Competition Parting Shot
Lucy Vickery presents this week's Competition
In Competition No. 2695 you were invited to submit the last will and testament of a fictional character.
It is always striking when it comes to a challenge of this sort how like-minded the comping community is in its choice of fictional characters. There is a pretty wide range out there, but Toad, Miss Havisham, James Bond, Bertie Wooster and Falstaff popped up again and again in the entry.
Barry Baldwin’s version of 007’s parting shot deserves an honourable mention, as does Shirley Curran’s Eeyore: ‘To the coalition government I leave my realistic outlook; things can only get worse.’
The winners, printed below, get £20 each except W.J. Webster, who gets £25.
...my moustache to La Musée Magritte and my brain to L’Université de Charleroi.
Finally, the matters financial. I die rich but also, hélas, childless. For this, certain personages have been invited here on my instructions. My secretary, Miss Lemon, a lady formidable in efficiency. Inspector Japp, the true British ‘bobby’, so often a stone to spark my inspiration. Captain Hastings, my brother-in-arms, my faithful Watson. All deserve beneficence. But doubts arise. For you, Miss Lemon, if I make a grand bequest, the tongues, they will wag. Inspector Japp, will your superiors smile on a gift from a private detective? And for you, my dear Hastings, what embarrassment to receive monetary reward for your friendship! Fortunately, mes amis, there is a final rabbit in Poirot’s cap. Voilà! The silver-haired lady sitting beside my notary is not his senior partner. She is my sole legatee, my long-lost English cousin — Jane Marple!
W.J. Webster
An LA private eye with a conscience in place of friends and family has about as much chance of ending up rich as a hog butcher in the Borscht Belt, so here goes nothing:
To Bernie Ohls: my .38 and the pint of rye in my desk drawer, for when the darkness closes in. A man who can work for the D.A.’s office for twenty years without growing a tumor and still face himself at shaving time will sooner or later need both of them.
To the Bay City Police: my middle finger, right hand. If they can figure out what to do with it without faking evidence or rubber-hosing a John Doe they dragged off the street they can have the left one as well.
To Linda Loring: goodbye, baby, and amen. It was hard loving you when you were a million dollars away.
Basil Ransome-Davies
To the members of the ‘Satis Faction’ who have all been so solicitous of the good upkeep of my house, I bequeath as follows:
Miss Sarah Pocket: all the clocks minus their winding keys which have unfortunately been mislaid; my curtains (somewhat sun-faded).
Mrs Camilla Smith (nee Pocket): one yellow silk wedding dress; one three-tiered wedding cake (a trifle dry); one bottle of sal volatile to support her in her disappointment.
Miss Georgiana Pocket: one well-thumbed pack of playing cards (one knave missing); one garden chair originally wheeled but requiring repair; one crutch-headed stick.
In addition, to my adopted daughter Estella: all my other property with a reminder to attend to the fire insurance which I may have neglected to renew, and including one wrist-watch set to remain at twenty minutes to nine.
Derek Morgan
To my daughter, Gwendolen Fairfax Moncrieff, I bequeath all of my jewels, with the proviso that she wear them only with appropriately tasteful gowns and with her hair dressed in non-frivolous styles. To my nephew and son-in-law, Ernest Moncrieff (formerly known, for reasons that are of no concern in this context, as John Worthing), I bequeath my entire library, on the condition that he exert every effort to bring its most serious and improving volumes to the attention of his younger brother, Algernon, who must be induced to rise above his unfortunate trivial inclinations. To the aforesaid Algernon Moncrieff and his wife, Cecily, I bequeath my sterling silver tea service and my private list of approved purveyors of tea, cake, bread, butter, and cucumbers. To my dear friend the Lord Chamberlain, I bequeath an urgent admonition for more rigorous oversight of the increasingly decadent London stage.
Chris O’Carroll
I, Tristram Shandy, having spent a goodly portion of my recent autobiography not being born, am now, apparently, dead. Which is hardly to be wondered at, given the universal opprobrium that greeted the many digressions and meanderings contained in my first, unfortunate work. I have therefore resolved to complete my instructions herein with the utmost alacrity— so that none shall dare level such criticisms against this, my ‘Last Will, Testament, and Assorted Sundry Musings on Various Interesting, Instructive and important Subjects’.
Frank Osen
I, George Smiley, being of sound mind (but what does that mean, in a profession like mine?), make the following bequests (a word related to ‘quoth’, to put into words, but can words always be trusted?):
The lighter, inevitably (and so much seems inevitable, I fear, for all our efforts) I leave to Karla, in Anne’s memory. Will it light a flame of freedom? I doubt it.
I leave my classical record collection to the Fishing Rights Committee, hoping (sincerely though perhaps too optimistically) that it will help soothe the pain of failure compounded by error, intrigue, betrayal and cross-purposes.
To the Circus as a body I bequeath my principles (‘The defence of Western democracy?’ I wonder), my tradecraft (deception, dissimulation, corrupt bargains, violent assault, even murder?), with the task, beyond me, alas, of reconciling them. Also my tie, which I always found useful in clearing my vision.
G.M. Davis
ASK JEEVES.
Gillian Ewing
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