Chapter 5

In which Timmy and Sid are summoned to Chiltonham Ladies' College to investigate a serious case of knicker-nicking and in which Timmy pumps Francpise Fourchette, the attractive French mistress for information-amongst other things.

Sid is dead lucky because Mr. Brown ruptures himself as he throws him through the wall partition. Not that he sees it like that of course. Sid has never been one to appreciate his own good fortune in moments of adversity. I feel dead choked because it is a diabolical way for things to finish when I have shown so much initiative. Trust Sid to be the stupid berk dipping his ballpoint in Mrs. Brown's pinkwell.

Relations, and several different parts of the body, are strained for days after the incident and it is fortunate that I have my relationship with Gretchen to console me. Yes, the comely kraut bint-as she turns out to be-comes to the flicks with me and even wins the standout thrill of a meal at the Pizzeria-I wish they would not call it that. It makes me think of something else. I don't go a bomb on pizzas myself but they are cheap and you get scrubbed pine tables and candles thrown in for nothing. A flagon of chianti-keep the bottle for a lampshade my dear-and you are in like a dose of salts. At least usually you are. In this case I am not. It is nothing to do with the unquenchable Lea magnetism, that is as unfailing as ever. The problem lies in the area of my fair partner's snatch. It is more like a kitten than a pussy and attempts to bring percy into contact with the velvet Y meet with pain and disappointment on both sides-and particularly on the end. The whole thing-or perhaps I should say the hole thing-is doubly fmstrating because Gretchen is no less than very eager to play submarine pens.

'It is so silly,' she keeps saying. 'Why am I not like other girls?'

'You are like other girls,' I tell her. 'Lots of them have this problem-at least, that's what I've heard. Sometimes if it's really bad, they go to the doctor.'

'I could not go to the doctor,' says Gretchen. 'I am not married. What would he think?'

'I expect he's come across the problem before,' I say.

Honestly, it is quite untrue that all Continental birds are ravers. A lot of them are very straitlaced. When Gretchen starts going bananas it is because her highly-sexed nature has taken over her Teutonic cool. It makes it all more exciting somehow-until the assault on the nooky cooky. It is like trying to shove your hampton up a gnat's garter.

'What are we going to do?' says the frustrated fraulein as I try and rub the circulation back into my walking out fingers. 'You are certain that it is not you who is too big?'

'Positive,' I say sadly. 'Not, of course that I'm inclined the other way, you understand? It's just one of those things. We'll have to keep working at it.'

So saying, we melt into a last passionate clinch and I bear poor confused percy away into the night. What can I do to bring Gretchen the happiness we both so richly deserve? It can't be good for my groin greyhound to keep grinding his nose into bulldog shape and Gretchen is clearly undergoing considerable frustration and physical pain. I wonder if I should write to Marjorie Proops about it?

Fortunately, I don't bring a blush to our Marje's fair cheek because another assignment crops up and thoughts of burying percy alive are driven from my mind. I check in at the office one morning and it is obvious from the expression on Sid's depraved mug that something more exciting than a change to soft bog paper in the communal lav has happened.

'Chiltonham Ladies' College,' he breathes, waving a letter under my hooter. 'This is it, Timmo. Now we're really cooking with gas. This is the big time, Bozo. Stick with me and you'll be wearing velvet Y-fronts.'

'llarm can come to a young boy through watching too much Kojak,' I tell him. 'You're going to frighten old ladies to death if you go on talking like that-and why are you eating that toffee apple ?'

"They didn't have any lollipops,' says Sid. Honestly, he is just like a big soft kid sometimes. Very easily manipulated. He buys everything he sees on the telly.

'Ladies' College?' I say. 'Is that some kind of girls' school?'

'Only the best,' says Sid. 'All the birds that go there are out of the top draws. You know Princess Anne?'

I look round the room carefully. 'What have you heard?'

'Don't mess about,' says Sid. This could do us a lot of good. Once we get a name for being detectives to high society we could be well away. You know what they're like. They're all rotten to the cor blimey. The divorce work alone could make us a fortune.'

