Inspector Bentwhistle's Last Tango

By Adam Dumphy

Drop a born and bred Yorkshireman,
retired after twenty five years as Scotland Yard's most respected Detective
Inspector, into the sun baked society of style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Southern Californiastyle='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'> and you have the stock for this class=SpellE>binational bouillabaisse.

Add cameo performances of a dozen of his former antagonists,
members of Londonstyle='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'>'s underground who he had caught at
one time or another, come to style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Californiastyle='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'> to demonstrate their individual
type of larceny. Receipt of an Egyptian mummy which ticks, theft of the entire
articulated skeleton of a Brontosaurus from the museum, bank robbery as a
Bachelor Dinner, are among them.

They come to pick up a few bucks in the "American
Colony" but also as a means of saying good-bye and good riddance. Or just
possibly out of respect for the man or even a real liking. (They provide the
music for his last tango.)

Mix in the beautiful Arabella, a
Duchess by marriage and Queen of all style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Londonstyle='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Arial'> bunco by
her other talents and Bentwhistle's long time
unrequited love. With her arrival the "Great Game" can continue. The
rules being that he would marry her if he could not solve every larceny that is
committed by her friends. That is the flavoring in the stew between these
covers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 5, 2004
• ISBN: 9781418410315

Adam Dumphy

Inflamed by a novel of and during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, titled, “The Kansas City Milkman”, Adam Dumphy searched out and contacted a clandestine enlistment center for the British Ambulance Corps operating there. Clandestine as it was at the time an illegal act to aid either side in the conflict. To Adam that fit the novel and made it all the more interesting to him and more Hemingwayesque. He ever after felt the British people generally to be biased and intolerant as he was rejected and simply for being only twelve years old. Still he found himself fascinated by that most peculiar of wars even as some men are towards our American Civil War. All the books and information he collected then he still has. His loyalty he has tried to maintain unbiased to either side although it has varied in degree from one side to another from year to year. Now from the vantage point of eighty years of age the only thing he can decide with certainty about the affair is that both sides got a very “bad press”. But then he believes that is true of most major events.

Book preview

Inspector Bentwhistle’s Last Tango

By

Adam Dumphy

Image290.PNG

© 2004Adam Dumphy All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 03/30/04

ISBN: 1-4184-1031-4 (e)

ISBN: 1-4184-0908-1 (sc)

ISBN: 1-4184-0907-3 (dj)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Author

To

IRENE

Anything feminine, or fun, sweet, charming or cute in this novel is but a faint reflection of her.

Chapter 1 

The Silver Shores Estates, Coronado, California, June 1937.

Ex Inspector of Police Theophilus Bentwhistle, seduced by the benevolent sun, the faint chop of an amiable sea, the balmy air that London could never know, suddenly and for the first time ever, felt of himself as an ‘Ex’. It was a very happy if unsettling feeling.

Slumping down in the deck chair like a huge, boneless, old bear he felt neurones desynapt that had not let down before in the past fifty years.

Ha harumph. He muttered.

An intellectual, under the shaggy exterior, with a penchant for linguistics and a truly unlimited vocabulary, ‘Ha harumph’ was his most frequent utterance. And that and an occasional reluctant, ‘Yes’, or ‘No’, might be all that passed his vocal chords from one week to the next.

In this new mood, however, his mind introspected, a rare thing for him. This new feeling then, he thought, Ha harumph, was

something from deep inside. Of course outside nothing was changed.

1

In fact if he were to be set down in any street corner in London or any hamlet in the United Kingdom it would be but a moment before he was recognized. The massive frame, noble head, face of a whipped mastiff, with furrowed forehead, outsize ears, hooded lids over sleepy, grey eyes and the row on row of dependant jowls, so well characterized in the Times, marked him. So that where ever he went it was but a moment before he was aware of the whispers about him. It’s Bentwhistle. You know, the Tupenny Sherlock Holmes.

He stopped to search for his Meerschaum. He never smoked it; he just liked to polish it. And that was not often as it was unfailingly in his Burberry pocket downstairs when he was at home or on his pipe stand at the office when he was out. Consequently he spent a good deal of time searching for it. As a result the numerous cartoons of him in the London Times usually depicted him as having just tracked down some heinous murderer but still sleuthing about for his pipe.

Well, that couldn’t be helped. He be what he be, as his Yorkshire forbearers would say, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t change any of it, not even his workaday uniform.

