Sir Mumphrey Wilton and the Official Enquiry


    Was sitting there, minding my own business, trying to get 14 down on the Times crossword: “Player getting six, duck, then fifty batting is test opener.” Hmph. Should like to see that dashed Parody Blighter up against the Times crossword.

    Doorbell rang. Keep minimal staff at the Hall these days, so shuffled over to answer it myself. Spotty youth with bad haircut canvassing for me to vote for political candidate from the National Front. Proffered pamphlet laced with poor grammar explaining why Jewish holocaust of World War Two was Zionist myth.

    Explained to him that I was damned well there when they liberated Buchenwald and it didn’t seem like a myth to me. Added that didn’t fight Adolf Hitler and his ungodly pack of sub-human reptiles to go and vote for Nazi-in-sheep’s clothing and young man was welcome to leave the premises before I set the dogs on him and good riddance.

    Youth was not inclined to disagree seeing as how I had just hefted him by the seat of his trousers and propelled him down front staircase. Explained to him that that never happened either. Him being a worthless waste of spare flesh deserving only of being shot like a vomitous rabid fox was only Zionist propoganda.

    Then realised that rapidly retreating screaming youth was staring over my shoulder at something rather scarier than an old soldier who can’t solve 14 down. Turned round and found three chappies in suits hovering three feet above the ground staring at me as if I was interesting new form of butterfly about to be put into an ether jar.

    “Evening, chaps,” I bade them. “Please, feel free to have some, er, ground, what?”

    The lead chappie held out a business card: Noseous Org, Inspector. Explained he had come to do an inspection.

    Told him drains had never been the same since the great flood of ’46 and would be glad to find out where blockage was.

    Mr Org explained that he and his colleagues were actually tasked with inspecting cosmic office holders, and there was some kind of review going on regarding the behaviour of certain such officers during the recent Parody War unpleasantness. Would I be so kind as to accompany him to the hearing?

    Pointed out that a little more notice would be nice, given that it was kipper night and cook gets very touchy if I’m late to table. Noticed oik no. 2 was noting down what I was saying re. kippers, so paused to give brief explanation of best procedure for smoking and preparing said dish. Least that way these inspectors would be doing something useful.

    Mr Org had other ideas. He twiddled his briefcase and suddenly we’re all in some kind of interplanar antechamber. Place was huge and echoey and painted in institutional green. Reminded me of my schooldays, except that none of these warts would have lasted five minutes at Rugby.

    “This is just a preliminary hearing, Sir Mumphrey,” Org explains, “to determine whether there is a prima facia case for a more rigorous investigation into alleged conflicts of interest between your actions in the recent conflict with the Parody Master and your role as the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity.” In other words these damned book-keepers didn’t like the fact I’d led the coalition of Earth nations that squashed that Parody Blighter like the sleazy weasel he was.

    “Alleged conflicts, eh?” I noted. “Who’s doing the alleging then, hmm?”

    Mr Org didn’t seem very keen to tell me. “Madame Symmetry of Synchronicity it is then,” I surmised. “Newish Shaper of Worlds, big cosmic mucketty-muck, Keeper of the Chronometer before I took the pocketwatch off her back in the 1800s.”

    Mr Org broke the point of his pencil so I guessed I was pretty much on the mark. He explained that it was not customary to reveal the investigation’s sources at this initial stage.

    “I require legal council then,” I argued. “I’m usually represented by Miss Lisa Waltz. You might have heard of her. Believe she’s currently got the cosmic office of Destroyer of Tales. Destroyer of blithering pompous arrogant jumped-up bureaucrats too, in my experience.”

    The investigators looked a bit disconcerted by this. One of them checked his flies were done up. They explained that it wasn’t customary to have representation present at this informal stage of the proceedings.

    “What’s the problem then?” I demanded, losing patience. “What am I supposed to have done that’s a conflict of interest?”

    “What have you done?” Noseous Org’s eyebrows flew up in dismay. “Sir Mumphrey, as Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity you are forbidden to interfere with the grander course of history. You may not use the artefacts’ power to affect the timeline. And yet you set yourself up against the Parody Master and led a war across the known galaxies.”

    Pointed out that if Mr Org and his toadies had been doing their job back when the Parody Blighter was getting frisky I wouldn’t have needed to lead a war to pot the blaggard. Asked him where he and his briefcase had been back when the PM was rampaging across the conceptual plane wiping out cosmic office holders and breaking them down for parts. Suggested that if he hadn’t been so busy hiding behind his mother’s skirts and wetting himself he might have noticed that desperate times call for desperate measures, feckless maundering nincompoop that he was.

    Mr Org said that he resented my tone. I said I resented his face.

