The Blag

 

London, 1910. The Ritz was four years old. Fruity Frynn was older.

The hotel suite, its curtains drawn, was gloomy. So was Fruity. He was the last to enter and he planned to be the first to leave. In the near darkness, he made out shapes drifting around a table lit by two bankers desk lamps and covered with architectural drawings. 

Sniffing the air, he greeted the man who’d opened the door. “Mornin’ Crafty, I didn’t know Johnnie Walker made cologne.” 

Crafty Blandings allowed his pince-nez glasses to slide to the tip of his nose: "Jou bliksem!”

A black-clad, shaven-headed man approached, moving with the grace of a panther, albeit a middle-aged panther with a touch of gout. Chris Dior tapped his fob watch: “Late as always, Fruity.” 

“You will insist on these dawn meetings.”

“It’s 11am.”

“My point precisely – oh, look.” Fruity headed towards a liquor-laden sideboard.

Squeezing between a woman dressed like a Pearly Queen and a man with a pomaded beard, Fruity poured a brandy. He eyed the pair while giving his tall glass a short blast from a soda siphon. “I’m surprised to see you both made bail.”

“Trumped up charges,” said Slick Rick. “I only asked that Covent Garden flower girl to come up and see my etchings. I may also have suggested she bring a chaperone so the three of us could …”

“Lacks judgment, he does,” snorted Cockney Sue. “In my case, I was a bit Scotch mist after I left a gay and hearty so when on the frog and toad I dips me mitt in some geezer’s bag of fruit …”

A sigh.  An elegant figure lounging in a high-backed brocaded chair stretched. “Spare us the local colour.” Jon van Hoit exhaled again, bit the tip off a cheroot, spat the end into an Aspidistra pot and snapped a match alight between thumbnail and forefinger, singeing his left eyebrow.

Standing behind van Hoit’s chair, a bit of rough flexed his tattooed forearm. The tattoo read: Rupertus fidem habemus. Tommy Two Fingers, a former Grub Street reporter so nicknamed because they were what he typed with, growled “Let’s start” through opium-stained teeth.

Dior plucked the still flaming match from van Hoit’s fingers and lit a Partagás cigar. The resulting smoke resembling a summer forest fire engulfed a nearby trio of chancers: Kerry Bushmills, Ghostie Gonzaga and Michelle Darlin. Five years earlier Bushmills claimed to have co-written with Sigmund Freud his book “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious”. Freud was not amused: “Das ist ein Witz!”. Gonzaga, who earned her sobriquet by disappearing before it came to working on a caper, retreated deeper into the shadows. Darlin cracked her knuckles. The sound often heralded a left hook, a rabbit punch or a jab to the throat – someone else’s.

Two men stood with Crafty, guarding the door. Alec Chance and Greg Diorissimo had the dead eyes of stone cold killers and the nimbleness of ballerinas. To underscore their agility, they often wore matching satin pointe shoes. 

Waving his cigar like a baton, Dior said: “The Mauritian will now recap the game plan.”

She stepped up. A onetime professional escapologist who specialised in shedding her manacles and freeing herself from glass-fronted water tanks, the Mauritian had broken free from numerous watery coffins and four marriages. 

“Wonderful to see you again, Fruity,” she said.  “You’re carrying that extra weight well although your cat burglar days are obviously in the rearview mirror. 

“Tonight’s party at the South African High Commissioner’s London digs will be the major event on the diplomatic social calendar. You possibly know the Union of South Africa was created in May and Richard Solomon has been appointed as that country’s first High Commissioner here. To mark the occasion, Solomon is throwing a knees-up. Every toff is invited and they’ll be expecting expensive grog, fine nosh and great service. That’s where you lot come in. 

“Your name-tagged uniforms are hanging on racks over there. In most capers, Diorissimo, Chance, Slick Rick, Darlin and Cockney Sue would be the muscle. At this party they’ll be serving drinks – Lord help us. Ghostie, Bushmills and Tommy will be offering around canapes. Crafty, you’re the greeter, directing arrivals to the ballroom. 

