Albert’s Fancy Ran to a Puma

Astley Priors was a prime location for a stake out. Being a red brick house of solid girth and at least two substantial storey’s height it offered all the space a discerning villain might need to conceal several loutish henchman, a kidnap victim and at least one amateur detective gone rogue. Tommy felt certain, -or if not certain, then hunched on the notion- that the building might well be the key to this case. And wasn’t it the perfect set-up? You couldn’t pick a better house, what with all those floor-to-ceiling windows, each one helpfully lit, and the shrubbery running ‘round it like a mote. So many bushes to hide behind. Not to mention those well-wooded grounds, edging the lawn on all three sides. A chap in possession of binoculars could fairly make use of those climbable trees. Yes, Tommy was tickled pink by Astley Priors. As Albert and he peered through the fence, he felt for the first time, an actual sleuth of the sort who appear in the threepenny novels he’d positively devoured as a young lad. Tommy wondered for a moment if he should change his name to something better suited to a private-eye. Hank perhaps. Or even Frankie. Definitely an American name.

Everything was going swimmingly. Tommy let the evening’s plan run through his head. They’d scale the fence. They’d cruise the joint. They’d find all the evidence required. If all went well, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t, they’d be home in time for an early night.

“Come on Albert,” he whispered to his sidekick and braced his foot against the fence.

But Albert wasn’t in quite such a rush. Albert was lingering by the climbable trees. Albert was fiddling with his laces. Albert was turning parchment white.

“What if they’ve got something guarding the place?” he whispered anxiously.

“You mean someone,” said Tommy, relishing the thought of a loutish henchman, most likely Irish for the Irish made for stellar louts.

“No! I mean something!” insisted Albert. He raised his hands and clawed about in front of his face, whilst emitting a kind of animal snarl.

“Like a guard dog?”

“A guard dog would be grand. I’m good with dogs, Tommy. My nan’s got one of them Pekineses. It’s just, what if they have something more exotic in there?”

“Like what, Albert?”

Albert’s fancy ran to a puma, or a tame cobra, or perhaps a kind of dragon. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility of dragons, or other supernatural beasts. For while Tommy got his kicks from detective novels, Albert was absolutely doolally for paperback adventures and gothic tales. He did not see in Astley Prior the perfect spot for a detective stake out, so much as the makings of a haunted house. Historical building. Attic. Cellar. All those shadowy, wavering trees. The place was probably rife with ghosts, or if not ghosts, then other beings; things that were better left alone. In fact, if Albert wasn’t greatly mistaken, there was some kind of giant serpent, slouching about in the shrubbery. Albert would not admit to being frightened but Albert wasn’t for scaling that fence tonight. They could wait ‘til dawn if Tommy insisted on going in. “Sure, it’ll be easier to see when it’s light,” he said, “and we won’t have to worry about ghosts or vampires, ‘cause them lot only come out at night.”

Tommy had half a mind to slap the boy though he couldn’t risk the racket this might cause. “Suit yourself,” he said to Albert as he scaled the fence in a somewhat ungainly manner. This was not going as he’d imagined. A detective was lost without his sidekick. Who was going to cause a diversion whilst he slipped unseen through the pantry door? Who would make surreptitious bird noises beneath the window when the villain returned unexpectedly? Who was going to call him Old Chap and stand him a pint when the case was closed? No one. That much was obvious. Tommy paused on the edge of Astley Prior’s modest lawn. He made a slight amendment to his thinking. He would now be one of those hard-boiled detectives, the sort who always worked alone.

Based on Agatha Christie’s 1922 novel, The Secret Adversary

Dropped at Shakespeare and Co bookstore, Paris, France on Tuesday 7th January 2020

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