bout de papier, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2009) — Spring 2009 // Printemps 2009, pp. 37–40
The moon passed behind a cloud as the cry of a sea-bird echoed among the pines. An indistinct form heaved itself from the water and lurched up the
beach. The tide immediately went out. Manitoba Jones leapt from his perch on the ferris wheel, ricocheted off a statue of Mackenzie King in a bunny suit, nailed a perfect dismount onto the trail to the Lodge and intoned, “Halt? Who goes there?”
Finding that he faced the wrong way, he whirled to confront a dripping Don Gordo Beluga. “Stay back,” Jones said. “I must search everyone for weapons — no exceptions.” “Caramba, you fool. I just had a midnight swim. I’m wearing nothing but a Speedo. Can you see a weapon on me?” The sentinel replied, “T can’t even see the Speedo.”
“When I recovered consciousness,” Jones recalled later, “I had gross sandy footprints up one side and down the other. I began to see the advantage of mental floss — and not for the last time.”
Mental floss was invented by Dr. Morton Pruneswelter, retired flea surgeon and part-time loon in the town of Thwackmelon Falls, famed for its nickel and dime mines, unlicensed quantum mechanics (it was never clear whether or not they fixed your car) and cutting-edge psychotropic dentistry.
Mental floss allowed people to forget unfortunate memories, like flossing raspberry seeds from their teeth. Expecting an electronic device or a pill, patients were surprised when the doctor picked up an aerosol, stuck it in their ear and pulled the trigger. Still, the results were satisfactory and the doctor was on his way to fame and fortune. The number of people wanting to forget the last two elections alone was enough to keep him in jellybeans for centuries.
Enter Rialto Sleazewagon. Reading of Pruneswelter’s discovery, the arch-villain realized that deleting people’s memories went a long way to controlling them. Blowing into town, he soon had the doctor, curiously blank, committed to a local home for the bewildered. But he had acted too hastily. Pruneswelter kept no notes, so all that Sleazewagon had was a single spray-can of the floss. He hung in, hoping for a break.
The Centre was also tracking Dr. Pruneswelter’s discovery and reacted quickly when its correlation matrix put Sleazewagon in the same locale. An action team was needed, but the A-team was tied up. Liebnitz was on language training (his Bureaucratese had slipped into intelligibility). Attila McGee was tracking rumours that Commander Chaos was blackmailing the PM with proof of his humanity. Experimenting with a new “attack shellac”, Esmeralda had varnished into thin air. Inspector Wa and Felix were in SuWaNe helping the rajah fend off Papa Jack Paridy’s threat to record all of Edible Granite on the accordion. Bugbyte O’Nanotek was deep in emergency re-programming the Centre’s satellite surveillance system, hacked by a fringe Don Cherry fan club.
So it was Chief MacBannock’s own scarlet and chrome helicopter that landed in the grounds of the Thwackmelon Lodge, to the strains of a band playing “Hail to the Chef” (something was cooking). Out of the near side stepped Don Gordo and Manitoba Jones, inconspicuous in three-piece black suits and shades. Out of the other side stepped MacBannock, straight into the swimming pool. Lined up to greet them was Lodge Manager Pomeroy Twitter and his entire staff. Jones was glad that instructions for an inconspicuous arrival had been followed. Also present was a gorgeous redhead in a bikini, who introduced herself as Anne Moulin de l’Esprit, detached from the Centre’s field school. Jones gravitated to her side. Offering a smile dangerous enough to demand police registry, she asked him to call her “Red”, so he told her to call him “Man”. Things, he thought, were definitely looking up.
Ceremonial over, the team got down to work. Accompanied by Police Chief Jerry Swinefelt, they first searched Dr. Pruneswelter’s house for any sign of mental floss. In case spray cans of the substance had been disguised with innocent labels, MacBannock volunteered to test them all. By end of the afternoon, his ears full of whipped cream, air freshener and insect repellent, he was totally deaf and answered all questions with “More Scotch, please. Hold the anchovies.”
Back at the Lodge, MacBannock asked the concierge for 500 Q-tips and went to his room. Don Gordo began searching the town for Rialto Sleazewagon. Manitoba Jones and Anne Moulin briefed each other over wine in the candle-lit lounge, walking out together at midnight under the summer moon. Everyone was back in their own rooms at 3:00 am, when the room-service waiter went screaming down the hall.
