'You really mean there was an engine under the sofa? Did you see it?'
'Of course not. But I heard it all right. It made the most godawful grinding noise.'
'You mean a petrol engine?'
'No, it wasn't a petrol engine.'
'What was it then?'
'Clockwork,' she said.
'Clockwork! It's not possible! How did you know it was clockwork?'
'Because when it started to run down, he had to roll off and wind the thing up again with a handle.'
'I don't believe a word of this,' I said. 'What sort of a handle?'
'A big handle,' she said, 'like the starting handle of a motor-car and when he was winding it up it went clickety-click. That's how I knew it was clockwork. You always get that clicking noise when you wind up clockwork.'
'Jesus,' I said. 'I still don't believe it.'
'You don't know much about kings,' Yasmin said. 'Kings are different. They get very bored, therefore they are always trying to think up ways of amusing themselves. Look at that mad King of Bavaria who had a hole drilled in the middle of the seat of each chair around his dining-room table. And halfway through dinner, when all the guests were sitting there in their wonderful expensive clothes, he would turn on a secret tap and jets of water would squirt up through the holes. Very powerful jets of cold water right up their backsides. Kings are crazy.'
'Go on with the clockwork sofa,' I said. 'Was it amazing and terrific?'
Yasmin sipped her champagne and didn't answer me at once.
'Did it have the maker's name on it?' I said. 'Where can I get one?'
'I wouldn't get one,' she said.
'Why not?'
'It's not worth it. It's only a toy. It's a toy for silly kings. It has a kind of shock value that's all. When it first started up I got the shock of my life. "Hey!" I shouted. "What the hell's going on?"
' "Silence!" the King said. "Talking is forbidden!"
'There was a loud whirring noise coming from underneath the damn sofa and the thing was vibrating most terribly. And at the same time it was jogging up and down. Honestly Oswald, it was like riding a horse on the deck of a boat in a rough sea. Oh God, I thought, I'm going to be seasick. But I wasn't and after he'd wound it up a second time I began to get the hang of it. You see, it was rather like riding a horse. You had to go along with it. You had to get the rhythm.'
'So you began to enjoy it?'
'I wouldn't say that. But it does have its advantages. For one thing, you never get tired. It would be great for old people.'
'Alfonso's only thirty-three.'
'Alfonso's crazy,' Yasmin said. 'Once when he was winding up the motor, he said, "I usually have a servant doing this." Christ, I thought, the silly sod really is crazy.'
'How did you get away?'
'It wasn't easy,' Yasmin said. 'You see, with him not having to do any work except winding the thing up now and again, he never got puffed. After about an hour, I'd had enough. "Switch off," I said. "I've had enough."
' "We go on till I give the order," he said.
' "Don't be like that," I said "Come on, pack it in."
' "Nobody gives orders here except me," he said.
'Oh well, I thought. I suppose it'll have to be the hatpin.'
'Did you use it? Did you actually stick him?' I asked.
'You're damn right I did,' she said. 'It went in about two inches!'
'What happened?'
'He nearly hit the ceiling. He gave a piercing yell and bounced off on to the floor. "You stuck me!" he shrieked, clutching his backside. I was up in a flash and starting to put my clothes on and he was jumping up and down stark naked and shrieking, "You stuck me! You stuck me! How dare you do that to me!"'
'Terrific,' I said to Yasmin. 'Marvellous. Wonderful. I wish I'd seen it. Did he bleed?'
'I don't know and I don't care, but I was really fed up with him by then and I got a bit ratty and I said, "Listen to me, you, and listen carefully. Our mutual friend would have you by the balls if he ever heard about this. You raped me, you do realize that, don't you?" That shut him up. "What on earth came over you?" I said. I was getting dressed as fast as I could and stalling for time. "Whatever made you do a thing like that to me?" I shouted. I had to shout because the damn sofa was still rattling away behind me.
' "I don't know," he said. Suddenly he had become all meek and mild. When I was ready to go, I went up to him and kissed him on the cheek and said, "Let's just forget it ever happened, shall we?" At the same time, I quickly removed the sticky rubbery thing from his royal knob and marched grandly out of the room.'