'You're jumping ahead a bit, aren't you?' I say. 'What's the caper?'

'Miss Craghearty reveals little in her letter,' says Sid. 'She is going to fill us in when we get to Chiltonham.'

And if ever there was a lady built to fill you in it is Miss Craghearty. One glance at her and I can see why she has MA Oxon after her name. She is built like an Aberdeen Angus with elephantiasis and her tweeds are only a slightly deeper shade of purple than her boat race. 'It is all highly distressing,' she says. 'Somebody is pilfering the gels' knicknacks. Articles of a delicate and personal nature have disappeared.'

'You mean, more knick than knack?' says Sid.

Miss Craghearty looks at Sid as if he has just crawled out of the black lagoon. "There is an unhealthy aspect to the matter,' she observes.

'Have you been in touch with the police?' I ask.

'Absolutely not.' Miss Craghearty leans across her desk aggressively. 'We don't want any suspicion of a scandal to escape to the outside world. Chiltonham is already the butt of the media. We are constantly being subjected to scurrilous articles in the press. That is why I have sent for you. I want the whole matter cleared up in confidence. Even my own staff have not been informed of your presence.'

'Rest assured, dear lady,' says Sid. 'Discretion is our middle name. This whole distressing business will soon be no more than a painful memory. Do you suspect anybody?'

Miss Craghearty shakes her head. 'Nobody. The incidents have taken place in such circumstances that it has never been possible to point the finger at anyone.'

'Right!' says Sid with a sudden dynamism that makes me jump. 'I think that this is a case for undercover methods. With your permission, madam, I and my assistant will present ourselves in the guise of window cleaners. In that way we will be able to move around without arousing suspicion. After a few days we will have our finger on the pulse of the organization and you can expect results to follow on swiftly.'

'Or, at the very least, clean windows,' I say cheerfully.

Miss Craghearty gives me her upper class drop dead look Mark II and Sid rises to his feet. 'We're on the job,' he says sincerely. 'You won't regret the moment you decided to come to Noggett.'

Miss Craghearty looks as if she is on the point of disagreeing with him and then follows us to the door. 'There is one thing I must ask you,' she says, dropping her voice. 'Please don't interfere with the girls' curricula.'

Sid looks at me. 'You should be saying that to him,' he says. 'He can't get enough of it. Still, never fear, good lady. I will do everything in my power to keep his unnaturally natural appetites in check.' With these words we leave Miss Craghearty looking puzzled. 'You heard what the old bag said,' says Sid as we walk down the corridor. 'If you reckoned you were going to dunk it in upper class crumpet-forget it! This is strictly business.'

Experience has shown me that arguing with Sid is like bashing your nut against the brick wall at the back of a pig pen so I say nothing. Chiltonham Ladies' College is a banquet for the mincepies and it is better to take in its natural beauties rather than indulge in agrochat. One or two natural beauties that I would not mind taking in give us the big hello from various ivy-hung windows and there is a lot of unsolicited giggling. I can see what Miss Craghearty was hinting at. These girls are obviously parched as far as contact with the one-eyed trouser snake is concerned.

'What are we looking for?' I say to Sid when we reassemble with our squeegees and scrims and a load of happy memories.

'I'm not quite certain,' says Sid. 'Miss Craghearty was obviously dead embarrassed about crashing the nitty gritty. I guess we're up against a demon knicker-nicker. Some kinky merchant is probably swarming about hah-mching the birds' frillies.'

'I never fancied them so much when they were empty,' I say. 'Still, it takes all sorts, doesn't it? It would be boring if we were all the same.'

"Thank you, Jean Rook,' says Sid revealing his un pleasant sarcastic streak. 'Can you come back next week? Listen, forget the basic truths and keep your eyes open and your mits off the crumpet. If you see anything unusual, tell me. Don't try and tackle it by yourself. Is that understood?'

