The Sphinx Swindle

‘Lord Ballashiels?’ A square panel within the door moved sideways, accompanied by a groan. The groan emanated not from the ancient oak timbers, however, but from the aristocratic mouth that appeared. ‘Oh,’ said Lord Ballashiels, with a long breath that whistled through a random array of neglected teeth.

‘You remember me, Your Lordship?’ added the bailiff. ‘As a certified bailiff I’m sure you’re aware that it was Marcus Tullius Cicero who said that old people remember what interests them: the names of their creditors. I paraphrase, of course, as you will have spotted, however I’m not yet of pensionable age, nor am I interested in usury, which is why you beefy fellows all look to me rather like wotsits in a thingy.’

‘My name’s Kevin Ludlow. I’ve been instructed by the High Court to recover goods to the value of five hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Open the door, please.’

Lord Ballashiels – better known as Ratty to his friends due to a facial protuberance that seemed to owe more to the genus Rattus rattus than to his own species – looked at the luxuriantly padded bailiff and noted that he wore his polyester suit like he had been shrink-wrapped into it. The man should fire his tailor, thought the aristocrat, distracting himself momentarily from the ominous line of trucks waiting on the capacious driveway of Stiperstones Manor. His family’s long occupation of this shabby stately home was about to end in ignominy. He had failed his ancestors. Under the Ballashiels stewardship, Stiperstones Manor had resisted Cromwell’s army, avoided wartime requisition and repelled charity collectors. To lose everything now and, worse, to a Kevin, was unthinkable.

‘You hope to sell my chattels against this piffling debt?’ asked Ratty, playing for time while he attempted to think of a plan.

‘Yes,’ sighed Kevin. ‘That’s how debt collection works. Unless you can make a substantial payment today, of course.’

‘Has anyone offered you chaps a cup of tea?’

‘Anyone? We understood that you’re alone here,’ said Kevin. ‘Unless that man over there works for you. He’s not with us.’ Kevin pointed to a pale, middle-aged man in white suit and a Panama hat, standing motionless at the far side of the driveway with a briefcase in his hand.

‘Never seen him before,’ replied Ratty. ‘This house hasn’t seen a servant in decades. I am tout seul ici, if you’ll pardon my French.’

‘Please open up so we can get started, Your Lordship. I’ve got five men with me today. The longer this takes the more it’s going to cost you.’

Ratty slid the hatch shut and panted up several staircases to a section of flat roof above the turret. When his lungs completed their loud protest at this unexpected burst of exercise he leaned over and shouted, addressing the bailiffs and the man in the Panama.

‘Whilst it pains me to be so inhospitable, forgive me for asking if you all wouldn’t mind awfully just tootling off? Private estate and wotnot!’

‘Come back down, sir!’ Kevin replied.

‘I have a cannon up here!’ Ratty added, a desperate rush of adrenaline flooding his delicate system.

‘A photocopier isn’t worth much these days,’ came the response. ‘We’re more interested in any paintings and antiques you might have.’

Ratty trotted down to the turret room and pulled open a cupboard door. Inside was an array of defensive equipment, unused for generations. Cannon balls, gunpowder and muskets. He selected some items, returned to the roof, loaded an iron ball into the cannon and poured an unmeasured quantity of gunpowder into the chamber. With a premature sense of triumph, he ignited the fuse with a cigarette lighter, stood back and watched as the fuse fizzled out. Ratty harrumphed and returned to the staircase just as the cannon ball blasted a hole in the crenulations and sent stonework tumbling to the ground, many storeys below.

Some minutes later the hatch slid open in the main door, once again.

‘If anyone had been standing under the turret they would have been killed!’ yelled Kevin. ‘Will you now…What is that you’re wearing?’

‘Fifteenth-century jousting suit. Bit of a squeeze, really. Decided to skip the iron trousers in the interests of procreation. And please accept my deepest didgeeree-doodahs about the cannon incident. Complete accident, of course.’

‘Too late for that. You discharged a firearm, so I’ve called the police. What are you going to do next, pour boiling oil on us?’

‘Can’t afford to waste the extra virgin, frankly.’

‘OK, I’ll ask you one more time to open the door,’ said Kevin. There was no response. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘I said I’ll ask you one more time to open the door.’

‘I know. I’m still waiting for you to make such a request.’

‘I just did.’

‘It sounded to me as if you were telling me of your intention to make that request in the future.’

‘It makes no difference, Lord Ballashiels. Whether you wear armour or not, whether you open the door or not, as soon as the police get here you’ll be arrested. As Sheriffs of the High Court, we’re not permitted to force entry to a private residence, but now you’ve committed a crime the police will be able to break in and we can simply walk in after them.’

‘Ah,’ said Ratty, removing the helmet. ‘Ingenious. Well, no one will need to break in.’

‘So you’re going to do the right thing and open the door for us?’