'Did anyone try to stop you?' I asked.
'Not a soul.'
'Full marks,' I said. 'You did a great job. You'd better give me that notepaper.' She gave me the sheet of Palace notepaper with the signature on it and I filed it carefully away. 'Now go and pack your bags,' I said. 'We're leaving town on the next train.'
15
Within half an hour we had packed our bags and checked out of the hotel and were heading for the railway station. Paris next stop.
And so it was. We went to Paris on the night sleeper and arrived there on a sparkling June morning. We took rooms at the Ritz. 'Wherever you are,' my father used to say, 'when in doubt, stay at the Ritz.' Wise words. Yasmin came into my room to discuss strategy over an early lunch - a cold lobster for each of us and a bottle of Chablis. I had the list of priority candidates in front of me on the table.
'Whatever happens, Renoir and Monet come first,' I said. 'In that order.'
'Where do we find them?' Yasmin asked.
It is never difficult to discover the whereabouts of famous men. 'Renoir is at Essoyes,' I said. 'That's a small town about 120 miles south-west of Paris, between Champagne and Burgundy. He is now seventy-eight and I'm told he's in a wheelchair.'
'Jesus Christ, Oswald, I'm not going to feed Blister Beetle to some poor old bastard in a wheelchair!' Yasmin said.
'He'll love it,' I told her. 'There's nothing wrong with him except a bit of arthritis. He's still painting. He is easily the most celebrated painter alive today and I'll tell you another thing. No living painter in the history of art has ever received such high prices for his pictures during his lifetime as Renoir. He's a giant. In ten years' time we'll be selling his straws for a fortune.'
'Where's his wife?'
'Dead. He's a lonely old man. You'll cheer him up no end. When he sees you, he'll probably want to paint you in the nude on the spot.'
'I'd like that.'
'On the other hand, he has a model called Dedee he's absolutely mad about.'
'I'll soon fix her,' Yasmin said.
'Play your cards right and he might even give you a picture.'
'Hey, I'd like that, too.'
'Work on it,' I said.
'What about Monet?' she asked.
'He is also a lonely old man. He's seventy-nine, a year older than Renoir, and he's living the life of a recluse at Giverny. That's not far from here. Just outside Paris. Very few people visit him now. Clemenceau drops in occasionally, so I'm told, but almost no one else. You'll be a little sunbeam in his life. And another canvas perhaps? A Monet landscape? Those things are going to be worth hundreds of thousands later on. They're worth thousands already.'
The possibility of getting a picture from one or both of these great artists excited Yasmin a good deal. 'You'll be visiting lots of other painters before we're finished,' I said. 'You could form a collection.'
'That's a pretty good idea,' she said. 'Renoir, Monet, Matisse, Bonnard, Munch, Braque and all the rest of them. Yes, it's a very good idea. I must remember that.'
The lobsters were huge and delicious, with enormous claws. The Chablis was good, too - a Grand Cru Bougros. I have a passion for fine Chablis, not only for the steely-dry Grands Crus but also for some of the Premiers Crus where the fruit is a little closer to the surface. This particular Bougros was as steely as any I had ever tasted. Yasmin and I discussed strategy while we ate and dr
ank. It was my contention that no man was going to turn away a young lady who possessed the charm and the devastating beauty of Yasmin. No male, however ancient, was capable of treating her with indifference. Wherever we went I kept seeing evidence of this. Even the suave marble-faced receptionist downstairs had gone all over queer when he caught sight of Yasmin standing before him. I had been watching him closely and I had seen that famous old spark start flashing in the very centre of the pupil of each of his jet-black eyes, and then his tongue had poked out and had begun sliding over his upper lip, and his fingers had fumbled inanely with our registration forms, and at the end of it all he had given us the wrong keys. A scintillating and sex-soaked creature our Yasmin was, a kind of human Blister Beetle all on her own, and as I say, no man on earth was going to send her packing.