“Van Hoit will act as usher, announcing each eminent guest as they enter.

“Don’t panic. None of you will need to do any tricky work. You can blag your way through. We’ve been told a hospitality firm is providing real staff for the event. ‘Thirteen of London’s finest’ was how Fruity’s pal at the High Commission put it.”

Fruity stared into the bottom of his empty glass. “And me?”

Dior stood up quickly, too quickly, stubbing a gouty toe on a chair leg. “Fok! Given you bribed the High Commissioner’s aide-de-camp to get us on the service team, I’ll need a throat to choke if anything goes wrong. So, you’ll be joining me and the Mauritian.”

“Doing what?”

“Stealing gold bullion.”

Fruity’s sphincter twitched. He walked to the curtains and inched them apart. Summer sunlight spilled in.

At Scotland Yard, a 15-minute walk away, Inspector Clarence Barclay dragged his office curtains shut. He had a headache and a sergeant, the latter being responsible for the former. Sergeant Alfie Gardner was twirling, the tails of his waiter’s frockcoat spinning out. A cluster of po-faced police officers kitted out as waitstaff stood off to one side. 

Gardner spread his arms. “I do like to frock up!” 

Barclay winched, sprinkled Beechams Powders into a glass of water, stirred the mixture with the barrel of his fountain pen and gulped down the swirling result. “You’re guarding the gentry, Sergeant, not entertaining them at the Palladium.”

For over an hour, Barclay had stepped his team of eight men and four women through that night’s mission. He explained the Union of South Africa’s celebratory event could be the target of dissidents from the former Boer republics, unhappy with their country being declared a Dominion of the British Empire. The undercover police would be on duty as a lowkey security detail at the High Commission building. Neither the British nor South African governments wanted anything overt.

“Discretion is the theme, lads,” said Barclay, either cleverly bringing the female officers into the boys’ club or ignoring the fact they were in the room. “And you won’t have to work hard. The aide-de-camp assures me he’s hired 13 professionals to do the main food and drinks service.”

In the High Commission’s basement, a hulking twin-doored Chubb & Sons safe held 26 Transvaal-produced, pyramid-shaped gold bars weight 27.4 lbs each. In the heaving ballroom, an edgy Fruity held a tray of eight crystal champagne coupes. The gold was in situ to assure the City of London of the strength of the new Union. Ditto the glasses fizzing with Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame. 

“High risk, high reward” was how Fruity had originally pitched the idea to Dior who, disconcertingly, had been picking his teeth with the tip of a stiletto blade. The plan: at the height of the High Commissioner’s party, when the by-then boozy guests were dancing the cakewalk to loud ragtime music, a crack team – preferably not including himself – would blow open the safe then gang members, in two and threes, would sneak downstairs, each would stash two of the heavy bars in a bag or holdall, scarper and later rendezvous. 

The biggest risks? Dior had asked. Fruity named one he knew Dior could solve: the potential threat that politically obstinate Boers might target the party. 

“I’ll get van Hoit and Blandings to have a sharp word with that bunch,” Dior had replied. “The Afrikaners can misbehave on another night.”

After offloading the champagne to eager guests, Fruity placed the tray near the bar and made for the stairwell just as two waiters in ill-fitting frockcoats brushed past, bearing crowded drinks trays. 

Inspector Barclay’s head twitched. “I could’ve sworn that was Fruity Frynn,” he whispered to Sergeant Gardner who, because he was humming the music hall ditty "The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery" while balancing a tray, only heard the word “Fruity”.

“So judgmental!” thought Gardner.

The basement smelt of fresh paint, cold steel and Dior’s cigar. “A stick of dynamite should do it,” said Fruity, standing well back. 

“Forget that milksop,” snapped The Mauritian, “make it three sticks, Mr Dior.”

Dior held his white-hot cigar tip against a dynamite fuse before the trio backed into a corridor. Forty seconds later the entire building shuddered. Dancers were flung off their feet. Band members toppled from a stage. Bottles and glassware tumbled, shattering on the floor. Flying waiters and waitresses, friend and foe alike, landed atop one another.

