I think I mentioned my French detective Croissant Exupery and his admiring sidekick Hotson in a blog some years ago. But I have now found the actual story and thought I might as well publish it here, as for sure no-one else is going to publish it.
It was written so many years ago, when us three sisters lived in the same city, and we used to get together for regular literary evenings (and bottles of wine). It is from my series Wuthering Frights, in which 3 sisters, Currer, Ellis and Acton Bronski, attempt (and fail) to write a bestseller. This is them trying to go the detective route.
I gave them a brother Branston who - reversing the Bronte polarity - was actually going to succeed - write a best seller and retire to LA - much to his sisters amazement. I never got that far in the saga though.
I have probably also wondered before in my blogs if there will be fiction as we know it in the restored earthly paradise, only I occasionally have a dream about being in a dusty old library and suddenly coming across a shelf of books by one of my favourite authors - Agatha Christie say (to whose Belgian Detective Hercule Poirot and his sidekick Hastings my Plumbing Detective Croissant and his sidekick owe so much) - a whole shelf of books that I have not read yet!
Of course, I always wake up before I can read them.
But here is the thing. If Agatha Christie is to live again, as I hope, and will still be writing, as I hope, what would she be writing about? We only have one story at the moment, which is basically that things have gone wrong and they need to be put right. Can you imagine any other story? This is after all the story we are living in.
But maybe there are other stories, ones we cannot even conceive of yet, Or maybe there will no more need for fiction once we are no longer living in a tragedy.
Well, once again, I can only hope that we are all there to find out.
Anyway, here goes:
(WUTHERING FRIGHTS)
CROISSANT EXUPERY – THE PLUMBING DETECTIVE
“Hotson, mon ami, is sumzzing – ow you say – troubling you?”
“Why do you ask, Croissant?”
“You have been staring at zat newspaper article for – ow you say – ze last half hour, mon ami, Hotson.”
Croissant never ceased to amaze me. I had indeed been staring at that particular newspaper article for the last half hour, and he had seen it all, from his seat opposite.
We were tucked up nice and warm in his London flat. He was like a cat, old Croissant, liked his heat. For myself, I think that a real man should take a cold shower daily and break the ice for a swim every New Year’s Day. Nevertheless, Croissant Exupery was my good “ami”. (A little joke that never failed to make his face crinkle up with laughter and his dapper goatee beard shake.)
“Well, Hotson, mon ami, I zink that you have found a case that is – ow you say – up my avenue?”
Croissant never ceased to amaze me. I had indeed found a case that was right up his street – or “up his avenue” as my funny foreign friend would so drolly have it.
“Croissant, you never cease to amaze me! This case is indeed tailored to your exact specifications. This poor lady – a Mzzzz (I pronounced carefully) Kimberley Butterworth – was savagely attacked, and nearly drowned. Apparently, she was having a bath at home, when her estranged “husband” (I fear the said lady was no better than she ought to be!) burst in, and forced her head under the water. If Ms Butterworth's pooch, a Pit Bull by the name of Terminator, hadn’t happened upon the scene, I fear that Ms Kimberley Butterworth would have been no more.”
“Mon ami, Hotson,” Croissant was leaning forward eagerly, his dapper goatee beard a’ quiver. “Did the lady - ow you say - say anything? Was she able to speak when they found her?”
“Croissant, you never cease to amaze me! She did indeed speak. She told Constables Boot and Shoestring that her "husband" - and I put some careful inverted commas around that word - had held her head under the water in the bathroom of their semi, and everything was just going black, or rather peach, which is the colour of their bathroom suite, when Terminator rushed in and saved her.”
“Aha, Hotson, mon ami”, Croissant lay back in his chair, his eyes satisfied, and his goatee beard looking rather smug (as well as dapper). “Aha. There you have it. The mystery is solved. That bathroom was NOT in - ow you say - Notting Hill. It was nowhere near Notting Hill. She was not attacked zere, nor was any denzin of Notting Hill involved in ze attack.”
Croissant never ceased to amaze me!
“Croissant, you never cease to amaze me! You are quite right. As ever. The attack was NOT in Notting Hill, and no denzin of Notting Hill was present during the attack. But how did you know?
“Does Croissant Exupery, the Plumbing Detective, not know his – ow you say - plumbing, mon ami Hotson!! As soon as I heard it was a PEACH bathroom I knew. Do you think that there is a single peach bathroom anywhere in Notting Hill? Would anyone from Notting Hill set foot in a bathroom with a peach suite?! I knew the crime could never have taken place there.”
Croissant never ceased to amaze me, and I ….
“Yes, Currer, what’s your point here?” Ellis rudely interrupted.
“Come on Ellis, its simple enough. Weren’t we all watching Cadfael, (if such was his name) the other night. You know, the medieval monk who’s a botanist…”
“Yes, I know.” That was Acton, chiming in “The corpse always has a flower in its hair or is sprinkled with some unusual kind of pollen , and Cadfael can solve the crime because he knows so much about flowers and pollen and things.”
“Exactly. So all we need for a successful series is a detective with a speciality and a few quirky character traits. Hence” – and she bowed to them in a stately manner –“Hence Monsieur Croissant Exupery, Plumbing Detective.”
Acton and Ellis looked at her in amazement. And then cast their minds back to last night when they had indeed watched Cadfael solve a whole series of grisly murders because the Bleeding RagWort had been late flowering that Medieval Spring.
Could she actually be on to something for once?
“Currer, you never cease to amaze us”, they chorused as one.
**********************
Now of course this is not only very silly, but probably very out of date too. Peach bathroom suites may have come right back into fashion among the Literati and Glitterati of Notting Hill, maybe Notting Hill itself has gone out of fashion, for all I would know about it.
And for the first time ever, I am regretting we don't take photos of our food as otherwise I would surely have an array of croissant photos from our Paris trips.
I am at a loss here. Maybe I can find a peach?
AHA! A Peach Blossom Moth from the Captain's Gallery. That will do nicely.
And indeed his photo gallery never ceases to amaze me.
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