It was unfortunate, perhaps, that the count and I should have arrived at the front door of the villa just as the huge Dodge driven by our scowling, barrel-shaped, self-appointed guardian angel, Spiro Halikiopoulos, drew up with the family, flushed with wine, in the back of it. The car came to a halt and the family stared at the count with disbelieving eyes. It was Spiro who recovered first.
“Gollys, Mrs. Durrells,” he said, twisting his massive head round and beaming at Mother, “Master Gerrys fixes the bastards.”
This was obviously the sentiment of the whole family, but Mother threw herself into the breach.
“My goodness, Count,” she said in well-simulated tones of horror, “what have you been doing with my son?”
The count was so overcome with the audacity of this remark that he could only look at Mother open-mouthed.
“Gerry dear,” Mother went on, “go and change out of those wet things before you catch cold, there’s a good boy.”
“Good boy!” repeated the count, shrilly and unbelievingly. “C’est un assassin! C’est une espèce de – ”
“Now, now, my dear fellow,” said Larry, throwing his arm round the count’s muddy shoulders, “I’m sure it’s been a mistake. Come and have a brandy and change your things. Yes, yes, rest assured that my brother will smart for this. Of course he will be punished.”
Larry led the vociferous count into the house, and the rest of the family converged on me.
“What did you do to him?” asked Mother.
I said I had not done anything; the count and the count alone was responsible for his condition.
“I don’t believe you,” said Margo. “You always say that.”
I protested that had I been responsible I would be proud to confess. The family were impressed by the logic of this.
“Well, it doesn’t matter a damn if Gerry did it or not,” said Leslie. “It’s the end result that counts.”
“Well, go and get changed, dear,” said Mother, “and then come to my room and tell us all about how you did it.”
But the affair of the Bootle Bumtrinket did not have the effect that everyone hoped for; the count stayed on grimly, as if to punish us all, and was twice as offensive as before. However, I had ceased feeling vindictive towards him; whenever I thought of him thrashing about in the canal, I was overcome with helpless laughter, which was worth any amount of insults. And, furthermore, the count had unwittingly added a fine new phrase to my French vocabulary. I tried it out one day when I made a mistake in my French composition and I found it tripped well off the tongue. The effect on my tutor, Mr. Kralefsky, was, however, very different. He had been pacing up and down the room, hands behind him, looking like a humpbacked gnome in a trance. At my expression, he came to a sudden stop, wide-eyed, looking like a gnome who had just had an electric shock from a toadstool.
“What did you say?” he asked in a hushed voice.
I repeated the offending phrase. Mr. Kralefsky closed his eyes, his nostrils quivered, and he shuddered.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked.
I said I had learned it from a count who was staying with us.
“Oh. Well, you must never say it again, do you understand,” Mr. Kralefsky said, “never again! You … you must learn that in this life sometimes even aristocrats let slip an unfortunate phrase in moments of stress. It does not behoove us to imitate them.”
I did see what Kralefsky meant. Falling into a canal, for a count, could be called a moment of stress, I supposed.
But the saga of the count was not yet over. A week or so after he had departed, Larry, one morning at breakfast, confessed to feeling unwell. Mother put on her glasses and stared at him critically.
“How do you mean, unwell?” she asked.
“Not my normal, manly, vigorous self,” said Larry.
“Have you got any pains?” asked Mother.
“No,” Larry admitted, “no actual pains. Just a sort of lassitude, a feeling of ennui, a debilitated, drained feeling, as if I had spent the night with Count Dracula; and I feel that, for all his faults, our late guest was not a vampire.”
“Well, you look all right,” said Mother, “though we’d better get you looked at. Dr. Androccelli is on holiday, so I’ll have to get Spiro to bring Theodore.”
“All right,” said Larry listlessly, “and you’d better tell Spiro to nip in and alert the British cemetery.”
“Larry, don’t say things like that,” said Mother, getting alarmed. “Now, you go up to bed and, for heaven’s sake, stop there.”
If Spiro could be classified as our guardian angel to whom no request was impossible of fulfillment, Dr. Theodore Stephanides was our oracle and guide to all things. He arrived, sitting sedately in the back of Spiro’s Dodge, immaculately dressed in a tweed suit, his homburg at just the correct angle, his beard twinkling in the sun.
“Yes, it was really … um … very curious,” said Theodore, having greeted us all, “I was just thinking to myself how nice a trip … that is to say, a spin in the country would be as it … er … was an especially beautiful day … um … not too hot, and that sort of thing, you know … er … and suddenly Spiro turned up at the laboratory. Most fortuitous.”
“I’m so glad that my agony is of some benefit to someone,” said Larry.
“Aha! What … er … you know … seems to be the trouble?” asked Theodore, eyeing Larry with interest.
“Nothing concrete,” Larry admitted, “just a general feeling of death being very imminent. All my strength seems to have drained away. I’ve probably, as usual, been giving too much of myself to my family.”
“I don’t think that’s what’s wrong with you,” said Mother decisively.
“I think you’ve been eating too much,” said Margo. “What you want is a good diet.”
“What he wants is a little fresh air and exercise,” said Leslie. “If he took the boat out a bit …”
“Yes, well, Theodore will tell us what’s wrong,” said Mother.
Theodore examined Larry and reappeared in half an hour’s time.
“I can’t find anything … er … you know … organically wrong,” said Theodore judiciously, rising and falling on his tiptoes, “except that he is perhaps a trifle overweight.”
“There you are! I told you he needed a diet,” said Margo triumphantly.
“Hush, dear,” said Mother. “So what do you advise, Theodore?”
“I should keep him in bed for a day or so,” said Theodore. “Give him a light diet, you know, nothing very oily, and I’ll send out some medicine … er … that is to say … a tonic for him. I’ll come out the day after tomorrow and see how he is.”
Spiro drove Theodore back to town and in due course reappeared with the medicine.
“I won’t drink it,” said Larry, eyeing the bottle askance,