Dior, The Mauritian and Fruity stood shakily – faces blackened, clothes smoking and shredded – staring at the mangled remains of the safe.  

Leaning against a broken door jamb, Fruity lit a cigarette and hissed: "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

It was, he decided, going to be a long night.

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Copyright 2025 GREG FLYNN

Come Nightfall

 The tramp, tramp, tramp of jackboots lured Rene Brindeau to his bookshop doorway. Over the past four years that rhythmic beat had often prompted him to wonder: had the Germans cornered the market in noisy footwear? 

Now the squad was thumping towards his Librairie du Rive Gauche in a narrow back street where echoes of leather on cobblestones bounced from shuttered shopfronts. His business was the only one offering an open door to the few passersby. 

In August 1944, Paris – sullen, stifling and occupied – had all the charm of an open prison. Buying books wasn’t a priority for locals or invaders.

Backing into his shop, the stooped, grey-haired Brindeau considered flicking his sign to Fermé. Too late. The hulking man blocking the door with his boot wore lightning flash insignia on his jacket collar and, on his pale, hard face, the practiced sneer of a Gestapo officer. Perhaps it was a smirk. Brindeau decided not to ask.

The officer’s questions were shouted. Brindeau’s replies soft. Why was this dreary, unessential little store still open? Because there was always demand for the escapism of literature. Did he sell books by masterful German thinkers such as Nietzsche? A niche market so, in a word, non. Do you understand why we are shutting you down? Given Allied forces are sweeping towards Paris, I would have thought you had other priorities.

A hand shot out, grasped Brindeau by the throat and lifted the elderly man off the floorboards. More shouting was followed by strangled responses. Was he homosexual? I’d be better dressed if I was. Was he Jewish? I’d be a better writer if I was. 

The Frenchman was flung into the street. The officer lit a cigarette, studied the little man for a minute then gave an order. Brindeau’s arms were pinioned behind him before he was marched away. 

The sign on the shop door read: Fermé.

Come nightfall, light from a streetlamp shafted through the front window silhouetting three shapes standing between floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. As the shapes drifted towards the wide window, the cold light revealed a tall, gaunt man in a loose-fitting, dark tweed suit alongside two smaller figures – one female, the other male. The petite woman wore a modest, almost Quaker-style long dress with a nipped waist; the portly man had waxed, twirled moustaches and carefully tailored clothing. 

“Very puzzling,” murmured Jane Eyre. “This is most unlike our dear friend.”

The short man at her side tilted his egg-shaped head to see out into the street. “I agree, mademoiselle,” said Hercule Poirot. “Il est parti.”

“Have you two finished stating the obvious?” sighed Sherlock Holmes. “Of course Brindeau has gone.” 

Holmes dropped to one knee, pinched some fallen cigarette ash between his fingertips and sniffed the crumbled remains. “If you had read the excellent monograph I wrote on utilising tobacco clues to help solve crimes, you would …”

“Oui, oui, mon ami,” interrupted Poirot, trying to avoid a lengthy Holmesian discourse. “And your findings tonight are …?

“A quality German brand. I would estimate a Hun stood here not less than three hours ago. I fear the old man is in danger.”

Poirot nodded. “Monsieur Brindeau often speaks of the brutality of the all-conquering Boche.”

“Then,” said Jane, “it is our duty to ensure he is safe.”

“But first,” said Poirot, “our nightly ritual.” He moved silently to a side cupboard and lifted out a half full bottle of absinthe, elegant glasses, sugar cubes, a spoon and a crystal water cask. 

For decades, when night fell and with the shop shut, the three characters would materialise from their books and join Brindeau for a glass of the aniseed-flavoured spirit and a game of cards. 

Each evening, looking up from the cards he’d been dealt, Brindeau would pause and ask the same question: “Am I dreaming?”. On cue Holmes would pinch the man’s arm lightly and say: “That is a clue. You are not.”

It was Jane’s turn. In his best governess’ voice, she would explain, yet again, that not only were readers drawn into books, losing themselves in plots, so too did characters flow out of novels to influence the physical world. 

