The Chaplin Conspiracy Read online

  After a pause that set many pulses quickening, the Templar made an announcement.

  ‘Congratulations are in order,’ he said, looking around the room and eventually resting his eyes upon one of the American women. ‘Congratulations to you, Justina.’

  She pumped her fist into the air and whooped like an ape to which had been returned a long-lost banana.

  ‘Or should I call you, Lady Ballashiels?’

  ‘Huh? What the hell?’

  ‘It seems you are the rightful heir to a title and an English country estate.’

  ‘No shit!’ Justina’s eyes betrayed the complex mathematics currently crunching through her mind. Was a title and a country house worth more than the Saunière inheritance? Could she exploit this on reality television shows and make money – if not a billion, then at least a few million dollars – that way? What were the tax implications to the IRS? Or would she cease to be a US citizen now that she was an English aristocrat? And could she knock at the door of Buckingham Palace any time she fancied taking tea with the Queen?

  ‘Gosh,’ said Ratty, his voice high-pitched and weak. ‘It would be discourteous not to warn you that the pile you appear to have inherited is of somewhat negative worth. The debts of the house far exceed its value. For me to step aside from that burden is a not an inconsiderable relief. My sympathies, Your Ladyship.’

  ‘Huh?’ she asked. ‘You for real?’

  ‘And where does that leave me?’ asked Ratty.

  The Templar grinned. ‘I have also to offer my sincerest congratulations to you, too, Monsieur Saunière.’

  ‘No!’

  Aurelia passed her father a folder. He brushed the breadcrumbs from the kitchen table and slid the contents of the folder onto it.

  ‘I have here, already prepared, the necessary paperwork,’ he informed Ratty, showing him a lavish, typed contract adorned with wax seals, colourful stamps and signatures that included Fairbanks, McAdoo and Chaplin.

  ‘Necessary to do what?’

  ‘To transfer the twenty per cent of United Artists into your name. The shareholding has been held in trust for almost a century. No one has been able to touch it. Only a verified descendant can cash in the shares or bequeath them to someone else. Finally we have the DNA evidence to transfer the shares out of the trust and into your name and control. You may sell them or leave them in your will to others. Our role in this is now ended.’

  ‘Well, I really don’t know if I should. I mean this is all so sudden, and I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Ratty, just sign it!’ ordered Ruby. ‘You’re broke. Be rich for once. You might like it.’

  The Templar passed a pen to him. Ratty noticed the man’s hand was shaking.

  ‘Sign there,’ said the Templar, pointing with a wobbly finger. ‘And be careful with the document. It’s very old and we don’t have a copy. Our organisation has guarded it with our lives for generations. Only an original with the irreplaceable signatures of the other four shareholders – including Charlie Chaplin himself – can be used to claim the twenty per cent of the film company and a century of accumulated dividends. Two sets of these documents were produced a century ago. We have this set, the other has been missing for decades.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Ratty. ‘Perhaps I should consult a—’

  ‘Ratty!’ Ruby snapped.

  ‘Of course. Don’t want to delay you all.’

  He took the pen and signed the document without reading a word of it.

  ‘Right, all done,’ said the Templar.

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Ratty.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that trifling matter of the billion dollar shareholding?’

  ‘All yours. You now own twenty per cent of United Artists film company.’

  ‘Quite. Golly. That was easy.’

  ***

  Too easy, thought Scabies, peering through the little window as everyone started filing out of the room. When Ratty and the Templar were the only ones left in the kitchen, the Templar closed the door and seemed to lock it. Scabies tensed. This didn’t look right.

  ‘There are a few matters I need to discuss with you before you leave,’ said the Templar, inviting Ratty to sit once more.

  With great care, Ratty placed the share transfer document on the table and sat beside it. ‘Of course,’ he replied.

  ‘These shares. You own them for as long as you shall live. And if anything should happen to you, the shares, now free of the restrictions of the trust, automatically transfer to the beneficiary named in this document.’

  ‘Beneficiary?’ asked Ratty.

  ‘It is merely a temporary measure,’ said the Templar. ‘It names me as the sole beneficiary should anything happen to you. Once you get home you are welcome to get the document changed and leave it to someone of your choosing.’

  ‘Right. Jolly good,’ said Ratty, unsure whether it was really necessary to be detained just to have such a brief codicil explained to him.

  ‘So the only question remaining,’ said the Templar, reaching into a cupboard and producing a shotgun that shook noticeably in his hands, is how long will you live?’

  Ratty exhaled with a squeak as if he had a deflating balloon wedged in his gullet. ‘I say!’ he protested. ‘Not cricket!’

  ‘An English game. You must forgive my ignorance of the rules.’

  ‘I knew there was a reason not to trust your sort,’ said Ratty.

  ‘My sort?’

  ‘French,’ said Ratty, ejecting the word as if it were a fly in his mouth.

  ‘You are as French as I am.’

  ‘Never! And besides, I thought we were singing from the same hymn sheet. If you’re going to point that frightful device at me I will have seriously to entertain the possibility that we are not even in the same church.’

  ‘If your Frenchness distresses you, fear not,’ said the Templar, raising the shotgun and taking aim. Your suffering will shortly be over.’

  Ratty wished there was something he could do. Wished someone could come to his rescue. Someone streetwise like Scabies. He knew his wishes never came true. Ruby’s strictly platonic friendship was proof enough of that, and he prepared to end his life on a note of regret. But his track record on wishes was about to change in a most dramatic manner.