He had been delivering the Q-tips and found the door to the Chief’s room open. Inside, MacBannock was seated rigidly in a chair, a waxy substance dripping from his ears. On the wall, a feebly struggling body hung from a hook through his shirt collar. “Sleazewagon,” gasped Don Gordo. The arch-villain had a gun in one hand, a bloody knife in the other and a noosed rope around his waist. A quick search revealed a flash-stick with classified documents on a cord around his neck, a holograph will naming him the Chief’s heir lying on a desk and a warrant for his arrest in MacBannock’s suitcase. “Gosh,” said Anne, “an open-and-shut case of attempted murder/suicide.” “Not so,” replied Jones, pointing at the open square of carved and gilded wooden strips surrounding Sleazewagon on the wall. “For once, he’s been framed.”
Sleazewagon came to and was taken to jail by Chief Swinefelt. (We have Mayberry reruns on DVD. He’ll confess to something.”) With MacBannock still comatose, the three remaining team members stared at each other, at a loss where to start. Then Twitter came in. “There’s a man in the lobby asking for Mr. MacBannock,” he said. “As instructed, I told him nothing, but he insists on talking to someone from your agency.” “I’l take care of this,” said Jones.
The stranger was a tall, cadaverous old man with high cheek bones, mild blue eyes and a hawk nose. He affected a worn tweed suit and a polished English accent. “James Elroy Flecker,” he introduced himself. “I’ve worked for Liebnitz on and off for decades, now retired to a cottage down the road, but I spotted the trouble with Pruneswelter’s little device and made a few enquiries. I came to offer MacBannock the help he inevitably needs, but no-one will tell me where he is.” Jones swallowed. Jimmy the Turk was the stuff of legend. Quickly, he briefed the retired agent. “MacBannock was probably attacked in hopes of reducing the team’s effectiveness,” noted Flecker, “which means that the attacker knew nothing about the Centre. I can pursue other clues while you’re working your own. But first, let’s establish a cipher for communication.” He handed Jones a piece of paper.
The following is a list of clues to 23 words, one beginning with each letter of the alphabet except Q, X and Z. The first part of each clue is a definition of the word; the second part gives the definition of words that can be formed by splitting the main word into two parts (like INNOVATION into INN OVATION). The main words are not in alphabetic order but the numbers in parentheses at the end of each clue give the number of letters in each of the two shorter words.
In a succinct manner; soft cheese
with a bluebottle (4—3)
Notorious or glaring; diatribe
about a national symbol (4—4)
Put into peril; completion plus
rage (3-5)
Transgressors; string instrument
plus rocky pinnacles (5—4)
Vacillating (UK); possess a
circular metal band (4-4)
Process of bringing into the
family; publicity alternative (2-6)
Relatives; benevolent plus colour
of danger (4-3)
Sexual interference; underground
animal plus train stop (4-7)
Impossible to remove obstacles
from; parental sibling plus
suitable for crops (5-6)
Legal fairness; simply frozen
water (4—3)
Widely known and esteemed;
maitre d’s response in a full
restaurant (2-5)
Crotchety or difficult; egg-
based painting technique plus
non-physical (7-6)
Propriety; 20’s design plus
Caribbean liquor (4-3)
Turning lemon-hued; shout plus
payable (4—5)
Comparing the dissimilar; friend
of Ollie North plus scam (6—5)
Elevated or awe-inspiring; U-boat
plus citrus fruit 3-4)
Insults; not on plus terminations
(3-4)
Empathy or close understanding;
gangsta plus harbour (3-4)
Brightly glowing; imperial
Peruvian ancestry (5-7)
Produces or creates; evolutionary
unit plus amounts charged per
unit time (4-5)
Precisely or word-for-word; metric
volume plus partner (5-4)
Fighter or bomber; twist out of
shape plus small street (4—4)
Declaration; word-substitute for
a name plus concrete component
(7-6).
“The number of each clue pairs with the first letter of the main word to which it applies. I’ll report using that set of number-letter pairings as a cipher. By the way, my reports may seem a bit allusive.” He smiled wryly. “It’s an old tradition.” With that, he left the bar.
Speechless and scratching his head, Jones went to the team’s meeting room. Don Gordo had gone to phone the Centre for news about Esmeralda and Anne Moulin was alone. “Red,” said Jones. “I need your help. We have a new informant, but I can’t understand his cipher.” With her help, it was soon solved.
