The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) by Robert Rankin

Author:Robert Rankin [Rankin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-06-16T07:00:00+00:00

At length, we paused before the big front door.

‘This is one of those places,’ I said to Mr Rune.

‘One of which places?’ Mr Rune had a certain sigh in his voice.

‘One of those country-house places,’ I said, ‘like in Agatha Christie’s novels, or the Sherringford Hovis Mysteries written by P. P. Penrose. Oh,’ I said, ‘or like Cluedo. If there is a murder here today, I bet it will be in the library and that Colonel Mustard will do it with the length of lead pipe.’

‘Rizla,’ said Mr Rune.

‘Yes?’ said I.

‘Put a Primark sock in it!’

Mr Rune rapped upon the big front door with his stout stick and presently it was opened. He flourished his invitation and we were granted admittance.

‘Butler,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘You can tell by his get-up.’

‘Mister Cutler at your service, sir,’ said the butler. ‘If you will kindly walk this way.’

‘Don’t say it,’ said Mr Rune.

And I did not.

We followed Cutler (the butler) through elegant rooms that wore family portraits upon their pastelly painted walls and then through big French windows to lawns that lay beyond, lawns upon which gilded youth mingled with old money.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr Rune, approvingly. ‘Ah yes, indeed, most splendid.’

I viewed the gilded youth and wondered at them. So that was what young toffs looked like, was it? I had never encountered them before. They were clearly in a class of their own, different from other Brightonians. Although it had to be said that there was not a distinct Brighton type. Brighton was overly cosmopolitan and played host to all types, from the pirates of Moulsecoomb and the wide boys of Whitehawk to the back-seat drivers of Kemp Town and the sporting celebrities of Hove (which was pretty much Brighton – you could not really seen the join).

But the gilded youth of the Upper Hangleton area.

Well.

Well, for one thing, I recognised many of them – I had seen their photos in the society pages of the Argus, red-faced and mostly drunk, with their arms about the naked shoulders of some damn fine-looking women. And all of them closely related, as is generally the way with such folk. I recognised the Honourable Nigel Fairborough-Countless, heir to the Countless millions; Lord Edward Marzipan-Fudge, heir to the hundreds and thousands; Lord Burberry Spaniel-Fondler, heir of the dog that bit him; and Lord Lucus Lapp-Dancer, heir on a G-string. Then there was Lord Henry Myle-Hie, British Heirways – club class, of course. Not to mention—

A smart young fellow-me-lad in a suit not unlike to my own detached himself from the gabbling throng of gilded youth and came a-jigging over to us, a glass of Pimm’s in one hand and a crustless sandwich in the other.

‘Sir Hugo,’ he said, in the accent known as Posh. ‘It is you, isn’t it? It has to be, for I am related to everyone else here. Excepting the butler, of course.’ And he laughed. Although I did not feel the need to do so myself.

‘I must therefore have

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