    “Sir Mumphrey, you do not understand the seriousness of your position,” the investigator warned. “We have the authority to strip you of your office and even to terminate your existence if we conclude that you have acted in contravention of the codes of the cosmic office holders.”

    “But this is just a preliminary investigation, old boy,” I pointed out. “Said so yourself. Spotty chap behind you wrote it in his little book. So no chance of that happening before I have proper representation and my day in court. Besides, your whole case is a big load of tosh.”

    “Tosh?”

    “Hmph. Absolutely. For starters, when I became leader of Earth’s combined defence force I wasn’t Keeper of the Chronometer. It had gone to a brave young chap called George Gedney who eventually gave his life in the course of carryin’ out his duties. Brave lad, worth about fifteen hundred of you investigator bugs. Wouldn’t have you people on my regiment if you came free with a pound of tea.”

    “You regained the pocketwatch later, though,” Org accused.

    “And used it in accordance with my remit to stop a blighter who was tryin’ to attack time,” I countered. “Or, if you want the absolute truth, used it like every other resource at my command to take down that Parody Master, because there are some things that are more important than keepin’ to the rules and doing what is right is one of them.”

    Mr Org backed away and wiped the spittle off his face with his handkerchief. “What you believed to be right, Sir Mumphrey,” he parsed.

    “What was right,” I insisted.

    “Well,” sneered Mr Org, “that’s for us to decide. There are a good many cosmic beings that will attest that events were not quite the way you seem determined to present them.”

    “You mean the ones claimin’ it never happened?” I sneered back. “The ones that went away and hid and pretended they were being neutral for professional reasons while brave heroes fought and died to save the future of this Parodyverse? The ones who’d like to revise things now so they can feel more comfortable, so they can promote their worldview at the cost of the man and women who risked everything in the name of freedom? Hmm? Is that it, sirrah?”

    A muscle twitched in Org’s cheek. “It is the judgement of this tribunal that there is a case to be answered by the current Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity,” he ruled, glaring at me with his soulless eyes. “It is the judgement of this tribunal that the current Keeper be suspended from office until such time as a full investigation can be made and a formal hearing arranged.”

    “Oh is it?” I asked him.

    “You will surrender the tools of your office and you will return to your mundane reality until such time as you are summoned to stand trial.”

    “Have you anything to say for the record?” the book-keeping chappie asked me nervously.

    Thought for a moment. “Violinist,” I said.

    He looked a little surprised. “I… I beg your pardon?”

    “Player getting six, duck, then fifty batting is test opener,” I said, waving the Times at him. “Fourteen down. Six is VI in Roman numerals. A duck scores zero, or O. Fifty is L. If you’re batting then you’re IN. That gives VIOLIN. The IS comes verbatim from the clue, and the opener of the word Test is T – Violinist.”

    Mr Org held out a pale thin hand for my pocketwatch. “Your tools of office, please,” he said.

    “Know what the difference is between you and a violinist, Mr Org?” I asked him. “A violinist fiddles with his instrument, like me and the Chronometer. You just fiddle with yourself.”

    “I must insist, Sir Mumphrey.”

    Held out the Chronometer of Infinity on it’s fob chain. “Take it from me,” I told the blighter. “If you can.”

    Mr Org reached out then pulled his hand back suddenly as if he’d been stung. The flesh on his palm had rotted with age. Don’t think the pocketwatch liked him. Don’t think it wanted to go back to Symmetry.

    “I am authorised,” Mr Org complained, trying again. “You have to obey.” He nursed his dead hand again.

    Pointed out that while I was only a minor cosmic office holder compared to the Shaper of Worlds and the Destroyer of Tales, I was one of the very few office-holders who had stayed in office during the Parody War. Others had died or surrendered, new ones had been created, but I’d been there and done that long before the new recruitment drive. Seems that gives me seniority, at least over mealy-mouthed jumped-up whey-faced witless prancing preferment-seeking yes-men minions tryin’ to throw their weight about with their elders and betters. Said as much. Loudly.

    Minute-taker lad wrote it all down and seemed to quite enjoy doing it.

    “You have to submit to authority!” protested Noseous Org. “It is written!”

    “Send me the memo,” I suggested.

    “I have the authority!” he insisted.

    I held out the Chronometer one last time. “If the powers that be want you to confiscate this off me and have authorised you to do it, then go ahead,” I told him. “But try and take this again and fail and this time I will shrivel you to dust.”

    Thing about cowards: there’s a moment when they can’t meet your eye any more.

    “Now get me home to my kipper,” I insisted. “And next time you want to talk to me, write for an appointment. And put on a clean collar. And learn to shave.”

    And so to supper.


Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.


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