Half an hour later, I am sweeping the squeegee from side to side and wondering how I maintain the lithe animal grace that made me the toast of the South West London, 'I don't usually do this kind of thing, you know', set. Happy days they were. Every sharp rat tat tat promising a sharp rat, tit, tit and even more tit. Hardly a day went by when you did not fill a deep-felt need and even watching their imaginations working overtime behind the lace curtains kept the old sense of adventure razor-sharp. Many is the time I have clambered to the top of a ladder, just as I am now, and-hang on a minute. Who is that comely curve carnival stepping out of her dress? She looks a bit old to be one of the pupils. It is not just the size of her knockers but their sophisticated shape. It may be my imagination but I find that your older woman has a more refined angle of dangle in the bristol department. The young knocker rushes out to meet the world like a blancmange searching for a mould. As if activated by my interest, the unsuspecting bint advances to the mirror and cups her manchesters in her mits like she is trying to weigh them.

It is difficult to know what to do in this situation because if the bird suddenly clocks you she can get a nasty surprise and imagine that you have been having a candid gander-which, of course, you have. I usually duck out of sight and come up whistling and gazing into the top right hand corner of the window as if unaware of anything except my craft. Few women can take umbrage in such circumstances. Choosing one of the many heart-warming melodies from Confessions of a Pop Performer-now showing at high class cinemas throughout the length and breast of the country-I rise to the occasion feeling percy stirring like a large pink snowdrop as the first rays of spring sunshine stab the winter snow. Could this be the start of something beautiful and unexpected? Only time will tell.

Hardly have the first bars of 'Kipper, Kipper, mean as Jack The Ripper' passed thankfully from my lips than the bird spins round. One glance in my direction and her boat race registers extreme surprise followed by consternation and then anger. Before I can imitate crisp morning sunshine with my teds she has thrown up the window and delivered a couple of right handers in the area of the middle mush. Not content with this violent attack on my chat feature, she then attempts to push the ladder away from the window. Highly unpleasant for Timothy, I am certain you will agree. It could be The House of Commons instead of a posh birds' school.

'Cut it out!' I holler, warding off the bird's flailing mits. 'What's the matter with you? I'm the window cleaner, aren't I? I wave my squeegee in front of the bird's snoz and slowly, very slowly, her expression changes.

'Oh no!' she says. 'I am so sorree! I think you are-oh it is too 'orrible!' And with those few words in a very froggy accent, she bursts into tears.

In such a situation few can beat my speed over the first hundred yards and my leg is over the windowsill before you can say 'Roger Carpenter with a double rupture'. 'Don't cry,' I say. 'I know what you thought. You thought I was him didn't you? Well, I'm not. I'm me. Timothy Lea. I can't really say anything but I know a bit more than I can let on about. Know what I mean?'

The bird shakes her head sadly. 'I sink I make a big mistake to come 'ere. My Engleesh is not good enough. I no understand anything.'

'You teach here, do you?' I ask. 'You're the French mistress, are you?' French Mistress. The very words trip off the tongue like 'frilly panties'. I hardly like to say them unless my imagination books an appointment with the four fingered widow.

'Assistant French Mistress,' says the bird, 'Francoise Fourchette. I am sorree that I 'it you.'

'Don't worry,' I say. 'It happens all the time. The girls giving you trouble, are they?'

'It is not that,' says Franchise. 'I 'ate work and I love sick.' It is not often that a bird puts the mockers on my powers of rabbit but on this occasion I am rendered well and truly speechless. These Continental birds have some funny ways and no mistake. I knew a bloke who fancied the smell of his own farts but he was not in this class. 'I should never have left 'im,' continues the lovely Mademoiselle Fourchette.'

'E was part of me.'

It occurs to me that I may have mistaken the lady's drift.

'Oh, love-sick!' I say. 'You fancy some bloke back home, do you?' I know that it is one of the many nasty things about me but once a bird starts blubbing, my cock becomes rock and I feel like bashing her over the pudenda with it. People are always rabbiting on about how sex should be a manifestation of love, respect and tenderness but I don't reckon so much myself-I mean, it can be all those things, but it can be a lot of other things as well. It depends on your mood, the direction of the wind, what you had for supper and whether her Mum is likely to be back late from the bingo.

'Pierre,' she says.'

'E supplied so many of my needs. But why do I tell you this thing? You 'oo are a complete stranger.'