But none of this sexual chemistry was going to help us one bit unless the girl was able actually to present herself to the customer. Formidable housekeepers and equally formidable wives could well be a problem. My optimism, however, was based on the fact that the fellows we were after were nearly all painters or musicians or writers. They were artists. And artists are probably the most approachable people you can find. Even the very great ones are never guarded, as businessmen are, by iron-mouthed secretaries and amateur gangsters in black suits. Big businessmen and their like live in caves that can be reached only by passing through long tunnels and many rooms, with a Cerberus around every corner. Artists are loners, and more often than not they open the front door themselves when you ring the bell.
But why would Yasmin be ringing the bell in the first place?
Ah well, she was a young English girl, a student of art (or music or literature, whichever was applicable) who had such a massive admiration for the work of Monsieur Renoir or Monet or Stravinsky or whoever, that she had come all the way from England to pay homage to the great man, to say hello to him, to give him a little present and then to go away again. Nunc dimittis.
'That,' I said to Yasmin as I polished off the last succulent lobster claw - and by the way, don't you love it when you are able to draw the flesh of the claw out of the shell whole and pinky-red in one piece? There is some kind of tiny personal triumph in that. I may be childish, but I experience a similar triumph when I succeed in getting a walnut out of its shell without breaking it in two. As a matter of fact, I never approach a walnut without this particular ambition in mind. Life is more fun if you play games. But back to Yasmin. 'That,' I said to her, 'will get you invited right into the house or the studio ninety-nine times out of a hundred. With your smile and your lascivious looks, I cannot see any of these lads turning you away.'
'What about their watchdogs or their wives?'
'I think you'll get past them, too. Occasionally they may tell you the man's busy painting or writing and to come back at six o'clock. But you're always going to win in the end. Don't forget, you've travelled a long way just to pay homage. And make a point of saying you won't stay more than a few minutes.'
'Nine,' Yasmin said, grinning. 'Just nine minutes. When do we start?'
'Tomorrow,' I said. 'I shall buy a motor car this afternoon. We're going to need it for our French and European operations. And tomorrow we will drive to Essoyes and you will meet Monsieur Renoir.'
'You never waste time, do you, Oswald?'
'My darling,' I said, 'as soon as I have made a fortune I propose to spend the rest of my life wasting time. But until the money is in the bank, I shall work very hard indeed. And so must you.'
'How long do you think it will take?'
'To make our fortunes? About seven or eight years. No more. That's not such a long stretch when it means you can laze about doing nothing for ever after.'
'No,' she said, 'it isn't. And anyway, I'm rather enjoying this.'
'I know you are.'
'What I'm enjoying,' she said, 'is the thought of being ravished by all the greatest men in the world. And all the kings. It tickles my fancy.'
'Let's go out and buy a French motor car,' I said. So out we went and this time I bought a splendid little 10 hp Citroen Torpedo, a four-seater, a brand new model only just out. It cost me the equivalent of PS350 in French money and it was exactly what I wanted. Although it had no luggage compartment, there was plenty of room on the back seats for all my equipment and suitcases. It was an open tourer and had a canvas roof that could be put up in less than a minute if it started to rain. The body was dark blue, the colour of royal blood, and its top speed was an exhilarating 55 mph.
The next morning we set off for Essoyes with my travelling laboratory packed away in the back of the Citroen. We stopped at Troyes for lunch, where we ate trout from the Seine (I had two, they were so good) and drank a bottle of white vin du pays. We got to Essoyes at four in the afternoon and booked into a small hotel whose name I have forgotten. My bedroom again became my laboratory and as soon as everything had been laid out in readiness for the immediate testing and mixing and freezing of semen, Yasmin and I went out to find Monsieur Renoir. This was not difficult. The woman at the desk gave us precise instructions. A large white house, she said, on the right-hand side, three hundred metres beyond the church or some such thing.
I spoke fluent French after my year in Paris. Yasmin spoke just enough of it to get along. She had had a French governess sometime or other during her childhood and that had been a help.
We found the house without any trouble. It was a medium-sized white wooden building standing on its own in a pleasant garden. It was not, I knew, the great man's main residence. That was down south in Cagnes, but he probably found it cooler up here in the summer months.
'Good luck,' I said to Yasmin. 'I'll be waiting about a hundred yards down the road.'
