The Case of the Balderdash Professor

Chantal Schaul, 2005

Since he was a little boy, Darius had dreamed about being a great detective. He had told no one about it because, if it were to be revealed, he feared, it would no longer come true. Not even his parents had an inkling about what Darius really wanted to be. They should have guessed, though, if they’d been paying more attention.

Darius had read countless detective novels as a child. All the Sherlock Holmes, all the Agatha Christies, and lots of modern stuff he’d forgotten the name of. He constantly dressed in all the tweed he could lay his hands on, and collected pipes. At every birthday he wished for a junior detective set, more detective novels, more pipes, or more tweed.

Only once in his life, Darius mentioned his heart’s desire to his mother, but she was horrified. “But Darius, there’s no future in being a detective! It’s a penniless job! And it’s very dangerous! You’re far better off as a bank clerk, or an accountant, or a teacher.” And that was that.

Darius made a vow that day. He would solve a case that would give him a heroic name all over the globe. He would be the next best Sherlock Holmes. His mastermind would be in demand everywhere and all the time. He’d save ravishingly beautiful maidens from being shot and poisoned, and overthrow their cruel tyrants with his wit and deduction skills.

While waiting for his first case, Darius grew into an intelligent and good-looking, though sadly prematurely balding, young man. His second passion, after being a detective, was chemistry, and in time he found himself training as a chemistry teacher. Chemistry was linked to forensics and encouraged close observation. It was thus a useful skill.

Of course Darius wasn’t fully committed to becoming a teacher. But it would do for the moment. In the meantime, whenever he was sitting in a lecture theatre, listening to classroom management theories, different forms of evaluation, or similar theories, he’d use the time to make plans about where to find a mystery that he could solve.

He’d been to various places across the country already. He’d combed many forests, in the hope of finding a dying victim in a ditch, although he was fully aware he could come across a horrifyingly mutilated corpse any time, too. He found an old cabin once, in which he hoped to find mouldy love letters that bore witness to an old love affair, perhaps involving a head of state. But there was nothing in it but piles of rubbish, which he went through nonetheless. Detectives had to be thorough.

Darius had listened to countless rounds of village gossip in rural cafes, in the hope of stumbling upon blackmail, duplicity, subterfuge in any form. He’d been to several church services, as he knew that priests were always suspicious. He’d even visited some medieval castles, to uncover ancient scandals. But nothing. Wherever Darius went, nothing seemed to be amiss. Was he not thorough enough? Or just unlucky?

But Darius did not give up. He would find a case one day and make it his own. And little did he know that all he had to do was to stay put in his seat in the lecture theatre.

It was an early Wednesday morning when Darius became increasingly suspicious by the rather unusual unfolding of events. He’d arrived early in the lecture theatre and was already sitting down with a pen in hand and an open notebook. The lecturer was late. It was a guest lecturer from a neighbouring country, a professor of psychoanalysis with a somewhat strange and noble sounding name.

When the professor finally arrived, most students were already there. He brought two assistants with him. One of them was short, skinny and had a ratty expression on his face, emphasized by a long, crooked pointy nose. On the tip of his nose, he had a warty mole. His black hair was dishevelled and greasy. The other assistant was taller and chunkier. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, but thankfully his hair was dark blond, which took away the sharp edges of his jaw.

Both assistants looked like crooks to Darius. Definitely not like university staff or intellectuals. Darius resolved to keep an eye on them during the lecture. The professor, on the other hand, seemed quite honourable at first. He was wearing a suit, always a good sign, had eminent grey hair and thin silver-framed glasses. He gazed through the room with severe eyes and stiff lips.

The assistants jumped to command to make sure the microphone and speaker system were switched on, and then sat in the first row, two rows in front of Darius. The professor started his speech, but the microphone wasn’t working. He became extremely annoyed, and one of the assistants hurried to fix the problem. After a few more attempts, the technical side of things was finally sorted out. The lecture commenced.

“My name is Professor Charmal de Amétiville. I have a number of very important titles, including those of professor and psychoanalyst. And today I will talk about something that is probably the same in my country as in yours.” Here he chuckled for a moment. “If I was to tell you this, and not the other, then you would probably react differently. But that depends on your attitude. My attitude is to name things. Women have noses and so do men. Does that mean we give them a name? Are noses clandestine?”

He paused. His opening words had caused some shuffling and whispering in the back of the room. He threw a piercing look at the misbehaving students, tapped his microphone and thundered: “If my exposition of knowledge doesn’t suit you, you might as well leave!” Darius noticed how the two assistants were chuckling to themselves. They winked at each other occasionally. Professeur Charmal de Amétiville, meanwhile, having restored the silence, proceeded with his lecture.

