My Uncle Oswald Read online

  'Well done, anyway,' I said. 'You pulled it off.'

  'He was so funny,' she said. 'I wish you could have seen him. He kept hopping up and down.'

  I took the sheet of notepaper with A. R. Woresley's signature on it and placed it in my typewriter. I sat down and typed the following legend directly above the signature:

  I hereby certify that I have on this day, the 27th of March, 1919, delivered personally a quantity of my own semen to Oswald Cornelius Esquire, President of the International Semen's Home of Cambridge, England. It is my wish that this semen shall be stored indefinitely, using the revolutionary and recently discovered Woresley Technique, and I further agree that the aforementioned Oswald Cornelius may at any time use portions of that semen to fertilize selected females of high quality in order to disseminate my own bloodline throughout the world for the benefit of future generations.

  Signed, A. R. Woresley

  Lecturer in Chemistry,

  Cambridge University

  I showed it to Yasmin. 'Obviously it doesn't apply to Woresley,' I said, 'because his stuff isn't going into the freezer. But what do you think of it otherwise? Will it look all right over the signature of kings and geniuses?'

  She read it through carefully. 'It's good,' she said. 'It'll do nicely.'

  'I've won my bet,' I said. 'Woresley will have to capitulate now.'

  She sat sipping her gin. She was relaxed and amazingly cool. 'I have a strange feeling,' she said, 'that this whole thing's actually going to work. At first it sounded ridiculous. But now I can't see what's to stop us.'

  'Nothing can stop us,' I said. 'You'll win every time so long as you can always reach your man and feed him the powder.'

  'It really is fantastic stuff.'

  'I found that out in Paris.'

  'You don't think it might give some of the very old ones a heart attack, do you?'

  'Of course not,' I said, although I had been wondering the same thing myself.

  'I don't want to leave a trail of corpses around the world,' she said. 'Especially the corpses of great and famous men.'

  'You won't,' I said. 'Don't worry about it.'

  'Take for example Alexander Graham Bell,' she said. 'According to you, he is now seventy-two years old. Do you think he could stand up to it?'

  'Tough as nuts,' I said. 'All the great men are. But I'll tell you what we might do if it'll make you feel a bit easier. We'll regulate the dose according to age. The older they are, the less they'll get.'

  'I'll buy that,' she said. 'It's a good idea.'

  I took Yasmin out and treated her to a superb dinner at the Blue Boar. She deserved it. Then I delivered her safely back to Girton.

  12

  The next morning, carrying the rubbery thing and the signed letter in my pocket, I went looking for A. R. Woresley. They told me in the Science Building that he had not shown up that morning. So I drove out to his house and rang the bell. The diabolic sister came to the door.

  'Arthur's a bit under the weather,' she said.

  'What happened?'

  'He fell off his bike.'

  'Oh dear.'

  'He was cycling home in the dark and he collided with a pillar-box.'

  'I am sorry. Is he much hurt?'

  'He's bruised all over,' she said.

  'Nothing broken, I hope?'

  'Well,' she said, and there was an edge of bitterness to her voice, 'not bones.'

  Oh God, I thought. Oh Yasmin. What have you done to him?

  'Please offer him my sincere condolences,' I said. Then I left.

  The following day, a very fragile A. R. Woresley reported for duty.

  I waited until I had him alone in the lab, then I placed before him the sheet of Chemistry Department notepaper containing the legend I had typed out over his own signature. I also dumped about a thousand million of his very own spermatozoa (by now dead) on the bench and said, 'I've won my bet.'

  He stared at the obscene rubbery thing. He read the letter and recognized his signature.

  'You bounder!' he cried. 'You tricked me!'

  'You assaulted a lady.'

  'Who typed this?'

  'I did.'

  He stood there taking it all in.

  'All right,' he said. 'But what happened to me? I went absolutely crazy. What in God's name did you do?'

  'You had a double dose of cantharis vesicatoria sudanii,' I said. 'The old Blister Beetle. Powerful stuff that.'

  He stared at me, comprehension dawning on his face. 'So that's what it was,' he said. 'Inside the bloody chocolate, I suppose.'

  'Naturally. And if you swallowed it, then so will the King of the Belgians and the Prince of Wales and Mr Joseph Conrad and all the rest of them.'

  He started pacing up and down the lab, albeit a trifle gingerly.

  'I told you once before, Cornelius,' he said, 'that you are a totally unscrupulous fellow.'

  'Absolutely,' I said, grinning.

  'Do you know what that woman did to me?'

  'I can make a pretty good guess.'

  'She's a witch! She's a... a vampire! She's disgusting!'

  'You seemed to like her well enough,' I said, pointing to the thing on the bench.

  'I was drugged!'

  'You raped her. You raped her like an animal. You were the disgusting one.'

  'That was the Blister Beetle.'

  'Of course it was,' I said. 'But when M. Marcel Proust rapes her like an animal, or King Alfonso of Spain, will they know they've had the Blister Beetle?'

  He didn't answer me.

  'They most certainly will not,' I said. 'They may well wonder what the hell came over them, just as you did. But they'll never know the answer and in the end they'll simply have to put it down to the incredible attractiveness of the girl. That's all they can put it down to. Right?'

  'Well... yes.'

  'They will be embarrassed at having raped her, just as you are. They will be very contrite, just as you are. They will want to hush the whole thing up, just as you do. In other words, they will give us no more trouble. We skedaddle with the signed notepaper and the precious sperm and that will be the end of it.'

  'You are a rapscallion of the first water, Cornelius. You are an unmitigated scoundrel.'

  'I know,' I said, grinning again. But the logic of my argument was irrefutable. The plan was watertight. A. R. Woresley, who was certainly no fool, was beginning to realize this. I could see him weakening.

  'What about the girl?' he said. 'Who was she?'

  'She's the third member of our organization. She's our official teaser.'

  'Some teaser,' he said.

  'That's why I chose her.'

  'I shall be embarrassed, Cornelius, if I have to meet her again.'

  'No, you won't,' I said. 'She's a great girl. You'll like her very much. She happens to like you, too.'

  'Rubbish. What makes you think that?'

  'She said you were absolutely and positively the greatest. She said that from now on she wants all her men to be like you.'

  'She said that? Did she actually say that, Cornelius?'

  'Word for word.'

  A. R. Woresley beamed.

  'She said you make all other men look like eunuchs,' I said, ramming it home.

  A. R. Woresley's whole face began to glow with pleasure. 'You're not pulling my leg, are you, Cornelius?'

  'Ask her yourself when you see her.'

  'Well, well, well,' he said, beaming away and preening his horrible moustache lightly with the back of his fingers. 'Well, well, well,' he said again. 'And may I ask what her name is, this remarkable young lady?'

  'Yasmin Howcomely. She's half Persian.'

  'How interesting.'

  'You must have been terrific,' I said.

  'I have my moments, Cornelius,' he said. 'Ah yes indeed, I certainly have my moments.' He seemed to have forgotten about the Blister Beetle. He wanted all the credit himself now and I let him have it.

  'She can't wait to meet you again.'