Prince Toby has started his own diary for National Novel Writing Month. You can follow his adventures here.
Monday 28th November 2022
Weight: 1275g (hardly moved today), cucumber consumption: 0 slices (cucumber is nevermore), escape attempts: 5 (agitated by bath), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for No Reason Whatsoever: 5 (bath agitation and neglect by Human No. 2), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for Toilet-Related or Other Emergencies: 0 (am no trouble at all)
7.30 am: Good morning! What a Magnificent Monday it is, as Gladys (Torterella) would say. The sun is shining (well, it’s a bit early yet, but I’m sure it will be), I’m nice and toasty under my lamp and there’s not a bath in sight. Feel like a new tort. Lalala!
8.30 am: Human No. 1 is teaching Frozen today. The Disney version, not the one with Shawn Ashmore in where he gets stuck on a ski lift and freezes to death and gets eaten by wolves. (Spoiler alert!) Certainly not something to mix up at a children’s party . . .
8.33 am: Human No. 1 likes Frozen because it’s all about sisterhood and how sisters are better than boys and Human No. 1 very much agrees with this (except for when it comes to me, of course).
8.37 am: Listening to ‘Let it Go’. It really is a tune. Think I need my own power-anthem. Perhaps I’ll write one about hibernation called ‘Let Me Snooze’ . . .
9.01 am: Aaaargggghhhh! What’s happening??? Am in bath. Human No. 2 is supervising. He’s getting it all wrong. (For a start, I shouldn’t even be in the bath.)
9.02 am: Too much water. Am drowning.
9.04 am: Water is too cold. Am freezing.
9.07 am: No ducks in bath. Am bored.
9.12 am: LET MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OUT!!!!!!
9.17 am: Am out of bath now. Phew!
9.18 am: Human No. 2 didn’t even dry me off properly. But at least he put me back under my lamp to warm up again. Am sulking now.
9.33 am: Can’t possibly continue ‘The Empty Shell’ in these conditions. Am sure everything will be better after a snooze.
9.34 am: Or it will still all be dreadful but at least I will have had a snooze.
12.32 pm: Am awake! Am refreshed! Am ready to take on the world! (Or at least take up my pen.)
Prince Toby Presents
Sherlock Tobes and Dr Tortson in
‘The Empty Shell’ - Part 2
‘How did you— Tobes, isn’t he—’
‘Tortiarty,’ said the villain in my chair, extending his claw. ‘Pleased to meet you at last, Tortson.’
‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ said Tobes dreamily.
‘But Tobes,’ I muttered, ‘he’s your criminal nemesis.’
‘Only at the weekends,’ said Tortiarty. ‘We like to keep things interesting.’
‘So you’ve been with him all this time?’ I asked Tobes, ignoring Tortiarty completely.
‘Yes,’ said Tobes, with a wild grin. ‘We’ve been all over. Italy, the Galapagos Islands, Australia.’
‘We went on the Neighbours tour,’ said Tortiarty, eyes gleaming. ‘Karl Kennedy was there.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, frowning at Tobes.
‘Tortiarty’s a big fan of soap operas,’ Tobes explained.
‘No, not the Neighbours tour. Well, yes, actually,’ I huffed. ‘It is the Neighbours tour. And the gallivanting off around the world with an absolute villain whilst I sat here in my study, ignoring my wife and crying into my cucumber cocoa. It’s a wonder you bothered to come back at all if you were having such a good time.’
‘Yes, well, there is one little matter that we needed to wrap up,’ Tobes said. ‘In fact, I was hoping you might want to tag along . . .’
An hour later, I was standing in an empty house in Baker Street, looking across at our old rooms at a very familiar silhouette. ‘But Tobes, if you’re here, then who is that?’ I said, pointing at the figure in the window of No. 221B that looked exactly like Tobes.
‘Oh, that’s just an empty shell of one of my enemies, stuffed with a pair of old legwarmers,’ Tobes said casually.
‘But it’s moving!’ I protested.
‘Oh, well, Mrs Hudtort comes in and wiggles it about every now and again to make it look more convincing.’
‘So Mrs Hudtort knows that you’re alive too?’
‘Of course she does,’ said Tobes. ‘She was at the wedding.’
‘She did the catering,’ Tortiarty added. ‘She made us a delicious cucumber wedding cake. Absolutely divine. Wasn’t it divine, Tobes?’
‘Mmmm,’ said Tobes, who suddenly went very still and cocked his head to one side. ‘He’s here,’ he whispered.
‘Who’s here?’ I demanded. ‘What is going on?’
‘Shhhhh!’ said Tobes and Tortiarty simultaneously.
‘Colonel Sebastian Tortan,’ said Tobes quietly, as if I should know exactly who he was.
Tortiarty rolled his eyes when I didn’t react. ‘The famous photographer, duh!’
‘He did our wedding photos,’ Tobes added, ‘and we paid him a princely sum for the privilege, but then he threatened to sell them to the tabloids and that would have completely ruined my faking-my-own-death-and-retiring-from-being-the-world’s-greatest-detective plan.’