Glasses emptied, paraphernalia tidied away, the trio stood in the humid night air, peering up and down the darkened street. 

Jane gave a start. “We are being watched.”

“Nonsense, my dear,” Holmes said. “We are alone. Quite possibly you have absorbed Poirot’s and my sixth sense for unidentified threats.”

“Actually, I can see someone in the shadows.”

“Oh,” said Holmes, squinting.

A moment later, a horse gave a soft whinny. The three stepped closer. Sitting on a rickety cart, a cloaked figure held a pair of reins high as if ready to snap them down on the horse’s flanks. Sacks of potatoes were propped in the rear of the cart.

Raising a gloved hand, Jane explained in English-accented schoolgirl French how she and her companions were searching for a friend, Rene Brindeau. 

The figure threw back its cloak revealing a young woman with her hair tucked under a dusty beret and kitted out in the faded blue overalls of a farmer. She stared at the exotically dressed group who, in turn, watched her slide a pistol back into a deep pocket. 

Yes, she had heard the bookshop owner had been arrested and taken to the Hôtel Le Meurice where the German Command had their headquarters. And, no, he could not be rescued. The firing squad awaited.

Poirot touched the brim of his grey homburg and gave a small bow. “I am Hercule Poirot, you will have heard of me?”

The woman shook her head.

In disbelief he paused before pressing on. As he, a Belgian, and his two English friends were newcomers in Paris, could she take them to the hotel? 

“You have a plan?” she asked. 

“A plan?” they echoed.

En route through the empty streets, Holmes drew a curved pipe from inside his jacket, lit it and nodded towards the woman’s bulging pocket. “A service issue Lebel revolver. A clue whose side you are on.”

“We are the Maquis,” she said. There were three blank faces. She added: “La Résistance.”

“Ahh,” they said in unison. 

“Ahh,” they repeated as they stood near the goods and servants’ entrance of the Hôtel Le Meurice. “So, we are all agreed,” said Holmes. “Indeed,” was the answer.

They had discovered another thing in common aside from their shared mission to rescue Brindeau. They all spoke passable German. Plus they were aware their clothes, to modern eyes, looked theatrical. Hence, the plan. Maybe not a plan, more a concept: they were a group of travelling actors commissioned by Berlin to entertain the troops. That evening they’d been despatched to the hotel to perform Heinrich von Kleist’s masterpiece Die Familie Schroffenstein for the High Command.

The two Wehrmacht soldiers guarding the rear entrance were skeptical … skeptical until Poirot asked in meticulous German if they really were refusing Berlin’s order. 

Five minutes later the trio descended three sets of stairs to the basement. Candles flickered; stacked wine bottles lined the corridor. 

Outside a bolted door, a trooper lifted his Maschinenpistole and pointed it at Holmes, ignoring the other two. It was what Holmes would refer to later as “an elementary error.” A shadow moved and the soldier landed with a thump, his bleeding head leaving a large puddle on the stone floor. Still holding the bloodied bottle of 1938 Chateau Lafite Rothschild she’d swung, Jane looked pleased.   

Within a few minutes, with Brindeau being part-carried, part-dragged by Holmes and Poirot, the group stood warily near the exit door. Brindeau, his mouth bruised, asked: “You have an escape plan?”

The answer came from the street. With American armed forces closing in from the north and south of Paris, La Résistance had begun noisy, running battles with the Germans desperately trying to defend their captured prize – the City of Light.

Outside the hotel there were two shots. The tradesmen’s door swung open. Holmes, his fists in a Marquess of Queensberry rules boxing pose, stepped up, then relaxed. 

The cart-driving woman beckoned through the doorway. “A ride back to the shop, mes vieux? Le jour de gloire est arrivé!”

As Brindeau was lifted onto the potato sacks in the cart, he looked up at Jane. “Do you think the invaders have learnt a lesson?’

She smiled at her fellow characters. “Hopefully that the pen is mightier than the sword.”

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Copyright 2025 GREG FLYNN