The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag

'˜You want to watch that, they'll put you in the nut house.'

'˜Ha ha ha,' I went.

'˜So do you want a lift or not?'

'˜I do, yes please.'

I followed the nurse to her car. It was one of those new solar-powered electric jobbies. Very smart, very high-tech. I drive a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado myself, electric blue, big tail fins, the whole caboodle. It's an image thing, I don't want to dwell on it.

I sat down next to the nurse.

'˜So,' she said, '˜where do you want to go?'

I gave this some thought. The most obvious place would be my office. But when Cecil and co found I was missing, that would be the most obvious place they'd choose to come looking. So where would be the least most obvious place for me to go? I had to get back on my case. Track down that voodoo handbag. Save the world the way only I could save it. But not in the most obvious way. Obviously.

Why don't you come back to my place?' asked the nurse.

'˜An obvious choice,' said I.

'˜But I'll have to ask you a favour,' she said.

'˜Go ahead,' said I.

'˜I need some help moving a bit of junk out of my attic. Would you object to giving me a hand?'

'˜I certainly wouldn't. What kind of junk do you have in mind?'

'˜Just junk,' she said. '˜Stuff that belonged to my aunt. Old clothes, pictures, umbrellas, a voodoo handbag-'

I smiled a lot as she drove me back to her place. And I blessed the name of Hugo Rune. When we got to her place I was pleased by the way it looked. A big place it was, a mansion, no less. Georgian, very up-market. Hardly the most obvious place you'd expect to find a nurse living.

Splendid.

She drove up the sweeping gravel drive and parked in the double garage next to the Rolls Royce.

'˜Come on,' she said, and I followed her across to the big front door. It was open.

'˜That's odd,' she said. '˜I'm sure I locked it when I came out.'

'˜Leave this to me, lady,' I told her. '˜I'm a professional.'

Now you probably didn't notice that, but I slipped the word lady in there. '˜Leave it to me, lady,' I said, rather than just '˜Leave it to me.' I might have said, '˜Leave it to me, sweetheart,' or '˜Leave it to me, luv,' but I didn't, I said, '˜Leave it to me, lady.' And the reason I did this was because I was moving into genre. A most specific genre, that of the American Private Eye circa 1958 (same year as my Cadillac Eldorado and no coincidence).

Back in those days your American Private Eye was a hard-nosed, lantern-jawed, snap-brim-fedora'd, belted-up-trench-coated, Bourbon-swilling, fag-smoking, lone-walking, pistol-toting, mean-fighting, smart-talking, broad-humping, tricky-case-solving son-of-a-gun.

And none more so than Lazlo Woodbine.

Woodbine, described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as '˜the detective's detective', was the creation of the English writer P. P. Penrose. Woodbine was the classic 1950s American Private Eye. He worked just the four locations: his office where clients came, a bar where he talked a load of old toot, an alleyway where he got involved in sticky situations, and a rooftop, where he had his final confrontation with the villain. And he always ended the very first chapter by being struck on the head from behind and tumbling down into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion. In one hundred and fifty-eight thrilling adventures, Woodbine never deviated from this award-winning format.

Woodbine was the man.

He wasn't cheap, but he was thorough and he got the job done. With Woodbine you could expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a trail of corpses, and a final rooftop showdown. No spin offs, no loose ends, and all strictly in the first person. And the literary style, the language, the description, the nuances, the running gags. Magical stuff.

And I had him off to a T.

So let's take it from '˜Leave it to me, lady'. You'll soon get the picture.

'˜Leave it to me, lady,' I said. '˜I'm a professional.' The dame took a step to one side and I cast my steely gaze over the door lock. It was a Dovestone Wilberforce triple-lever mortice deadlock Five rotational tumblers, multi-facet optional reverse-action interior facility. I knew this lock, every good detective did. In this game, knowing your locks can mean the difference between cutting a dash and splitting the beaver. If you know what I mean, and I'm sure that you do.

'˜Does anyone else have a key to this door?' I asked.

She copped me a glance like she was polishing fish knives and shook her beautiful bonce.

'˜Then you'd better let me take a look inside. Wait here.'

I put my foot to the door and kicked it fully open. Then I leapt into the hall, rolled over a couple of times, and prepared to come up firing.

And then I was struck on the head from behind, and found myself tumbling down into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion.

So I'd got off to a pretty good start.

Stokers, Luggers and Jumping Jacks

The stoker called Tom
From Newcastle,
The lugger called Tim
From Dundee,
The old jumping Jacks
In their ill-fitting macs,
Are more than the whole world to me.

The stoker called Pig
With his whistle,
The lugger called Pan
With his flute,
The old jumping Jacks
With their harps on their backs,
And Nick in his best Sunday suit.

The stoker called Jack
With his rabbits,
The lugger called Nick
With his hair,
The old jumping Jims
And Alastair Sims,
And Jock with his sanitary wear.

At about this time the party began to get a bit boisterous,
So I made my excuses and left.

5

My dear boy, forget about the motivation. Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture.

NOEL COWARD

There was Tom and there was Tim and there was Nick and there was Billy. A stoker, a lugger, a hairdresser and Billy. Billy Barnes. Billy didn't come to the party because Billy had business elsewhere. Billy always had business elsewhere. No-body knew quite where elsewhere was, but Billy did, and he always had business there. There was something different about Billy, it was hard to say quite what, but it was there. He was very clever, I remember that. Too clever, really. I used to sit next to him in junior school,, and once in a while his cleverness would burst to the surface and splash all over the rest of us.

I recall one Friday afternoon our teacher, Miss Moon, posed a question to the class. It was: '˜How far can a man walk into the desert?' We chewed upon our pencils; the question was surely unanswerable. Who was this man? How old was he? How strong was he? How much food and water did he have? How large was the desert? Billy put his hand up straight away.

'˜Yes, Billy?' said Miss Moon.

'˜I have the answer, miss,' said Billy.

'˜Go on then, tell us what it is.'

'˜It's half way, miss. Because after he's gone half way, he'll be walking out of the desert again.'

Billy was quite right, of course. His answer was correct. But this didn't seem to please Miss Moon. She had evidently hoped that her question would keep the class occupied for the rest of the afternoon. Billy wasn't at all popular with the rest of the class either, for a while.

Because no-one likes a smart-arse.

At the age of twenty-three Billy went missing. He went for a walk and he never came back. Those of us who remembered him from junior school wondered whether he had gone for a walk in the desert. One story was that he had hitch-hiked to Brighton, fallen off the pier and been carried out to sea.