In all weathers he wore a worn, shapeless suit of heavy, woolen-tweed, a white shirt with stiff, turn-down, wing tip collar, a black string tie, and ankle-high shoes, like great, black coal shuttles, and with laces up the side.

For wet weather, and he was a weather misanthrope as he expected wet weather at all times, there was the black derby, set four square on his head, the large, shiny, black-rubber overshoes and the steel-ferruled, black umbrella that was both cane, swagger stick and the only weapon that he ever carried.

But still, Ha harumph, about this new feeling.

His butler cum research assistant in the more esoteric crimes interrupted him. Begging your pardon, Milord.

Digby, no matter what the Proclamation from the King proclaims, I am not and will never be a Milord.

Ah. Beg pardon, Sir.

Nor a ‘Sir’.

Master Theophilus… Digby was referring to their common upbringing in a small village in the south of Yorkshire.

That’s better.

The buggering instrument, Sir. For you.

Ah?

Telephone, Master Thee.

Theophilus who never raised his voice bellowed. Phone? Telly for me? Why that is impossible. No one in the entire world could know that I am here. It took three months and nearly 2000 pounds… He stopped to dwell on this. Two thousand pounds! To his notoriously penurious mind that represented an immense amount of money, almost too much to imagine.

He continued after a shudder. To insure my solitude.

Quite so Master Thee. I shall tell the party that there is no one here by that name and that you are out.

Thee well aware that Digby for all his sterling qualities had his limitations reached for the phone. Taking the receiver, he did dislike these newfangled phones where the ‘listen at’ and the ‘speak into’ were all in one piece, for with his massive head he had to hold the thing high to hear and low to speak.

Holding it low he growled. Hallo?

It’s me, Dear. Calling to welcome you to the picture-postcard colony of Coronado in sunny, half baked California.

Theophilus who never raised his voice twice, boomed.

What? What? Welcome me? Bella is that you? You diabolically, cruel jade, you fiendishly, clever scamp, you heartlessly, talented torturer, how could you know to call me here? Worse still calling from London! Why it must be costing you four quid a half minute.

Oh I’m not calling from London, Dear. We are neighbors. Look over your southern railing, next house but one and you will see a rather grubby, little place, only 10 bedrooms but we are remodeling and painting in a frenzy. Actually at the moment I am on the balcony waving to you.

Theophilus did not look. He was trying to catch his breath, gasping for a return to an internal stability, desperately groping to hold on to some slight remnant of the happy mood of a moment ago.

At last he gasped out. And to what nefarious, unscrupulous, ingenious, totally illegal, bunko are planning to subject this innocent, little, American colony?

Oh several, several. And all quite interesting. Of course the old agreement is still in effect. I’ll give up any, in any way questionable, profit making ventures, in a moment if you would.

Thee held his breath, If I would ?

Marry me.

Ha harumph.

Ha harumph is it? But why not, Thee? After all I have captivated men’s hearts by the bushel while in all of the six continents and while crossing the dozens of seas between when proceeding to and from.

She continued after a sigh, I hope you won’t think me vain if I quote others, ‘Beautiful beyond compare, figure of a nymph, magnificent bosom and charm enough to make a den of constipated cobras raise up and dance.’

Theophilus grumped. I can read you know. Read about it practically daily in the tabloids. How many husbands does it total now, six?

Only five, Dear. And the last four if not all are your fault.

My fault?

Of course. If you would only admit to your obvious, life-long infatuation for me I would have never been driven to such things. I am after all, the rich voice weakened and became pitiful, only a poor, lonely, helpless, soft hearted, warm blooded woman.

Ha harumph His tone suggested doubt.

Ever since you first ran me in, you in your beautiful, brand-new, blue, police uniform with the silver buttons down the front and me a fourteen-year-old totally innocent, helpless, bookie’s runner and pick pocket, I have known my fate, Dear, our fate.

Didn’t even run you in the first time, actually.

Oh I know, I know. Just gave me a good spanking and a quid and sent me off with a lecture. Wasn’t it romantic?

Romantic? Ha harumph. And life long infatuation? Imagine.

Oh no? Why is it then when you cut your bloody luggage to the bone for your silly escape from London you included a cameo portrait of me in my Court Dress under everything else in your suitcase?

Bella. How could you possibly know of. Of my escape and arrival here?

Oh Thee, you are such a dear dunce. The underworld of all Europe may know you as the most steely eyed, erudite, wily, relentless and successful of detectives but they do not know your blind spot, women, one woman actually, me, and the world.

