'This is the Pursley Brigade of the Provisional IRA,' he said in a supposedly Irish voice. 'We'll be expecting your contribution in the next few days. The code-word is Killarney.'
Mr O'Brain's reply went unheard. A retired gynaecologist, he was sufficiently anglicized and wealthy to feel resentful of this call on his time and resources. He promptly phoned the police and asked for protection. Lockhart from the window of his bedroom saw the patrol car at the end of the street move forward and stop outside the O'Brain house. It would be as well not to use the telephone again, he decided, and went to bed with a different scheme in mind. It involved the use of the sewer and was likely to disprove Mr O'Brain's claim to have nothing to do with any organization that sought to achieve its ends by violence.
The following morning he was up early and on his way to the shopping centre when the mail van arrived and delivered several packets to the Misses Musgrove. Lockhart heard them express some surprise and the hope that these were fresh donations to the church jumble sale. Lockhart doubted the suitability of the contents for any church function, a view shared a moment or two later by the Misses Musgrove who, having glimpsed Mr Simplon's penis, recognized some awful similarity between it and the monstrous objects that they found inside the
packets.
'There must be some mistake,' said Miss Mary, examining the address. 'We didn't order these frightful things.'
Her elder sister, Maud, looked at her sceptically.
'I didn't anyway. I can assure you of that,' she said icily.
'Well you don't supposed for one moment that I did, do you?' said Mary. Maud's silence was answer enough.
'How perfectly horrid of you to entertain such a suspicion,' continued the outraged Mary. 'For all I know you did and you're just trying to throw the blame on me.'
They threw the blame on one another for the next hour but finally curiosity prevailed.
It says here,' said Maud, reading the instructions for the ejaculatory and vibrating dildo of adjustable proportions, 'that the testicles can be filled with the white of egg and double cream in equal proportions to attain the effect of a lifelike ejaculation. Which do you think the testicles are?'
Miss Mary correctly discovered them and presently the two spinsters were busy mixing the necessary ingredients, using the vibrating dildo to best advantage as an egg-beater. Having satisfied themselves that the texture was that recommended in the instructions, they had just filled the testicles to capacity and were arguing from their little observation of Mr Simplon's unobtrusive organ what proportion to adjust the dildo to, when the doorbell rang.
'I'll answer it,' said Mary and went to the front door. Mrs Truster was there.
'I've just dropped in to say that Henry's solicitor, Mr Watts, is confident that the charge will be dropped,' she said sweeping in her accustomed way down the passage and into the kitchen, 'I thought you'd be glad to know that…'
Whatever the Misses Musgraves might be glad to know, Mrs Truster was horrified at the spectacle that greeted her. Maud Musgrove was holding an enormous and anatomically exact penis in one hand and what appeared to be an icing syringe in the other. Mrs Truster stared wildly at the thing. It had been bad enough to suspect that her husband was a homosexual; to discover with absolute certainty that the Misses Musgrove of all people were lesbians who mixed slight culinary gifts with gigantic sexual ones was too much for her poor mind. The room swam for a moment and she collapsed into a convenient chair.
'Dear God, oh Lord,' she whimpered, and opened her eyes. The beastly thing was still there and from its… whatever you called a dildo's opening… there dribbled… 'Jesus,' she said calling on the Almighty yet again before reverting to more appropriate speech, 'what in hell's name is going on?'
It was this question that alerted the Misses Musgrove to their socially catastrophic predicament.
'We were just…' they began in unison when the dildo answered for them. Triggered by Miss Maud's sitting on the mechanism that controlled its functions the dildo expanded, vibrated, jerked up and down and fulfilled the guarantee of its manufacturer to the letter. Mrs Truster stared at the terrible thing as it gyrated and expanded and the mock veins stood out on its trunk.
'Stop it, for hell's sake, stop the fucking thing,' she yelled, forgetting her own social position in the enormity of her horror. Miss Maud did her best. She grappled with the creature and tried desperately to stop it jerking. She succeeded all too well. The dildo lived up to its promise and shot half a pint of mixed egg white and double cream across the kitchen like some formidable fire extinguisher. Having achieved this remarkable feat it proceeded to go limp. So did Mrs Truster. She slid off her chair on to the floor and mingled with the dildo's recent contents.
'Oh dear, what do we do now?' asked Miss Mary. 'You don't think she's had a heart attack, do you?'
She knelt beside Mrs Truster and felt her pulse. It was extremely weak.
'She's dying," Miss Mary moaned, 'We've killed her.' 'Nonsense,' said Miss Maud practically, and put the deflated dildo on the draining board. But when she knelt beside Mrs Truster she had to admit that her pulse was dangerously weak.
'We'll just have to give her the kiss of life,' she said and together they lifted the Vicar's wife on to the kitchen table. 'How?' said Mary.
'Like this,' said Maud, who had attended a first aid course, and applied her knowledge and her mouth to the resuscitation of Mrs Truster. It was immediately successful. From her swoon Mrs Truster regained consciousness to find Miss Maud Musgrove kissing her passionately, an activity that was entirely in sexual keeping with what she had already observed of the two spinsters' unnatural lusts. Her eyes bulging in her head and her breath reinforced by that of Miss Maud, Mrs Truster broke away and screamed at the very top of her voice. And once again Sandicott Crescent resounded to the shrieks of an hysterical woman.
This time there was no need for the Pettigrews to phone the police. The patrol car was at the front door almost immediately and, breaking the glass panel in the window beside it, the police unlocked the door and swarmed down the passage into the kitchen. Mrs Truster was still shrieking and crouching in the far corner, and, on the draining board beside her, motivated a second time by Miss Maud's slumping into the chair on which its mechanism stood, slowly swelling and oozing, the dreadful dildo.
'Don't let them come anywhere near me with that thing,' screamed Mrs Truster as she was helped out of the house, 'they tried to… oh God… and she was kissing me and…'
'If you wouldn't mind just stepping this way,' said the sergeant to the Misses Musgrove in the kitchen.
'But can't we put that…'
'The constable will take that and any other evidence he finds into possession,' said the sergeant, 'Just put your coats on and come quietly. A policewoman will come for your night clothes, etc'
And following in the footsteps of Mr Simplon, the Rev. Truster and Mr and Mrs Raceme, the Misses Musgrove were taken to the police car and driven off at high speed to be charged.
'What with?' Lockhart asked as he passed the constable on duty outside the house.
'You name it, sir, you've got it. They'll throw the book at them and two nicer old ladies to meet you couldn't imagine.'
'Extraordinary,' said Lockhart and went on his way with a smile. Things were working remarkably well.
When he got home Jessica had prepared lunch.
'There was a phone message for you from Pritchetts, the ironmongers,' she told him as he sat down. 'They say they'll send round the two hundred yards of plastic piping you asked for some time later this afternoon.'
'Great,' said Lockhart. 'Just what I needed.'
'But, darling, the garden's only fifty yards long. What on earth can you want with two hundred yards of hosepipe?' 'I wouldn't be surprised if I don't have to go and water the Misses Musgrove's garden at Number 4.I think they're going to