‘And it would have completely ruined my faking-my-own-death-and-retiring-from-being-the-world’s-greatest-criminal-nemesis plan,’ Tortiarty added. ‘I told you you should have let me kill him.’
Tobes sighed. ‘We’ve been through this. If we’d killed him, we might never have found the photographs.’
‘I could have tortured him first,’ Tortiarty mumbled.
‘What are you all whispering about?’ Colonel Tortan asked. (It turns out he had crept up behind us whilst Tobes and Tortiarty were filling me in on his heinous crimes.)
‘Wedding photos,’ said Tortiarty. ‘We want them, or it will be a slow, painful death for you.’
‘You’ll never find them,’ Tortan said with a slow smile. ‘I’ve hidden them somewhere super-duper clever and I will blackmail you with the forever.’
‘There’s no need,’ said Tobes. ‘I’m coming out of retirement, so you can sell them to the tabloids for all I care.’
‘Me too,’ said Tortiarty. ‘I miss being a master-criminal. And I want all the world to know that I’m married to the great Sherlock Tobes. Nobody will mess with us! Although, I would still quite like to have the wedding photos,’ he added. ‘I bought a wedding album and everything!’
‘Haha! Well you can’t have them! You’ll have an empty wedding album forever, like the empty shell of your marriage!’
‘Bit harsh,’ said Tortiarty.
‘Erm, aren’t these them?’ I asked, waving a photograph of Tobes and Tortiarty sitting atop a giant cucumber cake at them.
‘Hurrah!’ said Tobes. ‘Where did you find them, Tortson?’
‘In this empty shell,’ I said smugly. ‘Super-villains always keep their most prized possessions in the empty shells of their enemies.’
‘Erm, actually that’s my brother Archie,’ said Tortan. ‘And I usually just use him as a paperweight, which is certainly more use than he ever was to me alive . . .’
‘Arrest him, Letort!’ Tobes proclaimed as Inspector Letort charged into the room with a brace of constables.
‘Hang on, Letort knew you were alive too?’ I said.
‘Of course he did,’ said Tobes, giving me a funny look. ‘He was my best tort.’
‘Why wasn’t I your best tort?’ I demanded.
‘Colonel Sebastian Tortan,’ Letort droned, ‘I’m arresting you for theft, blackmail and impersonating a wedding photographer.’
‘No need for all that, Letort,’ Tobes said, completely ignoring my hissy fit. ‘That’s not what I want you to arrest him for. (And he is actually a wedding photographer, by the way, so that last one wouldn’t stick.)’
‘Then what do you want me to arrest him for?’ Letort asked with a sigh.
‘The horrible murder of Ronald Tortair,’ said Tobes.
‘Tortair!’ I gasped. ‘But that’s the tort whose murder I was investigating.’
‘Yes, keep up, Tortson, there’s a good chap,’ Tobes said.
Tortiarty sniggered. ‘He thinks he was investigating! That’s adorable!’
‘And what was his motive?’ I asked Tobes, ignoring Tortiarty’s jibe by accidentally shell-butting him out into the corridor.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Tobes. ‘Does it matter? It was probably something to do with gambling. It’s usually gambling. Remember all that trouble with the Tort of the Baskervilles, Tortson?’
I nodded. ‘Tobes is right. It was probably gambling.’
‘Actually,’ said Tortan, ‘he hired me as his wedding photographer and then jilted the bride and refused to pay my cancellation fee.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Tobes. ‘He had it coming then, really. You can release him if you want, Letort.’
‘I think I’ll keep hold of him if that’s all the same to you, Mr Tobes.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Tobes, eyes darting round the room. ‘Where has that husband of mine got to?’
I followed Tobes out into the hallway just in time to see Tortiarty sliding the final photograph into the wedding album. ‘There you go, my love,’ he said, pushing the album over to Tobes. ‘We no longer have an empty wedding album. I say we take that shell with us too and store the album in it for safekeeping.’
‘You really do think of everything, Tortiarty!’ said Tobes, smiling indulgently at his husband.
‘Well, they don’t call me a criminal nemesis for nothing.’
And so, we all went over to 221B Baker Street to toast the happy couple. ‘To Tobes and Tortiarty,’ I said, raising my glass. ‘May you always be well, and may your marriage never be an empty shell!’
THE END.
3.52 pm: That’s it! I’m done! Think that’s the last of Sherlock Tobes for the diary.
4.16 pm: Strange new visitor has arrived. (I wondered why the humans didn’t immediately revert to their slovenly ways when Human No. 3 left on Saturday.)
4.32 pm: New human is called Dr Joe and he is actually a useful doctor who knows how to save lives rather than weird doctor who can tell you all about Jack the Ripper and Harry Potter and boy detectives.
4.57 pm: He seems very interested in me, which is only right and proper. Think I’ll sit here quietly and ignore him. Lalala. Keeps them hungry.
6.30 pm: Human No. 1 has finally finished teaching Frozen and has come to check on me. It’s too late now! Am asleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
You can follow Prince Toby on Twitter @PrinceTobyTort (and Instagram, where he is now frantically trying to learn the ropes in case of Twitter explosion, also @PrinceTobyTort). Also, play Tortmaster on Twitter!