Ha harumph. I believe I can say with justification that I have been smiled on by many handsome women. And of course I smiled back but didn’t touch.

Oh I know, Dear, and I am so proud of you for it. Of course all those women knew they were quite outmatched when I walked into the room and that you already loved only me.

But how could you find and follow me?

"Didn’t have to, Dear. I was with you all the way. Really, Thee. Wearing a caftan and fez at Marrakech but with the umbrella and black over-rubbers still on. How could you ride a camel like that?

And the carrack trip across the Red Sea with you in a turban, false beard and Turkish bed sheet but with Digby standing behind you still in his black, butlering suit carrying your overnight things.

Well..

And what kind of tramp was it on that tramp steamer from Japan who was wearing your tackety, tweed suit but with a blue and white bandana of your belongings tied to the umbrella over your shoulder. What kind of hobo was that?

Thee crushed, burst out, Oh dear. And now? Not content with having made my days and nights a misery for twenty years in London you..

Nights too, Dear? Bella interrupted. Oh good. Did you dream of me frequently? I hope it was exciting. And doesn’t that prove something? But now I am here thinking only of your welfare and I have arraigned some interesting events to keep you occupied.

Events?

Yes many and varied. I think they will please you. Oh Thee. Haven’t we had fun chasing one another about the world and over the years? You chasing me for the law and I chasing you for .ah. ulterior reasons?

"Bella. About the theft of the Maharaja’s Golden Eye in ‘28. You wouldn’t.. Ah. you wouldn’t do anything like that again,

would you?" In a less courageous man his tone might have been considered a whimper.

You mean the daily, full-page ads in the Times? With those snips of your poetry to me and mentioning my promise to help you catch the rascals if you would marry me?

Thee stiffened. The poetry wasn’t really to you alone. After all there are other women in the United Kingdom with hair the color of liquid amber leaves in autumn. I was just …. Writing generally so to speak. And you swiped those verses from my desk under most felonious and false pretences. Besides I did catch the buggers without your help.

Did, did you? You really believe my third husband, The Honorable Lord Freddie could outwit the entire security force of the Bank of England and abscond with the loot? He did what I told him to did. And so ineptly that I didn’t have to arrange for you to trip over the evidence, as usual.

Trip over. usual!

Besides at that time I was just a child awash in the tumultuous flood of emotions of the menopause, romantically overwhelmed by your attentions, girlishly and totally infatuated.

Thee sighed.

She became brisk. Well the first approach to a man should never be too obvious. Mother probably told me that at age four, who ever she was. Tata. Catch me if you can.

The line went dead.

Chapter 2 

His tiny balloon of happiness now burst, Thee sat, and while still under the same warm sun and in the same balmy air, he was now unmindful of any of it.

He was thinking, 2000 pounds, three months of planning to say nothing of the heat, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, atrocious food, odoriferous companions, all wasted. All cast aside by the machinations of a single, if much married, pestiferous female.

He sighed and spoke in a near whisper. Digby in our research about the world for a pleasant and secluded hideaway, we did, did we not, investigate every aspect of those 39 cities and towns which qualified?

Yes Milord. I mean Master Thee.

Does this tiny corner of the great Colonial Republic sport a Museum?

Yes Milord. It is called something, something of Mankind and located in the Park of the Senor Balboa.

Very good. My inner soul, my very being, demands peace and communication only with the ancients of days, conversation only with lips that have not uttered in at least 500 years, with glorious, musty silence. I am going there. Call up the Bentley would you?

Ah Sir, we sold the Bentley in London. Too well known you remember and easy to follow.

At the sight of the great man’s dismay Digby soothed. Got a packet for it, Sir.

Oh yes of course. Digby what is that beastly, huge thing sticking partly out of the garage called, that we bought for our little comings and goings here?

I believe, Sir, it is something called a Duesenberg Cabriolet, Milord.

Horrid long thing all bright, daffodil yellow and garish chrome. Why ever did we do a thing such as that?

"You will remember, Sir, the first night here when we walked into the hotel we passed that bogus Romanian Count Svetisloff Bernides. You recall you nailed him in Budapest for bigamy and in Spain for shoplifting. At the first sight of you he quietly left town

apparently forgetful of quite a covey of debts. We got the car for, as they say here I believe, a song."

"A song? I doubt that if they had ever heard me sing they would use such