‘Goodness, no. I would never dishonour the family name in that way. But Constable Stuart has a key. In case of emergency. He’ll let you chaps in. Now I need to get this armour off me before I rust.’

A policeman arrived on a bicycle. Kevin flashed his ID.

‘Lord Ballashiels is resisting a High Court order to recover goods–’ the bailiff began.

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s how it seems,’ interrupted Constable Stuart, removing his helmet to reveal a thinning mane of silver hair.

‘And he’s recklessly fired a cannon at us, endangering the health and safety of–’

‘Yes, well, you know, I’ve been a police officer for many years.’

‘Eh? He’s still inside. You go ahead and make the arrest, and we’ll follow to do our job.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Constable Stuart, smiling broadly. ‘You youngsters are always in a hurry!’

‘I’m forty-three,’ said Kevin. ‘And the clock’s ticking. Lord Ballashiels’ debt is increasing by the hour, and that just adds to our workload.’

‘Well I never. I’d swear you weren’t a day over thirty.’

‘Look at that rubble. That’s what fell down near to us when he fired the cannon. If I’d been standing ten yards to the right I could have been killed. Are you going to do him for attempted murder or reckless discharge of a firearm or what?’

The policeman kicked the rubble with his shoe. A dusty cannon ball rolled out from beneath it. ‘I’m sure His Lordship has learned his lesson.’

‘Learned his lesson? He tried to kill me!’

‘So you say,’ said the constable. ‘There’s always two sides to every story. Which is why we could never prove that the alleged cannon incident was deliberate.’

‘Huh?’

‘Picture this scenario. Lord Ballashiels just happened to load a ball into the cannon, to test the functionality of the antique item. He may have then poured in some gunpowder, perhaps out of mere curiosity. And the subsequent ignition of the fuse was plainly a bizarre quirk of fate. Could happen to anyone.’

Kevin looked at the policeman as if he were mad. ‘Are you on his payroll or something?’

‘I am here merely to keep the peace.’

‘Look, I don’t care what you charge him for. Just let us in so we can do our job.’

Constable Stuart produced a large iron key and unlocked the weighty door. Ratty was seated on the floor of the hallway next to a dismembered suit of armour.

‘You OK down there, sir?’ asked the policeman. ‘I’ve heard some uncharitable rumours about your recent behaviour. But don’t you worry, sir. It’s all under control now.’

‘This is it, then?’ asked Ratty as the bailiffs gathered in the hall and the policeman departed. ‘Game well and truly over for the Ballashiels line. No more batsmen left to field. No more lagomorphs to pull out of the old topper. Gentlemen, do your worst.’

‘We would much rather take the money than all your stuff,’ said Kevin. ‘If you make an offer of payment we’ll put it to your creditors.’

‘Would you be kind enough to grant me a minute for a call on the dog and telephone, as I believe you cockney-type chaps call the telegraphy voice-transmission mechanism?’ asked Ratty.

Kevin nodded despite not having a clue what had just been said. Ratty dialled a number on the vintage telephone in the hall.

‘Ruby? Ratty here. Are you still looking to buy some bric-a-brac for the British Museum?’

‘It’s not convenient now,’ replied the voice on the line.

‘Mmm, well quite, it’s just that the old pecuniary discomfiture is raising its somewhat unattractive cranium–’

‘If you need money, Ratty, the museum is desperate for your half of the pair of Mayan tablets you told me about. But nothing else.’

‘Bilbo’s stele?’

‘Yes, the stele. I have to go to a meeting.’

‘Could it be worth five hundred and twenty thousand, per chance?’

‘To anyone with the other half it would be priceless. On its own, it’s still a fabulous piece but it’s not going to command a huge price. I’ll come and look at it for you when I get back from the Sphinx dig. Consider it sold. Keep it safe for me.’

‘Sold to the pulchritudinous archaeologist! Spiffing. And when will you grace our shores once more, Ruby?’

‘I haven’t even got to Egypt yet. I’m flying out tonight. I have a meeting now. Got to go.’

He hung the receiver on the box on the wall. He was happy to have sold the useless old Mayan tablet that his great-great-uncle Bilbo had brought back from Guatemala in the nineteenth century, but it wasn’t going to save him today.

‘There’s a Mayan stele thingummy in the turret room,’ said Ratty. ‘Looks like a stone disc with symbols engraved on it. It now belongs to the British Museum, so if you wouldn’t mind leaving it behind.’

‘Of course,’ said Kevin. ‘Can I ask you a personal question, Your Lordship?’

Ratty was in unfamiliar territory. He hadn’t been asked anything personal in a long time. ‘Gosh. Quite. Why not? Jolly good.’

‘The background to this court case says that you’ve borrowed again and again against your name. You’ve repeatedly used old school contacts in the city to bypass the usual credit checks. How did you expect to pay all this money back?’

Ratty seemed perplexed. ‘Pay? Back? Is this the ambiguous vernacular of the fine print with which you bamboozle innocent, presbyopian borrowers?’