'Sometimes complete strangers are the best people to help,' I say. 'Outsiders can see things more clearly. If you think about something too much, your point of view becomes distorted.'

Something else that is becoming distorted is the front of my overall. Percy is signaling his desire to prove that actions speak louder than words and is beginning to thrash about like a manic garden hose. He senses, as I do, that Franchise is in need of the remedial balm of the magic poundabout and is in no mood to hang about-very wise too. If you are a dick, hanging about is the worst way of proving your point.

"This terrible man,' she says. 'It is 'orrible. I am so frightened.'

She starts to cry again and I feel that the least I can do is give her a comforting pat on the shoulder-well, not so much the shoulder, more the upper arm: where it joins the interesting bits-the threepenny bits. To my surprise she suddenly grips my hand and squeezes it tight. 'There, there,' I say-it is ridiculous because she must know where it is.

'You know,' she says slowly. 'I think most of all I am frightened by myself. I 'ate this man yet at the same time I want 'im-I need 'im. There is a part of me that cries out for 'im. I am-'ow you say-? Frustree?'

'Frustrated,' I say, allowing my voice to sink a couple of octaves into its best bedside manner. 'I know how you feel. It must be difficult when you're a long way from 'ome-I mean, home.' The whole case is taking on psychological overtones, isn't it? I don't usually reckon it much myself. I read a book about it once, appropriately enough by a French geezer-Simen On, I think his name was, probably of Chinese extraction-but I couldn't get into it. Everybody was barring their dQors and muttering behind closed shutters. Nothing ever happened and the bloke who did it knotted himself because he thought his budgerigar didn't love him. Blooming stupid really. I prefer action to plot: Half a dozen murders, a couple of crooked cops, three car chases and the snooty bird who did it all, copping the hero AND THIRTY YEARS IN SING SING IN THE LAST

CHAPTER.

As I recall it, there was no sex in Monsieur On's work apart from the bloke's feelings towards his budgie, and they were not requited, bird lovers will be relieved to know. In the present situation I reckon I can improve on that. With this outspoken lady seriously contemplating a spot of in and out with a criminal and pining for her Pierre it is clearly my beholden duty to slip her a length. What is a private eye if he is not a doctor trying to cure society's ills ? I will acknowledge all answers to that question written on the back of a five pound note. Of course, it has nothing to do with finding the demon knicker nicker but you can't have everything. I will take things one at a time and try not to get flustered.

'I'd better close the window, hadn't I?' I say. This is what I have heard called a rhetorical question and is delivered with a side order of heavy overtone. I always reckon that French birds are a sight more sophisticated than our homespun lovelies and less likely to respond to a straightforward request for a trial sample of conjugal rights. It is also a case of 'the least said, soonest amended'. If you feed a bird a series of casual throwaways which bear little relation to each other she can put any interpretation on them she likes. By the time she finds out what you were really getting at-you've got to it.

I slam down the window and turn to face Francoise. She looks into my eyes and I look into hers. She is wearing a mustard-coloured slip and her lower Up trembles-I don't think that the two events are connected.

'Let me help you,' I say. I stretch out my arms and hope that she does something-you feel such a berk if she doesn't. The only way out is to launch into a fishing story.

"Thees ees madness,' she says. 'I am so ashamed. I do not know what comes over me.'

'Nobody will ever know,' I say. 'It will be our secret.'

If only I could play the violin I would really be in business. I can seen that Frangoise is hesitating and you know what they say about people who hesitate-up shit creek without adequate means of propulsion.

'Come here,' I say.

Frangoise takes a faltering step towards me and her fate is sealed as if by an epoxy resin. I snatch her into my arms and her small cupid's bow mouth comes up to mine like a swing boat on its upward sweep. I engulf her lips and send my brewer's bung on a journey into the interior. She quivers in my arms and settles on to my cakehole like a baby to the teat. What suction power! Even at this stage in our relationship I can sense myself in the presence of a lady who likes to suck. I mould her to my frame and help myself to a handful of haunch. A beautiful piece of equipment it is too. Filling every contour of the palm. Swifdy, my eager fingers hitch up the slip and pleasure themselves on the silken fabric beneath. The same material as the slip at a guess. And where-I hear you ask-is percy while all this is going on? Not far away. Climbing swiftly and silently up the front of my Y-fronts. Growing in size and eagerness with every inch. Trembling with ill-suppressed longing. Frangoise breaks off our kiss and shows me her teeth as she spreads her hand across the front of my trousers.

