The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise Read Online Free PDF Page A

tunic. The man in the dry coat immediately covered the Beefeater with his silver-handled umbrella. Introducing himself as Oswin Fielding, an equerry to Her Majesty, he enquired as to whether he might have a word. Balthazar Jones hurriedly wiped his beard to rid it of water, but then found that his hand was too wet to offer. The man from the Palace suggested that they have a cup of tea at the Tower Café. But as they approached, he sniffed twice, flinched at the affront to his nostrils, and headed straight for the Rack & Ruin.
    The tavern, from which members of the public had always been barred, was empty apart from the landlady, who was cleaning out her canary’s cage. Oswin Fielding walked past the empty tables and chose one against the back wall. He hung up his coat and approached the bar. Balthazar Jones, who had forgotten to remove his hat, sat down and tried to distract himself from his anxiety about what the man wanted by studying the framed signature of Rudolf Hess hanging on the wall. It had been given to a Beefeater during the Deputy Führer’s four-day imprisonment at the Tower. But Balthazar Jones had studied it so many times before, it failed to hold his attention.
    The Beefeater’s hope that Oswin Fielding would be seduced by the real ales evaporated when he returned with two teas andthe last Kit Kat. He watched in silence as the man from the Palace removed the red wrapper and offered him half, which he refused on account of his fluttering insides. The equerry proceeded to dunk each finger before eating it, a process that doubled the length of consumption, while at the same time enquiring about the pub’s history. Balthazar Jones answered as briefly as possible, and failed to mention the fact that the man had chocolate on his chin lest it deter him further from getting to the point. When the courtier spotted the framed signature of Rudolf Hess, the Beefeater instantly dismissed it as a fake, as he could no longer bear waiting for the executioner’s axe to fall.
    But much to his annoyance, Oswin Fielding started to talk about a golden monkey called Guoliang, which had belonged to the Queen. “It was a gift from the President of China following his state visit in 2005,” he explained.
    Balthazar Jones was not the least bit interested in golden monkeys, royal or not. He glanced out of the window and wondered whether the equerry had come about his lamentable record for catching pickpockets, which was the worst amongst the Beefeaters. By the time he opened his ears again, he realised that Oswin Fielding was still discussing the late Guoliang.
    “The creature’s death has caused Her Majesty immense personal sorrow,” the equerry was saying, shaking his head, which barely possessed sufficient hair to warrant such a meticulous parting. “Someone at the Palace looked up its name and discovered it means ‘May the country be kind,’ which makes its demise even more unfortunate. It caused the most stupendous diplomatic row. Golden monkeys are indigenousto China and there aren’t many of them left. We explained that we even got in a feng shui expert to redesign the enclosure as soon as the animal appeared off-colour, but the Chinese didn’t seem that impressed. For some reason they had got it into their heads that it would be kept at Buckingham Palace. But with the exception of horses, the Queen keeps all animals given to her by heads of state at London Zoo. Which is just as well as the Palace is enough of a monkey house as it is.” The courtier paused. “Don’t repeat that,” he added hastily.
    Just as Balthazar Jones could take no more, Oswin Fielding adjusted his rimless spectacles and announced that he had something of the utmost importance to tell him. The Beefeater stopped breathing.
    “As you will know, relations between Britain and China are in a rather delicate state, and as China is an emerging superpower we need to keep them on our side,” the courtier said firmly. “No one has forgotten those