“We have to name clandestine things, like noses. Why? Think! If a man jumps on top of a woman and they make a child, do they give it a name? Even if it is clandestine? Why do children have names, but not noses? Let’s take this knowledge into the classroom now. Do we give a clandestine pupil a name? We can liken the situation to a boiling pan of water.”

The assistants were still whispering, elbowing each other, and unsuccessfully suppressing their laughter. The chunky one was shaking under his dark blue fleece. But the professor didn’t seem to notice or mind, even thought they were sitting in the first row. Something smelt fishy to Darius. He would follow them after the lecture to see what they were up to, he decided.

“Water has many elements in it, including some clandestine ones. If it boils, and we add a nose to it, there we have an obvious clandestine element, easy to see. Now we name it. We do the same in a school class. That means everyone has a name, which is good.”

A sigh of relief went through the lecture theatre when the session was finished. As the students ebbed out, the assistants placed themselves on either side of the door, slowing everyone down. Meanwhile, the professor was looking out of the window, hands crossed behind his back.

Darius stayed in his seat as long as he could, to observe his three suspects. When he finally left, he didn’t go far. He stayed hidden in a recess of the corridor, behind a pillar. He saw the suspicious trio come out of the lecture theatre and followed them. Was Darius deluding himself, or had the assistants’ fleeces really increased in volume? Were they bloated from sitting for two hours? Had they swallowed too much air from all their laughing?

The professor disappeared into the dean’s office while his assistants waited outside. So did Darius. When the door opened again, the professor triumphantly waved a fat pay cheque around. “Give me five!” he swaggered.

Next stop was the train station. Darius followed them into the train without being noticed. Thankfully, he was prepared for such pursuits, and carried a disguise with him at all times. He had changed into his complete tweed outfit, and had his favourite pipe clenched between his teeth. His hound’s tooth deerstalker came in handy to disguise his bald spot. He looked at least ten years older now and felt safe to sit diagonally across from the professor and his assistants.

The professor was in a good mood and clapped the assistants’ backs repeatedly. “Well done, Plim and Plum! Prize booty!” Plim appeared to be the small ratty man, and Plum the tall chunky one. “How much pocket money exactly?” the professor asked. Plim and Plum were in the process of emptying their fleece pockets out into brown cloth sacks. “Got some fat loot, dad!” said Plum. “Might be able to use the credit cards in Brussels if they’re not blocked yet”, said Plim.

Darius’s heart jumped. He was on to something this time. Those were genuine robbers. A robber family! He was barely able to contain his excitement, but reminded himself that he had to remain calm and rational. He stuck his nose into a magazine about cars. Something inconspicuous.

When the train arrived in Brussels, Plim and Plum got off. Darius had a brief inner wrestle and decided to stay on the train with the professor. He must be the mastermind in this.

Only a few stations later, in a small dreary Belgian town called Pluy, the professor got off. Darius followed at a safe distance. As soon as the professor felt himself alone, his manners changed. He burped loudly a few times, and even had the guts to vent his bowels loudly. He raucously scraped air through his nose to dislodge whatever might have settled there, then ejected a handful of green phlegm into the gutter. “What an odious character,” Darius thought to himself.

The professor had his car parked by the station, a fierce new BMW. Darius wrote down the number plate and looked out for a taxi, but could see none. He could do nothing but stand by in despair when the professor escaped his investigation and drove off, playing loud experimental jazz in his car. Darius’s heart almost broke.

But all was not lost. Surely, Plim and Plum had to follow at some point, and he’d be ready for them. He asked for a car hire place at the station, without success. Eventually, he found a small one-man garage and managed to convince the owner to lend him a car for a small fortune.

Darius had to wait until eight o’clock in the evening until he finally caught sight of Plim and Plum, as they stumbled past his car. They were both drunk and laden with shopping bags. They both peed against the train station wall while playing with their new mobile phones. They trampled the public flower beds, threw a stone at the ladies toilet window and broke it, kicked a couple of cats that happened to pass, and shouted insults at old ladies in the vicinity. Then, finally, the BMW arrived to pick them up.

Darius followed the car at a safe distance, and was surprised to see that it turned into the driveway of a small mansion. The mansion was overgrown with ivy and shone ghostly in the moonlight. Not even in his wildest dreams had Darius hoped for such a wonderful location for him to snoop around in. What other exciting things had this pursuit in store for him?