‘What I mean is have you ever considered working for a living? Do you even know what work is?’

‘Work? Oh, that. Yes, of course I know all about work. I’ve read widely on the subject. Fascinating topic. I took a module on medieval cathedral stonemasons when I was at Cambridge. Jolly hard-working chaps, all of them. And dashed clever, to boot. The masons, I mean. Not my fellow student chaps at Cambridge. Barely a brain cell between them. Except Ruby. But then she had to earn her place. Hadn’t been at the right school, if you catch my wotnot. The rest of us sort of slid in without anyone really noticing.’

‘So you’ve never had a job?’

‘Not true, old vulture. I am in full possession of a profession.’

‘Which is?’

‘I am self-employed on a full-time and tax-deductible basis as a seeker of all that glisters and has been lost to history.’

‘A treasure hunter?’

‘At your service,’ confirmed Ratty.

‘So why don’t you sell some treasure to pay off your debts?’

‘Because my efforts have yet to be rewarded.’

‘You’re a treasure hunter who’s never found any treasure?’

‘A not entirely inaccurate summation of my career, regrettably. But if I can find an institution sufficiently generous to trust me with another fifty thousand there’s a new type of ground-penetrating radar thingy which I’m sure will transform my success rate. Maybe sixty thousand, come to think of it, to cover essential extras. Those hotel bar bills soon add up.’

Kevin had heard enough. He signalled to his colleagues. They filed respectfully into the formal rooms of the house, ready to catalogue, value and remove everything within. Ratty watched despondently, falling to an almost foetal position on the floor. A shadow hung over him. He looked up. The stranger in the panama hat was standing in the portico, blocking the light.

‘I say, do I know you?’ Ratty asked, unravelling himself and standing up.

‘My name is Doctor Otto. Doctor Otto M,’ announced the stranger in an accent that made Ratty think of schnitzels.

‘Pleased to make your–’ began Ratty, stopping abruptly when he realised Otto was not responding to his outstretched hand.

‘And the M is for?’

‘Lord Ballashiels,’ continued Otto, without answering the question, ‘our families have something in common.’

‘The curse of the receding chin?’

‘I mean our ancestors were … acquaintances,’ said Otto, looking down at his feet and adjusting their position. It seemed to Ratty almost as if the doctor was trying to avoid standing on the lines between the flagstones. ‘And it is for that reason that I have come here today to make your problem go away.’

‘Oh, it’s no problem,’ Ratty replied. ‘Quite used to it.’ Ratty ran his long fingers across his diminutive chin.

‘Nevertheless, I can fix it. Right now.’

‘Will it hurt?’

‘Lord Ballashiels, what is the minimum your creditors will accept to stall the seizure of goods?’

‘Oh, that problem. More of an inconvenience. Not entirely au fait with the numerical complexity to be frank. This Kevin chap might be able to assist you in that endeavour,’ said Ratty as the bailiff passed by carrying a clipboard.

‘Ten per cent. That’s about fifty thousand,’ said Kevin. ‘Plus a realistic plan to pay the balance.’

Otto opened his briefcase. Bulging envelopes were arranged neatly within. He selected five of them and handed them to Kevin, avoiding the cracks in the floor as he did so. ‘I think you will find that to your satisfaction. And Lord Ballashiels has a very realistic plan for the payment of the remaining balance,’ said Otto.

‘I do?’

‘He has an item of value that I will purchase from him.’

‘I do?’

‘Subject to expert verification I am prepared to pay a price that will solve his current debt situation in its entirety. Does that meet the requirements of all parties?’

‘It’s good enough for today,’ decided Kevin. ‘I’ll call off the lads.’

‘Lord Ballashiels? Is that acceptable?’

‘Goodness, yes, of course, I suppose. What is it you want, old chap?’

‘Your ancestor, Bilbo Ballashiels, found a stone stele in Guatemala. If it is still in your possession, I will buy it from you. We will regard today’s payment to your creditors as a binding deposit.’

‘Ah, right, yes, trouble is, already sold that Mayan stone thingy to a museum, actually. Anything else take your fancy? A dashing suit of armour? Or maybe a Grinling Gibbons? I’ll throw in the woodworm for free.’

‘Perhaps you misunderstand, Your Lordship. I will buy that stele from you and you will be able to repay your creditors in full.’

‘Quite. Jolly useful idea, yes. Only there’s money and there’s honour, you see. I may be deficient in the one, but I try to maintain at least a smidgen of the other. If you had popped by a few minutes earlier things might have been different, but I have just agreed a verbal contract of sale–’

‘It is plain that I must emphasise the situation to you with more clarity. I will purchase the stele. You will sell it to me. Any failure on your part to fulfil your end of the transaction will be met with not only a requirement for a full refund of the deposit I have paid today but also–’ Otto paused. ‘Do not fail. I will send a contract in due course.’