The DaVinci Code of the Woosters
mikeg...@gmail.com
I amused myself by writing today. Needless to say, if there's anyone
left on earth for whom The DaVinci Code still holds secrets, that
person should not read this....
The DaVinci Code of the Woosters
by Pelham Gebert Wodehouse
There are many things one might say upon finding oneself at the
declamatory end of a pistol brandished by a hulking six-foot-four
albino with a habit of self-flagellation, in the halls of the Louvre.
One might for instance, effect the note of surprise frequently adopted
by the householder in the act of being burgled: "What ho!" Or one
might adopt the interrogatory methods of the American police detective:
"Who the devil are you?" But it is relatively certain that few of
us, confronted by a menacing brute the color of a particularly
ill-tempered blancmange, would respond in the manner that came
naturally to the Hon. Galahad Threepwood.
Gally (as his friends, among whom numbered every agreeable person in
London, called him) took one look at the figure before him and, keenly
sizing him up as some sort of criminal, asked him a question which
would prove to be the absolute crusher to a day which had been very bad
indeed, even by the reduced standards of your average albino religious
maniac. With whom, on the subject of good days, the Hon. Galahad
Threepwood would have found very few points in common.
"Have you," Gally asked, "seen a kangaroo named Bill wearing a
bowler hat and a silk cummerbund?"
* * *
"You see, monsieur Wooster," the police inspector began, "Your
uncle, in his dying moments, left you a message in his own blood before
collapsing-- like so."
"Yes, Gally was always keen for the dramatic gesture," Bertie said,
surveying the scene. "I remember once at the Drones, a pugilistic
chap named Tuffy Bingenheim tried to put the Dutch pickle on old Gally
over a wager he said Gally had welshed on. Gally escaped just in time
by dressing himself as an Apache warrior and setting fire to--"
"Monsieur Wooster, I don't believe you recognize the urgency of the
situation," said the inspector, a man for whom the Dordogne-like
reservoir of patience recognized as the French policeman's birthright
was rapidly filling with the silt of Bertie's remembrances. "It is
most unusual for a man, a man of position such as your uncle, to be
found in this way--"
"What, dead?" asked Bertie. "Oh, we English are always turning
up dead. A positive rage in London at the moment. We'd as soon find
ourselves poisoned or garroted as come for tea."
"In the altogether," said the inspector.
And indeed it was one of the hard facts that must be admitted, that in
choosing to die at this moment, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood seemed to
have done so with a complete disregard for proper dress most
uncharacteristic of his life previous. "I see exactly what you mean,
inspector," said Bertie. "A most shocking lapse on the old boy's
part. Can't think what Aunt Agatha would say if she heard about it.
And that message he's scribbled in his own blood. Jeeves, can that
great brain of yours possibly make anything of it?"
"I have just been giving the matter some thought," said Jeeves, who
had been lurking quietly in the background, satisfying himself as to
some minor points of Caravaggio's brush technique. "It seems to me
that by arranging himself, sans culottes so to speak, in the form of
DaVinci's Vitruvian Man, your uncle was signaling us that DaVinci's
Last Supper holds the clues to the long-hidden fact that Jesus married
Mary Magdalene and sired a line which continues to this day, and that
this fact has been hidden from all mankind by a secret society whose
nefarious agent is undoubtedly the very killer whom our friend the
inspector seeks. In fact, I rather suspect it's that exceedingly
tall and pale fellow lurking in the bushes below right now."
"What, that ghastly kipper-faced yegg who looks like the Ghost of
Christmases Yet to Come?"
"The very one, sir."
* * *
"I wonder if you could help me with a matter of some delicacy,
Bertie," Freddy Threepwood said once the initial pleasantries of the
evening had subsided.
"Don't go looking to put the touch on me, old cork," Bertie said.
"I'm as skint as an antelope in the Royal Geographic Society."
"It's not about money," Freddy said, and Bertie saw from his
agitation that it was indeed a matter of the heart. "There's this
girl-- I'm most madly in love with her-- she's undoubtedly the one
for me, I mean it--"
"I would never have doubted it," Bertie said. "Let neither
auto-flagellating albinos nor secret societies stand twixt you and
Venus' transit on its merry course."
"--But there's the problem of her family," Freddy said.
"There always is," Bertie said. "It's a wonder the race
perpetuates itself at all, what with families always popping up in the
vicinity of any girl who seems worth looking at. How much more
efficient it would all be if girls could find a way to be born without
'em, like bacteria--"
"Well, this is rather a special case," Freddy interjected. "Her
family thinks they're descended from Jesus--"
"Oh, an American girl, is she?" Bertie said. "Some sturdy papa
who made his boodle in the smelting racket or the ironmongering game,
and comes over here to acquire a title for his little girl with very
firm ideas about not being pushed around by old Blighty. Well, you
tell him from me--"
"No, Bertie," said Freddy. "They're literally descended from
Jesus. Mary Magdalene, little Jesus the second, and so on right to the
present day."
"Well, that is a bit of a pincher," Bertie said, thoughtfully.
"Still, I haven't seen the son of God that old Bertie Wooster
couldn't tie up in a silk satchel and send off for extra starch
before breakfast. Never say die, my boy, we'll outwit this deity and
his offspring yet."
* * *
"And so you see," said Sir Roderick Spode menacingly, as he pointed
the pistol at Bertie, "it is a secret which mankind must never know,
for its own good. And I am afraid the only way to ensure that is by
killing you all."
"See, that's where you come a cropper, Spode," said Bertie.
"You imagine that you are the bearer of some enormous secret so
terrible that, if the average punter were to find it out, it would
cause said punter to throw up his wife and position, take up with some
girl named Beryl with unshaved legs and advanced ideas, and go marching
for the Fabians or the Alexander Technique on weekends. But the
average punter wouldn't react to your big secret by tossing away his
perfectly happy life and taking up that sort of rot. The average
punter would look at his paper, say 'What ho, look at this,
apparently that Da Vinci chap helped hide a conspiracy about the Church
in Rome for two thousand years,' and then turn the page to see how
Tiddly Winkie is going to escape from Foxy Locksy on the funnies page.
That one, Jeeves, just above the left earlobe."
Sir Roderick turned just in time for Jeeves to flatten him with a
well-placed swing of the fireplace poker. "I trust Sir Roderick will
be returning to London alone," he said....
Donald4564
<family thinks they're descended from Jesus--"
<"Oh, an American girl, is she?" Bertie said. "Some sturdy papa
Thank you for this old bean, you brought a hearty guffaw to the old
cakehole this morning I can tell you, absolutely ripping stuff.
Regards
Silents Please
Donald Binks