He parked the car behind some bushes off the main road. The car was a little green thing, which he was grateful for, as no one would pay much attention to it. He crept towards the mansion. The spiky gate to the driveway was still open, but as soon as he had passed through, it closed. He was locked in now, together with the dreadful secrets he was to uncover inside the mansion. To his delight, the wind howled a few times.

Although the front door was locked, Darius managed to get in through an open window. He found himself inside the library. It was full off stuffy old books. There was a large oak table in the middle of the room, surrounded by velvet-cushioned chairs. But the velvet was worn out and faded; the chairs scratched and limping. The whole room was in dire need of redecoration.

A mass of papers and books were spread out on the table. Some handwritten notes caught Darius’s attention. The title was: ‘Lecture 329, on clandestine names and noses.’ “Aha”, thought Darius, “this is where he wrote his baffling speech.” But he didn’t have time for this now. He had to find the three criminals and figure out a way of nailing them.

Then he heard footsteps on the wooden staircase, and voices. “Let’s go for dinner now, dad, we earned it! I want some steaming bloody steaks!” said one brother. “I want to go to the city and have some fun”, said the other. The professor gave a dirty laugh and agreed. “Maybe I’ll have some more ideas for lectures tonight”, he guffawed.

Darius took cover behind one of the heavy shelves as the professor entered the library. But it was merely to close the window and switch off the light. He had changed from his respectable suit into a black leather outfit with a wide cloak. “Right boys, let’s get loaded and find the sleaziest lap-dancers, the filthiest whores and most experimental jazz the city has to offer!”

Darius was abhorred by the crooks’ level of corruption. Full of indignation, he listened to the slow fading of their guttural laughter, the noise of the BMW’s engine, and the professor’s heavy jazz. From the window, he watched as the gates closed. Now he had time to think and plan what to do next. How could he unveil these beastly goings on to the public?

He was pondering over the professor’s papers when he suddenly heard a noise from upstairs. Was there still someone in the house? He listened carefully. It sounded like soft female weeping. Darius stood up straight, like a bolt. Should he follow his saviour’s instinct, or stay calm and rational? He decided on a compromise. As long as it was done professionally, there was nothing wrong with rescuing a maiden in distress.

Darius tiptoed up the stairs. He held on to the banister to lighten his weight and avoid creaking. The weeping floated downwards and enveloped him in its soft sorrow. He was drawn up to its origin almost against his own will. And then he stood outside the room whence it originated. He touched the door handle, slowly pushed it down, and the door opened as of its own accord.

Darius peeped around the corner and saw a white smooth naked foot on the bed. He leaned in a bit more, so his eye could move up across the leg, find the other leg, reach for the hem of an embroidered white nightgown, continue further up, see the hands, arms, the curvy bosom, and finally the loveliest face he had ever laid his eyes on. The enchanting creature’s undulating mass of hair broke Darius’s last remnant of resolve to remain unknown. He stepped into the middle of the doorway, took off his deerstalker, and stared.

A new detail now entered Darius’s consciousness: the ravishing girl was tied up to the bedposts with her hands! She had seen him and stopped crying. Neither of them said anything for a while, until Darius broke the silence. “What is your name?” he asked. She didn’t answer. Darius stepped closer, returned the hat to his head, and started to untie the enchanting girl’s wrists. The rope had made her skin sore and she rubbed it as soon as she was free. She smiled at Darius. As they were looking into one another’s eyes, they could not help but fall head over heels in love.

Without words, the beautiful maiden floated to a chair in the corner of the room and started playing a harp that was standing next to it. To accompany her heavenly tunes, she sang in the sweetest voice imaginable, weaving her complete life story into the song. Her angelic hair, meanwhile, was rippling down past the harp and onto the floor. Darius, lulled in by the melodious sounds, sat on the corner of the bed and listened to her story.

She explained that her name was Eulalilala, and that her only way of communication was through song. Eulalilala was the niece of Professor Charmal de Amétiville. Her father, the professor’s twin brother, died of an infected cat bite when she was only twelve years old. Her mother, at that point, had already passed away as a result of consumption. Eulalilala’s uncle, by some evil machinations, managed to swap identity with his dead brother and thus claimed all his titles for himself. Eulalilala’s father had been a learned man in addition to being of noble blood. But the family had lost their money a long time ago. This mansion was the only remnant of their status.

