Flashman And The Tiger

"A couple of ageing libertines, you mean? Well, thank’ee, my dear, I’m obliged to you—as I’m sure Count Shovel-off will be, and if you pay him the kind of loving attention you’ve just shown me, I dare say he’ll be sufficiently captivated to gas his fat head off—"

"Oh, he is captivate' already," says she airily. "He has admired the notorious photograph … and we have met, and he has begged an assignation for tomorrow night."'

"Has he, now? That’s brisk work." Highly professional, too … by Blowitz? … by the French secret department? Certainly by the brazen little bitch sitting cool as a trout athwart my hawse, sporting her boobies and blowing smoke-rings while she mused cheerfully on how best to squeeze the juice out of her Russian prey.

"You see," says she, "to captivate, to seduce, is nothing … he is only a man." She gave the little shrug that is the Frenchwoman’s way of spitting on the pavement. "But afterwards … to make him tell what I wish to know … ah, that is another thing. Which is why I ask you, who are experienced in secret affairs, Blowitz says. You know well these Russians, you have made the intrigues, you have made love to many, many women, and I am sure they have—how do you say?—practised their nets on you." She smiled sleepy seductive-like, and leaned down again to flicker the tip of her tongue against my lips. "So, tell me … which of them most appealed, to win your confidence? The fool? The task-mistress? The slave? L’ingénue? Or perhaps la petite farceuse who teases you with foolish jokes, and then …" She wriggled, stroking her bouncers across my chest. "To which would you tell your secrets?"

"My, you’ve studied your subject, haven’t you?" I eased her gently upright. "Well, the answer, my artful little seductress, is … to none of ’em—unless I wanted to. But I ain’t Shovel-off, remember. From what I hear he’s the kind of vain ass who can’t resist showing off to every pretty woman he meets, so it don’t matter a rap whether you play the innocent or Delilah or Gretchen the Governess. Get him half-tipsy, pleasure him blind, and listen to him blather … but don’t try to come round him with jokes from Punch, ’cos they’d be lost on him. Tease him with a few funny bits from Tolstoy, if you like, or the latest wheezes from Ivan the Terrible’s Guffawgraph—"

"Oh, idiot!" She slapped me smartly on the midriff, giggling. "You are not serious, you! I ask advice, and you make game of me!"

"Advice, my eye—mocking a poor old man, more like." "Old? Ha!" exclaims she, rolling her eyes—she could pay a neat compliment, the minx.

"As if there was anything I could teach you about bewitching a man!" I can pay a compliment, too. She gave a complacent toss of the head, arms akimbo.

"Oh, one can always learn, from a wise teacher … I think," says she, assuming the depraved sneer she had worn in her photo-graph, "that since I do not like M. Shuvalov, I should prefer to be Gretchen the Governess, très implacable, sans remords!" She made growling noises, flourishing an imaginary whip. "Ah, well, we shall see! And now," she hopped nimbly down, "I make supper!"

Which she did, very tasty: an omelette that was like a souffle for lightness, with toast and a cold Moselle, fruits soaked in kirsch, and coffee Arabi style—black as night, sweet as love, hot as hell. Listening to her cheery prattle and bubbling laughter across the table, I found myself warming to Mamselle Caprice, and not only ’cos she was a little stunner and rode like a starving succubus and cooked rather well. I liked her style: no humbug, just Jezebel with a sassy twinkle and a fifth-form fringe, lightly touched by the crazy gods—as many politicals are; Georgie Broadfoot was daft as a brush. In her case it might have been a mask, a brass front over inner hurt; she was in a dirty business, and no doubt her male colleagues, being proper little Christian crooks, would make it plain that they regarded her as no better than a whore—I did myself, but I wasn’t fool enough to damp her amorous ardour by showing it. But no, ’twasn’t a mask; as we talked, I recognised her as one of these fortunate critters who (like yours truly) are simply without shame, and wouldn’t know Conscience if they tripped over it in broad day. She was fairly gloating at the prospect of wringing Shuvalov dry for the sheer fun of it—and the handsome fee Blowitz had promised her.

"A hundred golden pounds!" cries she gleefully. "You see, it is not a secret department matter, but personal to Stefan and his paper. And since he has friends in high places … behold, I am in Berlin!"

"And that’s all that matters to me, my little Punch-fancier," says I, nuzzling her neck as we repaired to the couch. "As an Asian princess once said to me: `Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions'."