The Turk’s report arrived within hours, a flyer for the “Drownathon” water lacrosse tournament wrapped around a birch stick, delivered to Jones in the bar by a blue mechanical beaver. On the back was written:
22-5-3-11 14-17-9 7-11-3-22 12-5-6-12 19-12 22-6-16 17-4-3-18,
22-3-18-3 14-17-9 16-9-13-13-3-11-21-14 6-22-6-18-3
12-5-6-12 12-5-3 6-9-12-9-8-11 21-3-6-4-3-16 22-3-18-3 12-9-18-11-19-11-20
12-17 12-5-3 15-17-21-17-9-18 17-2 5-3-18 5-6-19-18?
Alone, Jones was working on his third Nanaimo Surprise (rye and prune juice with a twist of seaweed), but was able to decipher the message and work out what it meant. The report, in song lyrics, gave a strong hint to the villain’s identity. Jones checked the Internet and the song’s title confirmed it. Looking glum, he squared his shoulders. “How do I prove it?” he murmured to himself. Just then the bar went silent. He looked up to see an elegant figure in black come through the door.
The next evening, seven people gathered in the Lodge’s conference room. In addition to the Centre team, Chief Swinefelt sat beside Sleazewagon, Pomeroy Twitter served coffee and Jimmy the Turk lounged quietly in a corner, nursing a Scotch.
Jones began. “One of you is guilty of attacking Chief MacBannock. I include you, Sleazewagon — if anyone is slippery enough to frame himself, it would be you. If not, then someone is working against both you and the Centre. The guilty party has left no clues, but has one weak spot. The last spray-can of mental floss must be hidden nearby for quick retrieval. So I searched your homes, hotel rooms and offices while you were all at the Drownathon.” Swinefelt glowered but remained silent as Jones continued. “I was unsuccessful. But from comparing your personal papers, I have worked out where it is — in the Lodge’s safe deposit room. All of you have access to it. Even the townsfolk use it for safekeeping, since there is no bank. So I’m going to ask you all to accompany me to open our boxes and find out …”
And that’s as much as Jones remembered when he snapped back in a room at the Centre. He was looking at a sharp-featured woman in black leather. “So, Bugbyte, did it work? Was it who we thought? I can’t remember a thing.” The Centre’s sharpest tech replied. “Yes. When Don Gordo called me about Esmeralda, he told me what was going on there. It reinforced what I’d found while cleaning up the computers. Don Cherry was a front. Bertha de Kuhl was hobbling our surveillance and correlation systems to keep us from noticing her ringer in Thwackmelon Falls — the one who stole floss from Sleazewagon after luring him to the Chief’s room. But de Kuhl was delayed, so we still had time to act.”
“T got there immediately. You had a name for the ringer, but no proof. The Turk and I did a sweep of the hotel while you were searching the town. We worked out that the mental floss was in the safe deposit room, but not which box. Thus the charade in the conference room. When everyone was in the depository, the ringer offered to go first, then used the floss to knock everyone else out and suppress their memories of the affair. Luckily, mental floss doesn’t work on video cameras, so we have it all on disc.”
“That’s real good,” said Jones softly. “And how’s the Chief?” She replied, “A combination of whipped cream, air freshener and insect repellant turns out to block the action of mental floss, so he’s showing no strange lapses. Or no more than usual. But how are you? You’ve done brilliantly, but you seem … less you than normal.” Jones examined his shoes. “Look, I’m fine. But I’ve got to go. Good deeds to do, people to save, things to collide with.’ Checking his watch, he threw himself out the window, flipped deftly around the horizontal flagpole two storeys below, narrowly missed a startled window-washer, managed a triple reverse pike and landed on his back in an open truck full of ripe mangoes. Bugbyte watched him go, her gaze unreadable.
Can you duplicate Manitoba’s feat by giving the name of the ringer and the song title that was the clinching clue? bout de papier will choose the winner by drawing one entry from all those with correct answers submitted by July 15, 2009. The prize will be a book autographed by A Aalto. Not necessary to win, but can you also list the 23 main words and give the plaintext of the cipher message?
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2009) — Spring 2009 // Printemps 2009, pp. 37–40. Read the rest of this issue →