'I love 'im,' she husks. There is a plaintive edge to her voice but I am not certain whether she is talking about boyfriend Pierre or my own special favourite-Passionate Percy, the orginator of the drain pipe trouser.

'I know,' I say, reckoning that these two simple words will serve in either eventuality.

I waste no further time on sweet talk but send five matelots to board her knickers. They swarm over the side with a speed and sense of purpose that Blackbeard the Pirate would have admired and plunge into the juiceville like a warrenful of feeding bunnies hitting their burrows as they hear Farmer Brown approaching with his bangstick. In fact, of course, it is not Farmer Brown but Timothy Lea who represents the real danger as far as bang sticks are concerned. You need a firearm license to carry what I have between my legs at the moment and Twentieth Century Fox searchlights make a worse job of combing the sky. I set my lips on collision course for the fanciable frog's cakehole and pull down her panties so that there is no danger of the elastic stopping the circulation in my wrist. It is clear that she is eager for a pork banger in her hanger because she is shivering like a carton of gnat's wings in a force nine gale and making noises that you never hear on the BBC French for Schools Programme. She sits back on the bed and peels off her panties and tights like she is trying to break a record for doing it-it could be the British All-Comers as far as me and my throbbing friend are concerned. I don't hang about but shed my threads and allow her to cop an eyeful of proud perce bobbing up and down like a roundabout horse. The sight obviously grabs her because she repays the compliment and seizes my hampton in one of her dainty mits.

'Come,' she says.

I am certain she does not mean that and this supposition is reinforced when she leads me towards a washbasin in the comer of the room. What does she have in mind? I am not used to being taken for walkies by my Mad Mick. To my surprise she turns on the hot tap and smiles at me reassuringly.

'Wait for it to warm up,' she says.

She need not worry. At the moment, a drop of ice cold water on my knob would turn to steam on impact. Satisfied with the temperature, Frangoise pops in the plug, half fills the basin, turns off the tap, works up a nice rich lather-I don't reckons Katie Boyle would fancy it on her mug after this lot-and slaps it on my love joint. Dead hygienic the frogs obviously. Either that or she has a shrewd suspicion about some of the places my giggle stick has been. I kiss her while she is doing it and she gets so carried away that she puts her soapy hands round my naked body and digs her finger nails into my shoulders. Dead sexy I find that. '

I start pulling her towards the bed and she snatches for a towel and tries to dry me off before we make a dent in the counterpane. I slip my hand between her legs and play the opening bars of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto on her snatch. I don't know if she has an ear for classical music but her grumble obviously responds to the magic of the maestros. Her mouth drops open and she draws up her legs and squeezes my hampton like she is using it to haul herself out of a bath. I tiptoe away in the middle of my favourite passage and start to tug up her slip. Her bristols strain expectantly against the semi-see-through fabric of her light blue bra and I brush aside the barrier and set my lips to raise gherkins where once only strawberries would grow.

Frangoise squeaks with pleasure as I pamper her knockers and for a few minutes she wears her slip like a halter. Then she rises up and with a quick scissor snap of arm movement, sheds slip and bra before kissing my neck and setting off on a snail trail southwards. Her moist lips guide her nickering tongue down towards the site of her previous handiwork and I feel percy quiver-I would say stiffen, but this hampton can't get any stiffer. Frangoise reaches my derby kell and her tongue slops into my belly button like it is a pool caught by an advancing tide. Her right hand is ranging the length of my hampton from its lighthouse tip to the root deep between my legs and I feel like space control waiting to put a couple of million quid's worth of rocket into space. Frangoise's shell-like earhole settles against the upper reaches of my pubes and 'Oh!' closely followed by 'Eeeeh! ! !' and then 'Aaaaaaaargh! ! !' Ecstasy is too small a word for what is happening to fortunate percy. This foreign lady must be an exponent of the French horn to judge by her virtuoso performance at crutch level. I lay back and enjoy a couple of quiet movements-and then one or two rather noisy movements as Frangoise speeds up her finger action.

