into the lion house.
‘Here, I say!’ I exclaimed. ‘Hold on, sir–’
I was even more alarmed when the Crippen chap gave a yell, chucked the last of the meat through the bars, and made for the far door with the senior surgeon of St Swithin’s in pursuit.
‘Stop that man!’ shouted Sir Lancelot. ‘Stop him, I say!’
I stood in the snow. I wondered what to do. Sir Lancelot chased the chap round the penguins, while the children jumped up and down in delight. They hadn’t had such fun since a visiting curate got caught in the motor-mower.
The little man dived for one of those revolving iron exit gates, with Sir Lancelot close behind. I grabbed the children’s chocolate-plastered gloves and followed. I must say, I felt pretty worried. Sir Lancelot was making an absolutely first class ruddy fool of himself. Distinguished surgical gents simply can’t go round London chasing tender-hearted little men who feel the lions need a bit of fattening up. And when I got the brats outside, there was Sir Lancelot holding his quarry by the macintosh collar, and probably committing all sorts of actionable assault.
‘All right, guv’nor,’ the little man kept repeating. ‘I’ll come quiet. It’s a fair cop all right, and I shouldn’t never have done it.’
‘Good Lord!’ I exclaimed, a bit horrified. ‘Then he really is a–’
‘Fetch a constable,’ commanded Sir Lancelot. ‘Careful what you say, you villain. Any statement you make I shall reduce to writing and produce in evidence at your trial.’
‘Oh, Gawd!’
I found a policeman. He looked about sixteen, and approached with a sort of air I’d worn myself when nabbed by Sister for an awkward case in Casualty.