Posted by For masochistic reasons of his own, the Hooded Hood reposts this, his least popular PVB story. Maybe this time we might make it to the finish. on June 02, 2001 at 12:28:16:
Sir Mumphrey Wilton and the Lost City of Mystery, Part the First: Miss Canterbury and the Dungeon of Horror
Herr Wertham brought
the white-hot swastika brand within a quarter of an inch of Miss Canterbury’s
cheek. “I think you might wish to reconsider your reluctance,” he told her
quietly and clinically. “It would be a shame to mar such lovely features, but I
assure you I have done far, far worse in der Fuhrer’s service.” In our next exciting episode: Mumphrey and Miss Canterbury
investigate the mystery of the Blanchford Bertram Diary, and learn more of the
evil Expediter. Don’t miss it!
“For God’s
sake, tell him what he wants to know!” Miss Canterbury’s fiancée, strapped down
to the next chair along in the Marrakesh barber’s shop, begged her. “That big
bald brute twisted my arm, I think it might be dislocated! Just tell them where
the Blanchford Diary is and they won’t hurt us.”
Miss Canterbury winced as
she felt the heat radiating from the poker but she refused to give in. “Shut up
Rodney. I won’t do anything to help this evil man or his evil Fuhrer.… no
matter…no matter what they do to me.”
The American smoking Gaulois cigarettes
in the corner snorted in amusement. “You have no idea the sort of things we can
do to you, honey,” he promised. “This is Morocco. There’s a thriving black
market in white slaves here.”
The prisoner shuddered again. “You murdered my
father,” she glared at the Expediter. “He wouldn’t tell you anything and nor
will I.”
“They’ll kill us!” Rodney Farharquar-Phelps almost screamed. “I
don’t want to die! Let me go! I already told you she slipped it in the bags of
some tourist who was staying at our hotel at the Place Jema-el-Fna. He’s the one
you want.”
“Rodney,” Miss Canterbury answered, “I want you to know that if we
survive this, the engagement’s off.”
“We are having a little trouble locating
this mythical English traveller,” Herr Wertham noted. “so I will ask you one
last time before I begin to seriously hurt you, Miss Canterbury. Where have you
concealed the Diary of Colonel Blanchford Bertram?”
There was a knock at the
door. Wertham and his big mute giant servant exchanged puzzled glances. The
cheery rapping didn’t sound like one of the guards.
“Are you going to see who
that is?” the Expediter asked casually.
Pausing only to slap Miss Canterbury
across the face with his gloves, Wertham indicated that his retainer should open
the door.
A gentleman in a white linen three-piece suit doffed his Panama hat
to the giant. “Good evenin’ all,” he smiled. “Understand you’ve got a Miss
Canterbury here?”
“That would be her strapped to the chair,” the Expediter
smiled nastily.
“Hmm. Damned peculiar customs you people have out here.
Anyway, Miss Canterbury, I’m afraid you must have slipped your book into my bag
by mistake back at the hotel. Had a devil of a job tracking you down to the
medina to return it.”
“You haff the diary?” hissed Herr Wertham.
“Oh,
absolutely,” the traveller agreed. “Just let me open up my bag and… no, no
that’s not it. That’s a hand grenade. I suggest nobody moves because the pin
seems to have fallen out, and if I get disturbed we could all go
boom.”
“We’re all going to die!” screeched Rodney once again.
“If that
device goes off, you will die along with us,” Wertham pointed out.
The
traveller glanced over to the bound young lady. “Well, there are some fates
worse than death, eh? Now if you’d be so good as to untie Mr Farharquar-Phelps?
Capital. Now untie the lady, Farharquar-Phelps.”
Rodney, released from his
bonds, ran screaming from the barbers shop and vanished into the
night.
“Hmph! What a tick,” the tourist commented to himself. He pulled a
bowie knife from his waistband and sliced through Miss Canterbury’s restraints.
“How do you do, miss. I’m sorry we haven’t had a proper formal
introduction…”
“As introductions go, you’re doing pretty well so far,” she
assured him. “What next?”
“We need to depart with some expedience,” her
rescuer answered. “This town is positively crawlin’ with Nazis, and one of the
guards that I haven’t biffed might turn up here at any second. There’s a car
running in the street. Let’s go.” He looked sternly at Wertham, the mute giant,
and the Expediter, “As for you chaps, if I see you again I promise you’ll get
the damn good thrashin’ you all deserve, you arrant bounders.”
Then he tossed
the hand grenade under the table and ran after Miss Canterbury.
Things got
quite exciting after that. While the Expediter and his cronies scrabbled around
trying to find the explosive (only to discover it was a dummy anyway), the
traveller dragged Miss Canterbury into a big open-topped sedan, gunned the
engine, and screeched away through the tight narrow streets of old
Marrakesh.
Pursuit was quick to follow, with no less than four cars and three
motorcycles appearing from seemingly nowhere to take up the chase.
“Take a
left through the Agdal gardens,” Miss Canterbury advised. “They won’t expect
that.”
The sedan swerved (literally) through the gates and bumped its way
over some ornamental statuary, just in time to avoid the machine-gun burst from
the lead pursuer.
“Damned unsporting,” muttered Miss Canterbury’s rescuer.
“Let’s hope there’s not too many people in the marketplace at this time of
night. In the meantime would you be so kind as to unscrew the petrol cap and dip
this handkerchief into it? Thank you so much.”
A cycle rider swerved
unexpectedly out of an alley and leaped onto the sedan’s running board. Miss
Canterbury poked him in the eye and he fell off to spin into a wall.
Another
vehicle approached head on, and a couple of the bullets shattered the sedan’s
windscreen. The only alternative was to bounce right into another backstreet,
ploughing through lines of washing, sending baskets and boxes flying.
Unfortunately it was also a blind alley.
“I’m afraid the next bit’s goin’ to
require a little spot of manhandlin’,” the traveller warned the lady, bringing
the car to a halt, then pulling the gearstick into reverse. He flicked his
cigarette lighter over the petrol-soaked handkerchief, wedged the accelerator
down, coiled an arm around Miss Canterbury’s waist, and leaped up to an open
window’s ledge as the vehicle reversed down the street toward the
pursuers.
By the time the car exploded, taking the lead Nazi vehicle with it,
the traveller had hauled his rescued damsel through the open window and it was
shuttered as if it had never been open at all.
“Thank you, Sadi,” he bowed to
the fez-bedecked shopkeeper who had been waiting to see if his friend needed
such an escape route. “We’d best be off. I don’t think Marrakesh is that
hospitable these days.”
“It is as you say,” Sadi grinned. “My sister’s son
awaits you with your car.”
“You have two cars?” Miss Canterbury
puzzled.
“Not at all,” the traveller explained. “That was the American
chappie’s car we got away in.”
Miss Canterbury smoothed down her torn blouse,
pushed her hair into some semblance of decency, and took a close look at her
rescuer. “Who on Earth are you?” she demanded as he returned her diary to
her.
“Wilton,” he told her. “Sir Mumphrey Wilton.”