'Easy!' I say. 'Easy! ! !-AAARGH! ! !'

For a moment it is touch and go-in fact it is very nearly touch and gone-then I decide that the time has come to take the initiative. After all, I am representing Great Britain again and you can't just he there, can you? Selecting a moment when Mademoiselle Fourchette has paused to brush the hair from her pretty brown minces, I draw her up to my body and give her gateau-hole a taste of the two horizontal strips of pink flesh that nestle under my hooter. When I have stirred this feature up a bit, I press the lady down firmly against the counterpane and windscreen wipe my north and south across her bristols pausing at the end of each sweep to nibble her knocker knobs. This treatment obviously goes down well so my cakehole follows suit and travels south to muffshire. Hardly have I crossed the furry frontier than the expectant quiver turns into a fleshquake. Frangoise's middle third bounces up and down like a pen of kangaroos sensing Naafi break and I have to press my mits firmly on her belly before giving tongue to a much appreciated love yodel. Her looks and lingers tangle with my barnet and for a moment I think that she is trying to turn me into instant Kojak.

Percy is now double eager to hit the clit slit so I disengage my cakehole and position my frisky friend within stabbing distance of the target area. A preliminary thrust and Mademoiselle Fourchette takes the matter firmly in hand and pockets my socket rocket like she is on piecework in the packaging department of a cigar factory.

'Ooh la la!' she says in a tone of pleased surprise, and proceeds to thump out the theme from Ravel's Bolero. What a groover! Lots of Swiss watches have vasdy inferior movements.

What she is doing to me makes me think of those telly commercials where you see an enormous vat of toffee being stirred. Thick and rich and creamy-I'll have to stop or I'll pour myself over my honeycomb centres.

I harness myself to the lady's irresistible motion and slowly begin to build in a dimension of added thrust-for me, it is like canoeing down a fast flowing stream. I have to keep going faster than the current or I can't maintain control of the boat. I slide my hands under the bird's sit feature and feel her beautifully sculpted back knockers curve within the contour of my palms. Now I can really concentrate my artillery barrage on the area where it is going to be most effective. Bang, bang, bang, pause. Bang, bang, bang, pause. Increasing the weight of the stroke each time I engage with my pocket howitzer and seek out Frangoise's north and south for the tender attention of my cakehole. As we kiss, I feel her flinching before the expected onslaught of my hampton and after each stroke she gives a triumphant roll like a swimmer riding the buffet of heavy waves. Fortunately for the future of Anglo-French relations it is becoming increasingly clear that we are approaching the moment of truth in tandem. Frangoise's moans and groans are becoming more frequent and demanding and I am finding it difficult to restrain percy's impulse to indulge in a cream scream. Three more dynamic thrusts and my new friend opens her mouth so wide that I can see what she had for breakfast. She digs her mits into the cleft between my back bumpers and pulls so hard that for a second I think she is going to split me down the middle of the orchestras. I bury my head in the pillow beside her neck and turn percy into a piece of equipment that could lay a stream of rivets along the side of the QE2. A sensation of warmth sweeps through my loins and hesitates for a few delicious seconds before thundering the length of my hampton and exploding with a force that lifts Frangoise six inches up the bed. I don't understand what she is saying but I guess that it must mean the same thing in any language.

'Hello? Miss Fourchette? Mademoiselle Fourchette, are you there?'

My blood turns colder than a penguin's chuff in a blizzard. The voice is coming from outside the door but the doorknob is turning. I leap from the bed and feel my knees buckle as I hit the carpet. I snatch up a pair of pants-but that is all I have time to snatch up. The door opens and I find myself face to face with Miss Craghearty. She stares at me in amazement and then starts back in horror when she sees what I have in my hand-Frangoise's panties.