Eulalilala’s uncle, with the help of his two debauched sons, Plim and Plum, set off to make lots of money, using his brother’s qualifications to accredit himself. They travelled around the universities of the world to deliver well-paid lectures, and had recently started to rob the audiences of their valuables to increase their income. Plim and Plum were trained pickpockets.

Meanwhile, they had kept Eulalilala captive in the mansion. She was the true heir to her father’s estate. They could have killed her, but perhaps they had one last drop of decency in their blood. Or maybe they had plans for her, who was to say?

“And who are you, my saviour?” she sang. Darius was utterly flattered by that attribute, and said: “I am a (and he was close to saying teacher trainee, but then corrected himself and said) detective. My name is Darius.”

Darius decided he had to rescue Eulalilala as quickly as possible. The professor and his sons could come back any time, and their reactions at finding them here could not be underestimated. He made a plan. But before he communicated it to Eulalilala, he confessed his deepest love for her. And she, in return, admitted that she had equally and irretrievably fallen in love with him. Darius, it has to be said, was a good-looking young man, and probably the first she had seen since the age of twelve, apart from her two rotten cousins. They fell into each other’s arms and vowed to get married as soon as they had escaped and overthrown the tyrant.

First of all, Darius decided they should substitute the professor’s next speech for a truly ludicrous one, so that it would lead to his unmasking as a fraud. They found it on the table in the library. It was entitled: ‘Lecture 330: on the castration of birds: feathers and plums.’

Darius and Eulalilala read the speech, but it was a mystery to them how they could make it any worse. It didn’t express any meaning as it was. Then Darius had another idea: they could make it more meaningful, rather than less, and that would give room for actually saying something. Their thesis would be totally unrelated to birds, though. They would write about a subject as politically incorrect as killing all mothers. Surely that wouldn’t appeal to many lecture-goers, and they would boo the professor out. It would be enough to make people doubt his professionalism.

No sooner thought than done. Together, Darius and Eulalilala wrote a wonderful pamphlet on the necessity of mother-extinction in the world. Eulaliala could imitate her uncle’s handwriting to a tee. After the substitution of the lecture notes, they left the mansion as quickly as they could, without forgetting to take Eulalilala’s harp, her only means of communication. They waited behind a rhododendron bush by the gate, until they heard jazz and saw the professor’s BMW pull up and drive in. Just before the gate closed again, they sneaked out and drove off in Darius’s rental car.

Free at last, Eulalilala couldn’t stop kissing her hero. They nearly crashed into a tree, because she made an effort to cover every inch of his face with kisses, including his eyelids. But despite a constant exchange of intimacies, they arrived at Darius flat safely as the morning was dawning.

Eulalilala and Darius fully consummated their love during the following days. It was accompanied by a lot of harp tunes and harmonious singing. The professor wasn’t due to deliver his next lecture until the following Wednesday. Eulalilala was confident that he wouldn’t notice their substitution of the lecture notes. He wasn’t very intelligent, and neither were Plim or Plum. Normally, he copied his lectures out of various books, which is why they didn’t make any sense. They sounded so complex, however, that no audience member had so far dared to attack any of them, out of a deep sense of insecurity and intimidation.

This time, however, the professor’s listeners had something to react to, and that they did. The scandal of his shocking thesis was all over the newspapers. They quoted phrases like ‘when mothers have given birth enough, they should be safely disposed of’ and ‘cost-effective ways of doing away with them include: slashing their throats and burying them in your garden, overdosing them on sleeping pills and dropping them in the nearest river, or simply dissolving them in a bath of acid.’

The professor had been booed violently, and tomatoes and eggs, and even stones had been thrown at him. Security had to take him out of the lecture theatre. As a natural consequence to the event, his qualifications were checked, he was quizzed by a horde of intellectuals, and his notes were reread. He was eventually discharged from his position and forever banned from public lecturing.

Only then did Eulalilala feel confident to challenge her uncle’s legal position in the family, singing in front of a notary. The professor’s corrupt deeds were uncovered, and it didn’t take long for Eulalilala to be fully reinstalled to her title and possessions. Her uncle went to prison; Plim and Plum followed him there briefly afterwards.

Eulalilala and Darius got married, and moved into her mansion in Amétiville. Darius was forced to quit his teacher training, because of the distance. Instead, he plucked up the courage to become an accredited private detective. He had one well-known case to go on his CV now, and everyone trusted him. It didn’t take long for clients from all over the world to seek out his services. Wherever he went, Eulalilala accompanied him. She liked singing and travelling around the world. And so they lived happily ever after and had a horde of children, who all automatically knew how to play the harp and find clues.