She got out of the car and went towards the gates. I watched her going. She wore flat-heeled shoes and a creamy-coloured linen dress, no hat. Cool and demure, she passed through the gates and moved on up the drive swinging her arms as she went. There was a lilt in her walk, a little shadow attending her, and she looked more like a young postulant going in to see the Mother Superior than someone who was about to cause a saucy explosion within the mind and body of one of the great painters of the world.
It was a warm sunshiny evening. Sitting there in the open motor car I dozed off and did not wake up until two hours later when I found Yasmin getting into the seat beside me.
'What happened?' I said. 'Tell me quick! Was everything all right? Did you see him? Have you got the stuff?'
She had a small brown paper parcel in one hand, her purse in the other. She opened the purse, and took out the signed notepaper and the all-important rubbery thing. She handed them to me without speaking. She had a funny look on her face, a mixture of ecstasy and awe, and when I spoke to her she didn't appear to hear me. Miles away she seemed, miles and miles away.
'What's the matter?' I said. 'Why the great silence?'
She gazed straight ahead through the windscreen, not hearing me. Her eyes were very bright, her face serene, beatific almost, with a queer radiance.
'Christ, Yasmin,' I said. 'What the hell's the matter with you? You look like you've seen a vision.'
'Just get going,' she said, 'and leave me alone.'
We drove back to the hotel without talking and each went to our separate rooms. I made an immediate microscopic examination of the semen. The sperm were alive but the count was low, very low. I was able to make no more than ten straws. But they were ten sound straws with a count of about twenty million sperm in each. By God, I thought, these are going to cost somebody a lot of money in years to come. They'll be as rare as the First Folio of Shakespeare. I ordered champagne and a plate of foie gras and toast, and I sent a message to Yasmin's room telling her I hoped she would come in and join me.
She arrived half an hour later and she had with her the little brown paper parcel. I poured her a glass of champagne and put a slice of foie gras on toast for her. She accepted the champagne, ignored the foie gras and remained silent.
'Come on,' I sa
id, 'what's bothering you?'
She emptied her glass in one long swallow and held it out for more. I refilled the glass. She drank half of it, then put it down. 'For God's sake, Yasmin!' I cried. 'What happened?'
She looked at me very straight and said simply, 'He smote me.'
'You mean he hit you? Good God, I am sorry! You mean he actually struck you?'
'Don't be an ass, Oswald.'
'What do you mean then?'
'I mean I was smitten by him. He's the first man who's ever bowled me completely over.'
'Oh, I see what you mean! Good heavens!'
'He is a wonder, that man,' she said. 'He is a genius.'
'Of course he's a genius. That's why we chose him.'
'Yes, but he's a beautiful genius. He is so beautiful, Oswald, and so gentle and wonderful, I've never met anyone like him.'
'He smote you all right.'
'He certainly did.'
'So what's your problem?' I said. 'Are you feeling guilty about it?'
'Oh no,' she said. 'I don't feel in the least guilty. I'm just overwhelmed.'
'You're going to be a hell of a lot more overwhelmed before we've finished,' I said. 'He's not the only genius you're going to call on.'
'I know that.'
'You're not running out, are you?'
'Certainly not. Give me some more drink.'
I filled her glass for the third time in as many minutes. She sat sipping it. Then she said, 'Listen, Oswald...'
'I'm listening.'
'We've been pretty jokey about this whole thing up to now, haven't we? It's all been a bit of a lark, right?'
'Rubbish! I take it very seriously.'
'What about Alfonso?'
'You were the one who joked about him,' I said.
'I know that,' she said, 'but he deserved it. He's a joker.'
'I can't quite see what you're getting at,' I said.
'Renoir was different,' she said. 'That's what I'm getting at. He's a giant. His work is going to live through the ages.'
'So will his sperm.'
'Stop it and hear me out,' she said. 'What I'm saying is this. Some people are jokers. Some are not. Alfonso is a joker. All the kings are jokers. We have a few other jokers on our list, too.'
'Who?'
'Henry Ford's a joker,' she said. 'I think that fellow Freud in Vienna is a joker. And the wireless boy, Marconi. He's a joker.'