  The oil drum thundered into the kitchen like a Catherine Wheel, flames spewing and thrashing as putrid olive oil splattered and ignited. Ratty dived sideways and climbed into the kitchen sink. The drum crashed into the table, pushing it aside, spraying it with oil which then burned with a ferocity that shocked even Scabies. The musician launched his second salvo, another burning drum. This one was aimed directly – by means of a well-practised kick – at the Templar, who had backed himself up against the door, torn between reaching through the flames to try to save the rapidly disappearing United Artists share document and trying to save himself. His indecision removed both options. Charred fragments of the document floated into the air and spread across the room, some landing back in the fierce flames and vanishing, others settling, unrecognisable, upon the green tiles of the counter top.

  The Templar dropped his gun and tried to dodge the approaching flaming barrel, but his already injured legs would not move with the degree of rapidity that his mind would have preferred. Flames leapt onto his trousers. He screamed and fell to the floor, writhing and twisting.

  ‘Come on, Ratty!’ shouted Scabies. ‘This way!’

  ‘Oughtn’t we to put him out, first?’ asked Ratty, climbing down from the sink and preparing to fill the kettle to pour over the Templar.

  ‘Not with water,’ said Scabies, with undisguised reluctance.

  ‘Oh, quite. Yes. Oil-based fire. Should know that by now, I suppose.’

  Scabies removed his leather jacket. Ratty likewise. Between them they smothered the Templar’s legs and left him steaming and moaning on the floor.

  ‘Fools!’ screamed the Templar in a manner which Ratty considered to be most ungrateful. ‘All is lost! Without th
at document the legacy can never be claimed!’

  ‘Easy come, easy go,’ said Scabies with a shrug, before dragging the Templar out of the smoke-filled kitchen to the barn.

  ‘Should we leave the fellow here with his olive oil?’ asked Ratty.

  ‘Why not. He can fix himself a nice salad,’ said Scabies.

  ***

  ‘I am afraid I have no keys to offer you. Security doesn’t seem relevant when the house has a gaping hole in its side where half of it has collapsed. Oh, and you’ll have to deal with Mater. She might not take to the idea too easily. Rather stuck in her ways. Might take a modest-sized army to dislodge the old fruit. My accountant will furnish you with a complete list of how much is owed and to whom. Even before half the place burned to the ground, the value of Stiperstones was insufficient to cover its multitudinous debts. I really am most grateful to be free of such a burden and wish you the best of—’

  ‘Keep it.’

  Winnifred looked at Justina in approval, saying nothing.

  ‘I beg your wotsits?’

  Justina looked into the tired and emotional eyes of His Lordship. ‘Keep the house. Keep the title. I don’t want it.’

  Ratty felt a tear in his eye. He’d been bluffing, of course. A show of gentlemanly indifference to the loss of everything that made him who he was. If she declined to challenge his title, he would keep the house and its liabilities, but more importantly he would remain a Ballashiels. The whole Saunière shadow could evaporate and the sun would once more shine upon him. And it would be a British sun shining on what remained of the dyed hair upon his British head.

  ‘If I may enquire, and, well, it seems to me, I don’t know, rather, um—’

  ‘Are you trying to ask why I don’t want what’s rightfully mine?’ Justina asked, hoping to stop Ratty in his tracks before they both succumbed to the frailty of old age. Before he could reply, she cut him off. ‘Then I’ll tell you. It has nothing to do with the money. I could make money out of the title, I’m sure. Lady Thingummy has a ring to it, and that could translate into plenty of cash Stateside, but I’m not going to take your title and your home because it’s everything you have. It’s your life. And what you did to the Templar guy saved his life. And because you saved his life, he’s ensured all charges against me and Winnifred are dropped. So we get our lives. I owe it all to you.’

  ‘Gosh. Well, I can’t take all the credit. This drummer chappy next to me was somewhat quicker off the mark in the fire damping department. And if he hadn’t started the inferno in the first place, I wouldn’t be here at all.’

  Scabies gave Justina a heroic grin. ‘Just doing my job. Any time you need someone to set fire to some drums, call me.’

  Ruby entered the corridor.

  ‘How’s the Patient doing?’ asked Winnifred.

  ‘He’s maxed out on morphine,’ she said. ‘They reset the pins. Surgery went well. He’s delirious and talking to Rocco about Charlie Chaplin. The nurse says the rest of you can go and see him in a minute, two at a time, after they’ve checked his stitches.’

  ‘What is he saying about the Chaplin chappy?’ asked Ratty.

  ‘He’s talking about when Chaplin’s body was kidnapped in Switzerland in the seventies,’ she replied. ‘When they got him back, they had to bury him in a concrete tomb in case it happened again.’

  ‘Why would it happen again?’ asked Justina.

  ‘Because,’ said Ruby, ‘Chaplin’s casket was rumoured to contain items related to Saunière, and Rocco is of the demented opinion that the rumours are true. He’s convinced the missing backup documents that would permit the transfer of the billion dollar United Artists shareholding are still inside it. Whoever gets hold of them could still claim Saunière’s inheritance. Which is stupid and irrelevant because they’ve put him in a theft-proof grave. Only the world’s best tunneller would have a hope of getting that prize.’

  Winnifred’s face seemed to light up. ‘So Chaplin’s still buried in Switzerland?’ she asked, standing up. ‘No one’s tried to rob the grave site since the seventies?’

  Justina also seemed to stretch her legs ready to stand. Ratty gave a yawn and elongated his frame. Charlie and Scabies fidgeted.

  ‘That’s what the Patient and Rocco were saying,’ said Ruby. ‘Ask Rocco yourself.’

  Ruby poked her head back into the ward and looked in the direction of the Patient’s bed. Rocco was gone. When she turned back to the corridor, Winnifred, Justina, Scabies, Charlie and Ratty were nowhere to be seen.

  Proudly published by Accent Press

  www.accentpress.co.uk